A Summer to Remember(50)
He breathed through the phone and just the sound of his voice put me at ease. “I’m all right but can you pass the phone to Talia? I want her to cut off your limit soon.”
I rolled my eyes before I handed the phone to Talia and she listened patiently before she handed the phone back to me. “He wants the last few words to be with you, not me.”
I grabbed the phone and pressed it to my ear. “Babe, I love you so much. Take care of yourself and don’t you dare drink yourself into a stupor worrying about me.”
I sighed softly. “I promise I won’t. You be careful too and promise me you won’t drink too much and no drugs, not even a sniff of cocaine. I want you ready when that bitch tries to pounce on you. I love you and I’ll see you Sunday evening, okay?”
“All right. Love you more.”
I made a kissing sound into the phone. “Love you and have a good evening.”
“I will.”
There was a silence between us but it was comfortable and understandable before I whispered, “I’m going to hang up now.”
“Okay,” he replied.
I pressed end and immediately felt better. Talia walked into the kitchen and slipped an arm around my shoulders. “Feel better now?”
I nodded silently. “Yes, much better.”
“Good, then let’s order from our favorite Chinese restaurant and watch cheesy chick flicks already.”
“I am definitely down with that!”
Sunday morning and afternoon was spent with Talia at the various open air markets and walking in and out of various cool and unique shops in Greenwich Village. By the late afternoon, Talia and I were both thinking about dinner and neither one of us wanted to stay in the area so we took a cab uptown to the upper Eastside and found a great Greek restaurant we both loved.
“Wow, what a day it has been and can you believe I have to leave tomorrow morning? I’m crushed but I have to get back down to Miami. Seth won’t stop blowing up my phone.” She looked at me with this twinkle in her pale green eyes and an overly satisfied smile on her face. “Sometimes I feel like I am his mother instead of his lover. Isn’t that a bit sad?”
I tried to laugh it off because I didn’t like to judge other people’s relationships. It’s what had gotten me into trouble with Jude and Savannah. It turned out my brother had taken her to the retreat and I was okay with it but I had to admit I’d never seen it coming.
“No, not really…unless you consider the case of Jude and Savannah,” I responded before I ate another bit of my pomegranate chicken salad which was a favorite of mine.
“I do believe she thinks out of the four of us, she is the least good looking and that simply isn’t true. It would be nice if she managed to get a grip and understand that men aren’t the enemy and Jude really seems to like her although with your brother, we both know what that means,” Talia explained before she dug into her lamb gyro with relish.
I sipped from my Pinot Grigio. “Actually, I don’t know what that means at all. Is my brother considered some kind of player or something?”
“Or something.” Talia raised expressive yet perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I think half the women in Manhattan have taken Jude for a test drive. It doesn’t mean anything because he has the attention span of a gnat. Don’t get me wrong—Jude is brilliant but he is a total man-whore.”
I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated way. “Jeez, why does this sound like it’s coming from someone who is speaking from experience?”
“Because I am.” She sipped from her Pinot Noir and breathed deeply. “To answer your question, yes, I slept with your brother. It was a beautiful and absolutely gorgeous affair that lasted one whole week. However, both of us knew what it was about and we were fine with it. I will never regret the time we spent together.”
“Great, so I have to live with it for the rest of my life my brother is sampling each and every one of my best friends like candy. Has he been with Autumn?” I inquired rather reluctantly.
I don’t even know why I asked the question because I truly didn’t want to know the answer if I was completely honest with myself. Granted they were my best friends but they were also grown women who were over twenty-one and could make decisions for themselves.
“Yeah, he got to Autumn our freshman year at Vassar. She was in absolute heaven but you know how she is. She seems so innocent and sweet and fragile but I have never met an emotionally tougher woman than her.”