Page 17 of Soft Rebound (Mad City Moments #2)
Liz
I t’s mid-September , two weeks since I finished my interview at Qpik, and so far I haven’t heard back.
I’m no longer holding my breath and I’ve been interviewing other places, but it would be nice to work at the same company as Roxie.
Hanging out with her a couple of times a week has been a highlight of my time here.
Well, at least the kind of highlight I can tell my family about.
The other kind of highlight—the one where I go to Joe’s place most evenings and he fucks me into the mattress, over and over, until I don’t know which way is up, where I can barely get out of bed after round two or three in order to go back to sleep at my place, even though he always gently reminds me I am welcome to spend the night, then when I say I know and leave anyway he just nods and puts on his clothes and sees me to my car and gives me a deep goodbye kiss and waves until I’m out of sight, where even though I keep saying this thing between us is nothing, it’s getting harder and harder to pretend that’s true—this kind of highlight is not something I can share with anyone.
Not my cousin, who’s got enough on her plate and whom I haven’t seen since I moved into my sublet, not Roxie, who is quickly becoming the most important person in my life that I don’t want to see naked (okay, I kind of want to, mostly out of curiosity, because I realize I kind of want to see everyone naked now, and it’s a bit weird to realize that about myself, but I guess all this free time that I have for the first time since I became an adult, combined with Joe’s dick, must be scrambling my mind, because I am horny all the time and everyone looks delicious).
It’s strange, the way I feel about Joe. Like this thing between us is something primal, inevitable, but also something I want to keep to myself because it’s precious and fragile.
I know it started with me being all torn about sleeping with someone so soon after my engagement ended, but now it’s been two months since I left Minnesota, and I honestly don’t feel that guilty anymore because I can’t even recall how Jake smelled or how his lips felt on mine.
But what my mind has no problem producing at all times of the day, some of which are very inconvenient because I might be at the store or in the middle of an interview, is the warmth of Joe’s breath just before we kiss, the sting of his teeth on the inside of my lips, all my lips, the dull pleasurable ache where he leaves small bruises on my breasts and ass and all over my arms and legs, how he buries his fingers into my soft belly, savoring my yielding, malleable flesh, worshiping it, molding it like he’s trying to find a way to get closer, fuck me deeper, spread myself all over him like hot melted butter.
Great. Now I am turning myself on again, out of nowhere. This is so not me. Who is this person inhabiting my body? And where was she during the seven years with Jake?
Roxie interrupts my horny daydreams. “As soon as I get the promotion, I am buying my own place. And I’m getting a cat,” she says, sitting sideways in a giant armchair in her living room, legs dangling over the armrest. She sips Warped Speed from a bottle.
“Why don’t you get a cat now?” I ask as I try to peel the label off my own beer.
She shrugs. “I mean, I could. Most apartment buildings allow cats. But I’m holding off more as a treat to myself.” She looks at me quizzically, then rubs across her chin and mouth. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
I laugh. I must’ve been gazing at her adoringly. I can’t believe this cool, amazing woman wants to be friends with me. “How come you hang out with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I am completely unremarkable, and you’re—” I motion to indicate the entirety of Roxie’s person, “all this.”
She throws her head back in laughter. “I so am nothing special. And I like you. We hit it off.”
“I feel like you decided to adopt me and I had no choice.”
“Well, yeah, there’s that.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. You needed a friend in town and I thought I could help out.”
“So is this some sort of outreach program for clueless Minnesotans?”
“Yes, exactly. I am extremely charitable. All my friends are charity cases I took pity on.” She rolls her eyes. “Liz, you’re great. You’re fun and funny and go with the flow. I don’t often hit it off with other women, but it’s been easy with you.”
“Same here,” I say. “I grew up with brothers and have never been too girly, but it’s been easy with you, too.”
We smile kind of sappily, and the moment is filled with warmth.
“So how’ve you been, you know, with everything?” Roxie asks.
“Surprisingly okay, to be honest. My main concern is that my savings have taken a hit. I really need a job.”
“It will work out, probably sooner than you think. The Qpik thing might still work out.”
“I don’t think you’d want me that close. I could bug you every day.”
“That would be just awful. Whatever will I do?” She leans back, the back of her hand on her forehead, pretending to faint.
“Yes, having lunch every day with a good friend who smells nice instead of sitting in my cubicle among a bunch of dudes with borderline acceptable hygiene would be absolute torture.”
I laugh. “Jake always said I was too clingy.”
“Jake the ex-fiancé?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm,” she says with a frown, and takes another sip.
“Look, I’m not a relationship expert. And apparently some people need a lot of space and some people not so much.
Different attachment styles and whatnot.
And these two types tend to get together and annoy and chase each other forever.
But from what I know about you, I don’t think you’re clingy.
You seem like a well-adjusted person. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to hang out with your boyfriend. ”
“It blows my mind that I don’t miss him,” I say. “Like, at all. Actually, whenever I think about him, I remember all these little details where he let me know he wasn’t particularly invested.”
“Like what?”
“He was never really mean, but it was always implied that he was the catch and that he could do better.”
Roxie’s eyes widen as she drops her legs from the armrest and sits upright in the chair. “What the fuck? Why would he think that?”
I shrug. “That’s how our dynamics always was.”
“Let me see him,” she says. “Do you have a picture?”
It takes a while since I don’t have my old phone on me, but I log into my account on the cloud from my new cell and find a picture from a couple of years ago.
It’s one of Jake and me together at his parents’ house, holding our drinks and smiling at the camera, his arm around my shoulders and mine on the small of his back.
This picture was taken by someone at the party, and when his mom forwarded it to us a few days afterwards, he looked at it and said it was okay, that everyone puts on weight over the holidays and that I could lose it later.
I’d felt so pretty that whole evening—and hadn’t actually put on any weight—but that feeling disappeared immediately and I went on a yet another diet.
I starved myself till Valentine’s Day, lost 10 pounds, and really looked forward to showing off a new dress I’d bought when we went to the restaurant, but he neither noticed nor commented on my looks and made sure to tell the waiter we didn’t need any bread for the table.
Roxie inspects the picture. “He’s a good-looking guy, but he’s not better looking than you. You actually make a pretty nice couple.”
Jake has dirty blond hair. At about six feet, he’s only an inch taller than me, enough that he used to discourage me from wearing heels when I was out with him.
He’s also quite thin and always watches what he eats, tracks calories and micronutrients and takes pride in his appearance. I’ve always felt gargantuan around him.
“Everything seems so unreal now,” I say.
“Like the whole relationship happened to someone else. I can’t bring him to my mind in any real way, you know?
Like how it felt to be with him. And I can’t seem to recall the good times, just how often he made me feel unworthy.
Why was I with him? Why was he with me?”
Roxie’s face twists. “I don’t understand why he would think he’s better than you. And why you think he’s better than you. Was he rich or something? More educated? Or is it just the looks thing, because I’m telling you, that’s not real.”
“I don’t know. We met junior year, when I just transferred from a two-year college to the four-year one.
I wasn’t completely inexperienced with guys, but I was totally clueless about college culture and I didn’t know anyone since I’d just transferred.
We were in the same class, so we studied together and got lunch and coffee, and then he invited me to a party and then he kissed me and that was it.
We’d been together since. We even worked for the same firm, you know. He was in marketing and sales.”
Roxie nods but doesn’t say anything. Now that I started talking, I can’t seem to stop, and she understands I really need her to listen.
“He was nice and attentive at first,” I continue.
“But it took me longer to graduate than him because I attended part-time and had to work, and I also worked for my dad. Jake didn’t like that I never had any money.
I think he disliked that my folks weren’t educated. My whole background grated on him.”
“But he stayed with you,” Roxie says, looking thoughtful. “Do you think he loved you?”
“I think he did. He said he did. But I always felt like I was supposed to be grateful that he’d plucked me from the rubble, you know?
Not that it was at the forefront of my mind at that time, it’s more that now that I have time on my hands and can think about this stuff, it’s become clear in hindsight.
I think he loved me but also didn’t. Like he was fond of me but his fondness was rooted in there being a power imbalance, and he had to be on top. ”
I close my eyes and feel my pulse racing. I wasn’t even aware of half of what I said until I did. How foolish could I have been?
Roxie reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “Hey. That really sucks.”
I bury my face in my hands, my cheeks hot with mortification. “Ugh. I don’t want to think about Jake.”
“Then don’t! You’re young and hot and newly single. You should start dating.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
Because I am already fucking a guy who rocks my world and it is terrifying how much I like him and I don’t know what to do with it all.
But I can’t say all that, so I say, “Shouldn’t people heal first after a long relationship?”
“Is that like a rule?”
“Yeah, so you don’t bring your old baggage into a new relationship.”
“But that’s for a serious relationships. I don’t think you have to be healthy or healed for a rebound,” Roxie says. “You can just fuck a guy for sport.”
“I don’t think that’s me.” I’m lying through my teeth. It’s totally me. “I don’t have a lot of experience beyond Jake.”
Roxie waves off my concern. “Guys aren’t that complicated. I’m sure you will be fine.” Then she grins. “Speaking of guys, how was Jake in bed?”
I almost spit out my drink. “Erm, good. He was good.”
“Good?”
“Very good.”
“You were going to marry a very-good-in-the-sack guy?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know then? How do you know now?”
I lower my head and raise my shoulders in mock embarrassment. “I might have ... rebounded.”
“Elizabeth!” She throws a cushion at me. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Just a guy,” I say, keeping with the torrent of lies. “We’re keeping it casual.”
“So much for being a heartbroken wallflower. Miss Elizabeth Jensen, rebounding like Wilt Chamberlain.”
“Who?”
“Only the best rebounder in NBA history.” She sees my confusion, and chuckles. “Remind me to tell you the sad tale of a tall girl with a college knee injury.”
“Tell me now!”
“That will require another beer,” Roxie says and gets up. “You want another?”
“Sure, thanks.”
While she’s up getting our drinks, I pick up my phone.
Liz: Hanging out with a girlfriend
I was thinking of coming over tonight, but realized it was late so I won’t
But it still feels like I should tell you this because I thought you might like to know that I was thinking of it
Casually of course
Joe: smiling face emoji Of course
I do like to know you were thinking of it
Me too fist emojieggplant emoji
Liz: wide eyes and red cheeks emojihot red face emoji
Definitely tomorrow
Joe: hungry face with tongue out emojitaco emoji
My mouth is suddenly really dry. Where the hell is Roxie with that beer?
****
W hen I get to my place , lightly buzzed and feeling good, there is a familiar lanky frame in blue jeans and a baseball cap sitting outside my door, a small duffel bag next to him.
“Bobby? What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Lizzie.” He grins and reaches for my hand so I could help him up. “I was sent here on a mission—to bring you back home.” ?