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“His name was Patrick Harlow,” I relented, ready to get the story over with as quickly as I could. “I met him while I was an intern at Goldman Sachs. He worked there too. We used to hook up casually, and then we started dating after I graduated and came on as a junior associate. We worked a lot of long hours together, so it developed…naturally, I guess.”
I squirmed uneasily at the word—it didn’t come close to describing how I’d felt with Patrick. He’d had the ability that some men have to make a woman feel like she’s the center of his world in one breath and completely inconsequential the next. I was constantly chasing his wavering approval and attention, the pursuit of which led me into a lot of situations I regretted.
“Was he good to you?”
I looked up. “No,” I said quietly. “He was not.”
The hand on my stomach paused, its fingertips clenching slightly at the fabric.
“How?” It was amazing how one small word could carry so much vitriol.
I exhaled roughly through my nose and looked away. “Brandon, you really don’t want to hear this—”
“Skylar,” he said gently and stroked my cheek. “I do. I promise I won’t be mad. Well, not at you, anyway. But I want to knoweverythingabout you, just like you want to know about me. So please just tell me what that shithead did, if you can.”
I sighed again and gave in. I told him about how it had started between Patrick and me, with flirtatious instant messages and late-night drinks, eventually a few casual hookups. It seemed like a natural progression from our work life. He was a good Jewish boy from New Jersey, which endeared him to my grandmother while he gained my dad’s favor with nice bottles of whiskey and Mets tickets. I recounted how Patrick had introduced me to all his family and friends too, paraded me around Montclair like I was a model, called me his “little firefly.” I was, in his words, “his most precious possession.”
But then he started to turn more hot and cold. There were moments where I thought he might have been unfaithful—he’d forget to call me for an entire weekend, then show up on Monday with a Tiffany box. He was angry at my decision to go to law school and accused me of wanting to whore it up in Boston. He’d punish me with passive aggressive comments in front of friends and family, or more unexplained absences. And yet I couldn’t quite let go.
My attempts to regain his affections became increasingly desperate as I agreed to more outlandish escapades to please him. The week after I gave notice at Goldman, his friends caught us having sex in a supply closet. The way it happened, with preemptive laughter before the door even opened, made me think it was planned. After all, Patrick had wanted to continue while they watched. As a last resort to save our ailing relationship, I even tried a threesome once, only to be pushed off the bed while a two-bit barfly gave my soon-to-be ex a blowjob. Less than a month later, we were through for good.
“That was two years ago,” I concluded.
Brandon stared into the fire as he digested all the details. I waited nervously. Would he think me disgusting now? Slutty? Pitiful? I had thought all those things about myself once too; it had taken Jane a long time to convince me otherwise.
“I…don’t understand,” he said finally, running his hand back through his hair.
I swallowed. “I know. It’s hard to explain. None of it’s that bad, really. I stayed. It’s hard to explain why it was so hard to leave him.” I couldn’t even explain that to myself most of the time.
“No, Red, that’s not it.” He looked at me kindly, without pity, but there was a trace of fire behind the sweet expression. “Not you,” he clarified. “I don’t understandhim. Shithead doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s lucky he’s not here right now; I want to punch his manipulative fuckin’ lights out.”
His tone was calm, but I could hear the slight lilt of Brandon’s accent, betraying his underlying rage.
“Does he still work at Goldman?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I think he got in trouble after the subprime market collapsed, so maybe not. I honestly don’t care anymore.” I blanched, concentrating instead on twisting the sheepskin wool with my fingers. “Please don’t go looking, all right? I don’t need a white knight with a vendetta. I’ve already been with someone possessive, and it was awful.”
Brandon exhaled through his nose multiple times, clearly doing what he could to calm himself down. “I just don’t understand how a man—if you can even call him that—could not see what he has in front of him. How he could fuck up the best thing—the best person—he could ever hope for in his pathetic excuse for a life.”
“Things change,” I replied weakly, looking up at the ceiling. The firelight flickered against the shadows of the wide beams. “You can be in love in the beginning, but it can always turn to shit. I learned that the hard way.”
“Then it wasn’t really love to begin with.”
We lay there for a few more moments, watching each other’s faces silently in the golden reflections of the fire.
“You’re hard to read sometimes,” I said finally, not so much to break the silence, but to break up the runaway nature of my own thoughts. I was coming dangerously close to putting the cart before the horse.
“I just…I want you to know something. And I don’t want you to freak out about it.” Brandon blinked, his blue eyes wide and scared. “I…I don’t know how to do this slow with you, Skylar. But I’m trying. I just want you to know…that whatever we’re doing here...I’m in.” He took a deep breath and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something more. In the end, he just exhaled and repeated himself, like a mantra. “I’m all in.”
About a million thoughts skittered through my mind. I wanted to shout that I felt the same way. I wanted to say that his touch made my skin feel like it was as alight as the flames next to us, that I’d never felt a connection so powerful, so immediate. Not with Patrick; not with anyone. I wanted to tell Brandon he could have my heart and soul if he wanted those too—that maybe he already did.
But a small voice—the one who remembered the way the last fire I’d engaged had burned me so badly—screamed the obvious. It was too soon. We barely knew each other. There was plenty of time for things to progress naturally.
So instead, I threaded my fingers through his hair, urging him close so I could say to him with my kiss what I couldn’t yet express out loud.
It appeared to be all the encouragement Brandon needed. His shoulders blotted out the fire as he moved to kneel between my legs, gently running his hand up my legs and taking the hem of my skirt with them. I arched my back so he could pull the dress over my head and toss it to the side so that I lay naked in nothing but black silk underwear and the sheer, thigh-high stockings. He loomed over me, surveying my body with eyes blazing as he removed his vest and shirt.
The warm light cast shadows in the hard lines of his body, making the edges of his pectoral muscles and the V-shaped lines of his abdomen that much more apparent as they moved. I watched appreciatively as he tossed his clothes to the side, unveiling his raw beauty. He trailed both hands lazily over my shoulders, traced his fingertips over my collarbones, and continued lower to cup both breasts and run his thumbs over my nipples.
