Page 5 of Center of Gravity
“I wasn’t feeling well.” Somewhat less embarrassing, but not near as pathetic as exposing the reason behind the sudden lurch of my stomach that night: my phone had started buzzing in my pocket, an unwanted intrusion that was easier to ignore when I was about to explode in Alex’s mouth and next to impossible once I had. Because I’d known who was calling and I’d known what I’d do, and in that moment, I’d hated myself for that. So to let Alex think I was saving him from vomit on his shoes—or other unfortunate places—seemed the better answer.
From the way he studied me, it was hard to tell if he’d bought it. He said nothing for a while, then changed the subject, to my relief.
“You have an Eames upstairs. You know that, right?”
“No shit?” That was news to me, but Alex appeared so caught off-guard by my sudden curse that I cracked a thin smile. “I recognize the name, at least,” I added, tension bleeding from my shoulders. “But I wouldn’t be able to pick it out.”
“Yeah, in the office, the one in the corner. Dark wood and leather. You should definitely keep that. I can’t let you junk an Eames.” He had an approximation of a dimple that filled with shadow when he smiled and there was a certain ownership in the way he said,I can’t let you, that sent a thrill up my spine.
I thought about my apartment in Savannah, the neat alignment of furniture I didn’t care about. The whole apartment might as well have been a beige field with a few familiar shapes. I wouldn’t have noticed the difference. My couch was brown, and it took me longer than it should’ve to remember that. The chair in the corner of my parents’ study that Alex was referencing, though, I remembered in vivid detail. It’d come with them from Jersey where it used to sit in the corner of the TV room Summer and I used, and had been the site of my first blowjob, courtesy of Kip Townsend, who’d become an immediate devotee of grunge music when it first emerged, while I’d still been stuck in New Wave. I’d come all over his plaid flannel shirt while Eddie Vedder wailed on MTV.
“So why don’t you take it, then? Add it to your collection?”
Alex was tempted by the idea, I could tell, but he waved his hand dismissively. “I can’t. I’d feel bad.”
“You’d feel bad that I gave you something I was going to give away anyway?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s worth some money and somehow it’ll feel like a handout, and I don’t do handouts.” His jaw set and his gaze cut away to the foyer, as if he was impatient for Tom to return so he could leave.
I arched a brow at having tapped into some tender spot. Curious.
“It can stay here, then. A bonus for whoever buys the house.”
Alex frowned. “You’re going to sell a place like this? You don’t want it?”
I’d never even considered it. “No use for it. My life is in the city.” Well, what was left of it.
“Yeah, but you could keep it as a weekend place. Or rent it out. It’s, like, a block from the beach. Prime real estate,” Alex argued.
“It’s potentially a few years earlier that I can retire is what it is,” I said, wondering why I was bothering to argue the pros and cons of a beach house with a guy hired to move the furniture.
Alex’s features screwed up as if he was preparing his next argument. I could almost hear the “but” buzzing through the air. The front door opening and shutting stalled him out. Tom’s heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Alex stood, picking up his water glass and carrying it to the sink to dump it out. “If I were lucky enough to even have the option, I’d keep a place like this. Rent it out if I had to. Hopefully I’ll never have a job I hate as much as it sounds like you do yours.”
“You let me know if that day comes. Maybe the house will still be for sale.” I didn’t exactly snap it out, but I spoke briskly, feeling strangely cowed by a guy who’d shown up for work with a box of Cracker Jack in his hand.
When I’d returnedto the Nook Island house, the silence seemed normal, but after having Tom and Alex there all day, it was overwhelming, a mute presence hanging around the kitchen table until I opened the window above the sink just to have the gulls and waves to listen to.
It was a nice house and I couldn’t deny it was peaceful there, or that a beach property wouldn’t be great to have. It just seemed like something that belonged in someone else’s life. Someone with a family or kids or a slew of friends, more upwardly mobile, more social. Not a single, thirty-seven-year-old accountant pondering an early mid-life crisis.
And there was Summer to think of, too. She could use the money, and I’d have to buy her out of her half in order to keep the house. Feeling justified in my decision, and also irritated that I even felt the need to justify it to myself, I sealed off the last box of extraneous kitchen items with packing tape and renewed conviction. Then, I opened a bottle of wine to celebrate the small victory of packing and avoiding a rehashing of the night in the club with Alex.
* * *
At 1:00 a.m.,I woke to my phone ringing. Alex must have been tangled in my dreams, because for a confused handful of seconds I thought it was him calling, his final argument for keeping the house assembled, ready to be funneled into my groggy ear.
The voice on the other end of the line was more familiar and equally argumentative. By the sound of his breathing, Sean was drunk. Typical.
“I only answered because I was asleep and confused. I’m hanging up now,” I said, pulling the phone away from my ear.
“Rob.” That breathless gasp I knew so well. “Wait. Just wait a second.”
I told my thumb to continue its trek toward the round red button, but it refused.
“Rob,” he said again, softer. I heard sleepy mornings in the rasp of his voice, the way his hand would slide through the sheets to my hip, then wedge between my thighs, needy and seeking. My cock stirred. The traitor.
“This isn’t what we agreed to. I’m hanging up.”