He bites his lip, almost pigeon-toed in his stilettos while standing there in thought. Then Jamie struts away. Now, I’m standing in the middle of one of the hottest urban clubs in Los Angeles, with a sense of longing. Like myself, Jamie has sparked a new relationship. I tell myself mine is so much more complicated, twirling around to plant myself right next to my girls.
One minute Jamie was headed off for a quickie with the owner of Powerhouse. The next? He and I are standing in the kitchen of his Santa Monica apartment, damn near ransacking the refrigerator and cabinets. On the counter are the fundamental ingredients to bake a cake: flour, eggs, sugar.
“Can you find the vanilla bean?” Jamie asks, stalking back and forth. I cringe. My feet hurt, and I took my shoes off as soon as we stepped inside his place.
I open the window above the kitchen sink, just a bit wider. The chilly, Venice Beach sea-salt breeze sinks in more, but I’m tempted to wave the cold air toward Jamie as he says we’re making a brown sugar soufflé with crème anglaise at… my eyes scan toward the clock on the range stove. “It’s almost one in the morning!”
Jamie stops before me. When he’s mad, every sentence is punctuated with multiple ‘damns’. He exclaims, “Damn, now ask me if I care! Find the damn vanilla bean, we are making the damn soufflé!”
“Okay,” I nod my head at the deranged man. Palms out, I attempt to appeal at some underlying sanity, while imploring, “Let’s just eat ice cream, Jamie, you’re in no position to make a soufflé. Trying and failing will only make you more anxious.”
“We are making it,” he barks.
As if he's been crowned Queen of the South I yap my agreement, “Okay, sheesh! What happened when you went in search of…” Crap, an image of the sexy Argentinian flashes before my mind, along with a slew of ready and willing club dancers. Yup, I can already imagine what happened.
“Fuck him, Reese, fuck him. All men are assholes. Even the one you love.”
As my delusional friend makes the statement lumping every single person of his sex into a rather bigoted category, I lean back against the counter. A deep, cleansing breath rolls through my lungs. “Jamie, I’m not certain of much, but I know that we’re gonna try to make a soufflé, in this bad headspace, and we’re gonna fail.”
“So, you aren’t denying being in love?” Jamie stands before me, sidestepping my question with an inquiry of his own.
“What? Grayson,” I say the ex-Suit’s name aloud for the first time in so long. “We didn’t belong. He had a membership to one of the most elite country clubs, while I was more of a Costco type of gal. Grayson and I didn’t really mix. One day he was smart enough to heed reality.”
Lips curled, and side-eyeing me, Jamie says, “Nobody is talking about Grayson! Fuck his pedigree, that doesn’t make him better than you.”
“I never said it did but—’
“Evan, girl. I’m talking about your stepbrother who you’ve got feelings for. Strong ones.”
“Wh-what?” Though a Words with Friends type of hobby could work in my favor during socializing, my vocabulary has been diminished to just this one word.
“I’m convinced we’re doomed to be two unhappy souls. You’ve been way over Grayson. Just crazy enough to lump all men in business suits into the ‘no-no’ category,” Jamie shrugs. “It’s our vice. Our self-preservation mechanism is to stay away from our deepest desires, because if the shit doesn’t pan out we literally shatter. Luckily, Evan pursued you–”
Now my terminology dwindles a tad further with, “How?”
“How’d I know?” Jamie cocks an eyebrow. “The moment you began to watch the news this afternoon, you were worried out of your mind.”
“Jamie, you’re crazy,” I try. “He’s my friggen stepbrother.”
Those long eyelashes and iridescent eye shadow begin to shimmer as Jamie rolls his eyes. “Don't play me, booboo. Your little forlorn face as the chick on Channel 5 mentioned the murdered cops was more than Oscar-worthy!” Jamie pauses to sigh. “There’s no fooling me. And just so you know, nothing happened at the club with that wannabe-man and myself. He’s almost as good to me as Chu. Do you see any clouds or flaws in these diamond earrings?!”
I grin. “Not one cloud.”
“So yes, my man does me right. He's just living proof of me running away from what I want.”
Jamie plants his hands onto the countertop, and then pulls himself up into a sitting position. Kicking his shoes off, my friend reverts back to my relationship, saying, “I can’t fathom what went wrong with you and Grayson. You two were perfect for each other—goofy as hell. Got on my last damn nerve, finishing each other’s sentences, the whole nine-yards. But, Evan helped you get through that some way. You’re in love with Evan.”
Jamie pauses. I want to scoff, but can’t move.
“Are you listening to what I just said, Reese? You just can’t be with Evan,” he sighs, deeply. “You and I are in the same boat because it’s too late for me to be with Owen.”
I sit on the counter next to Jamie, and lean my head on his shoulder. Jamie’s a hop and a skip past tipsy, but he’s right nonetheless. Owen was perfect. They were in love. Those glittery, dark eyes of Jamie’s were blinded by glitz and glam. Owen was a penniless poet. Jamie fucked up.
With Evan and I, the story is vastly different. The outcome is the same. There is no future.
“I’m gonna stop seeing him, Jamie. I texted Evan before we got to Powerhouse.”
“Good.” His mouth is a thick line of tension.
“Nobody will ever know what we did, Jamie.”
“You mean what I did?” Jamie’s voice breaks just slightly. I’ve seen this man do many
