The Funny Thing Is - 15. ...You Always Get What You Deserve

The Funny Thing Is… You Always Get What You Deserve

We’ve all heard of Karma. You get what you pay for. You reap what you sow. We’ve all had those moments of overwhelming clarity where it seems like we have more than we deserve. The smiles around us, the hugs and kisses, the happiness that we’ve somehow amassed is far greater than any good deed we’ve ever done. And then there’s that moment when you do get what you deserve. And in that moment, you get exactly what you bargained for.

I can point at very few events in my entire life that had made me as nervous as having dinner with Kyle and Winston. My wedding was one, graduation, another. Peppered across my forty years on t his earth was only a handful more.

“Cooper, you look amazing,” Chase said, sitting on my bed and watching me try on my seventh outfit in twenty-five minutes.

“Do you think the jeans are too casual?” I asked, looking down at my pants. They were dark, slim, and expensive.

“I didn’t realize we were going to the Oscar awards,” was Chase’s only response. He had been dressed for half an hour, and I knew we were verging on being inappropriately late, but the last thing I wanted to do was be one-upped by Winston before dinner even began.

I had been obsessing over this dinner for the better part of twenty-four hours. After waking up early on Saturday to drive CJ to the dojo, we spent the morning working out because I was convinced I could lose a few pounds before dinner. Chase came with me to pick CJ up, and the three of us had a great lunch.

I had to bite my tongue several times to keep from telling CJ his mom planned on moving him to the windy city. I knew that revelation would be met with language deemed inappropriate in public, and I wanted us to tell them together.

After lunch, we dropped CJ back at the Highland house. When he asked if I was coming in, I made up an excuse and that was the end of it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon preparing. I lugged Chase around the flagship Neiman Marcus for an hour, spending more money than I needed to on a new blazer, a new pair of jeans, and several designer button-down options, none of which seemed right when I put them on at home. I debated jeans or slacks. Tie, or no tie. Anticipating what Kyle and Winston would wear was an impossible task, so it wasn’t until Chase finally told me I looked good in the jeans and simple black polo that hugged my waist and magically highlighted my arms— and that we needed to leave if we planned on getting there— did I put everything away and follow him out.

“You look extraordinary,” he said, locking the front door behind us.

“Yeah, yeah, you have to say that,” I replied. He planted a wet kiss on my lips as he pulled me by the small of my back towards his brand new black Audi.

“Do I have to do that?” he asked.

I gave him a smirk.

“I wonder if you spend that long getting ready for our dates.”

“Of course I do, babe. Even longer sometimes.”

“Sure,” he joked.

It was a dynamic of our relationship that hadn’t changed since we first started dating: the driving situation. Neither of us was particularly more dominant than the other in bed. We didn’t have a traditional top/bottom relationship. In fact, Chase and I were almost completely balanced.

And yet, anytime we went somewhere together, without a single exception, he drove the car. I couldn’t figure out how we’d fallen into that pattern, but we’d never broken out of it. And that night was no different.

As we made the short drive to the West End district where Kyle’s historic downtown loft took up almost an entire city block, I answered a call from Bass. Without even realizing that I had done it, I shushed Chase midsentence and took the call.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I’m having dinner with Kyle and Winston.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun,” he said with more sarcasm than I could catch in my hand. “Well never mind then.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“No reason,” he replied. “It’s just the girls went out, and CJ is spending the night here. I figured maybe you’d want to come over and drink the night away while our boys play some sort of violent video game.”

“I’d love that, but…”

“But you have dinner with Winston and Kyle. I’d say that’s pretty important.”

There was an awkward pause, and then Bass continued.

“Britney told me about Chicago.”

“Did she?”

“Yeah,” he said with a tone of sympathy in his voice. “She’s not happy about it. Neither is Mike.”

“We haven’t told our kids yet,” I said quickly.

“Coop, I think they know,” he replied. Chase must have noticed the look of confusion that went over my face because he cleared his throat as he made his way onto the I-35 Frontage road.

“What?”

“Well Mike and CJ have been talking about it. And Mike was on the phone with Liz for hours last night.”

“They have a midnight phone curfew,” I mumbled, ignoring the real problem. I had held off telling the kids about Chicago because I wanted to be fair to Devon. Evidently my ex had no intention of being fair to me.

The thing that grated me was that I knew how it had gone down. She’d probably taken CJ out to dinner and ice cream at his favorite spot. Maybe the two of them had gone to the electronic store to pick up a cartful of brand new games and movies. I could see her bribing him with all sorts of shiny new gadgets.

With Liz, the coercion would have been much simpler: clothes. I’m sure my daughter was furious at first, but the fact that ‘the girls’ were having a night out meant that Devon was laying it on thick.

I wasn’t so much upset that she’d told them without me. I was upset by the fact that she’d told them first, and therefore she was winning.

“Um, listen,” Bass added. “I think you should know the girls are planning a trip to Chicago next weekend. Devon asked me to watch CJ while they’re gone.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I replied, realizing her timing was perfect. The following week was Liz’s bye week and she wouldn’t have to cheer. What better way to get her onboard than flying her off to Chicago, first class, to look for a homecoming dress or something.

I ended the phone call with Sebastian by telling him that if indeed the girls did go off to Chicago the following week, I’d take CJ for the weekend. He agreed, told me to have a good time at dinner, and said he’d call if he learned anything else.

I hung up the phone, ready to vent to Chase, before I realized it wasn’t the time. I needed to be at my best for this dinner, and as inopportune as the time was, getting rattled by news that was a week from materializing wasn’t going to help either situation.

“Sounds like things are serious,” Chase said when I clicked my phone off. “Everything okay?”

“Um, it’ll be fine,” I said, firmly indicating that I didn’t want to talk about it.

“I hope so,” he said, pulling into the one-way street that led to Kyle’s parking garage. “By the way, you totally shushed me for that phone call.”

He said it with an obvious humor, and I appreciated what he was doing. He knew that there was nothing I could do at the moment to fix my situation, and there was even less I could do to get the situation out of my mind. He was distracting me, and it worked.

“I didn’t shush you,” I replied.

“You definitely did,” he said. “And I don’t appreciate it.”

As he parked and turned off the car, I slapped him across the shoulder.

“You’re such a baby,” I joked.

“You’re a rude shusher,” he said as we exited the car.

“Shush, please,” I replied. “Save the whine for cocktail hour inside.”

“Oh, I’m getting you back for that one,” he said. He pulled me towards him by the small of my back, and locked our lips together.

“Nice payback,” I said, wiping my lip as we walked towards Kyle’s private entrance.

“Oh, I’m not done,” he replied, pinching me just under my rib cage. I squealed and then giggled. We were still giggling and threatening each other when Winston opened the door.

A rush of awkwardness slapped me across the face.

“Hi,” I exhaled, extending a hand towards the door. Winston looked down at it before he shook it.

“Welcome,” he said. “Come on in.”

I noticed two things immediately as Chase and I entered the apartment and took off our jackets. The first was the strong smell of Thai basil, coconut milk, and saffron that perfumed the air. It was like I’d walked into Taj, the premiere four-star Southeast Asian restaurant on Mockingbird Lane.

The second thing I noticed was the décor. The apartment wasn’t drastically different than when I’d seen it about a week before. But there were definitely touches of accoutrements that were decidedly not Kyle’s. Little touches of Winston were sprinkled around the place, that I noticed immediately.

Winston led us into the apartment where Kyle was pouring Prosecco into what I hoped was an already potent punch.

“Hey,” he said cheerfully. “I was starting to think ya’ll wouldn’t make it.”

His good mood meant one thing, and one thing only. He’d already started drinking.

“Well this one here couldn’t settle on an outfit,” Chase sold me out, approaching the bar, and shaking Kyle’s free hand. “I think he tried on every single shirt in his closet.”

“All twelve thousand,” Kyle joked. I chuckled awkwardly.

“Don’t worry, Kyle’s the same way,” Winston said. I noticed him eye me as I circled the bar to give Kyle a hug. I followed the quick hug up by grabbing two glasses and intercepting a full bottle of sparkling wine. “It takes him forever to pick any outfit out, you’d think he were going to a gala every single day.”

I poured drinks as the other two continued to talk about Kyle and me. I felt really awkward right off the bat, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Kyle was being friendly but lukewarm towards me. Winston’s usually steeliness was in perfect check, and Chase was effortlessly charming the pants of everyone in the room, even Kyle.

It took me one drink and one saffron infused donut from Madame Ma’ams to realize that the only awkward one left was me.

“Cooper?” Kyle asked, snapping me out of my realization.

“Huh?”

“I was just telling Winston about the publishing process. Pre-sale starts up next month, right?”

“Um, yeah,” I replied, trying to get back into the conversation. “Um, pre-sale, or soft sale, to gauge awareness. Then the marketing campaign kicks up into high gear.”

“By Christmas, his poster will be all over every brick and mortar bookstore in town.”

“Oh no. Just the one that’s left,” I joked. I sipped my drink slowly and forced myself to engage in the conversation.

“So I’m going to finish setting the table, and then we can eat,” Kyle said, springing up after a few minutes of tepid conversation. “Cooper, will you help me please?”

I followed him into the kitchen and leaned on the counter as he pulled crisp white plates from his display rack.

“What’s up with you?” he asked as I followed him into the formal dining room that sat eight but was set for four.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re super quiet. You keep spacing out. Chase is carrying the conversation in there. It isn’t like you.” I followed behind Kyle adjusting the silverware on each place setting.

“I guess I have a lot on my mind,” I said, still not fully committed to listening to Kyle.

“Well, cut it out,” he said as he dropped the last plate on to the table. “This is your chance to smooth things over with Winston. He’s going to be a part of my life for the rest of my life and I want you two to get it together. Can you do that for me?”

“I am trying to do exactly that, Kyle,” I said. We set the rest of the table in painful silence.

The question came somewhere between Thai fried rice with shrimp, and ginger pineapple ice cream.

“So Cooper,” Winston asked in his easy breezy tone, which, to his credit, hadn’t been as grating as it normally was. “What are your plans post-divorce?”

I snapped my head in his direction as I brought a spoonful of spicy and sweet gelato to my lips.

“I’m sorry?” I asked. I could feel Chase’s eyes on me.

“Kyle’s been telling me about the proceedings. It seems like things are moving rather swimmingly,” Winston added. I looked at Kyle, cutting me eyes towards him. I had bottled up so much that night that I couldn’t help the following attitude from oozing all over the table.

“So he didn’t tell you that my ex-wife plans on moving my entire family to Chicago, did he?”

“Cooper,” Chase whispered.

“He asked,” I snapped back.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea that was happening…”

Several quips ran through my mind. Some were mild and harmless. Others were cutting, and simply cruel. I could have attacked his lack of communication with Kyle. I could have hinted at secrets between his fiancé and myself. I could have dug deep and come up with something that would have pissed off the other three people at dinner.

And if Chase wasn’t sitting next to me with his hand firmly places on my left thigh, I might have.

“How would you have known?” I exhaled. I shook it off and finally took the bite of my ice cream that had been shaking in the air next to my face.

“Well whatever the case is,” Winston assured. “Kyle is doing everything he can to get up to speed on current divorce code.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, addressing Winston but looking at Kyle.

“Yours is the first divorce case Kyle has taken on by himself since his sixth or seventh year at the firm,” Winston said. Kyle stood up as he spoke.

“Does anyone else want some more Moscato?” he asked.

“That’s impossible. Kyle represented Mayor Street through his divorce last year. And Councilman Abbey.”

“He was on the legal team, sure. But there’s a divorce specialist at Wriggs and Streck that handles the nitty gritty. He’s doing yours himself.”

I fell into the trap like baby antelope in a field full of hungry lions. I could feel the hand that was clutching Chase’s ease ever so slightly as I followed Kyle’s eyes out of the room.

Winston went on to explain that as head council for all of those guys, Kyle was involved in the proceedings, but he’d yet to try a divorce in ages until mine came along. How he described it so nonchalantly didn’t sound like a fiancé who was upset at the time spent.

There was something missing in his voice. Contempt.

Where I expected to hear tired jealousy or resentment towards me, I didn’t. Winston was as cool as the cucumber salad that we’d had for dinner.

If Winston had asked Kyle to back out of my divorce, why was he describing all of the work Kyle was doing to get up to speed on divorce code without a hint of anger? It didn’t add up and it confused me.

“Well Kyle has always been the best at everything, so if anyone can figure out a way to keep my kids here, it’ll be him,” I said just as the man of the hour returned with more wine for the table. I returned my hand to Chase’s, and changed the subject to Fantasy Football leagues, a subject I knew would keep Winston and Chase talking for hours.

As I made eye contact with Kyle, I tilted my head, and asked the million dollar question with my eyes.

Why?

He had the entire firm at disposal. He could have shipped my divorce off to a million other lawyers if he didn’t know what he was doing. Instead, according to Winston, he was up most nights reading on current code and different decisions in preparation for everything I was about to go through. Part of me wanted to be upset, but Kyle hadn’t let me down yet. From what I knew about my friend, he could figure out anything and he was giving me the best legal service money could buy.

As the two others in our lives carried their conversation from football to athletic pay in general, I helped Kyle clear out the dining room.

“Is what Winston said true?” I asked.

“He’s exaggerating the number of man hours, I promise,” Kyle answered.

“It isn’t something you have to do,” I said firmly. He dropped several plates into a half filled sink.

“It isn’t a big deal, really. I aced divorce law in college. It’s like riding a bike,” he said. He looked at me with a weak smile and I knew it was time to change the topic, but I couldn’t quite let it go.

“It’s just… I would expect Winston to be a little bit more bothered by the fact that you’re teaching yourself divorce law just for me.”

Kyle stopped rinsing dishes, turned the water up to full blast, and turned to face me.

“What do you want to know?”

“You said this was about getting him to like me. He’s been super sweet. At brunch he was sweet. That’s not the face of a pissed off fiancé,” I said matter-of-factly.

“And?” Kyle asked.

“And I think this dinner was arranged partly because you wanted to know if me and Chase were headed towards happily ever after, not Winston. The guy has you where he wants you; he couldn’t care less where I am in the picture.”

I realized that my voice was elevated and that everything I’d suppressed all through dinner was coming out.

“You are so full of yourself it drives me fucking crazy,” Kyle whispered in a tone fit for a yell.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I said, matching his tone and his decibel level. “Tell me this isn’t about you needing to see for yourself if I’ve really moved on.”

“Because I can’t possibly unless you have? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, that’s what you said, Mr. Smith,” I said, holding my bitterness for the last two words. “You know what I think?” I added, unable to stop myself. I’d been walking on egg shells while my world crashed around me for far too long, and unfortunately Kyle was in line to get the wrath. With my filter gone, I told him the theory that had just formed inside of my mind.

“I think that you’re a scared little bitch,” I said. “I think you’re doing the exact same fucking thing you did the first time we broke up, only this time the prize is city hall and not a spot on the Sigma rush list. You had your fucking chance, Kyle, and you blew it.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I was ready to take that step with you, and then what? You go and get engaged. You did that. So don’t use my relationship as your barometer of permission to move on.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Then tell me what the hell it’s about,” I shouted. “Why am I here? If Winston isn’t the slightest bit upset over our friendship, then tell me why you dragged me and Chase out here to be your little puppet show?”

Kyle didn’t answer, and if I’d taken the time to listen, I would have known that the other two had stopped their conversation to hear what was happening in the kitchen. I lowered my voice to just below a whisper.

“It’s the exact same now as it was back then. You flip-flop and you never decide what it is that you want until everyone else has moved on. And then when you’re left with one option, you play the victim so well. Tell me. Tell me what would have happened tonight if Chase and I had shown up and we weren’t perfect for each other? Tell me that, please?”

Kyle took a long pause and I realized I was spot on in my diagnosis. It was freshman year all over again. Just when I was ready to commit to Kyle, he flipped the switch and I found out he’d used me to get to the Sigmas. No amount of justification was sufficient. And only when I’d moved on from him did he bother sleeping with Rusty, killing two birds with one stone.

“I guess I don’t have to answer that anymore, do I?”

I shook my head, and moved to wipe my hand on a dish towel. As I slid it over the counter, I caught the edge of one of Kyle’s prep knives and it dug into my skin.

“Ouch,” I said, pulling my hand up to my lips and sucking on the little drop of blood.

“Here,” Kyle said, moving quickly. He picked up a towel and pressed it firmly on my hand, making eye contact as he did. It was a simple gesture, but one that obviously had an effect on me. I tried to get my hand back.

“I think we should go,” I whispered. Kyle continued to stare at me, applying pressure to my hand. And then I felt him pull my arm towards him. I didn’t dare break eye contact, but I knew I had to do something. As our magnetic pull drew us closer together, I pulled my hand away from Kyle and turned my head.

“I think we should go,” I repeated. I dried my hand off, made sure the bleeding had stopped and circled around Kyle, through the short corridor, and found Winston and Chase sipping coffee and chatting away.

“Hey, babe,” I said, swallowing whatever that had been with Kyle. “I, um. We should go. It’s getting late.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Winston said with a smile. “We were just chatting. Y’all are welcome to stay.”

“I actually have a very early morning,” I replied. “And I hate to be the party pooper, but I’d really like to go.”

Chase put down his coffee cup just as Kyle appeared behind me. He looked at me for a split second and then back at Kyle.

“Yeah,” Chase said with a sigh. “Um… let me grab our coats.”

He sprang up, and walked to the side closet as I shook Winston’s left hand. I turned around to give Kyle a hug, and he simply shrugged at me.

“We’ll file that motion with the judge tomorrow and I’ll call you about when to appear next,” he said in a professional tone. I nodded, shook his hand awkwardly, grabbed my coat from Chase, and retreated.

Chase and I drove home silently for the first five minutes. I wanted to ask how he liked Winston, what he felt about the dinner, and other things, but my brain was incapable of forming a thought.

“I slept with Kyle,” I blurted out as we approached highway 75. We were less than three minutes from home, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Just now?” Chase asked, the car swerving just a little.

“Oh, God no. No. Before. When I was pissed off at you and you hit me.”

“Cooper.”

“I’m sorry I lied before. I thought it would be easier to not tell you, but then…”

“But then what?” he asked. His voice was clearly accusatory and I didn’t like it.

“And then nothing,” I almost shouted. “I just… I know how you were looking at me at Kyle’s and I needed to tell you.”

“Did something happen?” I didn’t respond in time. He hit the breaks and I looked up to see that we were coming to the last red light before my apartment.

“Cooper, did something else happen?”

“Nothing happened,” I said. “I slept with him one time, and it wasn’t a big deal. He was just being a friend when you left. Kyle and I are so over, and it hasn’t been more obvious than it was tonight.”

I looked him right in the eye as we waited for the light to turn green. I was speaking from the bottom of my heart at that point. Nothing had happened, and the fact that it could have at my bequest made me realize that I could get over Kyle. I’d done it once and I was well on my way to doing it again.

But I feared for my friend. I wanted him to be happy. I felt like he deserved to be happy, after all that I had put him through. And I wasn’t sure where that happiness would come from, or with whom, but I was finished standing in the way of it.

I watched Chase’s face soften. He was cute when he was upset. His face deepened and the intensity caused his eyes to darken a shade. He turned his head and focused on the road. I took his free hand in mine, and let him drive home.

My goal when we got home was to take full advantage of Chase’s intensity. I followed him into the bedroom and helped him peel his shirt off. Without saying anything, I ran my hands down his back and felt his whole being soften in front of me.

“I love you, Mr. Pallendrino,” I said with confidence directly into his ear. As I said the words, Chase sort of melted into my arms. He let his head hang back and I kissed the length of his neck seductively.

After that simple move, I had an instant boner for the guy I could comfortably say was the love of my life. He turned around and kissed me deeply as our dicks ground together. Within minutes we were standing at the foot of my bed, rock solid, and naked.

Minutes after that, he was lying perfectly inside my outstretched legs, kissing me deeply, and rubbing his long body across mine. He didn’t miss a single beat as he reached behind him and guided my dick right into the entrance of his ass, panting softly into my mouth.

I felt my cock ease into his tight asshole so effortlessly, I thought I might lose it right then and there. There was a comfort holding Chase on top of me. A familiarity that brought back the best days of my life.

As soon as his ass adjusted to my dick, the romanticism stopped, and the animalistic need to fuck took over. It was almost like Chase was marking his territory after my little announcement, proving that he could do it better than Kyle ever could.

I’m not going to lie, the comparison went through my mind as he sat up and rode me, using my chest as leverage. He bounced up and down impossibly for a guy towering over six feet tall, allowing me to appreciate every single muscle on his perfectly sculpted physique.

To say that Chase could fuck like a champion would be a severe understatement. One second, he was outstretched before me, and the next second he was diving into my face with his tongue. The moves he made with his body excited me at every level.

By the time I was ready to shoot, I knew that we were both in for it. My body tensed up first, and I felt my cum boil from deep down inside. I lost myself as my load traveled through me, igniting every single nerve ending on my body, and causing an eruption like none other. Had the guy on top of me not been 6’2’’ and a healthy 190 pounds, I’m sure my shot would have sent him to the roof.

And as soon as my toes curled, I felt the telltale signs of Chase’s monster orgasm build within him as well. Before I could finish screaming my own moans, the first shot of his cum hit me right on the chest. The second shot went well passed that and grazed my ear. Shots three and four landed somewhere just below my face, and by the time he was done, I was covered in his seed.

When we were both able to breathe again, he pulled off of me and took his place behind me, enveloping me in all of his sweaty stickiness. I knew a shower was out of the question and I’d have to live with his cum on me all night. There were worse ways to sleep, I thought.

“Who was better?” Chase yawned into my ear.

“Huh?” I asked trying to understand what he meant.

“Who was better? Me or Kyle?”

I knew it, I thought. If there was ever a way to guarantee your lover would pull out his best moves, it was to confess that you’d slept with your ex during a period of time he wasn’t allowed to fault you for.

“Is that what you were doing just then? Showing off?”

“I can’t have you going back to that,” he said, pulling me in even closer. His cum was starting to dry on my chest and I thought about how I was going to escape for a quick rinse off.

“What? I had to step it up to erase the competition from your mind,” he joked.

“Are you kidding?” I said, turning around and kissing him quickly. I decided to play with his emotions for a while. “There was no competition. Kyle came, saddled up, and came again.”

I slipped out of the bed and pulled my robe on. I heard Chase follow me out and to the bathroom. He bit down on my shoulder as I ran the hot water, and to prove he was better than the competition, we fucked again in the shower, and again on the bed, relegating our shower utterly useless.

The next day was a master class in anger management. Devon called around eleven in the morning, just as Chase was waking up to make us breakfast.

“I told the kids about Chicago,” she said into the phone.

“Okay,” I replied.

“Do you want to say anything?”

I thought about it. Of course I did, but it wasn’t the time. I wanted to sit them down and tell them that it wasn’t one or the other. There had to be a solution to all of this, and I wanted us to come up with one as a family.

“Yeah, I do,” I replied. “I think they should know that they have options.”

“Cooper,” she began.

“No, Dev, they do. They have plenty of options.”

“I’m not separating them; that’s not an option.”

“I don’t want that either,” I said, letting the tail end of that sentence dangle.

“But…”

“But, I’m not letting them go, Devon.”

She didn’t respond to that. She could hear the fight in my voice. I would do what needed to be done, and she knew it. There was dirt that I had promised not to dig that could be brought out. Kyle, albeit inexperienced in divorce, was a brilliant attorney. I could fight her and make this hell, and I was beginning to think that she was beginning to realize that.

“Maybe we should talk to our attorneys before we do anything else,” she said finally. “I don’t want this to be harder on them than it needs to be.”

“This is going to be hard,” I assured her. “No matter how you slice it, it will be hard.”

I told Devon that I would watch CJ the following weekend, and then hung up the phone, thinking about what Chase and I had talked about before. Separating them would kill us all. CJ and Liz weren’t the closest, but they’d shown in the past few months that they were a unit. CJ relied on Liz and Liz balanced CJ. As much as they bickered and argued, they needed each other, especially through all of this confusion.

I knew from the get go it was either all or nothing. Devon would go with everyone I cared about or she’d go with no one. There was no middle road, and I knew it.

I called Kyle after brunch and asked him if he could meet that night. He said he was in the office swimming in campaign stuff.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you last night,” I said, trying to see if the air between us was still murky. We had a pretty good bounceback on fights, but I wondered if anything I had said had struck a chord.

“We’re fine,” Kyle said assuredly. Without skipping a beat, he continued. “I’m planning on announcing next Saturday night and you better be at the cocktail party,” he threatened.

“Where is it?”

“At the uptown Hilton,” he replied, sounding distant and distracted.

“Fancy,” I replied.

“Yeah. Um. Listen, just swing by whenever today if you want to talk about your divorce.” His voice sounded off. It was more upbeat than it had been recently, and I wondered why. I was used to dealing with Kyle on a level of semi-melancholia, and this, even from a guy swimming in work, was off pitch.

I spent the day lounging about with Chase, trying not to think about the fact that I could be losing my kids very soon. I told him I was meeting with Kyle to plan our strategy for the custody battle.

“Maybe I should sex you up a couple of times so that you don’t get the urge to compare and contrast again,” he smiled, pulling me close to him on the couch.

“You really think you can sex me to my limit?” I asked.

“I would enjoy trying,” he laughed.

Instead of sexing me senseless, I agreed to go with Chase on his weekend workout. First stop was Gold’s Gym downtown, where Chase evidently knew everyone and their mother. We hit cardio pretty hard and heavy, and then it was off to the rowing machine, where we worked on chest and arms in tandem.

When we finally got off, after rowing what could have been the length of the Indian Ocean, I thought surely it was off to the sauna and then home.

Instead, when I zigged, Chase zagged, and it was off to the pool.

“I should have known,” I mumbled. I swam exactly three laps before my arms gave out.

“Listen, babe,” I called when he stopped to see why I’d gotten out. “I have to shower and swing by Kyle’s before it gets to be too late.”

It was only three o’clock.

“I’ll see you at home.”

I heard myself say it. It didn’t sound awkward or unnatural, just… different. It was like my feelings towards Chase had crept up slowly this time, as opposed to hitting me in the face like an eighteen wheeler.

“I’ll see you at home,” he smiled, getting the gravity of what I’d said.

I showered at the gym, and since I was already on that side of town, I took a cab to Wriggs and Streck, calling Spencer on the way.

“How was the dinner from hell?” he asked before even saying hello.

“It was fine,” I replied. “Actually, surprisingly fine. I just… Winston wasn’t bad. He was nice to me.”

“No way,” Spencer said. “Did he let you carve the turkey?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I dunno. Maybe Kyle’s plan worked,” Spencer said. “Maybe he could tell you were really over it.”

Yeah, but could he tell that his fiancé wasn’t?

I spilled more details about the dinner before Spence segued into the details of Kyle’s announcement party. I took a deep breath when the cab pulled up to the opulent offices, told Spence I was going in, and then hung up.

“Come in,” Kyle said with a smile when I got to his office. He had stacks of folders on his desk and what looked like even more ready to be opened on the floor behind his desk. He led me to a seat on the couch.

“Okay, so I’ve written up the brief. We’ll file first thing. There’ll probably be a hearing on Tuesday or Wednesday, so keep your calendar open. Because she’s set to leave in the near future, I doubt she’ll try to delay the proceedings.”

“If she moves before the proceedings are over? Is that some sort of parental kidnapping?”

“Yes and no. We can file it, but we’ll lose. Because of the temporary divorce order, she can technically do whatever she wants. There’s an addendum in the brief requesting the temporary order be repealed, and if that happens, she will have to stay in the state.”

“What’s our best case here?” I asked, matching Kyle’s professionalism the best I could.

“Honestly? We’re hoping the judge will want to hear from the kids and that they say they’d rather die than go to Chicago. That’s the best you can hope for.”

It sounded attainable, I thought. An uphill climb for sure, but not totally out of the scope of possibility.

I took a deep breath, nodded my understanding. I sat back, softening my war stance.

“Okay,” I said. “It sounds like we have a plan. I should let you get back to work and home to your fiancé before he forgets what you look like.”

“There is no fiancé,” Kyle said as I started to stand up. I almost lost my footing as I looked down at him, trying to decide if I’d heard him correctly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there is no fiancé,” he said without the slightest bit of sadness. “I broke it off with Winston right after y’all left last night.”

“Kyle…”

“No, no. It’s a good thing,” he said confidently. “Trust me, it’s a good thing. I just…”

“What happened?”

He shook his head slightly, trying to maintain the hardness in his face. “I don’t know. I just… it’s hard enough being in love with somebody you can’t have, without pretending to love someone you can.”

The sentence shot straight through my heart. All the guilt I’d ever felt at breaking Kyle’s heart flooded into me like a dam overflowing. I knew he didn’t mean it to be malicious or mean. He was Kyle. He was being honest.

“Kyle, I’m really sorry,” I whispered. He stood up.

“I’m not. I don’t need Winston to win this thing. I don’t need a guy to be happy right now. I deserve someone who makes me as happy as Chase makes you, Cooper. That’s the bottom line.”

Without another word, Kyle crossed to his desk and went effortlessly back to work. I didn’t realize I was crying until I got outside and tried to hail a cab. I sniffed in, wondering where exactly I had gone wrong to screw someone up so terribly. I wanted Kyle to be happy. I desperately wanted for him to be happy, but I couldn’t think of a way to achieve that without sacrificing any more of myself.

As I rode home in a sweat smelling cab, I tried futilely to ease my guilt. I wouldn’t have been so upset over his breaking up with Winston had I not thought he was actually moving on that time around. Had we not had that fling, in which I fell just as hard as he did—if not harder—I wouldn’t have cared so much that Kyle was still alone.

But I couldn’t help but feel like it was my fault.

When I got home, Chase was already there, preparing two steaks on the patio grill. Potatoes boiled on the stove, and his smile welcomed me in like I was actually coming home to a home, and not just an empty apartment.

This was the life I could get used to. But it wasn’t the life that I deserved.

“Hey babe,” he said when I pulled the sliding door to the patio back. I smiled weakly at him and barely returned his kiss.

“What’s wrong?” he asked almost immediately. He could tell I was upset and that I’d been crying. He knew I was carrying some sort of burden on my shoulders, and for that I felt bad.

“I lied to you last night,” I heard myself say as if I was outside of my body. “When you left and Kyle and I slept together, it wasn’t just the once to get over you. It wasn’t just a physical thing. Um. I fell in love with him Chase.”

I stammered the words with as much confidence as I could muster, which wasn’t much. The confession was weal, but I had to get it off my chest. It was a life I didn’t deserve, and because of that, something had to be done.

“And I think I still might love him.”