chapter Five
“SO, DO YOU wanna tell me what’s going on here?”
I glanced at Colin’s profile and a part of me wanted to smile though he looked a bit pissed off we’d had yet another interruption so I decided to play it safe and just give him the details he needed to know.
“Aubrey is my cousin on my mother’s side of the family—my real mother. Her father and my mother were siblings. They came from a fairly decent family. Hard working Creole Louisianans who provided a good life for their children who grew up to become responsible adults. Unfortunately, my uncle fell hard for an exchange student at Louisiana State University. She was from Montreal and it was love at first sight, or so I’ve heard.
“The woman is a total basketcase. She left Louisiana State University their mid-sophomore year and went back to Canada. My uncle didn’t even know he had a daughter by this woman, Sandrine, until Aubrey was ten. She’d been in and out of the system because her mother is a paranoid schizophrenic with an alcohol and drug problem. Anyway, she’s always been smart as a whip and she looked my uncle up on the internet.
“By this time, my uncle is married and has two sons but his wife is a complete and utter sweetheart. They take in Aubrey but she is just a nightmare. She doesn’t want to go to school, severe emotional problems, sexual abuse…you name it, the woman has been through it. I mean, she’s only twenty-six but her life is completely out of control and she kind of goes from man to man.”
It was the first time I’d stopped talking long enough to take a moment to breathe.
“How did she manage to get here to Seattle?”
“Um, after a stint at some brothel in Nevada, she decided to look me up and she’s been here since January. I had enough issues with my dad dying so I just threw some money at her and hoped for the best—like maybe she would get bored and go home or something but that didn’t happen. She’s sexy and has a knack for meeting the right people. She’s quite popular at Bare—you know, the strip club for all the wealthy and moneyed of the city—and she manages to turn up on time and does her job but she can’t seem to keep anything else.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Colin wondered out loud after a long silence.
“I don’t know…we’re leaving on this trip soon…?”
“How about next week?”
“Yeah, that’ll work. She can take my room and I’ll butter up Drew to let her stay because I can’t have her out on the street. I mean, my uncle would kill me and he’d have a point. There is plenty of room but the thought of sharing a room with that chick—”
“Why don’t you just take my guest room then? I mean, until we leave? That way you get privacy and your cousin can take your room. We have a lot of planning to do and my work schedule is, unfortunately, pretty hectic next week. We can agree to meet up at O’Shaughnessy’s or talk when I get home from work? Might as well get used to one another’s company now since we’ll be seeing a lot of one another soon,” he explained in a rational tone.
It was a great idea but the thought of spending more time within this hot-blooded male’s presence was enough to make my heart beat double-time.
“Or…I can ask your cousin if she’d like to stay with me?”
God no!
“I don’t mind staying in your overpriced condo,” I responded in a nonchalant voice. “I mean, you bring up a good point and besides, I don’t need my trip ruined because you decide to f*ck Aubrey and she does something you would blame me for so it just works out better this way.”
Colin turned toward me as we sat at a red light. “And you’re not worried about Drew?”
“No because she’s tried that act on him and he turned her down so fast he made the Airbus seem slow. Seriously, he is so not interested in Aubrey like that.”
He snickered and I tried to concentrate until we pulled up to the club. I’d called Aubrey moments earlier and she walked out of the Last Supper Club like she owned the place. As usual, she was dressed to the nines, tonight in scarlet Alexander Wang leather and knit sleeveless dress which contained a high neckline but her medium-sized natural breasts were still perky enough to warrant attention with the NHOs she was working in the worst way. Her long legs, the perfect shade of pale olive, were smooth and gorgeous while her feet were encased in a pair of silver and gold Tribute Sandals.
Despite perpetual homelessness and the inability to spend money in any way considered responsible what so ever, my cousin was never seen in anything other than Tributes in all shapes, colors and designs. Apparently, she kept a storage unit in the city for her shoes and clothes as they were worth a fortune alone.
Everything Aubrey wore had to be designer, from La Perla lingerie to dresses, jeans, skirts, sweaters and blouses by all the major fashion houses. She didn’t own a pair of shoes that hadn’t cost her at least seven hundred dollars. Like the fictional Sex & the City character, Carrie Bradshaw, my cousin could live without a lot of things but designer clothes and shoes weren’t on that list she kept in her head.
Speaking of hair, despite a lifestyle of hard-core partying, smoking and drinking, she had the most gorgeous raven locks a woman could ask for. Slightly wavy with the perfect tousled look, her hair reached just past glamorous shoulders and appeared bright and healthy. Her dark hair complimented fair olive skin, the most gorgeous blue eyes with a strange violet-tinged ring around her pupils that of course not only mesmerized men but pretty much guaranteed her pert nose, high cheekbones, and luscious full lips were in stunningly good company.
Next to Aubrey, I was just a normal looking chick who could pass for attractive and cute but my cousin was a gorgeous and captivating woman men wanted to possess and women desperately wanted to emulate. She’d lucked out in the looks and body department even if she had obviously suffered in other parts of her turbulent life.
“Stop drooling, Colin,” I murmured as she ran towards us in her Yves Saint Laurent heels and hopped into the back.
“Thanks, Deirdre. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t picked up your phone,” she greeted before she leaned over the seat and kissed my cheek.
“You would have managed somehow,” I replied not quite keeping the sarcasm out of my tone. “Listen, this is Colin, a friend of Drew’s. Colin, this is my cousin, Aubrey.”
She leaned over the console and studied his profile before she gave him a kiss on the cheek too. “Thanks for being my hero tonight…stud.”
I briefly turned toward Colin in time to see his face flush a deep shade of crimson. “No problem,” he managed to squeak out.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aubrey said calmly as she dug through her small handbag, reached for a cigarette and lit it. “I seem to have that affect on the male species. Anyway, what’s on the agenda tonight? I’m beat.”
“Nothing,” I answered back. “Listen, Colin is driving us back to my place because I have to convince Drew it’s okay for you to stay with us. Speaking of, how long do you think it will be this time?”
She was quiet for a moment as she continued to drag on her cigarette and blow lazy smoke rings out of the half-opened window. “I don’t know. It’s not like I planned to catch my ex and my roomie in action, you know what I mean? I have a full schedule coming up at Bare so perhaps a few weeks at the most. I am sure I can either find another dancer to stay with or I’ll improvise or something.”
I turned fully in my seat. “Or something? Listen, Colin and I will be going away for a while—”
“Oh, cool, where ya headed off to?”
“We’re doing a trip through France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.”
“Awesome…can I come too?”
“You don’t even have your freakin’ Canadian passport let alone your American one and we are leaving next week so that would definitely be a no.”
Aubrey let out a long exaggerated sigh of discontent. “Jeez, you are such a party pooper.”
“Listen, that is the least of your worries. You better hope Drew is as generous as me and agrees to let you stay.”
“Absolutely f*cking no.”
The speaker was Drew and we sat next to one another in his bedroom on his elaborate California King bed.
I stood up and began to pace, something I did often when I was nervous or upset. I was more of the former than the latter. “Goddamn it, Drew, she’s my cousin. What am I supposed to do? Have her stay at a halfway house? My uncle would chew off my ass. Colin has agreed I can stay at his place until we leave so she could have my bedroom and I would leave my portion of the bill money with you. You get to call all the shots and the first time she messes up, you get to kick her out.”
Drew leaned back on his bed, his slim-fitting tee riding up to reveal a toned tanned stomach with a thatch of light brown pubic hair leading down past his jeans.
“We both know how she is, Deirdre. I don’t need a walking nympho in my residence. I get enough action from the male and female population at work—this is my sanctuary. We have always had an arrangement and it’s worked out great. I know what to expect from you and I like living with you. I was hoping we could spend your last week here together. I won’t see you for a while after that,” he explained with deep emotional gray eyes.
I stopped pacing and stared at him with my most sincere look. “Listen, I am just trying to keep everything calm around here. I don’t want you to be upset and at the moment, I am at the end of my rope. Please, make this easier on me and just say yes.”
“I don’t like this whole ‘staying with Colin’ situation. The man is a whore and isn’t very discriminating with who he brings to his bed. I don’t want him to become a bad influence on you—”
“Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black? You haven’t managed to corrupt me and I highly doubt he will. Besides, we’ll be staying together when we are in Europe so what exactly is the problem here?”
Drew finally stood and strode to me before he slid his arms around my waist. “It would break my heart if another man tried to take advantage of you—that’s all. Am I out of line for wanting to keep you safe?”
I slipped my arms around his neck. “We both know what this is about and I have let you slide for much too long so let me just spell it out because obviously I haven’t been clear enough with what is going on with me. You and I…a romantic relationship…is never going to happen, Drew. I love you so much and I can admit I am probably in love with you but I need to live life and we are suffocating one another. Don’t you see that?”
His arms fell away from my waist. “What are you talking about, Deirdre?”
“We’re so f*cking co-dependent on one another it isn’t healthy. I’ve discussed this with Dr. van der Meer and he tells me I am enabling your behavior because I am being selfish and acting like an adolescent. We both are—neither of us have real jobs that utilize our degrees and we still act like perpetual college students. I think this separation will be good for the both of us.”
I paused and looked into those mesmerizing pale irises. “You mean everything to me and I don’t think that will ever change but I have already made up my mind. Whether Aubrey is here or not, I won’t be…not for a while. If you don’t want her to stay then you will have to tell her. You specifically explain why because I am not going to be the bad guy here for you. We both need to do this and…you know it as well as I do.”
My arms fell away and I turned to leave with my head slightly bowed. If I thought too hard, I would start to cry yet again. Breaking Drew’s heart was the equivalent of breaking of my own but it had to be done and that’s what made the whole situation so screwed up. It had to be accomplished but why couldn’t he have done it to me first? I could have forgiven him but it would be that much harder for him to erase the feelings of betrayal he felt for me and that just made me feel worse than I already did.
“Fine, leave, it’s always what you have been good at, Deirdre, but just know when he breaks your heart, I’ll be here to pick up the pieces because it’s what I do. You’re not rid of me!”
I stopped walking as I reached the double doors. “Yeah, I’m quite familiar with the PJ Harvey tune, Drew.”
Before he could say anything else to me, I opened the door and closed it softly behind me.
Aubrey and Colin stood in the sitting room as she tried to work her seductive magic but he was having none of it. In fact, he looked a bit stony-faced as she looked longingly into his face and tossed her hair in that crazy sexual way that sent most men running with a major hard-on in the opposite direction.
“Oh, there you are,” Colin greeted with a little too much enthusiasm. “Ready to go?”
“Almost. I have to pack a bag and then we can leave.” I glared at my cousin. “Aubrey, can I have a word?”
“Oh, sure!” she exclaimed before she bounced off behind me.
“Close the door behind you.”
“What’s going on, chère?” she inquired as she shut the door.
“Listen, Drew is going to let you stay but you are going to have to tow a very fine f*cking line. That means no wild parties, no friends over and no drugs.”
She placed elegant, manicured hands on indignant hips. “I don’t do drugs, Deirdre. I gave all that shit up a long time ago—”
“I’m including marijuana so don’t try to weasel your way out of this.”
“F*ck! Marijuana is legal in this State so how is it a drug?”
I rolled my eyes. “My roomie is this close to throwing you out and not allowing you stay. Here, we don’t smoke in the house so your habit goes outside, on the patio. Also, alcohol is fine but we are more wine and beer than spirits so keep them at the minimum. Don’t try to seduce Drew, wear an appropriate amount of clothing at all times, especially in the common areas, and try not to make a mess. We have a cleaning lady but she only comes every Monday so if you f*ck something up, you clean it up. She doesn’t do used condoms in nasty random places or anything else unsavory.”
Aubrey refused to meet my eyes. “Are there any other rules I need to know about?”
“Yeah, since this is my bedroom, which I am loaning out to you rent-free, I don’t want any company here at all. You meet some hot guy, you take his ass to his place. The last thing we need are a string of strange men coming and going. We’re cool with our neighbors and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What about your Mini Cooper? Can I drive it?”
“Yes but if my triple A rating with my auto insurance company has been reduced then you are going to pay for the damage you have done or a new car—which ever is cheaper.”
My cousin let out a low whistle. “You drive a hard bargain but fair is fair. And by the way, I don’t want to be treated like a charity case. I can pay your share of the bills while you’re away. I make good money at Bare…my problem is most of it goes on clothes and shoes but that is no excuse. I will do my part, I promise.”
“Okay, if you insist.” I walked over to my closet and began to pack an overnight bag though I had included at least a week’s worth of clothes. I always underpacked for Europe because there were so many fabulous clothing stores, it was better to shop over there anyway.
I grabbed my Rimowa titanium wheeled suitcase and began to walk out with it dragging behind me before Aubrey called my name. I stopped and turned to face her.
“Will you come by and see us before you go? I mean, I know how crazy excited you are to get to Europe but…it would mean a lot to me if we could hold a small get together. Drinks, food…music. This is a huge step you’re making in the right direction.”
“Discuss it with Drew,” I responded evasively.
Aubrey sighed and walked over. “Listen, you’re not the only one who has ever lost a parent. Granted, you just lost your father and Jeanette isn’t your real mom but…I know what it’s like and I could have been there for you if you hadn’t shut me out every chance you got.”
She crossed her arms over her firm breasts. “Sometimes I wish my mom was dead. At least I’d know she was no longer hurting herself with alcohol and drugs. Let me be here for you and for God’s sake, let someone in. Colin’s a good guy but don’t make the same mistakes with him you made with Drew.”
Before I could inquire what mistakes I’d made with Drew, Colin walked in and grabbed my suitcase. “You ready?”
“Yep,” I replied as I slipped my house key from the keychain and handed it to Aubrey.
“Good, then let’s go.”
“Don’t forget about what I said, Deirdre,” Aubrey warned.
“I won’t.” I smiled although it was far from one hundred percent genuine, turned and walked out of my room. What ever happened, it no longer belonged to me, at least not for a little while.