“Yeah,” I say as casually as I can.
I wonder if he can hear the warble in my voice, sense how difficult it is for me to hold back the raging desire.
It’s been weeks of laying my head on the pillow, closing my eyes, and wondering if tonight is the night. The night I can finally sleep.
It never comes. She’s always there, the taste of her lips and the flush in her cheeks. The gentle way her hand felt pressed against mine.
“I think so,” Alex says. “She’s happy too. She’s always missed June.”
“You spoke to her?” I ask, knowing I should stop.
As we leave the gym, I’m like a teenager fishing for scraps. It’s the sort of behavior Alex would never expect of me, so he doesn’t question it. He doesn’t know how eagerly I’m holding onto his every word.
“They actually got in last night,” Alex says as he locks up. We’re here after hours. “Becca says she missed the way the East Coast smells on an autumn day. That’s such a Becca thing to say.”
Is it?I almost ask, desperate for more information about her, but I manage to stop myself.
Hearing about her only makes this hurt more.
But how can I fight this now that she’s returning?
I think of the last time I saw her, in the elevator, after she told me she was a virgin. That was when it was sealed for me, how badly I needed her, how urgently I’m going to claim her and soon.
Stupidly, I thought maybe the need might lessen. I thought the roaring chorus telling me to claim her might quiet down. It’s the opposite. I want her more. I’ll fight for her harder.
If she wasn’t Alex’s sister….
There it is again, the same sentence repeated endlessly. I can’t make it, so she’s not his sister.
So I have to accept it. There’s nothing to be done.
“How’s Tiffany?” I ask, changing the subject.
We walk toward our cars, Alex regaling me with stories from his married life. His happiness bursts out of him. It almost makes me smile along with him, giddy and carefree, but then selfish darkness touches me.
I’ll never have that. To have it, I’d have to ruin part of his happiness.
“You’re going to hate me for asking this,” Alex says, grinning in a bantering way. “But we’re having dinner at the house. Not a huge get-together. A few friends, the family. I want you to come.”
“Family dinners….”
“Aren’t your thing. I know, and that’s the point. If you’ve decided you want to be a lonely old bachelor, at least I can make sure you get a warm meal from time to time.”
Like he always does, he's teasing with that friendly note in his voice. It’s the way Alex and I often talk to each other since we know that, deep down, we always have each other’s back. We’d never do anything to seriously hurt the other person.
We’d never betray the other.
“I’m not sure,” I say.
Fate or destiny or something threw Becca and me together before. If I was a more sentimental man, I’d fully believe there’s a force trying to bring us even closer.
The last time she was in the city, she was a magnet, and I was metal, drawn to her, unable to stop.
There’s a difference between that and willfully searching for her.
“What’d you say?” Alex asks.
I look over his shoulder at the light traffic, the lights passing. The stars and the moon stare down impassively. I feel the weight of this decision, as though I know it’s going to lead to other things, as though I know it might hurt this man.