Big Girls Do It on Top (2 page)

And let's say he invited you to New York because maybe, just maybe, he has feelings for you, too. And then some girls jumped him in the alley, and you walked out and saw something incriminating, and left without so much as a how-de-do. How would he feel, do you think?"

My stomach clenched. "Who the hell are you, and what did you do with my best friend? Because it sure as hell sounds like you're advocating a real relationship with actual feelings here."

Jamie kept her eyes on the road, both hands clenched on the steering wheel. I'd never seen Jamie use both hands to drive. She always had one hand on the gear shifter, even though her car was automatic.

"Listen, Anna. I know I'm like the all-time queen of humping and dumping guys. I act all 'fuck feelings' and whatever, and that's true enough. I mean, it's not an act. But, deep down, when I'm doing the walk of shame to my car at three a.m., I do wonder what it would be like to really have a guy care about me. Like, want me, and want me to stay over." She gave me long, sad look. "I find myself wondering what it would be like to have a guy want me for me, not just because I'm easy, you know?"

"You're not easy, Jay—"

"I am, too. I am and I like it that way. Usually. But sometimes, I wish a guy would see past the tits and ass. The problem is, I don't let them, because it keeps the ones who might feel something at bay."

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?"

She nodded, rubbing across her cheek with a forefinger. Almost like she was crying, which was absurd. Jamie didn't cry.

"Yeah, of course. More than I'd ever admit to." She looked at me, let me see the diamonds glittering in her eyes. "I'm just saying, Anna, if Chase was for real, then...I don't know. Maybe you should have given him a chance."

It was hard to breathe for a few minutes. This was the deepest Jamie had ever let me see into who she really was. I mean, best friends, yeah, but deepest, darkest, most vulnerable secrets? Not usually.

"It was more than that, Jay." I picked at the fraying seam threads of her leather seats between my thighs. "I was confused."

"Confused? By what?"

"I think...I thought—"

"Spit it out, sister."

I took a deep breath and said what I'd been worried about for days. "I have feelings for Jeff, too."

"Shit on a shingle."

"Exactly." I pulled my hair out of the ponytail and ran my fingers through it. "I think they both have feelings for me, too. Or...did. After leaving Jeff like I did, I'm not sure where that stands. I really made a mess of things."

Jamie took my hand and squeezed it. "When you said no one could compare to Chase in bed..."

I shook my head. "They're completely different. I don't know how to think about them at the same time, you know? It's like trying to compare apples and cheese."

"Apples and cheese go great together..." Jamie winked at me.

"Oh, hell no."

"It's never even crossed your mind?"

"Both of them at the same time?" I looked at her with horror. "You should know me better than that. I would never, could never, with
anyone
. Much less two men I care for. I don't know how you could do that and then look at either guy the same way again."

"You'd be surprised," Jamie said.

"You mean, you—?"

"ANYWAY," Jamie said, a little too loudly, "if they're so different, then it should make it easier to decide, right? Just pick the one you like sleeping with more."

"I wish it was that simple," I said. "I don't know how to explain it. Chase is wild. We do crazy things. Like...whoa. But Jeff? Jeff is just slow and sweet and...."

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "Keep going. Tell me about wild and crazy."

"Like, in the bathroom of a bar. And in a changing room. Tied up. Blindfolded."

"No fucking way. Blindfolded?" Jamie grinned at me, incredulous. "I've done it in public places before, no problem. Fun and risky, but whatever.

Old news, and gets uncomfortable, just like in cars. But, seriously? Blindfolded? Tied up? Tel me about it! What's it like?"

"Intense. Tied up requires serious trust. Even if you have a safeword, you have to trust him to listen if you use it. But god, is it hot. You have no idea what he's going to do next. You can't do anything back to him, you just have to lie there and let him do whatever he wants. He can make you wait for hours, if he has the patience. Blindfolded is different. Without sight, everything else is more vivid. Smell, hearing, touch..."

Jamie moaned and slid down low in her seat. "Okay, enough. You're making me horny and jealous. I don't have anyone I trust enough to do that with. Sounds incredible."

"It is."

"Soooo....what's the problem?"

"I didn't say there was a problem. I had no idea it could be like that. Just no clue."

"So, then, what about Jeff?"

I didn't answer for a long time. "With Jeff it's not as...exciting. Like, not as wild and unpredictable. But he's amazing, in his own way. It doesn't need to be crazy to be just completely satisfying, on a soul-deep level. He takes me places, emotionally and physically, where I didn't know two people could go together. It's just a totally different experience. I'm not sure I can describe it."

Jamie was silent for awhile. "So you have two amazing guys. Both have feelings for you, and you have feelings for both of them, but they're totally different."

"Basically. And I've messed it up with both of them. I mean, I'm not sold on Chase being innocent. But if he is...?"

"All you can do is make the best choice you can and try to fix things with whichever one you pick."

"It's a shitty choice. Whatever I do, someone gets hurt. And with Jeff, I'm not sure there's any picking left. I ran to New York to fuck Chase less than forty-eight hours after sleeping with Jeff. How does that not make me some kind of slut?"

"Beating yourself up won't help. And it wasn't like that."

"No? How was it then? I get a letter with a plane ticket. All the letter said was, 'I need to see you.' And I just went. Left Jeff just when things were getting interesting.

"By which you mean an emotional connection was starting?" Jamie said.

"Yeah, basically. I mean, with Jeff, I think there always was. I've known him for so long, and we know each other on a completely different level, you know? Jeff was my business partner, and besides you, my best and only other friend. Sleeping with him didn't change our friendship, really. It just...deepened it. At least, until I left. I don't know if there's anything left to go back to. He did send me an email saying he'd stil be my friend, but I don't know how far that goes. I really hurt him."

Jamie bit her lip. "He said that? In an email?"

I nodded. "Yeah. He sent it just after I left Detroit. I didn't see it until just now, though. I never really used my phone in New York."

"If he said that, that he's still your friend, then I'm willing to bet he's still in love with you. He'd give you a chance. I know Jeff well enough to know he'd probably forgive you."

"I'm not sure. And should he?"

"Of course he should. People do shitty things. You forgive them and move on."

"Is that why we never let anyone in? Because we forgive and move on?"

Jamie laughed. "Well, people that aren't us. We're messed up."

We rode in companionable silence for a while. We were nearly back to our apartment when Jamie spoke up again.

"So what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I really don't."

"Well, don't wait too long. The longer you put it off, the harder it'll get."

"Yeah, you're right." I agreed with her out loud, but inside, I was wondering if maybe I should just pretend nothing had happened. Get a job somewhere else, stop DJ-ing so I didn't have to see Jeff, and move on with my life, without either man.

It was the coward's way out, but it would be easier than dealing with Jeff's hurt eyes and hard silence.

* * *

I hid in my room for two days, then took some independent DJ-ing jobs. I drank too much with Jamie. I ignored the waning amount of texts from Chase.

Basically, I tried to pretend nothing had happened, or would happen. I don't know if Jeff even knew I was back in Detroit.

With every passing day I wanted more and more to see Jeff, if only to apologize. Being here, in my apartment, passing places where I'd DJ-ed with him, places where we'd had dinner before work...it all made me realize what I'd given up with him.

A week passed. Jamie held her tongue untill I was halfway through the second week.

"Anna, you're being a coward and an idiot," she told me over our second bottle of two-buck Chuck. "If you don't woman up and do something besides avoid the situation, we're gonna be fighting. For real."

"I can't, Jay. I don't know what to do."

"Not doing anything isn't an option. You're better than this. If you don't want to be with either of them, fine. I think that's stupid, but it's your choice. If you have two men in love with you, you
have
to pick one of them, I'd think. It's hard enough to get
one
guy to feel something for you besides 'I want to fuck you.'" Jamie frowned at me in irritation. "Girl, I'm telling you as your friend, if you don't
do something
, you're gonna wake up one day and realize you made the biggest mistake of your life."

Her eyes welled up and she looked away, downed her glass of chardonnay. I suspected she was speaking from experience, but this seemed to be deeper than we'd gone. We'd always been "have a good time and don't talk about the past" kind of friends.

"What was his name?" I asked.

Jamie didn't answer for a long time. When she did, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Brian. We met a few months after I graduated from high school. My brother had just gone to jail. He'd gotten caught after a heroin-induced series of B and E's. Mom was high all the time, Dad was off with one of his hooker girlfriends. I had no one. No one came to my graduation, no one cared that I was valedictorian, despite not having parents who gave a shit. I'd known Brian all through high school, but in an opposite sides of the same circle of friends kind of way. Then, one day, I was out on the tracks, smoking down, feeling sorry for myself, wondering what the hell my life meant. Brian showed up,  just swaggering down the tracks.

Long metal-band hair, all-black clothes, skin-tight jeans and combat boots and spiked bracelets, the whole bit. He saw me smoking, sat down next to me, and we shared the J together. Didn't talk until it was gone.

"He...he got me. Had a similar home situation, and we just kind of talked about it enough to realize we were like the same person, you know? I didn't feel as alone, suddenly. He turned into my best friend. My only friend. We were inseparable after that. I think I saw him every single day for, like, a year. It was just friendship at first. Then one day we got really high and split a forty. He had his own place with a buddy who was twenty-one, bought beer all the time. We lay in Brian's bed, smoking and drinking.

"I don't even remember how it happened. One second we were just blazing and talking and whatever, and then we were kissing and our clothes were off, and...it just happened. You know, I always call bullshit when people say, 'oh it was accident, it just happened.' And most of the time, it is bullshit. It was a choice, and you just chose not to stop it, because really, you wanted it, and the consequences didn't seem so bad in that moment.

But that night, with Brian, it really did just happen. I don't remember there ever being any sexual tension, or flirting, or whatever. It just...happened. I remember it all. Every sweet, incredible moment is burned into my brain forever.

"It freaked me the fuck out. I've got damage, Anna. You know that. I've got guy issues, and it all goes back to my dad not loving me or whatever.

I've had that shit psychoanalyzed dozens of times. Knowing why I've got issues doesn't make 'em go away. Well, Brian had mommy issues like I've got daddy issues, and together, it just made things impossible. He wanted to work it out, give it a try. We got each other, on a fundamental, emotional level. We didn't have to explain our walls and hot-button issues. And the sex was great. After that first time, we couldn't stop, you know?

We just kept fucking every chance we got. But it was never any deeper than that, as in we never talked about what our relationship was, or about our feelings. Well, when he finally confronted me on the issue, told me we had to either talk it out or stop seeing each other...I bolted.

"He chased after me for weeks. Called me, hunted me down wherever I went, told me loved me, wrote me songs. I pushed him away. Finally he took the hint and left me alone. Forever. And now, every day, I realize what a mistake I made. I should have let him love me, should've tried, shouldn't have been such a goddamned coward. It's too late, though. I tried. I looked for him, and I actually found him, but he'd gotten engaged to this great girl, and he was happy and just looked at me all sad, like, 'Too late, baby. Your loss.'"

Jamie had never talked about herself that much at once in al the time I've known her. She stood up and left, went into the bathroom and stayed there for a long time. Crying, probably. Getting it out in private.

When she came back, her eyes were red but she was back to normal. "Anyway, all that with Brian is the reason I am like I am. My therapist used to tel me the reason I go through guys like I do is because I'm looking for Brian, or someone like him."

"Is that why?" I asked.

She nodded. "Pretty much. I mean, do I look at every guy I go out with and ask myself if he's like Brian, or compare them to see if he matches up to Brian? No, not consciously. But I think down deep, subconsciously or whatever, I dismiss the guy before I've given him a chance just because he's not Brian and never will be. The problem is, Brian is gone. No one will ever be him. Someday I'm going to have to let go of him and my idea of a guy based on him. I think maybe I keep hoping some man will come along and just sweep me away, but so far, it hasn't happened, and I'm starting to wonder if it ever will."

"Let me ask you something, Jay. If a guy did come along who was somehow just different from all the others, would you let him sweep you away?