Page 69 of Man Cuffed
“And what does that mean?”
He reads. “Headed for the altar! It’s time to get down on one knee, Romeo. Click here to read Four Ingenious Methods For Discovering Your Girlfriend’s Ring Size.”
“Oh, please,” I complain. “This is stupid.”
“No, I think they might know a thing or two.”
“For fuck’s sake, Lance. Use your cop brain. Who writes this magazine? Women, that’s who. And they have an agenda. We’re being railroaded right now.”
Lance just shakes his head. “I am using my cop brain. And I’m using it to understand what women really want. And when I get my chance to try the Freaky Monkey, I’m taking it.”
“The Freaky Monkey?”
“It’s this sex position where you lean her left ankle and her right hand against the wall, and then pound into her on the diagonal…”
“That sounds dangerous,” I point out.
“I know.” He rubs his hands together. “Hey, let me show you the sex-toy quiz. You might learn something useful.”
He’s wrong, though. The sex part is easy for me. It’s the relationship part that gives me the cold sweats. I don’t need a “Do You Love Her” quiz. I need a “Are You Crazy Enough to Go There” quiz.
Sure, there’s something there between Meg and me. Something nice. But everything in me wants to bail. I’m not proud of that, but that’s what my gut is telling me. It doesn’t matter that the rest of me wants to go over to her apartment right now and kiss her harder and deeper than I’ve kissed anyone before. My gut is right, because my gut remembers what happened last time I let myself get carried away with romantic optimism. I asked a girl to marry me. Now she’s my brother’s wife.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Lance asks.
“Morris,” I admit. “Julie. That whole shit show.”
Lance shoves a sausage in his mouth and makes a face. “I feel ya. That must have been a really bad day. You walked in on ‘em, right?”
I just grunt in response. This right here is why I don’t do talking. Who’d want to relive that day? During my first semester studying criminal law, I drove home from Indiana to surprise Julie. Five hours in the car without stopping. I drove straight to the apartment that Julie shared with a new roommate.
That girl had opened the door. “Oh, hey! Did you step out?”
“What?” I’d asked, not understanding the question from someone I’d never meant. “Is Julie home?”
“Of course she is!” She’d given me a look like I was crazy.
But I suspected nothing. And, wearing the smile of someone who expects to enjoy a visit with his fiancée, I opened Julie’s bedroom door.
Everybody who knows my story assumes that I caught them in the act. But that’s only partly true. I caught them in bed all right. My brother was shirtless. But I can’t even remember what Julie was or wasn’t wearing. Because bare skin wasn’t the shocking thing, and they weren’t even kissing.
It was so much worse than that.
They werecuddlingin bed. What stunned me was how cozy they looked. Howcoupled up. They were curled up under the quilt, peering at something on my brother’s phone, heads together. There’s no mistaking the way a couple looks—like they’re on exactly the same wavelength. Like they’re about to finish each other’s sentences.
And when they both looked up, it took a moment for their duplicate happy faces to fail. That’s how blissful their evening had been before I’d interrupted it. I was literally the last thing on either of their minds.
Julie was my whole life. I was taking an epic course load at school, because she wanted me to graduate early and come home.
Yet she was curled up in bed with my Judas of a brother.
Heartbreak is supposed to be a metaphor. But the pain I felt at that moment was absolutely excruciating. And I never want to feel it again.
I can’t wait to see you, Julie had said, and I’d believed her.I love you.
Maybe she did. It’s just that she loved Morris more. And she didn’t bother to tell me.
Reeling with shock, I’d turned right around and walked out of the room. “Macklin, wait!” Julie had shrieked. “Let me explain.” As if she ever could.
