The Fling Read online

  “Oh. Uh, I remember my trainer saying they are booked till the end of the summer,” Annie lied.

  “Shit. Okay. Here’s Megan.”

  “No, actually I have to—”

  “Hey.” Megan was back on the phone before Annie could make her escape. “So we’re going bowling. Just to get Shane to shut up.”

  “Sure. Let me just see what my schedule is like.”

  Megan scoffed and Annie immediately knew why. “We both know it’s not worse than mine.” Megan worked a shade under a thousand hours a week in the legal department at one of the major studios. The fact that her boss had let her leave work early that night was a small miracle. No doubt she’d mapped some sort of work-related errand into her escape.

  “Right. Well, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay. Kisses!” Megan said in her best valley girl voice. Annie laughed.

  “Bye.”

  Annie ended the call and slipped her phone into her bag. She felt so bad. Like a little kid getting away with something less than a crime, but enough to be punished for. She was lying to her friends and Jeff, sort of, even though he’d technically agreed to what had happened between her and Oksana. She felt like a criminal for wanting more.

  Annie climbed out of her car and was reminded how unseasonably humid it had been when she left her office. The heat from the day lingered as the sun began to set. She pushed aside any further preparations and walked, shoulders back, right into Elite Fitness. Immediately, her eyes landed on Oksana as she busied herself re-racking a few low-pound weights across the room. She didn’t see Annie, giving her a few more seconds to hide her anxiety as she walked toward her fate.

  The gym was busy, but like usual, the noise level was kept to a minimum, just some light bass pumping through the speakers overhead. Through the glass windows on her right she saw that spinning class was well under way. She smiled at the owner, Paulo, as he chatted with Mrs. Barstein or Farstein, who seemed in no hurry to actually begin her workout now that she was indoors. Two guys who always worked out together were side by side on treadmills facing the street. They looked strangely similar. They were both ripped, dark hair cut the same way, naturally tanned, good-looking in this uniform way. Annie couldn’t tell if they were a couple who had transitioned to that looking and dressing alike phase, really good friends who’d met their match, or brothers. Maybe she’d ask Oksana when she ran out of things to say.

  She tripped over the edge of the mats as she stared at their twin glutes and when she righted herself and the spike of adrenaline cleared, she was feet away from a grinning Oksana. It was a friendly smile, familiar, but she wasn’t flirting.

  “I see I didn’t convert you completely,” Oksana said. Annie shrugged off the comment, having pushed the gym rats out of her mind. Her thoughts and her whole body focused on Oksana and Oksana seemed to notice. This part felt like a scene from a movie. Annie entered this odd cone of silence. She couldn’t hear anything, but she could feel the beat from the music above them. The air was too cool to carry anything beyond the rubber scent of the weights and the mats, but she was searching for the smell of Oksana. Her memory found it immediately and it filled Annie’s nostrils and rolled over the surface of her tongue. She licked her lip. Oksana’s skin suddenly grew darker but brighter at the same time.

  Annie imagined if she had hair, Oksana would do something adorable with it like anxiously tuck it behind her ear. But instead she gently tugged at her studded earring and glanced at the floor. “Hi,” she said, just as sweetly.

  “Hi,” Annie replied. She moved closer, too close, but Oksana didn’t move away. “I feel like I should say something inappropriate.”

  “Like what?” Oksana asked. She swallowed as if preparing to be horrified.

  “Like how beautiful you look today.”

  Oksana looked away, blushing even more, but Annie could see her smiling as she ducked her head. “Can we please just work out?”

  “I’m sorry. Sure. Let’s work out.” Oksana kicked a foam roller to the middle of the floor and motioned for Annie to sit down on the mat. Annie plopped down on the floor and slid the roller under her calves.

  “So.”

  “What am I supposed to say to you?” Oksana asked.

  “I don’t know, but this is lovely weather we’re having.”

  “It is. Any plans for the weekend?”

  “Yes.” Annie smiled. “I’ll be doing my best to remain appropriate.” Something changed between them then, like the ice had been broken and they slid easily into their workout.

  Beyond her usual instructions, Oksana was unusually quiet as Annie stretched. She flinched every time they touched. When she gripped Annie’s hands to stretch her back, Annie noticed her palms were cold and a little clammy. Annie sensed she was more nervous than uncomfortable, but all the things that came to mind to say to help soothe Oksana would get her tossed out of the gym and Oksana fired, so she kept her solutions to herself. They barely made eye contact as they walked over to the treadmills. Annie almost asked about the jogging twins, but she thought better of it. Maybe she was coming on too strong.

  She settled into a brisk walk, then poked Oksana in the shoulder. “You okay?”

  The confidence seemed to settle back into Oksana’s shoulders. “Yeah. I’m glad we’ve already got your money. You don’t need me anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at yourself.” Annie glanced down at herself then up at her reflection in the window. “You’re in perfectly good shape. I’m sure your dress fits like a glove.”

  Annie didn’t want to think about her dress. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “No. We don’t like to give refunds.”

  “Oh, well, as long as you have my money.”

  Oksana chuckled lightly, tapping the monitor on the treadmill. “I’ll be right back. Don’t touch that incline.”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  She looked forward again and watched Oksana’s reflection as she headed to the other side of the gym and disappeared into their main office. When Oksana came back she seemed like her old self, the person Annie had grown to know before their one night together. The shift in her demeanor Annie took as a sign to really back off. She was acting like she had no control over herself, flirting with Oksana in the gym, but as their workout continued Annie couldn’t ignore the way Oksana was looking at her when she thought Annie wasn’t looking back. She felt so aware of her body and even more aware of the way Oksana was watching her. As she counted through sets and waited for Annie to catch her breath or take a drink of water. Annie couldn’t ignore it. Once they were finished, Annie took a chance, thinking Oksana’s response to a request she’d never made before would give her the answer she needed.

  She wiped her face one last time then shoved her jacket into her bag. “Walk me to my car?”

  “Okay.” Oksana followed her silently to the door. No one seemed to notice them slipping out, not that they would have cared, but it was that type of secret they shared. A silly part of Annie thought everyone knew or was at least trying to figure them out.

  When they reached the parking lot Annie fought the urge to take Oksana’s hand. They weren’t on a date. They were outside Oksana’s place of employment. Talk about inappropriate. As they turned to each other in the shadows near Annie’s car, she felt the climate change. The air of innocent, albeit, sexual flirting was gone, but so was any sense of professionalism. Somehow, at least for this moment, something between then had turned serious. Annie could feel it. She could see the look of consideration on Oksana’s face. She could tell Oksana was just as anxious to see what would happen next.

  “So, I’ll see you this weekend?” Annie asked.

  “First thing in the morn,” Oksana said, looking down at her sneakers. Annie looked from Oksana’s face to her hands that were braced on her waist so her elbows were out. They were silent for a few moments, then Oksana looked up.

  It wasn’t anything Oksana did or the ad
orably quizzical expression that touched her face as she looked back at Annie. There wasn’t any practical reason for Annie to step any closer than she was, and she should have done the exact opposite of putting her hands on top of Oksana’s. The only thing going through her mind was that she should kiss Oksana. So she did.

  *

  Oksana had been wrestling with what to do about Annie all day. She held off on telling Paulo the truth. He asked her a hundred times if she was okay, pointing out that from the moment she walked in that morning that she’d been acting strangely for the past couple days. But she had no clue how to tell him the truth because she wasn’t ready to come clean yet. Coming clean meant facing the fact that she’d made a mistake. This wasn’t how reconstructing your love life was supposed to go. There were rules for this sort of thing. Like both people should probably be single. Still, she couldn’t ignore the texts she found at the end of every hour. She had to respond to them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually been wet all day long. She wasn’t ready for that part to end either.

  She’d decided to see how things played out once they were around each other again. No one could argue that texting and speaking face-to-face were not on the same level when it came to applying heavy meaning to communication. She wanted to see if Annie was using their distance as a way to keep her fantasy going a little longer or if, once they were together, Annie would keep up whatever this game was between them. Oksana hated admitting it to herself, but she was enjoying this game. At least until Annie actually showed up at Elite Fitness.

  Oksana shouldn’t have been that shocked by her aggressive behavior. Annie had been blunt all along, but for some reason Oksana wasn’t prepared for it. She’d convinced herself that Annie would start spouting some nonsense about her wedding, but she didn’t. She even went as far as to change the subject every time Oksana brought it up. This scared Oksana a lot. She did not want to start having feelings for Annie. Real feelings beyond the “I desperately need to have sex with your fingers and your mouth” type feelings that Oksana had been fighting every moment since they met. She needed Annie to have some reason. She needed Annie to push her away before she fell into something that ended with her looking like a fool.

  Instead, she followed Annie out to the parking lot, something she’d never done with a client before. Instead of telling Annie they needed to end this thing between them, they were kissing. It was kisses like this that she had been warring with since she’d woken up that morning. Annie’s lips that made her forget where she was and who she was supposed to be, or how responsible. Kissing Annie was like waking up again, like feeling joy for the first time. Joy and fireworks in your crotch.

  She thrust Annie against the wall, pushing them both further into the darkness, and as Annie moaned, Oksana slid her thigh between her legs. It went on for some time, not an overwrought, sloppy meeting of tongues and lips, but this perfect caressing of mouths. Holy shit, Annie could kiss, and if they had been somewhere else, Oksana never would have stopped.

  “You tell that sweet Bettino I say hello,” Mrs. Barstone yelled from across the parking lot. Oksana jumped back, separating herself from Annie, and was instantly relieved that Annie seemed to understand what was happening. They were breathing heavy, smoothing their clothes, Annie fixing her hair. Mrs. Barstone climbed in her Volvo without a glance in their direction.

  “I should probably get going,” Annie said as she exhaled.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later.” Before things got really awkward, Oksana hugged her and left her to dig for her keys, but instead of walking calmly back into the gym, Oksana ran. She didn’t want to be left outside alone.

  *

  Hours later, Oksana was still lost in the fog of that kiss. She wondered how it happened, how she could be so careless to kiss Annie back, right out in the open like that. Mostly, though, she was unnerved by the kiss itself.

  The kiss was loaded. The whole situation had been filled with danger, but the kiss changed the name of the game. This was no longer innocent fun. They had both achieved their initial purpose. Annie knew what it was like to be with a woman and Oksana had banished an embarrassingly long sexual drought. But that kiss—Oksana could feel it the moment Annie pressed against her—it was a kiss that was asking for more.

  Oksana did the one thing she knew she shouldn’t; she thought about the possibility of more. But what could they have? Nothing. Annie was capitalizing on her free pass. She was taking advantage of that freedom, and Oksana was playing right into that selfishness. Not that it was wrong for Annie to explore herself before she settled down for good, but it was wrong for Oksana to be a part of it.

  Annie’s whole existence was dangerous, and the more aggressive she became the more Oksana saw Vivian in her. Vivian had pursued her the same way.

  Things with Annie wouldn’t end the same way they had with Vivian, mostly because Oksana and Annie weren’t really together, but Oksana saw herself getting hurt if she wasn’t careful.

  “Sana.”

  “Hmm?” Oksana blinked, looking away from their mastiff, Vasily, who had been the focus of her blank stare.

  “Baba’s talking to you.” Her grandmother, Inna, was a great caretaker and guardian, but she was slightly terrifying. She was exactly five feet tall and she was almost as wide. Like Kat, she liked coloring her hair. Tonight her pumpkin-shaped head was adorned with fruit punch red waves, cropped short. She rarely stopped smoking, and she only spoke English if she absolutely had to. And she didn’t like being ignored.

  “Oh.” She switched to Russian as she addressed her grandmother. She glanced at Oksana over the laundry basket between them. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “You have a girlfriend now.”

  “What?”

  “Give me that shirt. You’ll never fold it.”

  Oksana handed the shirt over and grabbed for a towel out of the basket. “Who says I have a girlfriend and how come I don’t know about it?”

  “Ekaterina tells me there’s a girl, and I believe her because all night you’ve been out in space.”

  Oksana turned to her sister, who was half hanging off the recliner and shot the brat her own look. A look that said Kat had violated the sister code.

  Kat shrugged and spoke in Russian, the little suck up. “What do you want me to say? You’ve been out in space all night. You daydream. You ignore your baba when she is speaking to you.”

  Oksana narrowed her eyes and switched to English. “I’m going to kill you.” She turned to Baba Inna. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “You are thinking of someone.”

  Oksana didn’t answer or lie. She knew her grandmother could interpret her every expression.

  “Give me your phone.”

  “It’s…I left it in the little house.” Oksana shifted, covering her phone with her leg.

  “It’s right there,” Kat said before she could stop herself. She was just crapping all over the sister code tonight. Oksana was going to find some reason to ground her very soon.

  “Seriously?”

  “Sorry.”

  Oksana pulled out her phone and handed it over. She’d never regretted teaching her grandmother how to use anything more in her life. As if he felt her pain, Vasily left his spot by the TV and wiggled his giant body between her feet and the couch.

  Momentarily comforted by the only mammal in the room who hadn’t turned on her, Oksana watched, absolutely sick to her stomach as Baba went through her text messages. Baba didn’t say a word or make a face, but Oksana knew exactly what see was seeing. Finally, Baba handed the phone back. She picked up a pair of Kat’s jeans

  “You help no one by lying.” She’d said those words before.

  Choked up but tearless, Oksana helped her grandmother take care of the rest of the laundry, ignoring Kat’s apologetic looks from across the room.

  Once they were finished, she kissed them both good night and headed back to the little house.

  Her cottage behind Baba’s en
ormous Craftsman had been rented out to random relatives of the local Russian community until Oksana turned eighteen and claimed it as her own baby sister-free zone. Baba didn’t rent it out while she was living at Vivian’s.

  Kat followed.

  “Sana, wait!” Kat called after her. Oksana stopped and waited.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry. Really. Are you mad at me?”

  “No, but…” Fuck, this is what she hated. If she and Kat were closer in age and if Oksana wasn’t damn near her mom she could say something like “keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours,” but she couldn’t do that.

  She pulled Kat into a tight hug. “No, but let that be a lesson to you. Our grandmother can read.”

  “I promise I won’t rat you out again.”

  “Good. Go to bed.”

  Oksana waited until Kat was back inside before she turned and unlocked the door to her place.

  The little house was quiet and empty. Oksana changed for bed, checked her e-mail, and before she finally made up her mind to go to sleep, Oksana sent Annie one last text. One last long text.

  Hey, are you there? She typed. Annie responded not even ten seconds later.

  Yeah. Just lying in bed. My hands are above the covers. I swear.

  I don’t think we should do this. It’s been more than one night.

  Twenty painful minutes went by before Annie replied. Oksana knew she had done the right thing. She didn’t like lying to her family and she didn’t like lying to herself even more.

  You’re right. I’ll talk to you later.

  Good night.

  After that, Annie didn’t text back.

  Part of Oksana regretted not handling this in person, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to say exactly what needed to be said. Now the guilt didn’t matter. Their fun was over.

  Chapter Three

  The Need for Clarity

  There were no tears, but Annie’s throat and her eyes burned so badly she was surprised she wasn’t crying all over herself.