The Kiss Plot by Nicole French

Sixteen

By the time I meandered into the kitchen the next morning, Eric had left for work. Again. And when I waited up that night for him to return—all I wanted to do was talk about that strange interlude—I ended up falling asleep on the couch at some time past midnight. But I woke again in his room the next morning, this time fully clothed. Apparently, someone broke his “no touching” rule to carry me to bed.

The next day I went to sleep in my own room, but when I woke up the following morning, there was a head-shaped imprint on the pillow next to mine. The night after that, I tossed and turned on the night of a very uneventful thirtieth birthday after dodging my mother’s calls and accepting a few messages from friends. But I did nothing else to celebrate, alone until Eric appeared in my doorway in nothing but his briefs, tipped his head silently toward his room, and padded back into it. Of course, I followed.

On the pillow, there was a book wrapped in coarse brown paper. He nodded, and I unwrapped it carefully, not needing to be told I should keep quiet. Inside was a large book of Mario Testino—one of my favorite fashion photographers. The images were lush and rich and beautiful. Just like the man in front of me.

“Happy birthday, Jane,” he whispered as his fingertips floated over mine.

Then he lay down, and I followed suit. We blinked at each other for a long time in the darkness, and eventually fell asleep, watching, but not touching, resting, but not speaking.

On Thursday morning, I walked into the kitchen to find Eric making coffee.

“You’re actually here,” I said as I took a seat at the counter.

He looked up from his plunger contraption. I wasn’t allowed to mess with Eric’s designated coffee-making area of the kitchen—it looked like a laboratory, not a cooking station.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, yeah. We have to leave in about an hour.”

I frowned at his tone. Was there something I was missing? “Where are we going?”

“Boston, right? You’re going to Skylar and Brandon’s too, aren’t you?”

Still sleepy, I looked around the apartment, and things suddenly clicked. It was Thursday. Of course. Thanksgiving. I was expected in Boston this afternoon.

I swung back around. “Um, no. You are not going to Boston.”

Eric pressed the button on his milk frother. “What? Of course I am.”

I shook my head vehemently. “No, you’re not. I need time with Skylar. I don’t know what the hell we’ve been doing for the last four days—”

“Nothing,” Eric interrupted. “We’ve been doing absolutely nothing.”

His utter denial of all the intimacy that was still between us just made me that much angrier.

“Exactly!” I snapped. “No touching, right? I’m basically living in a strip club parody.”

“Jane!”

“Well, just because I have to share this fucking apartment with you like the ghost of gentlemen’s clubs past doesn’t mean I have to share my holidays too. I’m going to see my best friend. I don’t need you tagging along like Casper.”

Eric worried his jaw for a moment until the frother beeped behind him. He gave me a view of his t-shirt-clad back while he finished making his drink. “Brandon invited me last weekend, Jane.”

“So, what? Skylar invited me weeks ago.”

He carried two mugs of perfectly foamed cafe au laits to the counter and set one in front of me. “Brandon was my best man,” he said calmly.

“Skylar was my maid of honor,” I countered.

“I’m their kids’ godparent.”

“So am I!” I exploded. I shoved a hand into my hair, then angrily tied it up into a bun. “I’m sorry, but this is bullshit. I have claims on the Crosby-Sterlings in the event of a split. They are my home base, not yours. Go share a turkey with Nina and Calvin. You’ll have plenty of relatives eager to kiss your feet now that you’ve officially been named in the will. It will be fun.”

Eric sighed and rubbed his jaw, which was covered with an irritatingly sexy layer of stubble this morning. “Did it ever occur to you that I might need a break from this situation as much as you?” He blinked, and the shadow of his lashes hung heavily over his cheekbones. “It hasn’t been easy on me either.”

The look on his face from Sunday flashed through my mind. Pain, he’d said. Pain is all I feel. Except when I’m with you.

My shoulders slumped. I really didn’t want him there, but not because I truly hated him. And he had a point—it was this situation that was eating us up, not each other. When he was around, I felt so confused. It was impossible to compartmentalize my life the way Carson insisted, and even harder to compartmentalize my emotions. Being around Skylar and Brandon, who had such an obviously loving marriage, would only cast Eric’s and my situation into higher relief against theirs.

But Eric, who could usually read me enough to understand my body language, still didn’t offer to stay. Which told me that, yes, he probably needed the companionship of his real friends as much as I did. Or maybe he was worried about meeting the requirements of the will. Did cohabitation also leave no room for holidays or vacations?

Fuck.

I’d never know.

“Fine.” I pushed off the stool and stomped back into my room to pack, then immediately turned back and swiped my coffee off the counter.

Eric just watched with an irritating smirk.

“I’m only accepting this because you don’t want to ride all the way to Boston with me uncaffeinated.” I avoided his eyes as I took a long sip. Lord, the boy really did know his way around a French press or whatever that thing was. Much better than the instant crap I was drinking in Chicago.

“Whatever you say, Lefferts.” Eric turned to clean up.

I paused by my bedroom. “And to be perfectly clear, we’re staying in separate bedrooms.”

Behind me, there was a distinct snort. I slammed the door.

“The helicopter leaves at noon,” Eric called through the walls. “Tony will drive our bags up later.”

I opened the door and peeked back out. “Helicopter? Try the Chinatown bus, buddy. We may be rich, but we’re not assholes.”

Eric rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop drinking his coffee. He also didn’t even bother giving an answer. Because, of course, the smug bastard knew I wouldn’t hesitate to trade a four-hour bus ride for private helicopter. Even if it meant I was harnessed next to his arrogant ass.

* * *

Shorter ride or not,Eric’s presence on the way to Skylar and Brandon’s house seemed to exist solely to piss me off. For the entire flight to Boston, he was determined to play Annoying Tour Guide, constantly smacking his arm across my chest to point out various boring lighthouses and townships on the coast. On the way to Brookline from the helipad, he kept trying to fix my clothes. My hair was messed up from the headphones, he said. And by his metric, my tag was showing at least five separate times. I wasn’t sure what tag that was, since I had made the fucking shirt myself. Discovering the cherry-printed silk at a fabric shop in Albany Park was a coup last year.

By the time we had picked up the wine and challah bread on our way to the house, I was about ready to smack him. He had traded items with me four times before we even got into the car.

“Here, let me hold that,” he said, sticking the wine bottle between his legs so he could grab my seatbelt and latch me in.

“OhmyGodyouhavetostop!” I blurted out, batting his hands away. “Why are you so damn fussy today? I can buckle myself, for fuck’s sake!”

Eric shrank back into his seat, then clutched the wine and looked out the window.

“No reason,” he mumbled.

“Obviously it’s not no reason,” I retorted. “I think the last time someone fastened my seatbelt for me, I was five. What’s up?”

His eyes darted toward the Town Car driver, then back to me before he folded his arms across his chest.

“Nothing,” he said as the car turned down Skylar and Brandon’s street. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“Well, next time you want to be nice, treat me like an adult, not a toddler.”

He shot a sly look my way. “Pretty sure I’m not allowed to do that anymore.”

My mouth dropped. His thumb drifted over the top of the wine bottle, and Eric smiled—the kind of smile that would have had me falling out of my seat if I had anywhere to go. My heart gave a loud thump. I squirmed uncomfortably.

Bastard.

Eric was still smirking when our Town Car pulled into Brandon and Skylar’s circular driveway.

“Aunt Janey!”

I opened the door to find Jenny, Brandon and Skylar’s daughter, pelting out of the house and into my arms. Luis, her chubby brother who actually was a toddler, made a beeline for Eric, who picked him up.

“Hey, kiddo!” I swept the little girl into a bear hug. “How’s kindergarten, eh? Are you murdering the ABCs?”

“Murder?” Jenny asked, her little red brows screwing up in confusion. She turned to where Skylar was following the kids out the front door. “Mommy, what’s murder?”

Skylar gave me an exasperated look. “Jane.”

Beside me, Eric chuckled. “Don’t listen to your inappropriate Aunt Jane,” he said to Luis, taking the little boy’s hand and waving it back at him. “She’s a bad influence.”

Luis squealed, the kind of full-throated giggle that only children under three can pull off. Then he kicked his legs furiously until Eric set him down, freeing him to sprint toward the orchard around the side of the house.

“Well, you better go get him,” Skylar said as we all watched Luis’s crooked run for the trees. “He’ll just keep going until someone tracks him down.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eric grinned, gave her a mini-salute, and jogged after Luis.

Skylar turned to me and her daughter. “Jen, go tell Daddy that his guest is here, okay?”

Jenny nodded and headed back into the house after I set her down. Skylar rubbed my arm while we watched Eric chase Luis around in the trees. What was it about watching a full-grown man get down on the level of a small child? Every butterfly in my stomach was flapping around in there.

“I didn’t know Brandon invited him,” Skylar said apologetically. “He did it last week when I was at work.”

I shrugged, guilty that my friend felt she had to choose sides at all.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I should have invited him myself.”

“That’s magnanimous of you.”

“Sometimes I can be the bigger person. It doesn’t happen often, but I think I can manage it as long as we keep ten feet between us.”

Skylar pressed her lips together—it was obvious she still thought this whole thing was ridiculous. She wasn’t wrong.

I turned toward the front door. “Let’s go inside. It’s freezing, and I’m ready to eat my weight in mashed potatoes. If I can’t have sex, a carb coma is the next best thing.”

* * *

“So,what’s with the construction site on the other side of the orchard?” Eric asked after we had said our hellos to the rest of Skylar and Brandon’s family. He was referring to one of the two outer cottages, which had looked from the outside like it was being completely gutted.

Skylar and Brandon’s parents—Ray, Susan, and Danny—were camped out in the living room watching football with the kids while Sarah, Skylar’s bubbe, shooed everyone out of the kitchen. The four of us lounged in the solarium, munching on carrot sticks and trying not to get too drunk on empty stomachs. I accepted a glass of wine from Skylar while Brandon fixed Eric a vodka on the rocks.

Eric smirked at me over his drink and took a sip.

“It’s my new lab,” Brandon said proudly.

“Sterling Labs just won a big government contract,” Skylar said. “Which, of course, Brandon took to mean he needed to construct an entire facility on our property.”

“Hey, I didn’t want to leave you and the kids all day long,” Brandon said. “If I had to commute to MIT, I’d never be home. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“I just told him it couldn’t actually be in the house. Some of us have issues with work-life boundaries.”

“I’m sorry, who was it who brought home three boxes of depositions last weekend?” Brandon retorted as he flopped next to Skylar on the loveseat. He slung his arm good-naturedly around his wife and kissed her fondly. “I’m just kidding, Red. She’s a killer, this one. Boston Magazine is doing a profile on my girl, did you hear?”

“No, I didn’t,” I murmured, unable to stop watching the way my friend glowed under her husband’s affections.

Eric’s shoulder brushed mine. It wasn’t an arm around my waist, but when I started at the sudden contact, then looked at him, he was also watching our friends with naked envy. He also did not move away.

“Would you like a tour?” Brandon asked.

I didn’t, but it was obvious by the look on Brandon’s face that he was dying to give us one.

“Oh, go ahead,” Skylar said, getting up. “You guys can be his fresh audience while Bubbe and I finish up. I still have to make the cranberry sauce.”

“And that’s all you’re allowed to do!” Sarah piped up from the kitchen, where she was currently whipping a giant batch of potatoes.

Eric and I followed Brandon out of the main house and across the orchard that was still hanging with a few lingering leaves. The construction site around the cottage had been abandoned during the holiday, but it was clear that some major work was going on.

“Cottage” was a misnomer. When Skylar and Brandon originally bought the property, it had come with two granny flats—one-story, two-bedroom guesthouses that they had originally imagined for Skylar’s dad and grandmother to use. But Sarah had been adamant about staying in her own house, and where she went, her son did too. So they had simply been a guest lodging for people like me.

Until now, apparently. Eric and I followed Brandon into the gutted house, which bore absolutely no resemblance to the quaint place where I had stayed several times. The walls had been completely demolished, the carpeted floors torn up, and the kitchen was all but eradicated.

“This is remodeled?” Eric asked doubtfully.

Brandon shook his head as he stepped around some of the debris. “Oh, ha. No. The top floor is the last step. The house had to be elevated first so we could dig the downstairs.”

“Dig?” I said. I remembered some construction going on here a few weeks ago, but hadn’t asked about it, as upset as I was. Now I felt kind of dumb for not noticing more.

Brandon stopped in front of a thick steel door. Eric and I watched as he pressed his thumb to a fingerprint scanner, unlocking a set of stairs into the ground. “I hope you’re not scared of enclosed spaces.”

“Suddenly I feel like I’m in the middle of a video game,” I said. “Do people still play the Legend of Zelda?”

“Only the best ones,” Brandon replied.

We followed him down the stairs, past another code-guarded door, and into a room that was at least twice the size of the entire structure above us. It was clean, a far cry from the lab I remembered in the attic of the main house. Two of the walls were lined with stainless steel worktables, a bank of dark-screened computers stood against the far wall, and a small conference table occupied the middle of the room.

“This is the lab,” Brandon said with supreme satisfaction. “Sterling Labs is getting serious.”

“It seems more like a bunker,” I remarked. “Are we expecting a nuclear attack anytime soon?”

Beside me, Eric chuckled.

Brandon just tipped his head from side to side good-naturedly, like it was an actual possibility. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But part of the requirement of the contract was that we had certain security measures in place. I did my part. I consider it an investment in my company.”

I looked around doubtfully. “You don’t think this is a little overkill, Ian Fleming? I feel like I’m in Q’s lab from MI-6.”

Again, I was rewarded with a snort beside me.

“Spies are real,” Brandon argued. “And everywhere, according to the State Department.” He turned to Eric. “Speaking of which. Are you still trying to find…”

He trailed off with a glance at me—obviously indicating that he would wait until I was gone to continue the conversation.

I snapped a finger in front of him. “Right here, gentlemen.”

“It’s fine,” Eric said. “And yeah, I am.”

“You’re trying to find what?” I asked, irritated at being left out of the loop.

“The bug,” Eric said. “The way that…you know…the way he knows if…”

I blinked, and then his ambiguity made sense. Carson. The bug. Eric was trying to figure out how we were being tracked. If, I thought, we were being tracked at all. I honestly wasn’t convinced it was more than a stupid threat.

“I don’t think it’s visual,” Eric was saying to Brandon. “If it was…we would have heard from him. About certain things.” He glanced at me, and his ears turned slightly pink.

Because you fucked me with a vodka bottle? I didn’t say it out loud, but the haughty look on Eric’s face told me he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“I’m guessing it’s some kind of audio signal,” he continued. “But I can’t for the fucking life of me figure out what it is. Tony scans the apartment every day before I go in. My office too. We can’t find a damn thing.”

“Why do you think it’s audio?” I asked. “Why do you even think there’s a signal at all?”

Eric turned to me, a bit dejected. “Because of this.” He pulled out his phone and swiped to a message before handing it to me.

Titan: Be careful. You are getting attached.

I scrolled up and down, but that was all there was. No exchange. Nothing. I looked up. “That’s it?”

“Look at the time stamp.”

12:32 A.M.

I handed the phone back to him.

“That was about an hour after you returned from your…date,” Eric said, just barely unable to hide the acerbity in his voice.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Suddenly my forearms were covered in goose pimples. We’d fought. He hadn’t said much out loud that night, but it certainly would have revealed his jealousy.

“That’s all?” I couldn’t help but wonder. “Just ‘be careful.’”

Eric’s eyebrow rose. “Why would there be anything more?” he asked, though his expression dared me to say it out loud for the same reason I knew he would not—that we were somehow quiet enough that no one had understood what we were doing.

I frowned. Certain things made sense now. Why he was so quiet—deathly so—in the apartment. Why he never seemed to respond to anything in meaningful ways. Why he never asked me verbally to sleep with him, but found ways to make it happen anyway.

He knew I wouldn’t be able to stay quiet if we did what both of us were dying to do. But he couldn’t stop himself completely either.

I wasn’t sure if I should be mad or satisfied by the realization. Maybe some of both, I thought.

“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about it in here,” Brandon said as he gestured around the room with pride. “One of the benefits of a secure location, I guess. This conversation stays between us for now.”

“Secure?” I asked. “Like a safe?”

Brandon nodded. “Basically. We outfitted it like a Faraday shield to block any electromagnetic radiation, but also made sure radio waves can’t interfere either. It’s like being locked in a microwave.” He patted the wall beside him. “In other words, if there’s a signal coming off one of you—your phone or something like that—it’s not getting out of this room, and nothing gets in. Those computers over there are one hundred percent local. All we have is a land line to communicate with the outside.”

Eric stood stock-still. I frowned at the telephone in the corner.

Brandon turned, looking between us both. “Did I say something wrong?”

But Eric and I just turned to each other as the meaning of what Brandon was telling us sank in. Was it possible that in this moment we weren’t actually being watched? Recorded? Overheard in any way?

Before anyone could respond, there was a sudden blare of the telephone in the corner. All three of us jumped.

“Shit,” Brandon muttered as he crossed the room. He picked up the handset. “Hey, Red.”

I sighed. Of course it was Skylar. No one else would have known we were here, much less the phone number.

“Jenny did what? And now Luis is—actually, never mind. I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone. “Sounds like the kids unleashed holy hell on Sarah while she was making the gravy. Jenny just tipped two pies on the floor, and apparently Luis dumped a bowl of cranberry sauce on his head.” He made for the door, but paused when he realized we hadn’t moved. “You guys coming?”

I didn’t answer. I was glued into place.

Eric cleared his throat. “Do you, um, think we could look around a bit more? DVS wants to build a space like this at, uh, one of the offices. It would be good to have a model.”

Brandon’s brow rose. “Have a ‘look around’? Sure, sure. Just, ah, clean up when you’re done.” He caught my eye and winked. “Who’s the rabbit now, Jane?”

Then he turned, leaving Eric and me alone together. And this time, without any kind of audience.