Worth the Wait Read online

  “I messed up that night,” Avery whispered. “I was supposed to be with you. And I should have told you. I was so stupid. I was a kid, but that’s no excuse. I wanted you, and I wanted King and Crown, and I didn’t know how to tell you, and I was ashamed that I’d waited so long. And then…then I just blew it. I fucked up. I’ve regretted that for fifteen years. Is it too late?”

  “Fifteen years is too late.”

  Avery released Merritt’s hand and cupped her cheek. It was a tentative gesture, like a virgin feeling her way for the first time, but the warmth of Avery’s touch reached all the way through to her heart. The right choice…the only choice was no. Avery held Merritt’s gaze. Merritt remembered the music drifting out of the windows of the Elysium when all the lights had been lit and everyone in the Elysium had been a friend. Then they were in each other’s arms again, and Merritt was filled with something that was almost anger but not quite, thinking even in that moment that she was going to push Avery away and walk out of the courtyard and never look back.

  “Where do people go in Portland?” Avery gasped. “For this?”

  To make love to the girl who broke your heart when you were eighteen?

  “All of Portland,” Merritt said. “It was made for this.”

  Chapter 5

  Merritt rented a room at the Jupiter Hotel even though her own apartment was down the street. A motor lodge from the 1960s with retro furnishings, it was the perfect place for a one-night stand with your past.

  “Do you want to get a drink at the bar first?” Merritt asked as she stepped away from the counter of the Jupiter Motel, but Avery was already outside.

  Merritt followed her. Avery stood in the shadows of potted bamboo, shrinking into the darkness.

  “Are you hiding?” Merritt asked.

  “I have to.” Avery scanned the hotel driveway and the patio with its tiki lamps and fire pits.

  Merritt’s heart told her to walk away. She had loved Avery too much when they were teenagers, and she sensed that those feelings could overtake her at any moment. Making love to Avery Crown (no, fucking—that was all it would be) was like walking across the top of a high roof carrying plywood in the wind. You could do it. Once. Twice. The gusts might settle down for the three minutes it took to cross the ridge. The wind might not catch the plywood like a sail, but when it did you went over.

  “Come on,” Merritt said because, for a second, falling off that roof would feel like flying.

  When they were in their room, Merritt said, “It’s not the fanciest place,”

  “I’m staying in room 1313 at the Extended Stay Deluxe,” Avery said. “You don’t get less fancy than that.”

  “Or less lucky.”

  “I feel lucky.”

  Avery adjusted the curtains, tucking one corner between the wall and a chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Avery said. “There’s this reporter. Dan Ponza. He’s everywhere. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s a fan gone wrong, but he loves to hate us. Maybe he thinks there’s a scandal worth waiting for.”

  “Is this it?” Merritt asked.

  “Yeah. And, Merritt…you can’t tell anyone.”

  “After tonight, I forget everything.”

  She wouldn’t though.

  “If anyone finds out, Alistair and I would lose everything. The show. The crew. Our producer.” Avery seemed suddenly torn. “I’d get a bit part in L.A. I’d be stuck. You have my whole life in your hand. If you tell anyone—”

  “You wanted this,” Merritt said.

  Avery drew in a sharp little breath. “You don’t?” She glanced around, a look of shocked embarrassment crossing her face…as though she had not just walked a dozen blocks in nervous, erotically charged silence. “I thought…I’d understand if you changed your mind. If you didn’t want to.”

  Merritt cocked her head. Two years in high school she’d spent pining for Avery. Fifteen years she’d spent trying not to think about her.

  “Do you really think I’d be here if I didn’t want to?”

  “You could’ve changed your mind. Reunions do things to people.”

  They stood in the center of the small room. Merritt drew Avery to her, her hands on Avery’s waist, lost in the cloud of pink frills. She couldn’t believe it was happening. Of course she would remember every single detail.

  “If this was what the Vale reunion did to people,” Merritt said, “the alumni association would make a lot more money.”

  The zipper of Avery’s dress was concealed beneath a plaquette of lace, but Merritt was no stranger to women’s closures. She swept Avery’s hair to one side and unzipped her dress with a deliberateness that said she was there for only one purpose. Beneath the pink tulle, Avery wore a pair of panties as thin and filmy as a jellyfish. She had full, round breasts and hips that swelled into a perfect hourglass. And she was short, which made her look rounder and more luscious, like the antique pin-up-girl photos Merritt collected and did not sell.

  “If you don’t like what you see, you don’t have to look,” Avery said, turning away with a little pout.

  “Why wouldn’t I like what I see?”

  Merritt had seen Avery naked a thousand times when they were teenagers, and every single time she had longed to touch her like this.

  “You haven’t changed,” Merritt said.

  “I’m not allowed to. That’s part of my contract.”

  Merritt had changed. A few years of working construction followed by more years of moving woodstoves and salvaging lumber had given her once willowy body a sturdy look. She didn’t mind. She was strong. The girls at the Mirage liked her hard abs. It was her heart that was too hard to love for long. But she wasn’t thinking about that now. She was thinking about the film of Avery’s panties, her pale skin, her sweet perfume. It smelled like cotton candy on a summer night when the carnival was still magic.

  Merritt released her bra and cupped her breasts. Avery’s eyes closed as Merritt brushed her fingers lightly over Avery’s nipples. She felt the electricity between them, as though every inch of her skin was anticipating every inch of Avery’s. Then she lowered Avery to the bed.

  “I haven’t…” Avery wouldn’t meet her eyes, but she spoke with breathless urgency. “I have to be very careful about who I see and what I do with women, so I don’t do a lot of stuff that’s not okay for King and Crown, and I’m out of practice.”

  Releasing Avery for a second, Merritt turned and swept the covers off the bed, revealing taut white sheets. The air-conditioning unit in the window was silent and the room was warm. Merritt took Avery’s hand and guided her to the bed, admiring how Avery’s hair splayed out around her like a drift of gold-tipped autumn leaves. Merritt lay down beside her and propped herself up on her elbow, still clothed. She smoothed her hand over Avery’s belly, then across the front of Avery’s lace panties, then lower. The delicate fabric was damp from Avery’s desire, and Merritt caressed Avery the way Avery had caressed her palm.

  “Most of the time, I really don’t miss sex.” Avery’s hips lifted to meet Merritt’s touch. “I don’t even think about it.”

  “Really?”

  Merritt leaned over and took Avery’s nipple in her mouth. She pushed Avery’s panties aside and slid her finger inside Avery’s body, savoring her warmth.

  “Are you thinking about it now?”

  “Merritt, of course. How could I not be…thinking…about…it…now?”

  Avery clutched Merritt’s shoulders. Merritt wanted to go slow, but she was alight with desire, as though all the aching of her teenage years had flooded her body.

  “This is the problem with not…oh...not having sex enough.” Avery gasped. “God, that feels good. Please, Merritt. Take off your clothes.”

  Merritt liked the frustration in Avery’s voice. She rolled off just long enough to strip. Then they clung to each other, their hands and mouths racing over each other’s bodies. Skin on skin. Their breath quickening, their skin flushed. Finally, Merritt couldn’t stand the pressure bu
ilding up between her legs. She scissored her thighs between Avery’s, pressing her clitoris into the center of Avery’s sex, the wet complicated folds blurring together, so that Merritt could not tell where her body ended and Avery’s began, only that between the two there was such illuminating pleasure.

  “Shh. Shh,” Avery whispered.

  Merritt was not sure if Avery was shushing her or herself.

  “It’s been so long.” Avery grabbed Merritt’s thighs. “So long. Why did I wait?”

  Merritt held them tightly together, clutching Avery’s hips. Then she was coming. Avery clamped a hand over Merritt’s mouth and then one over her own. They were both shaking when they finally fell away from each other. And Merritt did something she had never done with any other woman: She fell instantly and blissfully asleep.

  Chapter 6

  Avery didn’t sleep. Instead she watched Merritt lying beside her, the sheets at her feet, her arms stretched over her head. Even in her sleep, Merritt looked confident.

  Avery remembered her mother explaining the magic of King & Crown. Plain women want a fantasy. Avery Crown with Alistair King. No one gets that in real life. Eighteen and hopeful, Avery had asked about acting in movies. You don’t always have to be beautiful in movies, she’d said. Marlene Crown had assessed her from her too-tight curls to her soul. But you do have to be talented. Home and garden is good for you. You’re not intimidating.

  Avery wished she was intimidatingly gorgeous. Merritt was intimidatingly gorgeous. It was very clear that a woman like Merritt did not belong anywhere near a woman like Avery, especially not naked. Avery was pretty sure there’d be a split second when Merritt woke and looked like someone who’d been kidnapped. Oh, shit. What did I do? Where’s my kidney?

  Eventually, dawn light crept under the curtains. It was three a.m. and then it was four. Call was at five at the command center. Avery had two choices: sneak out like a jerk or see that look of disenchantment in Merritt’s eyes. She dressed, then touched Merritt’s shoulder.

  “I have go to work.”

  Merritt woke. She looked a little blurry-eyed, not like a kidnap victim but a little sad. That was almost worse.

  “Now?” Merritt glanced at the bedside clock.

  “It’s almost five.”

  Merritt smoothed her short black hair out of her eyes and it fell immediately back in place. “Take care, then,” she said.

  Avery’s heart sank, but she mustered her courage. Her delinquent childhood friend DX (second only to Alistair in her affections) often told her to whip life like a Peruvian cowboy lays down a jaguar, tag it with a radio transmitter, and broadcast “I was here, motherfuckers!” Avery took it to mean carpe diem.

  “Will I see you again after this?” she asked. “I could come by your shop.”

  Merritt shook her head slowly. “You know we’d only mess it up,” she said, a regretful smile lifting her lips. “If we go out to Mother’s for eggs Benedict, we’ll kill the magic. You’re leaving in six weeks. Pretend it was a dream. We don’t want to be two more reunioners with nothing in common except too many mimosas.”

  It was a poetic way to say, Thanks but no thanks. Avery tried to shrug it off. “Good point. I’m going to be super busy.”

  She wanted to run out of the hotel room.

  “I bet you are,” Merritt said. “You’ve got a big life. You’re a star.”

  The gentleness in her voice made it even worse. It was the same tone Avery used when she had to disengage from a fan who had convinced themselves they were best friends. Merritt rolled over and faced the wall. It was over. Avery’s hand was on the door when she heard Merritt whisper, “My shop’s on Burnside. We’re open ten a.m. to six p.m. Don’t forget.”

  If Avery hadn’t been used to tuning her ear to Alistair’s secret voice she wouldn’t have heard her. “I’ll stop by,” she said.

  Merritt said nothing else. But Avery carried her words with her as she called an Uber, waited by the window, then ducked out of the hotel, careful to scan the street for Dan Ponza. He was nowhere to be seen. She had the familiar feeling that always struck her when she first arrived in a new city, before the first person recognized her. She could be anyone, any girl going home in the morning, a girl who didn’t have to watch for Dan Ponza, a girl who could cut her signature hair. I am the girl Merritt slept with! she thought over and over again as she rode back to the hotel seeing the city again for the first time.

  * * *

  Dawn was brightening when she entered her hotel room. She redid her hair. There was really too much of it, as though shampoo producers had gotten ahold of her agent and said, It’d really cut into our profits if she didn’t have so much to wash. Then she headed back to the parking lot and caught the last van to the command center. The old diner converted into office space was already buzzing. Alistair was sitting by the window flipping through his phone. She slid in next to him.

  “Whatcha got?” Avery asked, trying to act casual.

  Alistair touched the screen and a video started again from the beginning. Closed captioning read, Work is finished on the clinic in Stone, Wyoming. The America Wyoming Foundation is funding the eight-thousand-square-foot clinic, which will provide reduced-cost health care to communities in the area.

  Alistair was so good. He wasn’t dreaming of his lover and the next time he’d be able to push his throbbing genitals against another person’s body. He was thinking about sick children.

  “They know it’s you,” Avery said. “Why don’t you just go and cut the red ribbon?”

  “They don’t know it’s me, and I hate all of them.”

  Avery snorted. “Really. One person gets out of Stone and suddenly an anonymous donor is putting up clinics and after-school programs. And you don’t think they know it’s you?”

  “They don’t watch King and Crown.”

  “You don’t hate them.”

  “I was asexual, beautiful, and in love with the theater.” Alistair fluffed his shiny blond hair. “They crucified me.”

  One of the production assistants came by with Avery’s coffee. She didn’t need it. She would never have to sleep again. Don’t forget.

  Alistair picked up the energy bar he’d been eating. The producers at TKO had struck a product placement deal with Global Body Biscuit.

  “It tastes like twigs in dried marinara,” he said.

  “So good.”

  Alistair handed it to Avery, and they chewed meditatively. That was probably why Global Body Biscuits were such a good diet aid. It took hours to eat one.

  “So?” he asked with a teasing lilt in his voice. “I didn’t see you at the hotel.”

  “I didn’t ruin her life,” Avery whispered.

  “I told you so.” They were speaking in the subsonic voice only they could hear.

  “But she was mad!” Avery linked her arm through Alistair’s, squeezing him in her excitement.

  “You’re happy about that?” He scrunched his perfectly manly forehead.

  Standing in the courtyard of the Elysium, she’d been so nervous she didn’t think she’d be able to speak. It was Merritt’s anger that had given her courage. If she was angry, it meant she cared.

  “It was like we could go back in time.”

  “Hmm,” Alistair said. “I think they’re working on that at CERN, but I don’t know if it’s for sale at the Mac store yet. Did you go forward?”

  Avery just smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You had nostalgia sex,” Alistair said.

  “I thought she was going to say no, or that she was going to say it was all a mistake. But she wants to see me at her shop…”

  “Not a one-off? Are you going to run off and leave me and marry a hardware store owner? Be careful of Ponza. You know Greg thinks he may be paid by Down Home Fixers. He wants to catch us doing cocaine or something, so they can get a cut of our Deep South market share.”

  Avery didn’t care about the South or the market. She tried to find words for the feeling she
’d had as she’d ridden away from the Jupiter Motel in an anonymous black sedan. Free. That was how she’d felt. Free and light, like a cloud floating across a perfect blue sky. She didn’t have time to say more.

  Greg took his usual position in the center of the room. “You all have your call sheets,” he began, “so you know—and you’re going to love this.” His face said they wouldn’t. “Warren Venner, our new executive producer from TKO, is going to visit the set. He likes to keep his boots on the ground.”

  Someone groaned.

  “He wants more drama. Our ratings aren’t slipping, but they aren’t going up. He produced the show Cop Brides. He wants more drama on King and Crown. And this next part is big,” Greg went on. “You’re all a bunch of gossips, so most of you know.”

  “What?” Avery asked Alistair. She hadn’t been thinking about anything but the reunion.

  “Pine Street burned down,” Alistair said. “Do you even work here anymore?”

  “The Pine Street house caught fire,” Greg echoed. “A few days ago. I didn’t tell you because we weren’t sure how much damage there was, thought maybe we could salvage it. King and Crown saves the day. Yada, yada. TKO decided it was too much to restore. But—” He looked more cheerful than a man who had just lost prime real estate in Portland. “Pam has got us a new building.”

  Pam: the savant of purchasing. Of course she had gotten them a new building.

  “It is an amazing property. I don’t know how Pam does it, but SkyBank—they’re this local chain, but they’re getting bigger—they wanted advertising time on TKO, but they couldn’t afford it. They’re going to give us this building in a trade. Get ready to find some Portland swag and get your dry rot on. We are going to rock this season!”