The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet (25 page)

The minutes tick by with us only holding each
other. My body moves with the slow rhythm of his breath as my fingers roam
across him, relearning each inch of him. I don’t want to think about anything.
My world is perfect in this moment. My thoughts carry me back to the past
anyway.

I push up into Alan’s arms against my back,
lifting my face above his. “Do you remember Jack’s party?”

Alan laughs, raking his hair back from his face.
“How could I forget? I let your husband punch me. I thought I owed it to him,
given the circumstance.”

I flush, not wanting to be diverted by thoughts
of what we did in the pool house, and say, “What do you mean
let him
?”

“Me hitting him would have hurt Neil’s career at
that point. Him hitting me helped him.” Alan’s dark eyes brighten, amused. “I
considered it a wedding gift to you.”

I make a face at him, but I know he’s only
pretending to be joking. “What did you come to the party to tell me? Why were
you there that day?”

The light dies in his eyes. “You already know,
love. Why have me say it today?”

Oh God. Did Alan know about Neil even back then?
Did he come to Jack’s party to stop me from marrying Neil
?

My thoughts take off in a dozen different
directions. Where would I be today if I had let Alan do what he came to the
party to do? If I’d let him tell me the truth about my husband back then? And
why, after that day, if he does know, didn’t he ever tell me? I don’t think I
want the answer to that. Not yet. Maybe never.

I stare up into Alan’s face. “I’ve been wrong
about everything in my life. How could I not have known? How could I marry Neil
and not know? What’s wrong with me, Alan, that I can’t get a single thing
right?”

He folds me into his arms, holding me close to
his chest. He lets out a ragged exhale of breath. “There is nothing wrong with
you, Chrissie. You loved him. We all sometimes lie to ourselves when we are in
love.”

I start to cry. His emotional generosity and
words force upon me the other lies I’ve told myself throughout the years. My
own deceptions that kept me from loving Alan.

I rub the back of my hand up my nose dripping
with tears. “I’ve missed you every day since you ended it with me. I have loved
you every minute of every day for the past five years.”

Alan’s eyes turn to shimmers. “I’ve missed you,
too. And I have never stopped loving you since the first moment I saw you—” His
smile becomes tender and full of memory. “—playing Bach in the dim light in
Jack’s studio. You took my breath away. You still do, Chrissie. And it has felt
exactly like it did the first time I saw you every day of my life since then.
You consumed me then and you consume me now.”

Oh, Alan.
I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the
feeling of being with Alan again, as if there had never been anyone before him,
as if I had not passed a minute of my life being touched or loved by anyone but
him, and a glorious certainty that there will never be anyone but him again.

I lie back on my pillow, covering my closed eyes
with my arms, battling back the tidal wave of emotion begging for release. “How
did everything get so screwed up?”

I feel a kiss on my wrist. “I don’t know that it
did. You are here. With me. Now.”

~~~

I
roll over in Alan’s arms and gaze at his face. It’s emotionless, so beautiful
when he sleeps, and I lightly run the tip of my finger across the structure of
his cheek. I think of the smile that flashes in his eyes, the only moment, in
all moments we have ever been together, where I can read his heart
effortlessly.

He doesn’t stir, and I’m glad that my touch
doesn’t wake him. I slip from the bed and quietly go out of the room, softly
closing the bedroom door behind me. I grab the cordless phone from the living
room and step out onto the patio.

Damn, it’s still early. The sky is washed with
that soft pre-dawn blue. Probably too early to call, and that thought makes my
insides start to churn again. Too early? Fuck it if it’s too early for Neil,
and fuck whatever he’s doing, and fuck him for where we are today.

I’ve already spent too much time thinking and
bracing myself for this. I’ve got the phone. I’m willing to call and talk to
him now. Who cares if the time isn’t perfect for either of us? Too much has
already happened. Everything is moving too fast. It’s time to slow it down and
I can’t do that without talking to Neil.

I sink onto a chaise and curl into a tight ball,
hugging my knees. I punch in the numbers for the house line instead of Neil’s
mobile since he’s damn poor at answering it. Every phone in the house will ring
in out-of-sync loudness, echoing within the tile and high-ceilinged rooms and
he won’t miss.

Ring. Ring. Answered.

“Chrissie?”

Neil’s voice. My body tenses. I search for
something to say. “How did you know it was me?”

A pause. “I didn’t. I hoped it was.”

His voice, husky and gentle and
oh so Neil
does
my only loosely contained emotions no good. I don’t know what to say. I know
what’s in my head. What I need to do. I just don’t know how to get from where I
am to
there.

“Are you OK?” he asks.
“I
haven’t heard from you in over a week. Where are you?”

I sink my teeth into my lower lips, hating the
rising tears in my eyes. “I’m fine. And we both know where I am. There is no
point in saying it. Don’t ask me to.”

I hear a ragged, rattling type breath. Soggy. Is
he crying? Why would Neil cry? He should be happy. Me back with Alan leaves him
free to do what he wants with Andy. Neil is the one who brought us to this
point.

I run the back of my hand up my dripping nose.
“I’ll be back sometime today. Be at the house. We need to talk.”

“Chrissie—”

I cut him off. “Not now. Not on the phone. And I
don’t want to discuss anything except what we’re going to do about our marriage
and Kaley. Consider all other topics off-limits.”

“Whatever you want, Chrissie. Just promise me
you’re fine. You don’t know how worried I’ve been about you since—”

He catches himself before he says it and his fear
intensifies my emotional chaos. He hasn’t mentioned it, but I can feel it
between us. It’s in the press. It’s everywhere. He knows what happened at the
concert. I debate with myself whether I should say something.

I rally my nerves. “I know you’ve seen the
papers, Neil. I’m so sorry about what I did at the concert. I really did plan
not to comment on anything like you asked me to. But that night was so crazy.
And I hadn’t been sleeping and I drank quite a bit that day and I was out of it
on stage. But that’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

There are a few seconds of silence, then a tired
laugh that somehow still manages to sound kind and gentle in an
oh so Neil
way, reminding me of why I loved him. Or rather,
wanted
to love him. My
heart clenches.

“Don’t worry, Chrissie. I deserved that. I
probably deserve worse than that. I never wanted to hurt you. Not this way. Not
like this.”

It feels as if we’re drifting too close to
dangerous territory—our marriage and Andy.

I change course. “I’ll be in Santa Barbara later
today. We’ll talk then, Neil. I promise. I’m ready to come to the house and
talk through the things we need to talk through.”

It sounds like he sucks in a full chest of
oxygen. “I’ll see you when you get here, baby.”

I don’t answer. I click off the phone. After
tossing it down on the chaise, I drop my head into my hands, my fingers tightly
clenched in my hair. My thoughts bounce inside my head with the same frenetic
pace of my pulse.

I’ve started the process of the
ending of us
.
I’m going to Santa Barbara. I’m going to see Neil again, talk to him. Talk. Say
goodbye. Then leave. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know where
I’m going, and as internally messy as I have been, it doesn’t compare with
what’s shooting through me now that I’ve let Neil know I’m ready to discuss
ending our marriage.

I hear the patio door open.

“Chrissie, come inside. You shouldn’t sit out
here.”

A ragged laugh pushes its way out of me. I lift
my face from my hands. “Fuck, Alan. Who cares if the tabloids get a picture of
me? Or us. I don’t care. Not what people think. Not what they know. Not now.”

He studies my face. His lips soften into a
sympathetic curl. “Come inside, love. You might feel differently tomorrow.”

Feel differently tomorrow? My inner composure is
shifting rapidly enough as it is. Too many changes. Too quickly. I don’t want
to feel differently tomorrow or any other way than I do being here with Alan.
Not ever again.

I make a silly face. “I hope not.”

He doesn’t smile and I sigh heavily. I stand up
from the lounger and follow Alan into the great room. I sink down on the sofa
and see that he made me coffee and it’s sitting on the table in front of me.

I wonder if Alan saw me out there talking on the
phone. If he knows I called Neil. What he thinks of that.

I reach for my cup and take a sip. I feel the
sudden heavy pressure of his eyes upon me.

“You’re going to see Neil,” he says quietly. It’s
not a question.

I look at him, finding those black eyes watching me,
assessing every change of my expression.

I exhale a long, ragged breath. “I have to. I
can’t leave things how they are. Everything will continue to get more ugly if I
don’t sit down with Neil and try to work things out.”

His lips quirk up in a half smile. “You don’t
have to go. You don’t owe Neil anything. Don’t leave.”

I’m not exactly sure what he is suggesting with
those words. So I don’t answer him.

“Stay here. With me. Take some time. Let things
cool off. Things will go better with Neil if what you’re feeling isn’t quite so
fresh.”

Alan’s calm, inflectionless voice, and definitely
his words, are not what I was expecting. Hurt moves through me. “I can’t hide
here with you forever.”

Something flashes in his eyes. “I’m not
suggesting you do. And whatever it is you think we’re doing, for me it’s not
helping you hide. What do you think we’re doing here, Chrissie?”

He keeps his gaze on me, unblinking. “I’m not
sure what we’re doing. I haven’t let myself think that far ahead. And I didn’t
mean the hide comment the way it sounded. I’m here because it’s where I want to
be. I’m here because I love you.”

His gaze never lifts from me and seems to grow
only more intense. Finally, he says, “Why is it I always sense a ‘but’ when you
tell me you love me and I feel like there’s a shoe about to drop?”

I fight to maintain my composure, but it is not
easy with the way he’s looking at me. “Don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just trying to understand
you.”

“And I’m just trying to get through each day.
It’s not an easy thing. Ending a marriage is not an easy thing when you have a
child. I need to make decisions that are right for Kaley, too. And I don’t know
what I’m supposed to do.”

We stare at each other, and I realize that the
emotion warring in the room isn’t only my own.

He closes his eyes and exhales. Very gradually he
relaxes. “You’ll do whatever you decided to do. Whether it’s what I want or
not. Whether it’s the right thing for us or not. You will do what you decide to
do.”

My insides turn. Alan sounds tired and sad. And I
don’t know why he should feel that way. Not now after so many days of wonderful
together.

Alan crosses the room. He sinks down on his knees
between my thighs. He runs his hand slowly up and down the tops of my legs, and
places a light kiss near my knee.

“Let’s not talk,” he whispers. His lips move
along the side of my neck. My head starts to roll. “We do better when we don’t
talk, Chrissie.”

For a long time he does nothing but kiss and
touch me as he slowly removes my clothes. I can feel my body relax into him, my
emotions changing course until I am aware only of my arousal and wanting him.

My legs are brought over his shoulders as his
mouth roams lower from my breasts. My navel. A swirl of his tongue. My pelvis,
and his fingertips lightly brushing close around my legs, pulling me onto the
edge of the sofa.

I sink back into the cushions and his mouth
closes over me. He devours me there with his tongue, torturously light and then
deep with burning contact. He teases me inside, along my lower lips, and I feel
a push of air followed by a finger and then his mouth fucking me there.

He goes deeper and I am raging, arching into him
as my fingers lock in his hair. I begin to shake violently. I am panting and
limp and on fire. I feel the waves ripple as I move with the motion of his
mouth.

I’m on the edge when he pulls back, taking me
with him as he lies on the floor. He frees his erection and plunges it in me. I
am hot, desperately so. He doesn’t move and I begin to rock my hips, taking
him, my body surrounding his, my eyes unable to see anything but how his face
changes with the heated moves of my flesh.