Lauren Dane - Broken Open

“Natalie, I can’t do this right now. Everything is fine. We will eventually have sex and I will fill you in on it and that will be that. We’ll do it awhile and it’ll wear off and we’ll be those people who fuck every once in a while when they need it from someone they can trust to be a good time but not develop feelings.”

“Oh god. Seriously? This is how you’re going to play this thing? You and Ezra are fuckbuddies? You bang awhile and then you see each other all the time and it’s totally hunky-dory?”

“I’ve seen people I’ve had sex with in town or around and I don’t burst into tears that I never bore their children, Natalie.”

“Don’t get defensive with me. I know your tricks. When Paddy first came around, you told me to let him in because I didn’t have anything to lose. I’m saying that to you now. Let this be good. You deserve that. You can’t just let that part of you die.”

“I’m not some sort of defective goods, Nat.”

Natalie parked and they went into the house, heading to the kitchen, where they began to ready for the pancakes Tuesday had promised.

Neither of them spoke as they moved through the kitchen, washing hands, tying on aprons, getting the griddle heating and then mixing up the pancake batter. Natalie was a horrible cook so she gathered ingredients and then cleaned them up when Tuesday finished.

As they did all this, Natalie put out all the items they’d need with just a little too much force because she was pissed off. Normally, this was the place Natalie had stopped when the topic of Tuesday beginning to date again came up.

But things had shifted over the past year or so and it seemed pretty apparent to Tuesday that Natalie was going to push some more.

The problem was that Tuesday could lie to herself better than she could lie to Natalie. Which was also a testament to the friendship they’d had since the first day of college. They’d celebrated so many things together, grieved others, like the unthinkable when, four years prior, Tuesday’s husband had been diagnosed with cancer and had died three months later.

Through it all, through grief so deep it was simply inescapable, through that numb place she’d floated into, it was Natalie who’d grabbed hold and gave her roots. Friendship that saw everything and loved because of it saved her over and over.

So she couldn’t lie to Natalie because Natalie understood Tuesday’s grief and her avoidance behavior, too.

Once they’d settled at the table with a heaping platter of pancakes between them and two big glasses of orange juice, they began to talk again.

“He’s sexy. I like him.” Tuesday poured warmed-up boysenberry preserves on her pancakes. “Before you get huffy over there, I know it’s more than that. There’s this intensity between us that...” That she’d never in the entirety of her life felt with anyone. “I get caught up in it. It’s like he gets near and all my parts samba. He’s powerful. He takes up oxygen and space. He’s big and sexy. So. Sexy. I can’t even with how sexy he is.”

Tuesday put her face in her hands a moment before she got back to her pancakes. “Anyway, it’s not like I don’t enjoy sex. He and I are clearly compatible. He’s a grown-up. I’m a grown-up. We do our thing and at some point we don’t. Stop arguing with me on this right now.”

Natalie huffed but held her tongue. For a minute or two.

“I’ll stop for now. But you said it was like right as you were putting a condom on so that means he was naked and really I have to know.”

Tuesday guffawed. “He is one of the universe’s finest creations. I didn’t get to study as much as I wanted to because we were busy getting it on. Next time I’m going to make him stand still and just circle him slow so I can take it all in.”

“He’s so broody and emo and protective. It’s scary and hot all at once. Paddy is hard enough to manage. I can’t imagine how tough a job it will be to keep Ezra out of trouble.”

“Ha. Not my job. He’s a big boy.” Boy was he ever.

Natalie and Paddy both had a lot of scars and hot buttons, but they both seemed willing to confront them when they came up and deal with working things out, which was how to make a relationship work.

“I guess maybe I’m starting to believe you can want to hit someone in the nose with a newspaper and still love them. And that in a day or a week you won’t want to hit them anymore. So far . He’s sort of vexing so I shouldn’t make declarative statements.”

Tuesday burst out laughing. Natalie was beautiful in the way only pale blondes who look really great with short hair could manage. She was classically pretty but with an edge you’d miss until you looked a little closer.

The real Natalie, the one only those who were close to her saw, had a bawdy sense of humor. It had been a joke, all those years ago, that had planted the seed of friendship that made them close to that day.

They’d all been so young that first day in the dorms back at college. Their group of friends—1022 they called themselves informally, after the dorm room they all shared way back that first year—forged a friendship that was like a family.

They’d all been strangers, these five women who all seemed very different from one another.

Over the years they’d known one another, Tuesday had learned that Natalie had a great sense of just exactly what Tuesday needed, even if Tuesday herself hadn’t. And it was the same for her when it came to Natalie. Their connection was something big and special, a friendship that’d carried them both through some major life storms.

“After we finish up let’s get ourselves set and you call Mary to see when she wants to go over there.”

Natalie paused. “Wait a minute. I thought you had a hair appointment. You do! You were saying you’d hit the second show up looking fantastic and all done up.”

“I do, but I can reschedule.” Tuesday patted her hair. “And, we all know I’ll look fantastic either way.”

“Truth. However.” Natalie raised a brow. “You’re canceling a hair appointment to be nice to Ezra. You like Ezra.” But she sang it and it made Tuesday smirk a little.

“I’m canceling a hair appointment because a little girl and her family need the support and the ability to be together right now. I am a nice person, you know.”

Natalie snorted. “You are a nice person. Who totally has it for Ezra because you never give up hair appointments.”

“Listen, it is hard to find someone who knows what to do with all this.” Tuesday waved a hand at her hair. “I gotta take my appointments when I can get them when Nina is at the salon.” She’d learned the hard way that she needed a salon that had stylists who knew how to style and treat black women’s hair. Tuesday had found Nina, a stylist who worked two days a week at a local salon and that’s who touched Tuesday’s hair. Otherwise, she drove up to Olympia and went with her mom to a friend who did hair on the side.

Natalie’s grin undercut her attempt to be serious. “I understand. Well, actually I don’t, which is sort of sucky but anyway. I do think I need two more pancakes before I call, though. Going to be a full day—it’s really in everyone’s interest that I have all the fuel I need.”

Tuesday snorted. “You’re a giver.”

“Also—” Natalie paused to eat a little “—I want to wait until I hear back from Paddy. If they cancel the show we’ll know soon, but he didn’t think they were going to.”

“Smart.”

“At least tell me if he asked you to come tonight. You’re very stingy with details.”

Tuesday sighed and shook her head. “I can’t remember if you were this nosy with Eric.”