Unsuitable Men (11 page)

Tracy said nothing but in response shut her eyes again and snuggled against him.

That was it. If there ever had been a line he’d long crossed it and it was so far behind him he didn’t even know what it looked like anymore
.
But the truth was he’d been gone the minute she said what she said when they were walking in midtown this evening.

It was like she’d climbed inside his head and read his fucking mind. He knew he wasn’t what she was looking for, and if he was looking for anything serious, Tracy probably wouldn’t be his choice either: she was high-maintenance, bratty, snobby and sometimes downright bitchy.

But there was something else, just beneath the surface that she gave him rare but tantalizing glimpses of; something that made him want to peel back all the layers of expensive clothes and make-up and private school manners. Something that made him
want
to strip her down to her rawest, truest self. What he might find there he had no idea, but the compulsion to find out was too strong to resist. For now, he’d call it curiosity.

He wasn’t even surprised when he woke up to the smell of cooking this time around. Except for the fact that it wasn’t yet seven a.m., he almost expected it. Brendan stumbled out of bed and followed his nose, yawning hugely. Sometime during the night he’d removed his shirt and jeans, and slept in his briefs. Tracy, fast asleep next to him, had beaten him to it and had already removed her jeans and was wearing one of his undershirts.

That was how he found her in the kitchen. She had a sandwich in her hand and looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as though she had slept very well. Brendan was surprised to realize that he had too. Now that his eyes were open, he felt perfectly rested, something he didn’t often feel.

“I grabbed you a regular coffee while I was out, and made you a breakfast sandwich,” Tracy said. “But I have to grab a car and head home to get ready for work.”

“No, wait, I’ll drive you,” Brendan said turning to head back down to the bedroom.

“Don’t,” Tracy said smiling. “I have a car service from work coming to get me. They’ll wait and bring me back. And it’d be hell for you trying to get back from Brooklyn afterwards.”

She brushed by him and paused, coming back to get up on her toes and tilting her head backward so that Brendan realized that she wanted to kiss him and leaned in. She gave him a quick peck on the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll let myself out. Call me later if you want to hang out.”

Hang out?
Brendan thought after she was gone.

Was that what they did? From where he sat, it felt like a lot more than that. But maybe she was right. No need to label it, examine it or question it. Just go with the flow. He grabbed the coffee Tracy had bought him and took a swallow, going back to the bedroom to turn on his cell phone.

As soon as he did, it started a series of chimes; there were plenty of missed calls and messages and only some of them were business-related. There was a message from Meghan asking how the Philly trip had gone and another from a woman he’d met at the opening of Lounge Two-Twelve. He remembered finding her attractive but not much else, so he deleted her message and returned Meghan’s call, arranging to meet her for lunch at a pub they liked to go to.

As he was leaving the apartment for his morning meetings, he remembered the sandwich Tracy said she’d made him and ran up to the kitchen to grab it. It was egg, tomato and gruyere on sourdough and was the kind of thing he would do well not to get used to.

Meetings and a brief listening session with Shawn occupied his morning, and Brendan had very little time to think about anything but work. Around noon, he drove Shawn to the condo for lunch with
Riley. Brendan would have only twenty minutes to get back across town to meet Meghan and could have asked Shawn to cab it, but strangely, he liked listening to his friend talk about his marriage. Especially now that he and Riley were expecting the baby any day now, Shawn was on constant alert, checking his phone every five minutes. Brendan tried to remember a time he had seen him so excited. Maybe the day he got married, Brendan thought ruefully.

What he’d said to Tracy was true; he wasn’t sure he wanted that kind of love. Shawn and Riley when they first got together were like a tornado. They either swept you into their vortex, or they wrecked all your shit. As tumultuous as it had been for Shawn in those days, it had been the same for Brendan because Shawn had been damn near impossible to manage. Every other week, he wanted to go off schedule to fly back to see Riley. Engagements had to be moved, people apologized to, contracts renegotiated. Brendan shook his head remembering it. At least now his boy was ensconced in a blissful domesticity, waiting for a baby.

“Most dudes want to run away from home when the wife is pregnant,” Brendan observed. “You’re the opposite.”

“I know,” Shawn said, grinning. “Picture that.”

That was Shawn all over. Vague. If he wanted to know anything, Brendan would have to come out and ask it. So he did.

“It doesn’t scare you ever?” he asked finally. “I mean, marriage is tough enough. But with the kid and everything, doesn’t it feel kind of . . . permanent?”

“Have you
met
my wife?” Shawn asked. “Why would permanent with her be scary?”

Brendan said nothing. Shawn still had The Fever, so he should have known better than to expect a rational and objective response.

“But seriously though,” Shawn said, sensing that his answer had not satisfied Brendan’s curiosity. “I don’t think about forever, B. All I know is that with her, at the end of every single day, I’m glad she’s there and I don’t know what I would do if she wasn’t.”

“Even when she’s eight months pregnant and crazy as a loon?”

“She’s not though,” Shawn shrugged. “When she was working, maybe a little bit but now she’s real chill, calm like she’s preparing y’know? Getting her head into the game.”

“The game being what exactly?” Brendan asked. “Parenthood?”

“Nah, man. Not just parenthood.
Life
. Real life.”

Once he’d dropped Shawn off and was heading back, Brendan thought about that. The funny thing was he knew exactly what Shawn meant. For some dudes, the way Brendan lived now—the way Shawn used to live—was the ultimate. The luxury apartment, the traveling, the high-profile career and the women were what they aspired to. Brendan had never been that guy though. A lot of how he lived felt like the wind up to the main event; to a time when he could slow down a little bit with someone who made slowing down worth it. The way Riley had done for Shawn. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to walk through hell and back to get that though. Maybe it was better to embrace the calm and certain, like Meghan.

She was waiting for him in the booth they always sat in, and had already ordered the spinach and artichoke dip he always got. Wearing a brown suit and cream silk blouse, she waved when she saw him. Brendan kissed her quickly and slid into the seat opposite hers.

“So now that your Philly artist is out of the way, are we clear for planning Labor Day weekend?” she asked, smiling at him.

Brendan remembered now that they’d been talking about going out of town for Labor Day. Way out of town. To Puerto Rico to stay at the villa of a friend of his. Suddenly—and he didn’t want to think about why—Brendan wasn’t sure he wanted to go.

“We’ll see,” he mumbled, avoiding her eyes. “Something else might come up.”

“Well, you were the one who said we’d want to get it locked in early,” she pointed out.

There was a slight petulance in her tone, which Brendan couldn’t recall her having had before. Women had great intuition about stuff like this. Could she sense something was different? But hell, he didn’t even know if anything was different. He’d kissed Tracy, but nothing more. And Meghan was certainly free to see other people and kiss
whomever
she wanted, so ultimately, everything was just as it had been before. Or so he told himself.

Tracy climbed over Brendan’s sleeping form and headed for the shower. She could probably run out to
Dean &
DeLuca before taking one, but right after they ate, she was going to go to yoga, no matter what. Ever since she’d fallen into the habit of hanging out with Brendan a couple nights a week and some weekends, she’d slacked off on Bikram. And especially with Riley her regular yoga buddy so long out of commission, it was easy to make excuses to skip. She’d been trying to regain some weight but honestly, the snugness of her size four stuff was beginning to cause her some concern.

It was
his
fault, of course. Pushing big juicy steaks and assorted other crap onto her whenever they went out to eat. When she reminded him that he could afford to eat like a horse, given that he was six-five, he corrected her.

Six-
three, he said.

What?
Tracy asked.
Either way. You’re tall.

Yeah, but six-five would put me in the NBA, so
  . . .

He was always like that. Going off topic, cracking jokes, making her forget whatever the hell it was that she’d been annoyed about in the first place. Which brought her to her other annoyance—Brendan’s refusal to go actual grocery shopping so they didn’t have to make multiple runs each weekend. He explained it by claiming he had some bad experiences where he’d been traveling for weeks and come home to unidentifiable items covered in fungus. One time he told her, it was so disgusting that he’d replaced the refrigerator rather than face the task of cleaning it. So sad. And just crazy enough that it was precisely the kind of thing he would do. She smiled.

“I’ll come with you,” a voice, still thick with sleep said from the bedroom, just as she was about to undress for the shower.

Tracy paused. 
To shower, or to the store?

“To the store,” Brendan said, as though he read her mind. “But if you need some help in there, feel free to holla at me.”

Tracy shed his shirt, pilfered from his dresser the evening before, and turned on the water, getting into the shower. She kept forgetting to bring a shower cap so invariably wound up with puffy or
shaggy hair all weekend, which didn’t bother her as much as she would have expected. And Brendan actually seemed to prefer it that way. Not that his preferences were a factor in how she wore her hair or anything.

His joke about coming to give her some help was, Tracy knew, probably just that. For some reason that she could not figure out, Brendan still had not made a move to try to get her to sleep with him. Well, they slept together all the time. That was the problem they
slept
. There hadn’t even been heavy petting. It had been more than two weeks and all they’d done was make out like teenagers, carefully avoiding each other’s genitals when they touched, as though uncertain of what went where. She wondered whether it was because of what happened after the Lounge Two-Twelve launch
event
. Or—and this was by far the more disturbing possibility—he was sexually monogamous with Meghan.

“You’re going to be a prune in a minute. Hurry your ass up!”

Tracy started at the sound of Brendan’s voice reaching her over the din of the water. It was only then that she realized she’d been in there for awhile, daydreaming. She shut the water off and grabbed one of his plush bath towels, going back out into the bedroom where he was fully dressed laying on the bed, with only his feet hanging over the edge to avoid soiling the sheets with his tennis shoes.

“I’m going to yoga today,” she said firmly.

Brendan smirked. “Good luck with that.”

“I am,” she insisted.

“Good.”

“I know you don’t believe me,” she said grabbing her gym bag. She held it up in triumph and pulled out her yoga pants and matching racer back top. “Hmm?”

“Putting on the clothes is one thing,” Brendan said. “Walking out on a
Law & Order
marathon is another. And other things have a way of popping up. Or out.”

“What are you talking about?” Tracy wrinkled her brow in confusion. “And there’s a
Law & Order
marathon?” she asked, wincing.

“I texted you yesterday,” Brendan yawned and sat up.

“Well you text about all manner of minutiae, Brendan, so honestly I’ve stopped reading them,” she lied.

Actually, she loved it that he texted her about meaningless stuff.  Loved that she might be in a client meeting and her phone would vibrate. She would apologize effusively and pretend it was something urgent and then have to stifle a smile when she read yet another absurd and irrelevant musing of Brendan’s that she could scarcely believe he’d taken precious time out of his busy life to type. Sometimes he was like a big kid; a big kid with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder maybe.  Once he’d actually texted to ask her why she thought the words “good” and “mood”
were
pronounced so differently despite having the identical letters “
ood
” at the end.

“Well it’s your loss,” he said, his breezy tone making it clear that he didn’t for a minute buy her claim that she didn’t read his text messages.

“If you actually texted me something that mattered, I would drop dead of shock,” Tracy said. She pulled her underwear on without removing the towel and did the same with her yoga pants. For the top, she simply turned her back to Brendan and pulled it on quickly.

“Wait, I’m about to send you one right now,” Brendan said, pulling out his cell phone. “And I promise you, it’ll be something that matters.”

“I’m sure it won’t, but do feel free,” Tracy smiled at him.

She went back to the bathroom to brush her teeth and when she returned, grabbed her cell. Brendan went into the bathroom himself and she heard running water as she looked down at her phone. Silly man. He really had sent her a message. Prepared for another joke, Tracy read the message:
Riley had the baby this morning 5:13 a.m. Boy 8 lbs. 3 oz.
She shrieked and ran into the bathroom where Brendan was spitting toothpaste into the sink.

“Are you
serious
? When did you hear this?
Who .
. ?”

“Shawn called while you were in the shower,” he said, rinsing and spitting.

“How can you be so calm? Let’s
go
! I want to see my godson!” Tracy jumped up and down beating a drumbeat onto Brendan’s back while he finished up at the sink.

“Okay, okay,” he turned finally.  “Now I’m ready, so let’s go.”

All the way down in the elevator, Tracy was literally squealing her excitement. She wasn’t sure she would be able to stand the ride to the hospital. She couldn’t wait to see Riley and ask her what it the delivery had been like, and to kiss the baby and see which of his parents he looked like.

“We’re
godparents
, Brendan!”

Riley was in a private room, and when they entered, Tracy was thrilled to see that the baby was there as well, in his own little bassinet. Riley’s mom, Lorna, was sitting next to Riley’s bed, watching her daughter sleep and Shawn was standing over the baby, looking down at him with something like awe. Putting aside their awkward history, Tracy went to him at once and hugged him close.

“Shawn, I’m so happy for you guys,” she said, squeezing him tight.

She turned to look into the bassinet and saw that the baby, even though a newbie was already recognizably like his father, and already with a shock of dark, silky hair peeking out from beneath his nursery cap. His nose was definitely Riley’s, but everything else, especially that pouty, full mouth was from his Dad. His Dad. Shawn was someone’s
father
. Tracy turned and smiled at him again, squeezing his arm.

“Brendan, come look,” she said, “he’s so beautiful.”

Brendan had just gotten done greeting Lorna and came over to hug his best friend and peer into the bassinet.

“Looks just like you, man,” he told Shawn.

Shawn grinned and nodded, looking like he was dead-tired but resisting sleep. Tracy went over to Riley’s bed to allow Shawn and Brendan some space. Her friend was sleeping, her face peaceful. Someone had pulled her hair back and French-braided it. Not Riley herself, Tracy knew, because Riley was hopeless with hair, even her own.

“Hey,” Tracy said to Riley’s mom, her voice hushed. “How’d she do?”

“She was a warrior,” Lorna said. “Refused the epidural.”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

Lorna laughed. “I thought Shawn was going to pass out when she started active labor with all the screaming and puffing.”

Tracy glanced back at Shawn, feeling a rare surge of affection for him. No one had to tell her that he would have been beside himself to see Riley in actual physical pain.

“She looks so pretty,” Tracy said, stroking Riley’s hair. “For someone who voluntarily pushed out a nine pound child without the benefit of narcotics.”

“Eight pounds three ounces,” Riley croaked, opening her eyes. “And I barely had to do a thing. That kid was coming out, no matter what I did.”

“Yeah, right,” Tracy said, pulling up a chair to get closer to her. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone kicked me in the gut and then stomped on it with all their weight.”

“Lovely. Well next time drugs, huh?”

“Next time? Oh
god
,” Riley groaned.

Tracy laughed. “Oh, you have to make another one. This one is perfect, but I’d love a little goddaughter for a matched set.”

“You sound like Shawn,” Riley said, struggling to keep her eyes open. She held out a hand to Tracy and pulled her close, whispering in her ear. “Tracy. When he saw our son, he
cried
.”

“So I guess you’d better give him as many as he wants,” Tracy said.

“I guess I’d better,” Riley said, and then she yawned loudly.

The sound of Riley’s yawn called Shawn’s attention back to her and Tracy watched as he smiled; the love on his face was enough to make her heart quake. Riley smiled sleepily, extending a hand to him.

“You’ve been up all night, baby,” she said. “Come sleep with me.”

That was everyone else’s cue to make themselves scarce, so Tracy and Brendan said their goodbyes and Lorna went to sit next to the bassinet while Shawn shed his shoes and shirt and climbed into the hospital bed to sleep next to his wife. The sight of Riley’s head on his shoulder, her arms about his waist, and Shawn’s quiet contentment made Tracy’s heart feel so full, she was grateful to leave before she burst into tears.

Yoga was out of the question after all that. And besides, Tracy was on too much of a high, so she and Brendan picked up take-out breakfast platters from a diner and headed back to his place. As they walked in, Tracy deposited her food on the table in the foyer and pulled out her cell phone.

“I’m sending messages to some of our friends,” she explained.

Brendan grabbed her food and with his, walked it into the bedroom. Tracy followed and toed off her shoes as she typed out an email, sitting on the edge of the bed. Then she felt Brendan’s hands under her arms, dragging her backwards to the top of the bed so she was bolstered by the headboard. She leaned against it still typing rapidly.

“Best yoga intentions shot to hell once again,” she said. “I guess I should just give in to the fact that every weekend I spend with you, we’ll be in bed eighty percent of the time.” And then hearing how that sounded, she blushed and glanced at him. “You know what I mean.”

“Well we do spend eighty percent of our time in this bed,” Brendan said, his voice low. “Not that anything much ever happens here besides sleep, pillow fights and TV-watching.”

Tracy paused her typing.

“Was that a complaint?” she asked carefully, not looking up.

“Just an observation.”

“I wish I thought to take a picture of him,” she said, focusing on the email again. “Wait a minute. Did they say what they planned to name him?”

“No. And the picture would’ve been on the internet within twenty minutes of your sending it out to your friends, so maybe
it’s
better that you didn’t take one.”

“Oh crap, you’re
right
. I keep forgetting they’re famous.” Tracy hit ‘send’ on her email and put the phone aside, turning to look at Brendan who was suddenly being uncharacteristically quiet.

“It’s a whole new life for them now, isn’t it?” she said. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from smiling.

“Yup,” he nodded slowly.

“And did you see Shawn? How happy he was? Riley said he cried when he saw the baby. I mean, doesn’t it just make you love them both that much more when you see them together? I almost . . .”

Before she could continue, Brendan’s mouth was on
hers,
and by the nature of the kiss—as different as night and day from those sweet, almost chaste kisses they had been sharing these past weeks—Tracy knew that all talk of Shawn and Riley, or anything else for that matter was over with for the duration.