**Standard disclaimer applies. This is purely fiction (if based only slightly on actual events). Don't read if you shouldn't because you're under 18 or live in a backwards area. This is a continuation of The List. It isn't necessary to read The List, but it would help in understanding characters and references. I appreciate any and all feedback, so please email me at jwolf24450@gmail.com. Enjoy the story!
Chapter 1: The Funny Thing Is...
Fine is always fine until it's not quite fine anymore.
`When Dallas Morning news first asked me to start this column what feels like a hundred years ago, it was because I was on a journey to balance family, work, friends, and sexuality in the ever-evolving landscape of traditional marriage, and what that meant for a bisexual man in the 21st Century. Through it all, ups and downs, I always felt like I knew what I was doing, that I was in control; that I had the answers. That feeling changed with one simple phone call.'
There was once a time when Saturdays were about fun. Relaxation, booze and the boys. Hiking, camping, shopping, drinking. You name it and it could be done on a Saturday. And then I had kids.
"Coop, listen up," Devon said in the checklist drill sergeant voice she'd perfected over the past twenty years. She prattled off without missing a single step in getting her makeup done. "Nine o'clock, I need you to take CJ to karate. Then Lizzy needs to go to the cheerleading tryout at the St. Mark's gymnasium. It starts at noon, but she's getting together with the other girls to rehearse the routine at ten. If I were you, I'd drop off CJ, come back for Lizzy, pick up Gil and Katie and take them straight to St. Mark's. By the time you drop them off, CJ will be ready and hungry, so ya'll can stop somewhere for lunch."
"I have my lunch meeting with Mason," I interrupted. It was important I sit down with my editor sooner rather than later to go over the final edits for my second novel. And other stuff.
"I know," she replied. "I pushed it back for you from one to two so that you could get everything with the kids done and then worry about your meeting with no interruptions."
With my entire day laid out before me, Devon gave me a kiss that lacked sincerity or passion, buttoned her blazer and headed out for her third dentistry conference in as many weekends.
I sat there looking at what I had to do for the day, wondering why I was awake at 7:30 on a Saturday and longing for the days when Saturdays weren't a kiss of death.
Instead of going back to sleep, I put on a pair of jogging shoes and did three miles around the neighborhood. My run clocked in at just under 25 minutes and by the time I got back to my coveted home on a coveted corner in Highland Park, Dallas, it was time to wake up the kids and rally.
"CJ, I really don't want to hear it right now," I called as my son protested waking up for his Tae Kwon Do showcase. "You're the one that wanted to switch from Capoeira to Tae Kwon Do. Well guess what, kiddo, Tae Kwon Do showcases on Saturday mornings, so let's go."
The clock ticked as I did what I'd come to do every Saturday. I put bagels in the toaster, CJ's uniform in the dryer to release the wrinkles, and shaved my stubble over whatever sink was nearest. I knew that Lizzy's friends would meet at our place before going to cheerleading, so I set out a fruit platter and oatmeal they could heat up when they woke. By 8:40 when I was literally dragging my spitting image into the Volvo I'd promised myself I'd never buy, I was already too exhausted for a Saturday.
I accomplished everything I needed to pre-noon like a well oiled machine. I dropped CJ off at the Dojo to do his thing. When I got home, Elizabeth and her best friends were fretting over their routine for the ninth grade cheer squad tryouts. By 10:00, they were at the gym and ready to go, their social status in high school hanging on the balance and dictated by how well formed their hurkies were. I circled back around, caught the last bit of CJ's showcase and by noon, I was parked at Chik-Fil-A, listening to my son debrief me on how Tae Kwon Do had gone. He would be a red belt soon, he could feel it.
I dropped CJ off back at the house, changed into khakis and a polo and drove to my office on campus to meet with my publicist slash manager slash right hand man, Mason.
"Hey, Spencer," I said into my hands free headset as I jetted to University Park and silently prayed I'd find street parking by the English building.
"Tell me you'll be at Kyle's tonight," he said without any introduction. "The thought of standing around and listening to hum drum lawyers make me feel like a jack ass for three hours alone doesn't excite me."
"I'll try to make it," I said. "No promises though."
"No, no, Cooper," my best friend and college roommate yelled into the phone. "You promised you would go this time. I don't give a shit what Devon has you scheduled for. Cancel it and come. We're playing beer pong and desperately rekindling our youth after the old farts leave. You have to be here."
"I'll be there, Spencer," I said as I pulled into the faculty parking lot. Close enough, I thought. I trekked passed my old stomping ground, excited to be back and on the other side of the desk this time.
"Professor Carpenter," Mason said with a firm handshake and a lingering smile. I took a second to look around at my office. My oak desk. My leather chair. My art on the wall. My bookshelf stocked with everything from Alexander Dumas to JK Rowling.
"I never thought I'd hear those words," I said, putting my hands behind my head and stretching out. "How was the drive?"
"It was good," Mason said. He hated coming in from Fort Worth, but I hated making the trip even more. He was on my payroll, so he'd drive in when I needed him. "This is the scoop, though. We're way behind on the edits for The List and it makes me nervous that you're getting all Dolly Parton-ed up for a nine to five before we're done."
"I told you I could juggle it all, didn't I?"
"You said that," he replied. "But I'm yet to see you follow through. I gave you that stack of edits two weeks ago and there's no headway on it."
"That's because it's perfect. That bitch at Knowles Publishing is trying to suck all the joy out of the story."
"The story is about a boy who has sex with other boys for the first time and loves it," he said. "It's chock full of joy. The pages are stuck together with joy. Make the edits and do it now."
"Classes start on Monday, so it'll be at least another week before I get to it."
"Do you not like having your name on a best sellers list? It's been four years since All Cooped Up and your name is quickly being filed under one-hit wonders, buddy. You're the Hoku of gay literature," he added.
"I'll get it done, Mason," I assured. "Is there anything else?"
"Not at the moment, Professor Carpenter," he said.
"That has a nice ring to it," I said with a wicked smirk.
As if on cue, Mason stood and circled my desk. He sat at the edge with his legs spread around mine and smiled down at me. Without any hesitation, I pulled his zipper down, fished out his already hardening cock and stuffed it into my mouth.
The feeling of having his throbbing dick in my mouth was always a welcome one. It didn't happen often, but when it happened, I relished it. What Mason lacked in solid PR skills, he more than made up for as a dutiful cock piece. On the rare occasion that I craved the touch of another man, it was easy enough to entice him to swing down I-30 and oblige me.
I sucked him deep, tasting his precum almost immediately. I wondered what his wife would think about the side thing we had going. I knew Devon's stance on the whole thing.
What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. We'd been through the drill, time and time, again and we decided that instead of me burying that side of myself, I would take care of things discreetly, carefully and tastefully. She knew my attraction to guys going in, and she understood it now; it had worked for us for two solid decades and things were fine.
It didn't take an overpaid therapist to know that that was the precise problem, however. Fine. My life was fine. My marriage was fine. My career was fine. There was hardly a spark in any aspect of my life. I was just simply fine. And fine is just fine until it isn't... well, fine anymore.
15 minutes of intense sucking later, I finally got a mouth full of the sweet and sticky I craved from Mason. He zipped up with a smile and went immediately back to rambling about the book. I'd been down this path before, and it was my least favorite part.
"I'll get the edits done and the editors off your back, Logs," I said as I ushered him out of the office. "I'll call you next weekend?"
"I'm out of town with the kids next weekend," he said, reading my mind. He slipped his wedding ring back on as he walked towards his car as nonchalantly as he put on a pair of sunglasses, and gave me a quick wave off goodbye.
That night, I bribed my kids to stay in and behave with pizza and an instant download movie of their choice, choosing to ignore the fact that it was Rated R and that Devon wouldn't have approved in a million years. They were in the seventh and ninth grade, for crying out loud. At 13 and 15, I was watching way worse.
"It's the ball and chain," Kyle greeted when I arrived at his high rise bachelor pad in Victory Park, overlooking all of Dallas. He was a stone throw away from the Reunion Tower and the wall to wall windows provided a breathtaking view.
"Shut up and get me a drink," I smiled. I gave him a hug and scanned the room for Spencer. I was there to keep him company and that was my only goal. I had no intention of rubbing shoulders with Dallas' elite legal sector.
"Is Sebastian coming?" I asked when I finally found Spencer, two drinks in hand and giving eyes to a bartender.
"He said he was, but I'm not sure. Last I heard, he and Britney were in some sort of fight."
"As usual," I replied. Kyle showed up with two Texas Teas.
"Thanks," I said to him. I guzzled half the drink down in a desperate attempt to erase the day. "Okay. 30 second catch up. Let's start with you, Counselor."
"Let's see, since I last saw you guys," Kyle began. "It's been work, work and more work."
"Tell your brother you're over it," Spencer said with a slurp of his drink.
"Working for Jason isn't the problem," Kyle said. "It's working with Winston that's the problem. We're both going for partner, there's a ton of baggage there. I mean, the only way to avoid him is to hole up in my office."
"And bill 300 dollars an hour," I chimed in. Kyle could have been partner with one word to his brother, the founding partner and CEO of Wriggs and Streck; however, he insisted on doing things the proper way, and that meant competing with his on-again/off-again lover for the one partner slot that year. It was why he'd thrown two schmoosefest cocktail parties in as many weeks and it was why Spencer and I were supposed to be there mingling and talking him up to the influential powers that be.
"Well my life isn't quite as glamorous, you'll understand," Spencer said. "Since I last saw you guys, I've been on two first dates and zero second dates making my dating average a solid zero."
"At least you have buckets and buckets of money to keep you warm at night," I said with a smile. Spencer was by far the best off of any of us. After graduation, he'd used his trust fund to invest in a couple of alternative energy companies that sky rocketed and made him millions. He wasn't the kind of guy that sought out to change the world with it, either. He had fun with what he had, and that was enough for him.
"You're right, that'll always be a good conciliation prize," he smiled. They both looked at me.
"My turn. School starts on Monday," I began. "Which is nerve racking, but kind of exciting."
"Awe, Professor Carpenter," Kyle joked.
"And my editor at Knowles is being a pain in the ass with all of the changes she wants to The List."
"Why does she want changes? It's a true story," Spencer said, standing straight. He was protective of our college sexploits freshman year, and wasn't a fan of me dumbing it down for the mass media. I didn't explain that I had made her changes up until the 17th chapter, where working from that point on got incredibly difficult.
I shrugged. I could have gone on and on about my lackluster marriage despite the fact that I was a celebrated relationship expert with a column in the Dallas Morning News and a best selling novel about reinvigorating marriage during rough patches. Instead, I stopped there and spared my friends the details.
"Am I late?" Sebastian said behind me, joining the party just in time to steal the spotlight from my sweating brow.
"Just in time," I said, ready to pass the mic. "We're doing a 30 second catch up session."
"Saved by the bell," Kyle whispered knowingly in my ear. Of the three, he knew me the closest and he knew that things at home were gilded at best. He could tell with one look at my face when I was leaving something out.
"I take it it's my turn," Sebastian said. "I made a pitch about carbon retention maximization at Lockheed this week that I'm sure they're going to take."
"You lost me at pitch," Kyle yawned.
"That's `cause we all know you love to catch," Sebastian joked. "And Brit wants to get pregnant. Again."
"Is that safe at her age?" Kyle asked quietly in my direction.
"Aw, Baby Bass is going to be a daddy," Spencer said. I was always surprised that the nickname Sebastian had hated when he and Spencer first started hanging out, had stuck.
"I dunno. She's been talking to my mom who always regretted only having one kid, so she's on this kick now to give Mike a sibling," he finished.
"Mike is two shakes away from getting his driver's license and leaving the pooch, he could care less about a baby brother," Kyle said snarkily.
"My thoughts exactly," Sebastian replied. "If she keeps talking about it, I swear I'm getting my berry tickle snipped; now someone get me a bourbon."
Sebastian was the child of two affluent north Texas families and his twenty year marriage to Britney Marks was the natural extension of that. Nevermind that they fought like school children and were never on the same page. None of us had thought it would last this long, but there they were the most committed of us all.
And there we were. Friends for 20 years with our share of ups and down and more baggage than a 747 international cargo plane. I always felt like D'Artagnan when I was around the three of them and they were my musketeers.
I got drunker and stayed out later than I had planned. By the time I made it home to my vanilla house and my vanilla life, my phone had died. I peeked around the house and both the kids were asleep. Devon barely stirred when I pulled the covers over. She had another seminar session in cosmetic dentistry the following day and she was out like a light. Being drunk and horny, I decided to see if she'd wake up for a quickie.
"Hey honey," I said climbing into bed and spooning her from behind.
"Hey, Cooper," she yawned. "How was your day?"
"Busy," I said. "How was yours?"
"Exhausting," she said with another yawn. Her yawning made me tired and any urge I had to copulate before drained out of my body just by being in bed with Sleepy, the sixth dwarf. I kissed her on the forehead, turned around and counted sheep until I fell asleep.
Sunday was a special kind of awful. I spent the day getting the kids ready for their first day of school while simultaneously trying to prepare all of my crap for my first lecture. Technically, I wouldn't be teaching anything on syllabus day and I had all of my notes laid out for the first half of the term, but I still wanted to go over my intro to LGBT Literature and my Seminar on Creative Writing. SMU was paying for a celebrity professor and I was determined to deliver the goods.
After a full day of clothes shopping with Liz, supply shopping at Target with CJ, laundry, ironing and calling in a favor at St. Mark's to get CJ moved to the nicer seventh grade teacher, I was more than exhausted and nothing Devon could have griped about from her seminar would have made me pity her.
I made sure the kids were in bed at ten and then I sat around watching TV in my boxers, determined to stay awake until my wife got home so that we could have sex for the first time in three weeks. Instead, I dozed off to the second round of CNN news updates.
I was awoken by my cell phone vibrating next to me. Thinking it had to be Devon calling to say she was on her way home, I answered it without looking at the front screen.
"Hey babe," I said sleepily.
"I've waited a million years to hear you say that to me," a familiar voice said on the other line. It wasn't Devon. The voice belonged to a man I'd almost forgotten about. A man I'd filed away a million years before because he'd broken my heart and never looked back. A man who nagged at the back of my brain every day, without fail.
"Chase," I said into the phone.
Chase Pallendrino.
I hung up the phone as soon as he started talking. I couldn't listen to him. Just listening to him was cheating in and of itself. What the fuck was he doing calling me?
After I hung up, I realized it was a mistake to hang up. What the hell did he want? I looked at my phone to dial him back, but before I could, it started vibrating again. I took a deep breath and answered the phone.
"Hey, sorry. I got disconnected," I said trying to sound as breezy as possible.
"By your service or what?" he asked.
"What... do I owe this call to?" I asked shortly.
"It's nice to hear your voice, Cooper," Chase said. I could tell he was smiling on the other side of the line. He knew he was making me squirm. I took in a deep breath. "Cooper, I just wanted to call and let you know I'm back in Texas. More specifically, I'm back in Dallas."
"Wow," I said, my breeziness floating out the window and melting in the warm Texas September air. "Isn't that nice?"
"I want to see you," he said point blank. He sounded like he was ordering a hamburger or something off a value menu. I want to see you. With cheese. No pickles.
"How long has it been?" I asked with a little bit more bite than I intended.
"Too long, I know that," he replied. He sounded sexy and charming, just like he had twenty years ago when he left for the summer games in London and became a world class Olympic swimmer. "What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?"
I couldn't think of anything quick enough. I had the entire afternoon block free and I planned on tackling those edits for Logan.
"I um... I'm busy," I said with little to no conviction. I sounded about as honest as Michael Jackson declaring his innocence.
"I'll pick you up at one. Text me the address of your office and I'll be waiting," he said, his voice laced with that same smile I knew he had plastered on his face. He hung up before I had the chance to object further.
"Who was that?" I heard from the doorway. I looked up just as Devon flipped the light switch on and pulled a stiletto off.
"No one," I said quickly. "Well someone, but no one. It was Chase. Pallendrino."
The name hung in the air for a second. She knew the implications of his name in my life. She had been there for Chase-gate 1.0 and Chase-gate 2.0. In fact, it was when she picked up the pieces after he returned from London—or better yet, didn't return— that Devon and I really got serious. Before then, she was my warm body, the interim cuddle buddy. Chase-lite.
"What did he want?"
I looked at her square in the eyes. No lies, I thought. What did I have to lie about?
"He wants to do lunch tomorrow."
"He's back?" she said, stepping out of her pencil skirt and standing before me in a pair of panties and a bra. "Are you going?"
The tone in her voice had an unmistakable connotation. We'd been through this before, with both of us on different occasions, but not with anyone I actually cared about at one point. This was uncharted territory. Feelings entering the fray changed things, and we both knew it.
"Honestly, Dev, I hadn't decided," I said. She didn't say anything else that night, but simply slipped out of her clothes and into bed. For the 22nd day in a row, we slept turned away from each other and I started to wonder why we bothered living a life that was plain old fashioned Vanilla.
I woke up extremely early the next morning, went out for a run and was dressed and parked in my faculty spot by 8:15. My first class wasn't until 10:00, but I was anxious. I felt like a first grader on the first day.
I called Spencer at 9:00, knowing that of the three, he was the only one I could consult with on this.
"What the fuck did he want?" Spencer asked. Little had changed between us in twenty years. I still told him everything as it happened. Things I couldn't tell Kyle because of our history, and Sebastian because of his relationship with Devon's best friend, automatically fell onto Spencer.
"He wants to go to lunch."
"What are you going to do?"
"I... guess I'll go," I said with as much assurance as OJ Simpson entering a not guilty plea. The truth was I had already sent Chase the message with my office address. It was done.
"Is that the best idea?"
"No," I answered honestly. "But how can I not? I mean, it's been long enough. Those feelings are carefully filed away. Plus, I already told Devon I would meet him, so there's nothing to lose."
"And what did she say?"
"She didn't say anything."
"I know nothing about married life," Spencer replied. "But I feel like that's a passive aggressive way of saying don't go. Color me naïve, but that's what I think."
"I have to go," I said.
"But you don't, Cooper. You really don't."
I did. There was no use pretending like I wouldn't or even shouldn't. Thinking like that would only make me feel guilty afterwards. I hated feeling guilty and I hadn't done anything to warrant that feeling.
My first class was LGBT Literature, which was surprisingly full considering it was an elective on alternative lifestyles on one of the last campuses in the country to embrace them. My history at SMU told me that the campus was crawling with closet cases, but I didn't think this many would show up for my class. A few probably thought as a new teacher, I'd be easy and they could fly right through the bird course. They learned by the end of syllabus day that that wasn't going to be the case.
The lecture distracted me from my impending meeting at 1:00. I repeated my spiel to my 11:00 creative writing seminar, a much smaller and more intimate round table course with only twelve students.
After that, I was on my own to agonize for an hour. What did he look like now? What would he sound like in person? Would he even recognize me? Would our natural chemistry still be there? A million questions. No answers.
At 1:00, I finally made the trek down to the drop off in front of the English building. The second I stepped outside, I saw him.
He looked the exact same: tan, tall and gorgeous. His face was a little harder than I remembered. His hair was lighter than usual and wavy, fingered softly back. He wore sunglasses so I couldn't see his light blue eyes that jumped out beautiful against his sun darkened skin. His frame was in incredible shape, but I wouldn't have expected anything less from a guy who was once dubbed The Human Submarine.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Monsieur," he said. I wanted to say something quippy and rude, but I was at a loss. Instead I smiled, my excitement to see him far outweighing any feelings of resentment about the split.
"Where to?" he asked once his Audi was heading slowly towards the highway.
"Tavern on Victory," I said. It was my favorite spot to eat downtown, not that I thought I'd be able to keep anything down, I was so nervous. They did, however, have strong cocktails. Even at lunch.
"So," he said looking at me with a smile. "How are you?"
"I'm good. Devon's good, the kids are good."
"I read about the kids. And the book. Congrats on that, by the way." I didn't respond, but continued my glare. "So, I know you like to cut to the Chase, so to speak. What am I doing here?"
"That would be the perfect place to start," I said with just a hint of attitude.
"I'm back, Coop. For good," he said. "My dad wasn't doing well for a while, and so I was in San Francisco with him. When he died, I wanted to get out. I wanted to go to a place I loved."
His lips lingered on the L word. He'd been back in the states long enough to take care of his dad and then bury him and he hadn't called? My excitement was melting and resentment was settling in again.
"So you're moving here?"
"That's the plan," he said with a tentative smile and a sharp breath. We crossed Highway 75 and rolled slowly onto Victory Lane.
"I hope that works out well for you," I said, breaking my gaze and turning forward. Suddenly, I realized I shouldn't have come to this lunch. What did I think would happen? A magic reunion of rainbows and sunshine? So much had changed in both of our lives; I didn't even know if we could recognize ourselves in each other anymore. I bit my bottom lip, wondering what to do next.
"Second thing on my agenda," he said casually. "Is my apology to you."
"Seems like `I'm sorry' is a dime short and two decades late," I said.
"You're right," he said, reasonably. It annoyed me how polite he was. "But it doesn't change the fact that I am. And that I have been for the better part of twenty years."
"Bullshit," I finally lost it as he pulled into the parking garage across from the Tavern. "Sorry people pick up the phone and call once in a while. Just to check in, maybe."
"I had to make a clean break, Coop," he said.
"To protect you or to protect me, Chase?" I replied.
"What do you want me to say? If I'd called you when I was in London, I would have come back. If I had called you when I was back from London, I would left everything in LA and come to find you. If I had called you at any point before the games in Rio, I wouldn't have gone, Cooper. My life and my career depended on me not calling you, not thinking about you, and not desperately wanting to come back to you."
"And now with all the convenience in the world," I said, the fight I'd seen coming for twenty years playing itself in my mind over and over like a broken compact disk. He parked the car and I suddenly felt trapped. "You can finally call me now. Let me drop everything; Chase Pallendrino is back."
"It isn't like that."
"Then what the hell is it like?" I glared at him, realizing that I had a tear in my eye. I had felt like meeting him for lunch was the right thing, but I was realizing quicker than ever that it wasn't.
Without answering, Chase leaned over and kissed me. It was like no other kiss I'd experienced in a long time. It was filled with sadness and passion. My tear fell and laced the kiss with a saltiness that said so much for so little. Instinctively, I pulled his face into mine and kissed him back. I sucked his tongue deep into my throat, my vigor a mixture of raw passion and intense anger.
Before I knew what was happening, my seat was pulled back and Chase was lying on top of me, grinding his body into me in a way that a 6'1 guy with an incredible build shouldn't have been able to do in a compact car.
"Let's skip lunch," he said with a wicked smile. I could feel his gear shaft poking into my thigh and I was instantly taken back twenty years to the happiest place in my life.
I looked up at him. Fifty percent of me wanted to say yes. The rest of me couldn't see past the guy that had hurt me so badly, I had wondered how I'd love again after him.
"I can't," I said, swallowing hard. I pushed him off of me, back into the driver's seat.
"You're right. I got carried away," he said, wiping my saliva off of his lip.
"God, you sure know how to complicate things," I said with a sheepish smile and a big sigh. We both got out of the car and had a hands-off, cordial lunch. Chase regaled me with the details of his two Olympic journeys. He told me stories I'd read a million times in Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine. He was the six time gold medalist... the `Boy that could be Chased, but that couldn't be caught.' I tried not to let my resentment creep up and my exuberance to see him show.
I took a cab back to my office in time for my 3:00 class.
One seminar and a million emotions later, I texted Devon that I wanted to take her out for dinner that night. When she asked why, I told her I knew I would be busy for a few weeks while I got into my new schedule and I wanted some us time before it got crazy. She bought it.
After that, I called Sebastian and he said he'd pick my kids up for dinner after work. I explained that CJ had tennis league and that the final round of tryouts ended at six for Liz. He said he was on board without asking why I needed the favor.
I stayed at work until 6:00, doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs and dreading the next few hours. It took an actual physical effort to keep Chase from permeating my thoughts and it was harder than ever.
With no time to spare—or chicken out—I drove to Silver Fox Steakhouse in Richardson and sat down at my reserved place. I ordered a bottle of wine while I waited on Dev to show up.
By the time she did, I was a glass and a half in. One look at my face and she knew something was wrong. She poured herself a glass while she greeted me.
"This is different," she said, taking a deep breath. "What's the occasion? Good or bad?"
"Dev, when was the last time we were happy?" I asked, point blank. I decided to take the band-aid ripping approach to the conversation.
"Cooper, what are you talking about?"
"I'm saying that we haven't had sex in twenty-three days. Before that it was twenty-nine days," I said, forcing myself to maintain eye contact. I wanted to crawl under the table and die.
"What are you counting days for? Are we on the rhythm method?" Her eyes narrowed.
"I'm just curious. If you had to pick a number from one to ten on how happy you are with our marriage, what number would it be?"
"It would be a seven," she said after a few seconds hesitation. She took a sip of the wine. "What are we doing here?"
"Is seven good enough for you?"
"Cooper, you're scaring me."
"It isn't good enough for me, Devon," I said softly. I watched her eyes well up right before my eyes and it broke my heart. "And the reason it's not good enough is because we were at a ten once, and you know it. When we first started going out, we were at a ten all the time."
"We were twenty years old and horny, Cooper. We have kids now and responsibilities. There isn't time to be at a ten anymore." Her voice was an inch away from faltering. I thought about pulling the plug and stopping the conversation, but I had to be the bad guy. For me to leave my family and not want to kill myself over it, I needed to be the bad guy and absorb all the blame. To me, that was my punishment for throwing in the towel.
"I kissed Chase today, Dev," I said. This time my voice faltered and the tear that had been lingering finally fell. "And it was a ten."
Devon swallowed hard, wiped her face and looked at me with a hardened gaze. She entered ice queen mode. Her stoniness had attracted me once. It made her seem powerful and kick ass. Being the recipient, I now knew why it worked so well. She just seemed stoic and scary.
"What are you telling me right now?" she asked in a surprisingly sure voice. "Just say it. Say what you dragged me all the way to Richardson to say."
"I'm saying that if we ask ourselves the tough questions here, Devon, the answers are pretty plain. We had a good run for a long time, longer than most people get. But we've gotten comfortable and tired and there are tens out there for us."
"No, there's a ten out there for you," she said. That was fair enough. I wanted to crawl under the table again. I prayed that she wouldn't make a scene, but I wouldn't have put it past or. I also wouldn't have blamed her for it.
"I just... I want out," I said finally. It wasn't a simple thing to say. It wasn't like kissing Chase had turned on a switch and I was back to my old ways. It would have been easy for me to sneak around and have my cake and eat it too. I'd been that kind of guy before. But since then, I'd been the kind of guy who committed and stuck to his commitments. Kissing Chase didn't flip a switch, but it did turn a dial.
"How long have you been waiting for this day, Cooper?" she asked me with a bite to her voice that sent a chill down my spine. "How long have I been a place holder for the one that got away from you?"
"That's not fair," I said. "I loved you every single day we were together. Don't act like I didn't, please."
"Don't treat me like I wasn't always second chair in the band, then, Cooper. Show me some respect. I mean, come on, Carpenter. Chase is back for a calendar day and you're bringing me here to what? Tell me you want a divorce? Walk me through this, please."
There was no way around it. I had to answer her questions. I had to be the bad guy. I had to take my lashings and bear them.
"For a while when we started dating, I did think that maybe things would work after London," I said. "And when they didn't, I put every single egg into your basket."
"What about when you were writing the book?" she asked, pouring another glass of wine.
"When I wrote All Cooped Up, our problems had nothing to do with Chase or guys," I said defensively. "Our problems had to do with us and how both of us were too selfish in our careers to foster a healthy relationship and a healthy home for our kids."
"Don't get author on me, please," she said, shaking her head. "I get that. But you spent the last two years writing The List. Where was I to you then?"
"Why do you need me to answer that?" I said, my eyes narrowing. I felt like I was stuck in the battle scene from Closer and I couldn't escape.
"Just answer it."
"I... I don't know. It was downhill from there," I said with a shrug, unable to pinpoint the exact moment our rut began. All I knew is that things were long past due before Chase showed his perfect face, but he was the perfect scapegoat for pulling the plug. Who knows? Maybe if I had waited a couple of months or a year even, Devon would have pulled it for us.
We talked for another forty five minutes and another bottle of wine. The whole time, I thought that I was doing the right thing. Letting her blame me for giving up. Letting her think that my all consuming love for Chase was the cause. We had fought a good fight, Devon and I, but that fight had to end. The flint had been there the entire time. Chase came along and provided the spark.
"So what do we do now?" she asked as we stood. I helped her into her blazer.
"I dunno," I said quietly. "I guess I tell the kids and we both consult our attorneys."
I dreaded the thought of breaking my children's hearts. I knew divorce rates were high, and most kids suffered through them, but still. I'd wanted for them to grow up like I did, with two loving parents who made sure they wanted for nothing. This would kill them and they would hate me forever.
She looked at me with a tiredness I hadn't seen in her eyes before. Devon had been full throttle for as long as we'd been together, balancing mother/wife/DDS and this one bomb was what had shaken her. For the first time in a long time, I saw a woman who wasn't infallible and it reminded me of what we'd had at the beginning.
"I don't want this to be a huge dramatic thing," I said as we walked out of the restaurant. "You get whatever you want. No fights over anything."
"It's not going to be about stuff, Cooper," she said. Her voice was surprisingly strong for woman who'd just been told her marriage is over. I'd seen Devon in these situations and she always held up well. Resilient is how I'd describe her. She handed the valet her ticket. "Although I might clean you out." She smiled.
"I'm just a lowly professor," I joked. "I have little to my name."
"A professor with a best seller and another on the way," she said. "And a lake house, two Volvos."
"Wait till my lawyer gets his hands on your clinic," I said, laughing.
"I will eat Kyle for breakfast, you know that," she said with a wide grin. I was confident that everything would work out. A divorce would be tough, but mine and Devon's relationship had been built on friendship first. I was sure it could return to that. Eventually.
I woke up the next morning after a fitful night on the couch. If it hadn't been for a bottle of wine coursing through my veins, I wouldn't have slept at all.
I had stacked my classes in such a way that I only taught on Mondays and Wednesdays to facilitate any travelling that I needed to do for the book. If I had to miss a Monday for some reason, I could make up for it on the Friday that my three credit course would normally be scheduled. Regardless, my Tuesdays and Thursdays were always left wide open.
I had a slow breakfast after driving the kids to school, and enjoyed my empty house for a change. I went out for a midmorning swim in the backyard. At 11:00, I showered and dressed and drove into downtown, straight to the marble tiled law offices of Wriggs and Streck.
"Hey," Kyle said looking somewhat surprised to see me. "What's the matter?"
It was rare that I saw him during the week with the absurd amount of hours he worked. If he hadn't earned his way to the top now, it would be impossible to do so. I almost felt bad asking for the favor I needed.
"Nothing's wrong," I said having a seat in his plush leather chair. I couldn't understand why he needed the title of partner. He already had the salary, the office, and the expense account of a partner. I guess it meant something for him to earn his rightful place atop the family dynasty.
"Okay," he said sitting down across from me. A moose's head hung about six feet above Kyle's. "You're in my office on a Tuesday morning. Something's wrong. Is it hookers? Oh, God, Cooper, I warned you about hookers."
"We have attorney client privilege, right?" I asked casually. I leaned back and propped my feet on his center table.
"Yes we do, and now you're actually scaring me."
"I need you to represent me," I said with a dramatic pause. "For my divorce."
Kyle's eyes widened and I knew that he knew the root cause.
"This has nothing to do with Chase coming back to town," I said quickly.
"Bullshit," Kyle said tartly.
"Did Spencer tell you?"
"He called last night. Are you fucking kidding me? You're leaving Devon over a guy that left you two decades ago and has been back in town for 24 hours?"
"Kyle, I swear to you it isn't like that. Devon and I have always had our issues," I said.
"Chase isn't just an issue. He's the whole fucking newsstand." I hadn't expected Kyle to be pleased with the news, but I certainly didn't expect him to freak out on me like he was. "This is typical Cooper. I mean, seriously? The guy's in town for a twenty-four hours. One day and you're already running back to him like a sick puppy."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," I raised my voice.
"Then break it down for me, Cooper. How is this any different than what you did to me, jumping on the next shiny new toy as soon you got bored? And then to Riley, and then to Chase. I mean, his Speedo hadn't even dried off before you were in bed with Devon."
"Completely different circumstances," I said, my face getting hot. He irked me by pushing all of the wrong buttons. Did he think I didn't know what my pattern was? Did he think I just didn't care? I knew that what I was doing wasn't the boy's scout way, but it was my way. And it was the only way I knew.
"You're unbelievable," Kyle said shaking his head.
"Are you going to represent me or not?" I asked, suddenly very upset.
"I'm your lawyer, aren't I?" his voice was laced with unbridled attitude. Anyone else would have cowered when Kyle got this way, but the little fucker didn't scare me. I'd seen him worse.
"Yeah." I stood to leave. "And sometimes I would appreciate it if you would just be a friend." I crossed the vast office for the door, stopping just short.
"And I know why you're so upset about this and it isn't because you feel for Devon so much, Kyle, so drop the fucking act. It was never going to be you," I said, hitting below the belt. I shrugged my shoulders. "At the end of it all, you and I both know that I was never going to choose you."
The glare Kyle gave me could have shattered the glass behind me. He swallowed his rage as I walked out and closed the door.
I had been in one other shooting match with Kyle before. There was only one other time when our words had brought each other to the brink of blackout rage, and the last time was my freshman year of college after a fight with Kyle about his then boyfriend Rusty. After that fight, I went to my boyfriend's house for a much needed tension relieving fuck. This day was no different.
I pulled into the W Hotel, handed my keys to the valet and stalked to the front desk.
"Hello, sir, may I help you?"
"I need to see Mr. Pallendrino," I said.
"Okay," the clerk said. "Is he expecting you?"
"He is," I replied, barely able to keep my eyes from burning with anger. The concierge punched Chase's room number, the phone rang once and Chase answered it.
"Mr. Pallendrino, there is a gentleman caller here to see you." I mouthed my name. "Mr. Carpenter. I will send him up."
A second later, I was riding the elevator to the presidential suite on the 39th floor of the W Hotel. I barely had a chance to knock before Chase opened the door and I fell into his face with my lips.
My kiss was so magnetically aggressive, it pushed him back into the suite. Without any hesitation or complication, we fell back onto his king sized bed and Chase climbed on top of me, our lips not once skipping a beat. I hadn't kissed like that in ages and it felt amazing. I felt his tongue survey every inch of my mouth, dancing around like we were school children making out for the first time.
Before I could even explain my actions, both of us were stripping out of our clothes and panting.
"Oh my god, I have been dying for this for ages," Chase said, peeling off his slacks. His cock was already rock hard and it sprang up out of his briefs when he dropped them. I dove for his cock like a dick starved homeless person.
I lay on my stomach on the bed, perfect height to slip Chase's dick all the way to the back of my throat. I watched his toes curl as I swallowed hard, creating a vibration that coursed through his entire body. The guy was leaking precum as if he hadn't shot his load in days. It tasted just as good as I remembered.
A minute later, probably because he was afraid he'd shoot too soon, Chase pushed my head back and pulled me up to meet his kiss.
"What changed your mind?" he asked as he pushed me back and fell perfectly into the space between my legs. It was like we'd been doing it for years, our movements were so in sync.
"I'm giving up a lot of shit because of you, Mr. Pallendrino," I whispered with a wicked smile. "I just want to make sure my investment is worth it."
He smiled down at me, dove in with his lips and second later, Chase was slipping seamlessly into my tight hole.
I hadn't been fucked in longer than I could remember and my first reaction to Chase's cock was to push him off. Instead, I relaxed, took a deep breath and let the pain subside slowly. It was like riding a bike.
Before long, not only was the pain completely gone, but in its stead was a pleasure I'd almost forgotten. It was one of my rules when I was with Devon. No matter how many times I fucked around with Logan, I never kissed him and I never fucked him. We were purely oral buddies, giving the occasional blow job. This was completely different.
I knew immediately that all of the love I'd watched go away was still there. And on my part, everything I felt about Chase that I had buried away was rushing back like a time capsule being opened. It felt amazing as he slid in and out of me so delicately at first. My fingers dug into his chest and my legs curled around his pelvis, pulling him in even deeper.
Chase grunted into my mouth as he picked up his pace. The sounds were animalistic and short, but passionate.
"I fucking love you, Cooper," he panted, his speed gearing up. I could see the signs forming. His eyes rolled back, his head bucked backward and a second later, I felt a warm stickiness coat my insides. The sensation was enough for me. As if we'd choreographed it for TV, I came a split second after Chase, erupting all over both of us.
I just lay there post-orgasm, unable to move for several minutes. Every nerve ending on my body felt like it was on fire. When I rolled over to put my hand on Chase's chest and find his nook area between his arm and his torso, his skin was hot to the touch. It was like every pleasure particle in our body had been singed.
I took a deep breath and snuggled into him, upset that it was early afternoon and we couldn't fall asleep together.
"So what does this mean?" he asked softly.
"I wish I knew, guy," I replied. "I really wish I knew."
**Feedback, notes and comments are always greatly appreciated. Send me your reaction to Jwolf24450@gmail.com. Thanks for reading the story! I hope you enjoy. Bottom of Form