Styx & Stones Read online

  “Where are you going?” My mother eyes my case suspiciously. “And why aren’t you with Harley?”

  “I’m closing the store for a few days. I need a break, and I can’t trust anyone to run this place without me, so I’m going—”

  “What am I, chopped liver?” she interrupts.

  “What do you mean you’re closing the store?” My dad booms from below. “Time is money, honey. You think Saks 5th Avenue closes its doors because they need a day off?”

  “A flower shop is a little bit different than Saks, Dad. I have a regular clientele of twenty-five; I’m not even in the same universe as Saks.”

  “Still, there’s only one way they got to be so big.”

  I sigh and rub my temple. “Ugh. I don’t ... I don’t have time for any of this.”

  “Well what’s the rush?” Mom asks, frowning as she looks around my tiny apartment. “Why are you fleeing in the middle of the night like a hardened criminal? Why can’t you leave tomorrow?”

  “Because our flight leaves three hours from now, and it’s going to take me forty-five minutes to get across town.”

  “Our flight? Just who are you going away with?”

  I close my eyes because I know what’s coming.

  When I open them again, my mother is looking at me with a horror-stricken expression. “Oh, Rose. You’re not?”

  “He asked. What was I supposed to do?”

  “He asked you if he could put his penis in your vagina when you were five, too, but did you let him? No.”

  “Please don’t talk about my daughter’s vagina,” Dad rumbles from down below. “Wait, you met a man?”

  I drive my fingers into my hair, messing up the carefully coiffed style that a hairdresser had spent close to an hour on. I’m not even completely sober yet, and already I have a hangover. “I’m going away with Harley, Dad.”

  “Oh, alright then,” he mutters, and goes back to instructing the men banging around in my shop.

  “She’s going on his honeymoon,” my mother shouts, as if I’m not standing three feet away. “You cannot do this, Rose. Herb, will you please talk some sense into your daughter?”

  “You’re making a big deal about nothing.” I head back to my chest of drawers to avoid her all-seeing stare. The woman throws more shade than the queens in RuPaul’s Drag Race. “He’s my best friend, and he’s heartbroken. He doesn’t want to go alone.”

  “So tell him to take Rochelle.”

  “Okay, the only thing worse than not going on your honeymoon with your new wife is going with your mother.”

  “Why doesn’t he just cash in the tickets?”

  “Because maybe he needs a break from all the questions he’s about to face. Mom, I’ve never said a thing when it came to you butting into my life, but I’m putting my foot down with this. Harley is my friend; I’m going away with him in a friendly capacity. We’re just two friends in Hawaii, soaking up the sun, drinking Mai Tais on the beach and trying to forget all about the whore who broke his heart.”

  The more I try to convince her, the more I convince myself. We need this. We both work too hard, and since Alecia shimmied her way between us a year ago, Harley and I have been slowly drifting apart. A vacation in paradise is exactly what we need.

  My mother brushes past me and grabs my hand, leading me into the entrance of my kitchen. “And I might even believe that, if I were anyone else. But I know you, Rose Perry, and I know you’ve been in love with that boy since the first day of kindergarten.”

  That isn’t exactly true. I haven’t been in love with Harley all this time—just most of it. I’d had other lovers, and I’ve had periods when I didn’t even like Harley, much less love him. Granted, now isn’t one of those times, but she’s way off base. Okay, maybe she’s not way off, just mostly off base.

  “Have you thought about what this will do to you?”

  “We’ve been on plenty of vacations. We’re adults.” I argue, but my protestations sound flimsy, even to me. “He’s broken-hearted.”

  “And what are you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, at a much higher decibel than necessary. “And I really do need to go pack.”

  “So pack. Don’t let me stop you.”

  And I don’t, though I sort of wish I did because every swimsuit I put in my bag my mother wrinkles her nose at over the expensive glass of wine she’s commandeered from my kitchen. The same one I’d planned on opening and drinking myself into a stupor with after this god-awful wedding.

  I take the bottle from the nightstand and swig it right from the lip. I’m going to need all the Dutch courage I can get if I’m going to get through the next few hours of this night without giving my mother’s words too much thought.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROSE

  After my mother consumes half the bottle and I practically inhale the cup of coffee my dad makes me on the store’s espresso machine that cost twice as much as my rent a month, I leave the shop in a cab, and both my heart and bloodstream have sobered some on the way downtown to pick up Harley. When I try to rouse him—the bastard has in fact fallen asleep—he isn’t any more enthusiastic about the trip now than he was an hour ago. Though he has been a little more enthusiastic about the champagne I’d left him with because he’d been out cold with one empty bottle lying on the coffee table and another spilling over the carpet. I pick up his clothes from the floor and toss them into his suitcase. And then I throw him in the shower and go downstairs to get him a coffee and settle the extra on the cleaning bill.

  By the time I reach the room with two coffees in tow, Harley is miraculously out of the shower, but the hot water hasn’t sobered him at all. He sits in a towel on the edge of the bed, swigging from the champagne bottle that had been leaking all over the floor.

  “Okay mister, let’s put the booze away, because champagne has never been your friend, and we have a plane to catch.” I set my coffee down and replace the bottle in his hand with a steaming paper cup.

  He lifts it to his mouth but doesn’t drink it. “She left me.”

  My shoulders fall in defeat. “I know, honey.”

  “I can’t say I blame her, but still, she said forever, you know?”

  I sit down on the bed beside him and wrap my arm around his shoulder. Beads of water from his skin soak through my sleeves, but I just hold him tighter. “Then she wasn’t right for you. I know it hurts now; it’s going to hurt for a while longer yet—”

  “Who is?”

  “What?”

  He straightens, causing my arm to slip from his wet skin, and looks me dead in the eye when he says, “Who is right for me?”

  Me. I’m right for you. I’m the woman you should have been marrying.

  I glance down at the coffee I’m nursing. “I don’t know, but I’m sure she’s out there somewhere.”

  Harley hands me his paper cup and stands. He adjusts his towel, walks over to his suitcase, and stares at his belongings, but he doesn’t make a move to put on any of the clothes. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  No, no, no. This is a great idea. The best ever idea.

  “Come on. You need this. I need this. Let’s just go and have fun. You remember fun, right? We used to have a lot of it before we started paying taxes and having brunch with our accountants, and before fiancées came along.”

  “Fiancée,” he corrects. “It’s not like you were getting married and left at the altar.”

  Ouch.

  “Right, well, before she came along we used to have fun. Let’s get back to that. We’ll drink Mai Tais on the beach, we’ll tan until we resemble lobsters, and then we’ll just laze around the pool all day and pretend this whole wedding thing didn’t exist.”

  “Yeah,” he says with a small decisive nod. “Fuck Alecia.”

  “Thatta boy. Now get dressed. Or we’re going to be late.”

  ***

  After we’ve checked out and organized for the cases of champagne to be delivered to Harley’s apartment, we h
ail a cab, clear security and make it to our gate with thirty minutes to spare. Once we’ve boarded, Harley settles himself in his seat, flips the armrest up between us, and is out like a light in a matter of minutes. I spend the next two hours of the flight stricken with guilt and ruminating over the fact that I had a chance to talk him out of this and I passed it up for purely selfish reasons. I’m a horrible best friend. I’m the very worst of the worst.

  I toss and turn in my chair, trying to get comfortable. I pick up a book and read a little but it’s one of those violent yet oddly satisfying motorcycle club stories with a convoluted plot, and I don’t have the patience for that now, so I close the book and stroke the tattooed chest of the model on the cover. I try to get a little shut-eye, but I’m more worried about Harley slipping into a coma than the bags I’m going to have under my eyes tomorrow, so I stay awake and watch him sleep. On a creeper level of stalkerish things one can do to earn the title of psychopath when it comes to the object of one’s desire, I’m guessing I’m about at an eight. Though I’m wondering if the fact that I convinced him to take me on his honeymoon means I hit an even ten before we left the city. Either way, I watch Harley sleep until I eventually drift off too, and I find myself being gently shaken awake by a hand on my shoulder. “Rose, wake up.”

  I open my eyes and snuggle into his warmth, rubbing my hand against his solid stomach. Harley must have been working out harder than usual. He’s always been in great shape, but this feels ... different. Like he did when he played varsity football. Harley’s hand grasps my fist and squeezes tightly. He groans and whispers in my ear, “Fuck, Rose.”

  And I realize that it’s not his stomach at all that I’m stroking but his crotch instead, and what’s worse still is that his own hand is wedged between my thighs. He’s not touching me as inappropriately as I’m touching him, of course, but it seems that while we slept our bodies conspired against us and decided to assume our old sleeping positions.

  Because vacationing in paradise wasn’t torture enough for my sad little penis starved vagina.

  I yank free from his grasp and glare until he removes his own hand from between my thighs, what he used to refer to as “his spot”. “I am so sorry.”

  He just gives a chuckle and straightens in his chair. “Don’t worry about it; it’s not like we haven’t done it before, right?”

  He’s right. We’ve woken like this several times in the past when he’s fallen asleep at my place or me at his. It’s always awkward, and every time it happened I’ve been terrified he’ll read more into my embarrassment than I want him to see.

  I laugh nervously and say, “Yeah, happens all the time.”

  “Remember that one time—”

  “Yeah, Harley, I remember,” I interrupt, because no matter which incident he’s about to refer to, all of our trips down memory lane hurt.

  “Right,” Harley says, and just like that the humor of this situation is gone, replaced instead by the bitterness of rejection and the sting of missed opportunity. It’s a never-ending cycle with us, and one he should know better than to dig up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROSE

  We check into our hotel around noon and find our way up to the suite. Harley hands me the key and I slip it in the door, opening it wide. I don’t make it two steps before I’m dropping my bags and running for the balcony. I shriek like a little kid entering the gates at Disney when I throw open the door and take in the view. Nothing but resorts, crystal clear aquamarine water, and pristine white beach for miles, all the way to the big, beautiful Diamond Head Volcano.

  “Holy shit! Get over here and look at this view, Pan.” I turn and lean against the balcony railing, craning my head back. I close my eyes as the sun kisses my face and the excited squeals of children filter up to us from the resort pools below.

  “It’s really something,” he agrees. His expression is somber as he sits down on the huge king-size mattress, and I feel my own heart fall when I realize how insensitive I’m being. Roses are strewn all over the white comforter and a bottle of champagne sits in an ice bucket beside the bed. I’m not here on vacation with the man I’m in love with, I’m here as his best friend, the woman charged with lifting his spirits—or buying him spirits—since I’m the one who’s supposed to get him drunk and help him forget all about making the worst decision of his life.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m not helping here at all, am I?” I throw my purse on the bed beside him and pick up the bottle, popping the cork on the champagne. I reach for one of the long-stemmed glasses before realizing I should just hand him the whole thing. So I do. He accepts it, his fingers brushing my own and his gaze locking on mine. Kamikaze butterflies whirl and crash inside my stomach as I stare down at him. The moment stretches on, our hands briefly touching, our eyes saying everything while our mouths remain tightly closed.

  The hotel phone rings, the spell is broken, and I disappear into the bathroom, locking myself away in order to catch my breath. This isn’t what he needs right now. He needs time, he needs a friend, and he needs liquor—lots and lots of liquor. When I’m done giving myself the third degree, I exit the bathroom and make a beeline for my purse.

  “We need alcohol,” I say, as if I’ve been madly gathering supplies for the apocalypse and forgot the most important thing. “I’m going to go in search of booze. Lots of booze.”

  “Okay.” Harley nods. “I’m just gonna take a shower and get some sleep.”

  “Oh. Well, I could stay with you if you want?” I ask, hopefully.

  He kisses the top of my head when he passes on his way to the bathroom. “I’m good. You go.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

  “Rose,” he says, and I know he’s reaching the end of his patience with me because that’s what it means when he says my name and it sounds like a curse.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll be sipping cocktails by the pool if you change your mind.”

  “I’ll see you later.” And just like that he’s gone, disappeared into the bathroom and running the shower.

  I strip off my clothes, figuring I’ve only got a few minutes because Harley doesn’t waste water. I rummage through my bag and find one of the few bathing suits that my mother approved of. It’s a black 50s-style Marilyn Monroe halter suit, with the ruched front panel that hides all my flaws. It’s not like I have a paunch or anything, but as I mentioned earlier, I ain’t getting any younger, and gravity is a fucking bitch who needs to die a very slow and very painful death at the hand of botched surgery.

  I wiggle into my suit, throw on a cover-up and grab a towel, and then I make my way out of the room and down to the pool area. There are bodies everywhere, tons of kids with bright neon pool donuts, their parents tanning by the poolside. I head straight for the bar, order a Blue Hawaii, and ask them to keep ’em coming. And then I stretch out on a lounger and sun myself as if heat stroke and skin cancer aren’t possibilities.

  After I’ve drained dry my third cocktail, some douchebag blocks my sun. I open my eyes, prepared to ask the person to move on, politely of course, but then I get dripped on and since I can’t tell if it’s water or sweat—or God forbid some other type of bodily fluid—I feel bolder than I ordinarily would about expressing my annoyance.

  “Hey, asshole,” I say, sliding my sunglasses onto my head. My mouth drops open.

  “Rose, I thought that was you,” says a very familiar voice.

  I know who this is without looking at his face, and the reason I haven’t looked at his face yet is because I’m stuck. My eyes are literally glued to the bulge outlined against his wet swim trunks. It really doesn’t help when my gaze trails a little higher and I’m greeted with a very nice six-pack. Roaming just a little bit higher now, I see two perfectly defined pecs, tanned with lovely bitable oval-shaped nipples. I have a thing about nipples. Too small, and it’s a major turn off. Too big, and I’m wondering whether or not you’ll be the one to breastfeed my children when I eventually have them. But this guy? He has the
Holy Grail of nipples, not too large, not too small, not all shriveled up, even though he clearly just slid out of the pool, and certainly not ones that prove his age.

  I know his age, or thereabouts, as he’s a regular of mine. Just like I know he’s happily married, because I’m the girl who gets to arrange his lucky, lucky wife the huge bouquet of lilies every week.

  “Oh god, Mr. Carter. I am so sorry,” I say, sitting up and folding my legs under me.

  “It’s fine.” Warm brown eyes study me as he smiles. Mr. Carter looks like he just stepped off the set of a Hugo Boss commercial. He’s always dressed impeccably in a tailored suit, his dark hair graying at the temples. He might be closer to fifty than thirty, but the man is fine, and seeing him ditch the suit for a pair of swim trunks? Yowza. When I tell Izzy—my employee of one year, and the closest thing I have to a girlfriend—about this, she will lose her shit. “I came and dripped water all over you; I was an asshole.”

  A nervous laugh bubbles up out of my throat. “I’m ... I’m really sorry.”

  “Relax, Rose, and how many times must I tell you to call me Dermot?”

  “Dermot, right. Sorry. Again.” I shift on my recliner, itching to reach for my cover-up because while I know he’s happily married, and while I might be a good fifteen years younger than him, I still become skittish around this silver fox. Seeing the fantastic body beneath the suit doesn’t help with my own self-consciousness, and I make a mental note to buy a thigh master when I get home and use it. A lot.

  From dawn ’til dusk, work keeps me busy. There are buckets of water to be refreshed and bunches of flowers to be sorted, and with all those trips in and out of the van, it’s not like I’m sitting on my ass all day letting it get bigger, but there’s nothing like a tropical vacation when you’ve been working on your winter fat stores by benching a pint of Ben & Jerry’s a day to really boost your self-esteem.