Tempted

Chapter 02

“She’ll be late.” My sister Patricia sniffed as she looked over the menu. “Let’s not wait for her.”

My other sister Mary looked up from the text message she was busy answering from her cell phone. “Pats, she’s not late yet. Relax.”

Patricia and I shared a look. We’re the closest in age. Sometimes it feels like our family has two sets of daughters, separated by a decade instead of the four years between Patricia and Mary. There are an additional two years between Mary and our youngest sister, Claire. I’m not old enough to be Claire’s mother, but there are times I definitely feel like I am.

“Give her a few more minutes,” I told Patricia. “Yeah, she’ll be late but we can wait a few minutes, can’t we?”

Patricia gave me a stony look and looked back to the menu. I didn’t care for Claire’s lackadaisical attitude any more than my sister did, but Patricia’s attitude surprised me. She could be opinionated and bossy, but she wasn’t usually nasty.

Mary closed her phone with a click and reached for the pitcher of orange juice. “Whose idea was it to meet for breakfast, anyway? I mean, c’mon … you know she doesn’t get up before noon if she can help it.”

“Yes, well,” said Patricia as she snapped her menu closed. “The world doesn’t revolve around Claire, does it? I have things to do today. I can’t be hanging around all day long just because she was out late partying.”

This time Mary and I exchanged a look. Sisterhood is complicated business. Mary raised a brow, passing the responsibility of soothing Patricia to me.

“I’m sure she’ll be here in a few minutes,” I said. “And if she’s not, we’ll go ahead and order. Okay?”

Patricia didn’t look mollified. She snapped up her menu again, hiding behind it. Mary mouthed “What’s with her?” To which my only answer was a shrug.

Claire was, indeed, late, but only by a few minutes, and thus, by her standards, considered herself on time. She breezed into the restaurant like she owned the world, her black hair spiked out around her head like a sunburst. Thick black liner rimmed her eyes, making them stand out against her purposefully pale skin and crimson lips. She slid into the seat next to Mary and reached at once for the glass of juice Mary had poured for herself. Claire’s bangle bracelets jangled as she tipped the glass to her mouth and ignored Mary’s protest.

“Mmm, good,” she said when she set the glass down. She grinned, looking around the table. “You all thought I’d be late.”

“You are late.” Patricia glared.

Claire didn’t look fazed. “Not really. You guys didn’t even order yet.”

As if by magic the waiter appeared. Claire’s sultry stare seemed to fluster him, but he managed to take our orders and leave the table with no more than a glance over his shoulder. Claire winked at him. Patricia sighed in disgust.

“What?” Claire said. “He’s cute.”

“Whatever.” Patricia poured juice and drank it.

Chickens have a pecking order; sisters do, too. Past experience has led my sisters to believe I can be counted on to dispense advice and mediate arguments. They rely on me to keep the surface of our sisterhood polished and shiny, the way we trust Claire to shake us up and Patricia to put us all in order and Mary to make us feel better. We all have our place, usually, but today something seemed off.

“I told them expecting you to be here before noon was ridiculous.” Mary reached for the basket of warm croissants. “What time did you go to sleep last night?”

Claire laughed, taking a croissant for herself. Forgoing butter, she pulled apart the flaky crust with her black-painted nails and stuffed the pastry into her mouth. “Didn’t.”

“You didn’t go to bed last night?” Patricia’s lip curled.

“Didn’t go to sleep,” Claire corrected. She washed down her croissant with a mouthful of juice. “I went to bed, all right.”

Mary laughed. Patricia made a face. I did neither. I studied my youngest sister, spotting a telltale suck mark on her throat. She didn’t have a boyfriend, or at least not one she’d ever bothered to bring around to meet the family. Considering our family, I wasn’t necessarily surprised.

“Can we just get started? I’ve got stuff to do,” Patricia said.

“Fine with me,” Claire replied nonchalantly. “Let’s go.”

She couldn’t have irritated Patricia more with her blasé response. The disregard for her anger made Patricia even more snappish. Though she and Claire had butted heads in the past, this seemed excessive. I set out to defuse the inevitable blowup by pulling out my notebook and pen.

“Okay. First thing we need to decide is where to have it.” I tapped the pen to the paper. My parents’ anniversary was in August. Thirty years. Patricia had come up with the idea for a party. “At their house? At my house, or Patricia’s? Maybe at a restaurant.”

“How ‘bout the VFW?” Claire smirked. “Or the bowling alley?”

“Very funny.” Patricia tore apart her croissant but ate none of it.

“Your house, Anne. We could have a pit beef barbecue, or something, on the beach.” Mary’s phone beeped again, but she ignored it.

“Yeah … we could.” I didn’t hide my lack of enthusiasm for that idea.

“Well, we can’t have it at my house.” Patricia sounded firm. “I don’t have the space.”

“And I do?” My house was nice, and by the water, true, but it was far from spacious.

Claire scoffed, waving at the waiter, who came over at once. “How many people do you really think are going to come? Hey, hon, bring me a mimosa, will you?”

“Jesus, Claire,” said Patricia. “Do you have to?”

For a second Claire’s insouciance slipped. “Yeah, Pats. I do.”

“We could have it at Caesar’s Crystal Palace,” I suggested quickly to fend off an argument. “They have lots of receptions and stuff there.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Mary said. “The food there’s super pricey, and honestly, you guys, I just don’t have the cash to put toward this party like some of you do.”

She gave me a significant look, then one to Patricia. Claire laughed. Mary looked at her, too, with a wiggle of brows.

“Yeah, me and Mary are poor.” Claire looked up at the waiter who brought her drink. “Thanks, sugar.”

He actually blushed when she winked. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Claire had no shame.

“I think keeping the cost down is a good idea, too.” Patricia said this stiffly, looking at her plate and its desiccated croissant. “Let’s have it at Anne’s. We can buy the paper goods at the wholesale club and make a bunch of desserts. The pit beef barbecue would be the most expensive thing, but they include the corn on the cob and rolls and stuff.”

“Don’t forget the booze,” Claire said.

Silence ringed the table. Mary’s phone beeped and she flipped it open, her face blank. Patricia said nothing. I didn’t, either. Claire looked around at each of us.

“You can’t seriously be thinking of not having booze,” Claire said. “At the very least, you have to have beer.”

“That’s up to Anne,” Patricia said after a moment. “It’s her house.”

I looked at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I looked at Mary, also ignoring me. Claire, however, met my gaze head-on.

“We can have whatever we want,” I said, finally.

“It’s an anniversary party for Mom and Dad,” Claire said. “Now, you tell me you’re going to throw them a party and not have booze.”

We were saved from an uncomfortable silence by the arrival of our food. It took a few minutes to distribute and get started on consuming, but that brief time was enough. Mary sighed, stabbing a fried potato.

“We could have beer.” She shrugged. “Get a keg.”

“A couple bottles of wine,” said Patricia grudgingly. “And we’d have to have champagne, I guess. To toast. It’s been thirty years. I guess they deserve a toast. Don’t they?”

They were all looking at me to decide. My fork hovered over the omelet my stomach was deciding it no longer wanted. They wanted me to say yes or no, to make the choice for them. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want that responsibility.

“Anne,” said Claire at last. “We’ll all be there. It’ll be okay.”

I nodded once firmly, the sharp action hurting my neck. “Fine. Sure. Of course. Beer, wine, champagne. James can set up a bar outside and make mixed drinks. He likes that.”

We all said nothing for another long moment. I imagined I felt relief from my sisters at not having to be the ones to make the choice, but perhaps it was only my imagination.

“Now. What about the guest list?” I said, my voice firm as I took charge.

Keeping the surface polished.

I wanted James to refuse to have the party at our house, but, of course, he thought it was a great idea. He was at the grill with a beer in one hand and the tongs in the other when I broached the subject. His apron had a picture of a decapitated, bikini-clad woman imprinted on the front. Her breasts bulged every time he lifted his arms.

“Sounds great. We could rent a tent in case the weather’s bad. It’ll give some shade, too.”

The scent of sizzling steaks should have made my mouth water, but my stomach was too twisted for me to appreciate it. “It will be a lot of work.”

“We’ll hire help. Don’t worry about it.” James flipped the steaks expertly and lifted the lid on the bubbling pot of corn.

Watching him, the master in front of his superfab-andgroovy grill, I let a small smile tug my mouth. James needed step-by-step instructions to make microwave oatmeal, but he fancied himself the Iron Chef of outdoor cooking.

“It will still be a lot of work.”

He looked at me then, finally getting it. “Anne, if you don’t want to have it here, why didn’t you say so?”

“My sisters outvoted me. They all want a pit beef barbecue, and this is the only place to have it. Besides,” I conceded, “even if we rent a tent and hire people to serve and clean up, it will still be cheaper than having it at a catering hall. And … we do have a nice place.”

I looked around. Our house and property were more than nice. A lakefront home with its own stretch of beach, privacy and seclusion, surrounded by pine trees. One of the first homes built along the shore road, the house itself had belonged to James’s grandparents. Others on the road were selling in the high nine hundreds and above, but we’d paid nothing. They’d left it to James in their will. It was small and worn, but clean and bright and most importantly, ours. My husband might build luxury half mansions for everyone else, but I preferred our little bungalow with the personal touches.

James slid the steaks onto a platter and brought them to the table. “Only if you want to, babe. I don’t care, one way or another.”

It would have been so much easier if he had. If he’d put his foot down and demanded we host my parents’ party someplace else. If he’d taken the choice from me, I could’ve blamed him for making what I wanted come true.

“No.” I sighed as he slapped an immense portion of beef onto my plate. “We’ll have it here.”

The steak was good, the corn crisp and sweet. I’d made a salad with in-season strawberries and vinaigrette dressing, and crusty French bread rolls. We ate like kings as James told me about the new work site, the problems he was having with some of the guys on his crew, about his parents’ plans for a family vacation.

“When do they think that’s going to happen?” I paused in cutting my steak.

James shrugged, pouring himself another glass of red wine. He didn’t ask me if I wanted any; he’d stopped asking long ago. “I don’t know. Sometime this summer, I guess.”

“You guess? Well, did they think to ask any of us when we might like to go? Or if we want to go?”

Another shrug. He wouldn’t have thought of it. “I don’t know, Anne. It’s just something my mom mentioned. Maybe sometime over the fourth.”

“Well,” I said, buttering a roll to give my hands a reason not to clench. “We can’t go away with them this summer. You know we can’t. I wish you’d just told her that up front.”

James sighed. “Anne—”

I looked up. “You didn’t tell her we’d go, did you?”

“I didn’t tell her we’d go.”

“But you didn’t tell her we wouldn’t.” I frowned. It was typical and unsurprising, and right now, immeasurably more irritating.

James chewed in silence and washed down his food with wine. He cut more steak. He poured steak sauce.

I, too, said nothing. It wasn’t as easy for me but had come about from long practice. It became a waiting game.

“What do you want me to tell her?” he asked, finally.

“The truth, James. The same thing you told me. That we couldn’t take a vacation this summer because you’ve got that new development going in and you need to be on-site. That we’re planning on using your vacation time to go skiing this winter, instead. That we can’t go. That we don’t want to go!”

“I’m not saying that.” He wiped his mouth and crumpled his napkin, then threw it on his plate where it soaked up steak sauce like blood.

“You’d better tell her something,” I said sourly. “Before she books the trip.”

He sighed again and leaned back in his chair. He ran a hand over his head. “Yeah. I know.”

I didn’t want to be fighting with him about this. Especially since I wasn’t really tense about his mother, but about hosting my parents’ anniversary party. It all cycled around, though, a snake eating its own tail. Feeling pressured into doing something I didn’t want to do for people I didn’t want to please.

James reached across the table and grabbed my hand. His thumb passed over the back of it. “I’ll tell her.”

Three words and such a simple sentiment, but some of the weight dropped from my shoulders. I squeezed his hand. We shared a smile. He tugged me gently, pulling me closer, and we kissed over the remains of our dinner.

“Mmm. Steak sauce.” He licked his lips. “Wonder what else that would taste good on.”

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned.

James laughed and kissed me again, lingering though the position was awkward. “I’d have to lick it all off ….”

“That sounds like a very good way to get an infection,” I said crisply, and he let me go.

Together, we tossed the paper plates and put away leftovers. James found many excuses to rub and bump against me, always with a falsely innocent “Pardon me, excuse me,” that made me laugh and punch his arm. Finally he backed me against the sink and pinned me. His hands closed around my wrists, pressing my hands down to the countertop. His pelvis anchored mine.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.”

“Fancy meeting you here.” He nudged me with his erection.

“We have to stop meeting like this. It’s really too shocking.”

He pressed closer to me, knowing I couldn’t move away. His breath, redolent of garlic and onion but in a delicious and not repugnant way, gusted over my face. He tilted his head to align our mouths, but he didn’t kiss me.

“Are you shocked?”

I gave my head the slightest shake. “Not yet.”

“Good.”

Sometimes it was like that with us. Fast and hot and hard, swift and frantic fucking without bothering to do more than slide aside panties and unzip a fly. He was inside me in a heartbeat, and I was wet for him. Slick. My body gave him no resistance as he filled me, and we both cried out.

My arms went around his neck, his hand beneath one thigh to shift the angle. We rattled the cupboards. I wasn’t sure I’d come but something in the way his body hit my pelvis, over and over, tipped me into a short, sharp climax. James followed just after my body tightened around him. His face dropped to my shoulder, both of us breathing hard. The position quickly became painful and awkward, and we untangled ourselves with stiff motions. He put his arms around me, and we stood together as our breathing slowed and the sweat on our faces cooled in the breeze coming in the window.

“When’s your next appointment with the doctor?” James’s question made me blink.