Undone, Volume 3 (16 page)

My mom had cleaned up
her act post-breakdown. She hadn’t touched a drink since. She also
hadn’t touched any of us. She’d remarried and tidied her life up
so much it was like she’d moved completely on, surrounded by her
champion roses and purebred dogs at her estate in southern
Connecticut. I couldn’t imagine anything she’d enjoy less than an
early morning phone call from her embarrassingly outrageous son
wanting to discuss his love life.

And how about my older
brother, Colton? It was anybody’s guess what was going on in that
guy’s head. He was a freaking locked book, a stone-cold serious
corporate raider. I could barely remember a time when we even spoken
more than a few words to each other. It would have to have been when
we were kids, but I didn’t really have any memories of Colton
acting like a kid. Then once our parents split, he’d headed off to
boarding school, too, but unlike me he hadn’t gotten kicked out.
He’d gone on to Princeton and Harvard and taken over stewardship of
our family fortune, whatever that meant. The few women I’d seen him
with over the years were freaking terrifying. Ice cold, calculating
bitches, it seemed like Colton kept it all-business inside and
outside the bedroom, relationships just another merger or
acquisition. No, I couldn’t call him about Ana.

Gram. I guessed I could
call her. She’d always take my call. She’d been the most parental
figure in my life. But you didn’t exactly call your 83-year-old
grandmother in the middle of the night in a panic because you
realized you’d fallen in love.

Actually, I realized
Gram would probably be up. She’d most likely be back in England by
now and it would be middle of the day. She’d always be happy to
hear from me, and too well-bred to sound overly surprised.

But to Gram, my problem
would have a simple solution. I should be honest and forthright and
true. She’d set a straight path for me, as she always did, down
which I’d live up to my true potential and all that. But, honestly,
I didn’t even always know what she meant when she said things like
that. And right now, I didn’t know if I could handle her certainty.
Talking to her might really send me over the edge. And she wouldn’t
want to hear my hemming and hawing. She didn’t suffer fools gladly.

Fuck, I needed to do
something. This whole in-my-head silence-after-the-storm thing really
wasn’t working for me. Turning to walk into the kitchen to fix
myself another drink, I stopped. There was the piano, over by the
windows. Looking at it, I drew a full breath for the first time since
I’d risen out of bed.

Music, my lifeline. Of
course, I could turn to it. I didn’t have anyone to call, but I
could make some music. Sitting at the bench, I instantly felt like
myself again. There, I didn’t need to figure shit out or make
decisions, I just played.

When Ana came to me, a
blanket wrapped around her, her hair in a glorious tussle, I had no
idea what time it was.

“Have you been up all
night?” Her voice sounded morning-scratchy and she yawned.

Huh. I looked up for
what must have been the first time in a few hours. Out the windows,
the first rays of sunrise were peaking over the horizon. How about
that?

“Come back to bed.”
She smiled at me, still clasping the blanket around her with one hand
but with the other she reached for me. “Come back with me.”

Mmm. Looking up at her,
I suddenly realized how tired I felt, heavy in my bones.

“Yeah.” I nodded,
still not standing up. That sounded good. Coming closer, she took my
hand in hers. Her skin felt so soft, so soothing against mine.

“Come to bed.” She
smiled at me.

“Yeah.” I followed
her into the bedroom and together we got under the covers. Her body
felt so good against mine, so supple and soft. She smelled so good
and I nuzzled into her as I closed my eyes. Her fingers drifted
through my hair, smoothing it, calming the unruly locks I’d been
pulling on hours ago. This felt much better.

“Go to sleep,” she
murmured, her fingers whispering along my hair, my forehead. This was
right. This was good. I think I groaned in pleasure as I sank into a
deep, dreamless slumber.

A few hours later, the
next sound I heard was a lot less soothing.

“What was that?”
Ana sat up, alarmed, next to me in the bed. Voices rang out from the
main room of the cabin.

“Helloooo!” one of
them called out.

Now my groan was one of
frustration. Sinking my head back into the pillow, I brought my hand
up over my eyes. I knew that voice. It wasn’t a voice I wanted in
my cabin. But, then, it wasn’t my cabin. It was the band’s cabin.
And now that the storm had stopped, the roads had apparently cleared
enough for the band to come join us.

“Who’s that?” Ana
asked me, startled. “Is someone here?”

Laughter rang out from
the other side of our bedroom door. “It’s the guys,” I
reluctantly confirmed. I could hear Johnny and Connor messing around,
and some higher-pitched whoops as well. Groupies, celebrating their
windfall, up in a swank cabin with rock stars. Great. Just great.

“Wow, I hadn’t
realized the roads were that clear.” Ana sounded about as happy
about our unexpected company as I was. Our private world wasn’t so
private anymore. Fuck.

I rubbed my eyes,
wishing it was just a bad dream. Sighing deeply, I rolled to my side
and pulled Ana back down to me. I didn’t want anything to change.

“Ashie!” Connor’s
voice rang out. “Come out, come out wherever you are, Ashie!”

“Fuck.” I groaned
again. “I’d better go out there.” I didn’t want them coming
into the bedroom. Ana wasn’t wearing anything. Damn it, now she’d
have to start wearing clothes again. That was a crime.

Reluctantly, I gave her
a kiss on her cheek and climbed out of bed.

“There he is!”
Connor boomed out as I emerged. “Ooh, who you got in there?” I
shut the door behind me, but he tried to peek around to catch a
glimpse. “Is it the librarian? Bet you’ve had fun with her up
here, mate. Snowed in.” He licked his lips and waggled his
eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah.” I
rubbed my hand across my face, hating the way he made the last few
days sound. All right, yes, we’d done a whole lot of exactly what
Connor had in mind. But it had been more than that, in a way I was
sure he wouldn’t understand.

“Hope you don’t
mind us joining you.” Johnny walked in carrying a bunch of bags,
flanked with even more women. How many groupies had they carted up
here? He set down the bags and came to stand next to me, in a quieter
voice adding, “Connor said you wouldn’t mind. It’s cool, then?”

“Yeah, sure. Of
course. It’s your cabin, too.” We had purchased it as a band, no
rules, no sharing schedule with time divided into one guy’s weekend
then another’s. We were a band, a team, best mates, acting as one.
It had never been a problem before.

Now it was. First
things first. I needed some hot coffee.

“Coffee?” Johnny
asked, heading into the kitchen.

“You’re a good
man,” I called after him. He really was. And now he was making
coffee, so I loved him.

The afternoon passed
exactly as I expected. Connor cranked shit up, the music, the
drinking. The hot tub got put to good use. He had some excellent
coke, he informed me, and though I declined the girls he had with him
were more than happy to join in.

Ana emerged after a
bit, looking pale and shy and almost spooked by the intrusion. She
started off making small talk. I could see her visibly cringe from
Connor when he tried to say hello, but with Johnny she was more
relaxed.

It went downhill from
there. As the afternoon stretched on, she grew more and more quiet.
She progressed steadily from shaken to disconcerted to downright
upset. I’d wrap an arm around her, give her a kiss, but it didn’t
help. It was like she was slipping away from me even as I held onto
her.

“You need to loosen
up!” One of the groupie girls elbowed Ana, her teasing tone laced
with venom. They clearly eyed her as competition, seeming none too
pleased she’d gotten first dibs on me. As the sun disappeared
behind the hills, so, too, did the groupie’s clothing. It came off,
piece by piece, until one only wore a bra, another went topless, and
another strutted around in just a G-string thong.

The less clothes the
groupies wore, the more Ana put on. The wilder and crazier they got,
cranking up the music and starting to dance and makeout with each
other, the more Ana huddled into a giant ski sweater and nursed a hot
cocoa. It was as if they were challenging her to a game of chicken,
and Ana’s response was to refuse to play at all.

I have to admit, I
wasn’t handling it well. The natural groove for me to fall into was
to join in the fun. That wasn’t going to happen, and not just
because I didn’t want to hurt Ana. I didn’t want to join in the
fun because it didn’t seem like it would be fun.

At a loss, I did what
dumb-ass guys do at dumb-ass parties. I sat on the couch with a beer
in my hand and a dumb-ass smile on my face. Connor heckled me like he
was president of a fraternity and I was a freshman pledge. When one
of the groupies started giving me a lap dance, I shifted her off of
me and apologized that I had to use the bathroom.

When I came out, I
found Ana furiously making pasta. She looked more boiling hot with
anger than the water bubbling away in the pot.

“Are you hungry?” I
gestured lamely to the giant pot. More of a cauldron, really. She
stirred her brew, not answering. “Are you making that for all of
us? You don’t have to do that, you know.” It looked like she had
enough pasta in there to feed an army.

She dumped a pile of
salt into her palm and threw it into the pot. Angry salt.

“It’s not like you
have to make everyone dinner,” I tried again, reaching out to
attempt to twine my fingers through hers.

She pulled away to
stir, like she needed two hands to do it. She was stirring pretty
vigorously. “I’m hungry,” she finally said. “It would be
childish to not make enough for everyone. It’s not like I’m doing
anything fancy.”

“OK.” I stepped
back, holding up my hands as if an officer had pulled me over to the
side of the road and told me to step out of the car.

“How did you like
your lap dance?” The look she gave me made me wish I was being
pulled over by a police officer. Or getting some serious dental work
done. Anything would be better than facing angry Ana.

“I wouldn’t say I
liked it.” I brought my hand to the back of my neck, which was
feeling pretty clammy. I glanced at the clock over the stove. Seven
o’clock. The night would eventually end at some point. And then,
tomorrow, we could get out of there.

“What do you say we
get out of here early tomorrow morning?” I asked her.

She nodded, staring at
the pasta. But then, finally, she looked up at me. “Yeah,” she
agreed. “I’d like that.”

I saw my opening and I
took it. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I tilted my head down so
I could nuzzle her hair.

“Ana, I’m sorry
they all came up here. We all own the cabin together so it’s their
place, too.”

She nodded again, still
somewhat stiff in my arms, but she didn’t pull away. I kissed her
cheek, her jaw, her throat and she actually started to lean into me.

“We can take off
early tomorrow,” I murmured. “We can head to S.F. I don’t even
feel like I’ve shown you my place yet.”

“No,” she agreed.
“Connor was there the last time.” And then she pulled away.

Shit, somehow I’d
managed to say the wrong thing. I’d reminded her of that afternoon
when Connor had made a pass at her in my hallway. Damn it, the two of
them were like oil and water. I’d have to figure that out. Some way
the two of them needed to co-exist. But right now I had to admit, I
felt exactly like Ana. I wanted to get away from it all, Connor
included.

I drifted between
rooms, lamely failing in different ways at each and every
interaction. Ana sat down and ate some pasta, her fork making angry
scraping noises against the plate. No one else said they were hungry
and she ended up dumping the remaining gooey lot of it into the trash
bin.

At eight thirty, Ana
declared she was going to bed.

“No shit?” Connor
looked at her, wide-eyed, like he’d never heard of such a thing.
“What time is it?”

“We’re going to
head out early tomorrow.” I shrugged, trying to take the spotlight
off of Ana.

As I went in to check
on her a few minutes later and steal a goodnight kiss, I heard
Connor’s teasing at my back. “She got you on a curfew, Ashie?
What happens if you’re a bad boy? Do you get an overdue fine?”

I laughed it off, but
my fists were clenched by my side.

“You all right?” I
asked Ana as she lay in bed, looking anything but.

“I’m fine.”

I sighed. This wasn’t
going well, but I didn’t see any way to make it right until we
could leave the next day. We weren’t all going to party hard all
night together like one, big happy family. And they weren’t
leaving. So, bedtime it was. Honestly, I wanted to join her.

Out in the other room
came a deafeningly loud crash. I winced. “Better go see what that
was all about.”

She nodded, looking
tense.

“I’m sorry.” I
looked down at her lamely, my apology like a thin, flimsy blanket
that didn’t quite cover the extremities. I didn’t know when
everything had gotten so complicated. It was like I’d been on
autopilot for years and now I found myself at the wheel, unable to
figure out how to drive the goddamned bus.

She nodded again and
closed her eyes. Out in the other room there was another crash and a
great boom of laughter.

I padded out in my bare
feet and sure enough, Connor was trying to swing on the giant antler
chandelier. Was I the only one who saw that ending in an emergency
room? I suddenly felt like the parent walking into a party filled
with crazy teenagers. And I kept right on feeling like a freaking
chaperone, sitting with them all but wondering who might O.D. and who
might not be 18 years old yet. Partying was a lot different when you
weren’t drunk or having sex or both.