Roomies by Christina Lauren
twenty-eight
It’s probably no surprise that I bail on dinner.
Jeff and Robert insist that I don’t know the true story, and that rumors like this happen all the time. No matter how much they want me to think otherwise, Jeff and Robert have to understand that Calvin dating Natalie isn’t ludicrous. It’s likely.
I give them a copy of the essay for Calvin to read and approve, and then I meet Lulu for drinks at Lillie’s, telling her we’re going to celebrate my New Yorker victory. Maybe if I focus on the positive, I won’t melt into a Holland-shaped puddle of regret.
I think I want to get drunk, but only one glass of wine in, I text Calvin.
I think it’s probably best if we skip dinner. I’ll have Robert give you a copy of the essay tomorrow.
Best for whom?
My heart sags. I’m positive that getting drunk will only result in me calling him later and sobbing into the phone. It might not be fair, but I’m furious with him for moving on so quickly. Just over a month! When I get angry, I cry. It’s like the two wires cross in my emotional brain.
I haven’t said anything to Lulu yet about Calvin and Natalie, but in her tiny pauses to draw breath outside of the Lulu Bubble—babbling about whether or not to break up with Gene, and getting Botox next week, and the new shoes she can’t afford but is going to buy anyway—she seems to pick up that something is wrong.
“I thought we were celebrating the essay,” she says, and pushes my wine closer to me. “You just got your thing published in the place you were super excited about. Why do you look like such a sad sack when I’m describing a pair of Valentinos?”
I stab a fry into a tiny ceramic cup of truffle sauce. Now, with her question, I’m defensive and sad. Why does Lulu always make it seem as though my feelings are an inconvenient distraction from hers?
“I’m a ‘sad sack,’ ” I say irritably, “because I think Calvin is dating Natalie Nguyen.”
She nods, popping one of my fries into her mouth. “I saw that the other day.”
I feel like I’ve been punched.
I count to ten, and then give myself only one second to glare up at her. Something inside me is on fire. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“What did you want me to say? ‘Good luck competing with that’?” She eats another fry. “Wouldn’t that be worse?”
This moment, right here, is where my friendship with Lulu dies.
“How are you?” Davis asks, and in the background I hear neither the television nor any sort of food preparation. The silence tells me that my brother is genuinely worried about me.
“I vacillate between excited about the essay and sad about the boy.” Sad is an understatement. In the week since I saw the photo, and then had drinks with Lulu, I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time sobbing into my pillow.
Davis, wisely, does not make a comment about how hot Natalie Nguyen is, or how I should have seen all of this coming. “I’m sorry, Holls. Have you talked to him?”
“No.” I don’t mention that he’s called me twice this week. Both voicemails were simple and unsentimental—Holland, it’s me. Please call—and although Calvin (the real one, not the past version who sexted me lines to show in an interview) is far more likely to be emotional in person than over voicemail, I also know him well enough to be able to read distance there.
I probably should woman up and have the conversation about initiating our annulment, but although Jeff and Robert still insist I might be wrong, even if there is a five percent chance that Calvin and Natalie aren’t a thing, I’m not sure I’m prepared for the ninety-five percent chance of confirmation that they are.
“And Jeff said something about you having a split with Lulu, too?”
I groan in confirmation, but less out of heartbreak and more out of a surprising relief that the stress of that friendship is past me. With the mention of Lulu, though—and the reminder of her dismal display of tender emotions—I remember that I refuse to be a self-absorbed brat, and there is an actual reason why I called my brother. “I have good news, though. It’s about Robert.”
We found out yesterday that Robert has won the Drama Desk Award for Possessed, a huge Broadway honor. Jeff—who is over the moon about it—is planning a fiftieth birthday party/award celebration. Of course I have to be there . . . and of course Calvin will be, too.
No way am I going solo. I need major reinforcements, and nobody makes me laugh harder than Davis.
“I know where this is going,” he says once I’ve explained the situation. He lets out a long sigh. “Does this mean I need to get a plane ticket and rent a tux?”
“Well yeah, because I want my date to look hot.”
“That is some Flowers in the Attic stuff, Holls. Don’t be weird.”
“You ready for Saturday?” Jeff asks, putting an arm around me as we maneuver through the world’s most expensive grocery store.
“I’m nervous,” I admit.
“Have you picked out a dress?”
“No.” I loathe shopping. “I have a nice black one I can wear.”
My proper dress.
“We should get you something new. This is a big deal.” Jeff pauses to inspect some produce, and doesn’t notice my horror as he seems to seriously consider purchasing a tiny bag of cherries for twelve dollars. “I’m glad Davis is coming out. I haven’t seen him in nearly a year.”
Despite my mopey heart, I have to admit that good things are happening. The essay, Robert’s award, Davis’s visit. I know Jeff is right, and over time I’ll feel incrementally better about this whole Calvin thing. I’m just not there yet.
So when Jeff puts the cherries down and turns to face me fully, wearing an expression of grim resignation, I know he’s preparing to say something that will eviscerate me.
“What?” I ask, my voice low and predatory.
He laughs at this, but his eyes remain tight. “I think you know already that Ramón hasn’t signed on for an extended run.”
“Robert mentioned it a few months ago, but I wasn’t sure whether that had changed with Calvin and Ramón’s popularity.”
“It has and it hasn’t.” Jeff looks down and picks up a pear—I’m sure as an obvious distraction from looking at my anxious expression. “Ramón’s run is up at the end of this year. He and his fiancée are based in L.A. Two days ago, Robert was asked to open the L.A. run of Possessed.”
He turns back, watches me, and I feel my heart squeeze too tight—in joy and panic. Robert is moving to L.A.?
“He hasn’t accepted yet, but is strongly leaning that way.”
As much as I try, my “That’s amazing!” comes out a little flat.
“It is,” Jeff says carefully, putting the fruit down. “They would do a special performance of the soundtrack at the Staples Center before moving into the Pantages Theatre.”
My eyes widen. The Staples Center is enormous. The Pantages is beautiful—it’s where Robert and Jeff took me to see Wicked for my twenty-first birthday. Having a show begin to travel is an unquestionable sign of success. “Is Robert losing his mind?”
Jeff smiles, and it’s the smile he saves only for his husband, the one that makes me ache with how happy they are. He looks younger, more carefree. “He is. He wanted to tell you about the offer, but I asked to speak to you first.”
“Is there any particular reason why, or—” I stop, putting the pieces together myself. My stomach drops like a brick from the sky. “Oh.”
Jeff licks his lips nervously. “Right. If Robert and Ramón go to open the show there, Calvin has agreed to go, too.”
Well, I guess I know now why Calvin called me this week. We’d better rush this annulment along; it’s already June. The clock’s a-ticking.
“Are you going to L.A.?” I ask.
“I’ll go out as much as I can . . .” He smiles a little helplessly, and I’m sure he’s as torn as I am about this. “I can’t exactly work from the West Coast. It should only be ten months or so.”
There’s an odd consolation in that, at least. “And are you . . . asking my permission?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but we did both think you should be consulted. You’re the reason it was possible in the first place.”
I hold up my hands in front of me. “I don’t have any say in this, and even if I did, I’d tell them they’re both crazy if they pass this up.” It’s amazing that I sound so calm because it feels like a fault line has just cracked my chest in two. “Tell Bobert I’ll be at the opening show, and I’ll be the loudest one cheering.”
“I can’t believe that’s what you’re wearing.” Davis looks at me, and then returns to his perusal of the minibar on his side of the car. My brother’s beard is at Full Lumberjack, though he does look pretty great in his tux.
I smooth down the delicate black lace of my skirt. “Jeff picked it out. He said I have to look better for this party than I’ve ever looked in my life.”
Our eyes meet again, and Davis gives a skeptical little shrug. “That’s asking a lot out of a dress.”
“Ha. Ha.” I move my wineglass away when he attempts to refill it. Jeff sent a car to pick us up and I’m so nervous that if I don’t slow down on the sauce, the chances of Appalland making an appearance tonight will be one hundred percent.
Sitting back in his seat, Davis cracks open a Red Bull from the minibar and pins me with a confused look. “Doesn’t that mean something, though? You didn’t spend two hours blow-drying and curling your hair because you hate him.”
“Of course I don’t hate him, but I don’t want to look terrible when he shows up with his new girlfriend. I need to even the playing field a little. Rack up the team or whatever it is.”
Davis swallows a long gulp, and then belches. “You are never allowed to use a sports analogy again.”
“What I mean,” I say, “is that I’m in a good place, and I don’t want to forget all the awesome things that are happening just because I’m so sad that my fake marriage ended.”
He looks up from the sleeve of cookies he’s currently inhaling and raises a fist in solidarity. “This is your fight song.”
“Excuse you, I’m simply being positive.” We both look up as the car slows to a stop. I look out the window and see that we’re in front of the restaurant. “Is it too late to turn around? I don’t want to do this.”
“Be positive, remember?” Davis slides across the leather seat and steps out once the door is open, reaching to take my hand. “You look beautiful. Shut up.”
I smile up at him just as a camera goes off, one of many behind a velvet rope on either side of the entrance. A blue carpet leads the way to the door and I can hear the music before we’ve even stepped inside, the familiar notes of Calvin’s guitar immortalized on the cast recording and filtering out of the ballroom.
It’s the cocktail hour Jeff has planned before the big L.A. announcement, and the restaurant is a hive of chatter and movement. A chandelier hangs like a constellation in the center of the room; waitstaff wind their way through a sea of people in black tie.
It’s telling that my eyes don’t immediately search out the two people who should be my lifelines here—Robert and Jeff—but land directly on Calvin.
Our eyes meet, and a heavy weight falls from my chest to the ground. Half of his mouth turns up in a tentative smile before it straightens again, unsure.
“That’s him?” Davis asks in my ear.
“That’s him.”
“I expected red hair.”
“Shut up, Davis.”
“Maybe a green top hat.”
I elbow him roughly in the side. “If you embarrass me, I will cut your balls off and bury them.”
My brother snickers in my ear. Nearly everyone here tonight knows the history between me and Calvin—the cast and crew are mingling everywhere, and I caught a quick glimpse of Brian when I first walked in; I am positive he’s eating this up like cake. There are countless people in this room who have been obviously salivating for this awkward public reunion; it feels like the force of a hundred invisible hands is pressing on my lower back, urging me over to talk to my soon-to-be ex-husband.
Davis, suave as ever, presses a cold glass of something into my hand and then smacks my butt so hard I jump. “Go on,” he says. “I’m right behind you.”
I smooth the skirt back down over my ass, glaring at my brother. I’m aware that Calvin is watching all this from across the room. With one more tug at the hem of my dress, I make my way over to him and his slow-growing smile.
Sweet Christ on a cupcake, he looks good. He needs a haircut—but I like the wild russet thickness of it falling over his forehead. His skin is tanner from the early-summer sun, and his smile nudges awake a little flutter in my stomach.
I can imagine the hard curve of his shoulder beneath his suit, the way his stomach feels against my palm and how it spasms when I slide lower, taking the perfect heat of him in my hand.
Wow. How quickly my brain brands myself all over him, the minute I see him.
Mine, it says. Reclaim.
“Holland.” Calvin steps closer, pressing his lips to my cheek. “Hey.”
“Hi.” My heart is vaulting up into my throat, kicking wildly.
He gives me another long once-over. “You look . . . beautiful.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
He laughs through a full, openmouthed smile. “Why, thank you.”
Two months without seeing each other and a good opener might be “Congratulations on the L.A. move,” or something as simple as “How are you?”
Perhaps I could even introduce him to my brother, standing at my side.
But what do I actually do? I look around us, and ask indelicately, “Where’s Natalie?”
Calvin’s smile fades, and confusion replaces the sweet happiness that had been there. His dark brows pull in. “What?”
“I thought she’d be here with you tonight,” I say, shifting on my feet, looking around us again briefly.
Davis groans, forgoing the introduction for now and immediately peeling away to the left.
Calvin studies me for a quiet breath. “Sorry.” He blinks up at Davis’s disappearing form and then back to me. “I don’t understand. You thought I’d bring Natalie tonight?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
Is he confused because he doesn’t realize I saw the photo of them together? Or is he aware how awkward it would have been to have her here, and bewildered why I’d think he’d put us all in that situation?
He squints as if he’s trying to puzzle this out. “I thought we talked about this,” he says quietly. “I didn’t realize Natalie was still an issue for you. I assumed we—”
“I saw the photos of you together,” I explain quickly. I don’t want to make him explain any more than he has to—I don’t want details. But I owe it to myself to be honest with him, too. “I was sort of gutted when I saw them just before we were going to have dinner. I wish you’d told me.”
“Told you? I don’t . . .” Calvin’s frown deepens and he shakes his head once. “What photos?”
“Calvin.” I close my eyes, suddenly feeling sick and wishing we hadn’t tried to clear this up tonight. “Don’t.”
He steps closer, wrapping a warm hand around my upper arm. “Holland, I don’t know what photos you’re talking about.”
When I look up, I can tell from his face that he’s being sincere, and of course he hasn’t seen them. He’s never on Twitter, he never reads gossip sites. I pull out my phone, finding it easily, where it’s still open in my browser.
I am excellent at torturing myself.
Calvin reaches for my phone, but the microphone squawks jarringly from the front of the room and Jeff leans in, letting out a blasting “Is this thing on?”
Around us, everyone laughs at the volume and Jeff’s comical reaction, and the tension between Calvin and me is sliced down the middle. At his side, I carefully shift back, stepping away and out of his line of sight. I look for Davis, but he’s all the way on the other side of the room, standing with one of Robert’s old friends from Des Moines whom Jeff flew out for the party.
“I’m sure everyone in this room knows Robert, but many of you may not know me,” Jeff begins.
There are a few shouts of loving protest at this, but Jeff smiles, leaning in. “I’m Jeff, Robert Okai’s husband.”
Cheers erupt, and I clap limply along, feeling numb. I want to revel in all this adulation for Robert, but the moment has such a strange flatness to it, as if I’m watching it from a distance.
“I want to thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate Robert’s birthday, to celebrate his award, and to celebrate the news that we have to share.” Jeff looks across the room at his husband. “I am the luckiest man to have the life that I do, and I couldn’t do any of it without you, honey.”
Robert comes forward to thundering applause, kissing Jeff before taking the microphone. “Writing Possessed was a bit like being possessed,” he begins, and people laugh knowingly. The story of Robert virtually not sleeping for a month while he composed it is legendary. “But the story of the present incarnation of Possessed is really something. Nearly everyone knows this by now, but several months ago, we were down a lead musician, facing the incoming brilliance of Ramón Martín, and I was struggling to figure out what direction to take this production. I worried I was too close to it, worried that it would somehow grow stale over time.” He looks up and finds me, almost immediately. “My niece Holland dragged me to the subway station, where a young, Juilliard-trained guitarist was performing.”
The party erupts again, and Calvin turns to meet my eyes. His are tight and searching, but they’re quickly torn from my face when Robert says, “Come on up here, Calvin.”
The tightness gives way to a reluctant smile as people make room for him to move to the front and join Robert. I feel swallowed by the crowd as it closes back in, hiding the path on the floor connecting me to Calvin.
Robert continues, recounting how Calvin came in, how he blew them away. He skips over the immigration issue and moves directly to the moment Ramón and Calvin played together, bringing Ramón to the front of the room, too. Robert talks about their first performance, and how very soon a high-pitched mania would greet them outside the theater after each show.
He’s launching into his announcement about opening the L.A. performance with the two of them when I feel someone step up beside me.
“I’m sure this is hard for you.”
I look over at Brian as he lifts his chin toward Calvin, and feel my cheeks heat. He’s staring straight ahead, jaw tight. We’ve knocked heads so many times and it all just feels pointless now.
“Are you seriously choosing this moment to rub my nose in it?”
He meets my eyes, and a weird discomfort works its way through me. I’ve never held eye contact with him for so long; I realize what strangers we are that I wouldn’t have been able to name his eye color until now. “I’m not making a dig,” he says quietly. “I’m sure it sucks that Robert is moving to L.A., and I’m sure it sucks to see Calvin with someone else.”
I stare at him, confused.
“You did something for the production—it was ungodly stupid, of course, but you did it for the right reasons.” His eyebrows pull down. “And now you’re here hurting. I’m just saying, human to human, I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me,” I mumble, turning because I’m worried I’m going to start crying. I push carefully through the crowd and find a side door into an empty hallway connecting the banquet rooms. The floor is marble; my heels click quickly down to the end, where I lean against a door to the stairwell, breathing in and out.
I want to escape to my apartment, but Davis has my coat check ticket, and Calvin is still holding my phone.
Back down the hall, the side door opens again. The sound of surprised voices and riotous applause spills out; I assume Robert has just mentioned L.A.
But the cacophony dims back to a lull when the door closes with a heavy click.
Footsteps approach, steady and measured, and a quiet Irish accent comes from behind me. “Holland.”
“Go back in there,” I tell him, working to sound steady. I don’t want to do this on a night that is supposed to be about Robert. “They aren’t done with the announcement yet.”
“They’ve just finished.” He pauses, and I hear his heavy exhale. “I saw you leave, and it’s just . . . I’m confused about what happened back there.”
Unable to face him yet, I swallow, trying to clear the thickness from my throat. “Which part?”
“The part where you saw me photographed with Natalie?” From behind me, his voice is gentle: “Did you look at it?”
What? “Of course I did. Obsessively.”
“Are you sure?”
Finally, I turn around, confused. His expression softens when he sees that I’m a crying mess, and he reaches up, carefully moving his thumb across my cheek.
“Look again.”
Sniffing, I do what he says, entering my passcode and looking at the photo I’ve already seen a hundred times now.
He bites his lip, waiting for me to understand before letting out a small laugh. “Natalie Nguyen.” Calvin taps the screen, and now his eyes are smiling. “You think I’m dating Natalie Nguyen?”
“Everyone thinks that. You . . . have been seen together a couple times and you have your arm around her.” I lick my lips, anxious that I’m missing something here. “That’s what Entertainment Weekly said.”
“I’ve seen her at a few theater events. This photo was at Ramón’s premiere, right?” I nod. He points to the edge of the photo, where I can now make out a sliver of a sleeve. “I think this photo cropped out Ramón so it looks like it’s just me and Natalie. Do you know how many photos I took that night?”
I wipe my nose. “No.”
“Probably five thousand.” He zooms in on the picture to an extreme close-up of his hand before giving it back to me. It’s my least favorite part of the photo—Calvin’s hand is wrapped fully around her waist—and it takes me a second to realize what he’s showing me: the glint of a ring on his finger.
My eyes fly down to his hand at his side, here in front of me. He’s still wearing it.
“Natalie Edgerton is a friend of Mark’s,” he explains, and my stomach drops out in realization. “He set us up months ago, but then I got married, and fell in love—admittedly in that order. I never replied to her text from that day, by the way.”
I groan into my hands. “Oh, my God.”
“Natalie Nguyen is an actress with a small role in Ramón’s film.” Calvin pries my hands away and holds them in his. “Even if I was at all interested in seeing other women—which I’m not—do you really think she’s the one who was calling an unemployed street musician for a date all those months ago?”
All motion has come to a halt in my brain. I want to throw myself against the wall repeatedly, until I’m unconscious and can forget this ever happened. “Maybe not.”
He reaches up with one hand to wipe beneath my eye. “I don’t have a girlfriend, Holland. I’ve got a wife, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I know, but—”
“Though she hasn’t texted, hasn’t rung me back, and hasn’t wanted to see me.”
At his tone, I glance up to his face, for the first time hearing past my own anxiety and hurt. In the stark hallway light, he looks devastated.
“You told me you loved me,” he reminds me. “And I told you I’d wait. But it’s been painful wondering more and more frequently whether you’ll ever ask me to come home.” He ducks a little to hold my gaze. “We were going to have dinner, and you canceled last minute.”
“I was working on myself, and getting past Amanda, and all of the uncertainty that started building between us,” I admit. “And when I thought I was ready to see you . . . I saw the photo.”
“So why not call?” he asks. “Just to ask me about it? Or yell at me? Anything. If I did have a girlfriend that would still be something to discuss, logistically, given that we’re married, wouldn’t it?”
I press my hands to my face, mumbling, “I don’t know” from behind them.
Calvin gently pries my hands away again. “If I went off with someone else, wouldn’t you be angry?”
“Yes. Furious.”
“As would I. I would be homicidal if you were with another bloke. So why not let me have it? I could have saved you so many days of worrying about this.”
I look up at him. “I wasn’t actually sure a conversation about it would go that way.”
“You mean, you weren’t sure I still loved you after only two months apart? What kind of heart do you think lives inside here?” He presses our joined hands to his chest. “I miss you.”
It feels like a fist curls around my lungs when he says this in present tense. “It made more sense in some ways to think you were playing along.”
“That I—?” He blinks away, scowling. “Did you not read your own essay? You act as though all this time you were simply going along with something. What you did for me was astounding, and who you are—calm, and assured, and sexy, and carefully creative . . . I am absolutely smashed in love with you.”
I bite my lower lip savagely, looking back and forth at his eyes, trying to find the act. He has no reason to lie anymore. His hands come up, framing my face, and my heart pushes painfully against my breastbone, clawing toward him.
A breath away from me, and his eyes are still open. “So? Can I kiss my bride?”
A hallway kiss turns into a full-on hallway makeout session, and I consider it a small miracle that no one finds us out here, with me pressed to the wall, one leg around Calvin’s hips. In his touch, I can tell that he was telling the truth about our time apart being painful: against me, he’s shaking, nearly frantic.
We go back into the party hand in hand. He gets me a wine, gets himself a beer, and we dance, pressed so close together I can feel what it does to him. When he apologizes with a quiet laugh, I look up, and we grin in unison at the shared, unspoken promise of the insane sex we are going to have later tonight.
I’m hoping neither of us can walk straight tomorrow.
My thoughts clean up a little when I introduce Calvin to Davis. Jeff and I watch in awe as the two men seem to strike up an immediate bromance centered on home-brewed beer and rugby.
With the two of them bent together, frantically discussing the Milwaukee microbrewery scene, Jeff pulls me aside, proudly spinning me around the room to some Sinatra.
Calvin breaks in a few minutes later, smiling in thanks to Jeff and pulling me close again.
“You disappeared.”
“You and Davis were lost to beer. I was standing nearby like a floor lamp.”
He laughs, pressing his lips to my jaw. When my hands slip up the back of his neck and into his hair, he groans quietly. “You feel so good against me. I’m so relieved, I could fall over.”
“I think one more hour, then we can justify leaving.”
He smiles down at me. “I took the liberty of telling Davis he was staying at the uncles’ tonight.”
I close my eyes and imagine being alone with him later, undressing him and kissing every bit of smooth, exposed skin. I imagine the feel of the mattress at my back, the view of him falling over me, moving down my body, mouth open and wet.
I can practically feel the electricity of his first kiss between my legs, the clamp of his hands around my thighs, and the weight of him when he moves back up over me.
“What are you thinking about?” His lips move against my earlobe.
“Being home with you later.”
“You’re thinking about fucking me right now?”
I look up at him, with a joke on the tip of my tongue, but it dissolves away at the fever in his gaze. “Yeah.” I stretch, kissing him in a slow slide of my mouth over his. “Specifically about your mouth and how it feels to have you on top of me.”
“You’re not sleeping,” he warns, and I laugh until a wave of relief hits me, so enormous that I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing my cheek to his.
When the song ends, he leads me back over to my brother and the bar. I know people are watching us, but I no longer feel like they’re wondering what Calvin is doing with me. With his octopus hands all over me, and the way Davis is making us both double over in laughter, I feel for the first time like our love looks as easy and genuine from the outside as it feels from the inside.
In tiny stolen moments, my husband pulls me into dark corners for a kiss, or down onto his lap on a couch. Between sips of our drinks and conversation with people around us, we volley a hundred questions back and forth.
Should we have another wedding? A real one?
When should we go visit my family?
Are we both moving temporarily to L.A.?
And most important: I won the meat bet, so . . . when is he officially taking my last name?
We can debate that one for a while. Thankfully, we’re not cramming to convince anyone else anymore. We have time.
