Losing Control (12 page)

If I had to tell you about last night, I wouldn’t say I was drunk exactly.

No.

Because
out of my freaking mind!
would be a
much
better description.

I woke up in a bed that I’d never been in before. I couldn’t remember much until I remembered Thorne.

What the
hell
did I do, did I sleep with him? Oh God! I remembered then what happened at the club, looking at him and feeling like I was seeing him for the first time. I remembered being somehow mesmerized by his lips and wanting to kiss them…And then, I looked at myself and I was wearing my own clothes, the same ones I was wearing last night. Does having clothes on mean we didn’t fuck? But I was about to kiss him, wasn’t I? Of course that would have been a
huge
drunken mistake because you couldn’t have a one night stand with your boss and get away with it! While I was trying to move my head in a way that it didn’t hurt, my suddenly-intelligent brain started to think. There were no discarded trousers in the room, no sign that either of us had shed our clothing at any point, which I decided
had
to be a good sign. Before I could think further, Thorne came into the room with what looked like a breakfast tray.

“You passed out before I could ask you your address,” he said. “So I brought you here. This is my loft.”

“So we didn’t—?”

“Are you disappointed?” he said, coming to sit on the bed. “Because if you are, I’m sure we can remedy that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that—” I didn’t have a clue what I was going to say next so I stopped myself from making it worse, “never mind.”

He handed me coffee. “This should help,” he said. “So will some greasy food.”

The breakfast looked so good, sitting there in front of me but I just wasn’t sure I could put food into the drunken morning hangover equation.

“I hope it’s okay that I brought you here,” Thorne spoke again. “I couldn’t find Penny or any of your friends.”

“Yes,” I said. “Penny does that sometimes. Hooks up with guys and then forgets I even exist until the walk of shame next morning.”

As if on cue, my phone started to ring and I saw that it was on the nightstand, almost out of juice. “Speak of the devil,” I said, when I answered.

“Where the
fuck
are you?” Penny yelled right into my eardrum.

“Where the fuck am I, Penny? Where the fuck were you?”

She quieted down when she remembered. “Oh shit,” she said. “I forgot you last night, didn’t I?”

“You think?”

“Oh Elena I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hooked up with this really awesome guy…” she said and then paused, “wait a second. I’m in our apartment and you’re not here. Where did you spend the night?”

I had to make something up spur of the moment. This is one thing I don’t think I should be telling her just yet. I didn’t want her to worry especially when there was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t as though Thorne and I had actually slept together. Now
that
would have been an actual problem. “You think you’re the only one who can have one night stands?” I said with a confidence that I didn’t feel inside.

Even Thorne looked surprised.

“Holy shit,” Penny sniggered. “You skank! Who’d you finally give your post-breakup virginity to?”

“No one you need to remember,” I said.

“That bad?”

“You have no idea!”

Great. So not only did I have to make up a guy, I also had to make up shitty sex details about him. And then I made some silly excuse to make her go away so I could deal with the hangover and Thorne.

“I was fine with the one-night-stand bit,” Thorne said when I placed the phone down. “But no one you need to remember? Ouch.”

“Look I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t want to give her any ideas. We work together and I live with her. I don’t want things to get awkward when they don’t have to be.”

“It’s fine, Elena. I get it.”

He picked up his own coffee cup and drank from it. “So,” he said. “What has Nick done to bother you this badly?”

“He’s been sending me those weird texts,” I told him. “Telling me that this isn’t over. That he’s going to make me reconsider. Last night he texted me that I shouldn’t trust anyone. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking him that?”

“Yeah but for that I would have to confront him, which is not something I want to do just yet.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think you might have made a mistake in leaving Nick?”

Why does he want to know?

“That’s an odd question to ask.”

“Is it?” he became apologetic. “You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s alright I don’t mind,” I said. “Look, Thorne I was with him for seven years. I know what he is and I know exactly what he’s capable of. He was never the right person for me and that’s not something that I just found out. I always knew that.”

“Four years is a long time to be with someone that you know isn’t the right person for you.”

“I thought he was the right person,” I told him. “I thought that deep down he loved me. I took his words for granted. It was much later that I found out he had been cheating on me for quite some time. You have to understand we were pretty young when we got together. Back then, it just felt like we were meant to be, because everyone said so!”

“I know the feeling,” he said.

“Do I detect a note of personal experience?”

“We’ll need an entire year to go over mine. Let’s just stick to you for today. So when was the first time you found out about him?”

“Well, he told me he had to leave town for a while you know? The typical excuse. I was fine with it. So he goes and he barely calls me the entire week. Then, he comes back, looking all depressed and as though something went wrong. It concerned me but he shrugged it off, saying it was some work thing he didn’t want to bother me with. A day later, there’s a woman at our door. A really hot looking thing, asking to talk to Nick. So I call Nick and he goes all pale, and then he tries to salvage it by going over to the girl and reasoning with her but she isn’t about to listen. Turns out she was pissed that he didn’t call her back or try to see her again. It was obvious she knew he was engaged, but that didn’t seem to bother her much. She was threatening a lawsuit…sexual harassment, she kept saying.”

“Someone he knew from work?”

“Yes! Some new hire he thought he had handled, but obviously he had been wrong about her. She wasn’t about to let him do this to her. Anyway, I stood there listening to them arguing, until Nick asked me to wait and went outside to talk to her and closed the door. I was so…
stunned
. I didn’t know what to do. I kept wondering if leaving would be the right thing but I was so stuck. I kept hoping for him to apologize and make this better somehow. And then before I knew it, Nick was in front of me, apologizing, and making it sound like he would die without me.”

“You caved?”

“I was angry of course. I yelled and screamed and everything. But then he promised he would never do it again. He told me he would never ever hurt me this way. That this had just been one moment of passion and he had just been swept away or whatever. In any case, he convinced me not to leave him. He convinced me to stay.

“You see, I loved him Thorne. Ever since I remember having feelings I’ve had them for Nick. I’ve never even had the chance to look at someone else, because I’ve always been truthful and loyal to him. There was never any need for me to do all that, you know? It’s not like I was doing him a favor or anything.”

“Elena,” he said. “That’s where you’re wrong. Being faithful to someone, when temptation is all around you, is a favor. One that he obviously couldn’t do for you.”

“I get that now, but you know, back then I just felt so lost and alone. I barely had any friends because I had alienated myself from everyone. The whole living together thing had changed me. It changed him too. He wasn’t the same guy anymore but I kept thinking maybe once things get better, he might be. But things never got better. They just got worse.”

I couldn’t help that I started crying. Thorne’s face was a mixture of concerned and confused. And then he came over to my side and put an arm around me. “I’m sorry you had to go through this,” he said. “I know how hard it can be.”

And again, there was that note, of experience, something in his words that made me feel like there was a story beneath the surface, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m so embarrassed,” I said, unable to pull away from him. “I didn’t mean to cry like some crazy hormonal woman.”

“Hey,” he said gently. “You passed out drunk in the middle of the street. We’re
way
past embarrassing.”

That made me laugh. Just the image of that happening outside the club.
Did you carry me to the car?
To the bed?
In your arms?
And with my head buried in his chest I felt like I really was a crazy hormonal woman, because even though his embrace was little more than casual friendship, it was beginning to feel like a lot more. When he finally pulled away I was left a bit breathless.

“Elena?” he said, getting up and facing me.

“Yeah?”

“I know this might sound a bit weird,” he said. “But it’s Saturday and my brother and I have a sort of ritual. Would you mind being a part of it and spending the day with us?”

“Thorne—”

“Look, I know my brother can be a bit annoying at times but that’s just the hormones talking. He’s actually a very nice person to hang out with, I assure you.”

“That’s not…Thorne…”

“Elena. It would mean a lot to me.”

If he only knew how much I wanted to do it, despite my better judgment. “Sure, what the hell.”

“So what kind of movies do you watch?” that was Lane.

Un
believable.

Not only had my brother not freaked out or teased me about Elena staying the night, he actually seemed like he was having a good time talking to her over brunch, which we were having at one of my favorite places for a change. In every way, he looked different. He was more alert, less irritated, and he wasn’t constantly asleep. He was even picking up his books to study once in a while. By any sense of the word, that was progress. I think he may have given Elena more reason to be friendly than I might have. To be honest, I was freaking out just a little. I felt like this was a big deal, but I was supposed to make light of it and that was never easy. At first when there had been too much silence at the table, I had been worried Elena was getting bored but ten minutes in, even she looked like she was enjoying it.

“I watch pretty much everything,” Elena said. “But I love sci-fi and superhero movies.”

Lane looked at her, a little surprised. “Yeah?”

“Oh…did you watch the new Avengers movie?”

“It was awesome, right?” Lane said. “Any Marvel movie is pretty much a favorite of mine.”

“I love the CGI. So good it just pulls you right into that world, doesn’t it?”

“True.”

“What kind of movies do you watch, Thorne?” Elena asked.

“He doesn’t watch movies,” Lane replied for me. “He’s an incredibly boring guy who works and sleeps and then works some more.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “I watch movies all the time.”

“Oh yeah?” Lane said. “What was the last one you watched?”

I tried to remember. “I don’t know that one with the gods…Loki and Thor with the Ice giants or whatever.”

“Frost Giants Thorne,” Lane said. “And that was the first Thor movie and it was released some four years ago.” He turned to Elena. “You see what I mean?”

Elena grinned. “I’m sure he’s busy,” she said.

The cockiness in her voice was a treat. I had never seen her that way. It showed an uninhibited side of her that I had never before seen and it gave me a nudge in the pants. I smiled and tried to ignore it. “So where are we going next?” Lane said, setting his plate aside and going back to the phone that barely ever left his hands.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we could go see a movie?”

My phone rang before I could hear their response and I picked it up. It was Cyndi. Strange, her calling me in the day time. I answered.

“Hi, Thorne.”

“Hi.”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Of course not. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Thorne…there’s something…something I need to talk to you about. It’s kind of important. I don’t think I can talk about this on the phone so I need to see you.”

“Give me a couple of hours and I’ll call you back, okay?”

“Thorne. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

I placed the phone aside and interrupted a conversation Elena and Lane were in the middle of. They didn’t look pleased. “So, what should we watch?”