The Space Between Us Read online

  Meredith looked at me, and though her lips were still fused to that hapless bachelorette, I saw the curve of a smile. She broke the kiss abruptly, her lips still wet from it. The future bride stumbled back, looking stunned, her mouth slack, eyes glazed. Her nipples were hard, too, poking at the front of her shirt. Her friends surrounded her in the next minute, closing her in, reaching to support her because it looked as if she might just keel over.

  We were very popular after that.

  Not with the bridal parties—they gave us a wide berth. But the men who’d been watching that display? Oh, they couldn’t get enough. They all wanted Meredith, of course, but I got the overflow. Too bad I wasn’t interested in dancing with any of those guys.

  I spotted the bride whose world Meredith had rocked. She looked pretty drunk, dancing with her hands up, twirling around and around. Someone had given her a handful of blinking cock necklaces, and it looked as if she’d finally had all her candy bitten off. I didn’t think she was going to last much longer, and for her sake I hoped her wedding wasn’t for a few days at least, because she looked pretty fucking rough. She also couldn’t stop staring at Meredith.

  I knew how she felt.

  Here’s the worst thing about crushes you know are unrequited. You’d think it would be better when you know that the chief reason your crush isn’t interested in you “that way” is because their door just doesn’t open in your direction. It should be easier to deal with that burning, that ache, when you know it’s not your fault, but the simple setup of nature or nurture or whatever it is that turns us into what we are.

  Let me tell you, though, it isn’t.

  It had never bothered me to know Meredith was married. I’d never been jealous of her husband, that nameless, faceless man who’d put a ring on her finger and never seemed to care where she went or with whom. I wasn’t jealous of the men she was flirting and dancing with, the ones buying her drinks. But I wanted to reach across the room and smack that candy necklace slut right across her drunken face.

  “I need to go,” I told Meredith, when the man behind me had grabbed my ass one too many times.

  “What?” she cried, too caught up in being freaked by not one, but two dudes in striped shirts, and clouded in a miasma of cologne.

  “I gotta go!” I shouted, and bumped the ass bandit off me with a hip. He tossed up his hands and backed away when I glared. “I’m wiped out!”

  “N-o-o-o!” Meredith abandoned her admirers and came after me to take both my hands. “Tessie, it’s early!”

  My given name’s bad enough. Being called Tessie is like having a sliver of bamboo inserted oh-so-gently under the fingernail. I grimaced and kept backing up, bumping into whoever got in my way, and not caring. Suddenly the room was too hot, the extra beer had settled none too happily in my gut, and I wanted to dive into a cold shower and cry my eyes out.

  On the street, I took in gulps of chilly air as gooseflesh humped up on my arms—the only humping I was likely to get tonight—and my nipples peaked in sympathy. Meredith came out right behind me. She linked her arm though mine.

  “Hey, girl, hey.” Her voice was too loud even for the street full of traffic and people. She softened it. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just tired, that’s all.” It wasn’t a lie, but I couldn’t look her in the eye when I said it.

  Meredith pulled me a little closer. That was the problem with her. She was a hugger, a social kisser. She thought nothing of squeezing and smooching and smoothing. I’d taken it as part of her personality, but just now it was too much.

  “I’m starving!” she declared. “Come to Tom’s Diner with me first. Let’s get eggs. And bacon. And toast. C’mo-o-on, Tesla. You know you wanna.”

  She gave me that smile that slayed everyone, including me. “Meredith…”

  She sidled closer to tuck her arm through mine, our hips touching. In her four-inch pumps she was a good few inches taller than me, but she bent to press her chin into my shoulder. “Please? Please, please…?”

  I wasn’t hungry, and though normally it wouldn’t have mattered, I shook my head anyway. “Can’t. Really. I’m about to fall over. My feet hurt.”

  She looked at my shoes. “You can sit. Take your shoes off.”

  In most of my life, I’m not pliable the way I was for her. It wasn’t just me—I’d seen her work her magic on lots of people. Knowing I wasn’t special made it worse, not better, but what could I say?

  “Nah. Really. I need to get home. It’s late,” I pointed out, though certainly we’d each been out later than this before. “And I have stuff to do tomorrow before work.”

  She nodded, but reluctantly. I wondered, not for the first time, how often Meredith didn’t get her way. She held out her arms for a hug I could think of no graceful way to decline, but instead of pressing against me and letting go, Meredith lingered.

  I loved the way she smelled. Loved the whisper of her breath against my cheek and the low, slow seduction of her chuckle. I tried to let her go, but my arms closed naturally around her waist, my hands flat on the bony parts of her shoulder blades poking up beneath the silky fabric of her top. I closed my eyes, pathetic, wanting something I knew I wouldn’t get.

  “Tesla, Tesla,” Meredith murmured into my ear. “There’s something I want you to do for me.”

  It shows you what sorts of scenes go on in downtown Harrisburg that nobody even gave us a second glance. Two women embracing on the sidewalk, both dressed to impress. I guess the two guys shoving each other across the street or the girl who tripped and went down, too drunk to get back up even when her friends tugged her by the arms, were more exciting to watch. Meredith hugged me, and she whispered in my ear, and I thought I’d like to stay like that for a very long time.

  “What’s that?”

  She turned her head slightly, her lips brushing my earlobe and sending sparkling shimmers of pleasure all through me. “I’m afraid to ask you.”

  My heart thumped as I tried to breathe. She’d kissed that girl on the dance floor and made it about power, not seduction, but that didn’t stop me from imagining what it would be like for Meredith to kiss me, instead. I thought of it every time I saw her. I turned my head, too.

  “Just ask me,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask. Hoping she’d just…do.

  She moved against me, then pulled away enough to look into my face. My lips parted, waiting. My hands slid to her hips.

  Meredith smiled, and once again I was lost in the curve of that mouth. The flash of her eyes. She leaned in, and so did I. Waiting.

  “I want you to fuck my husband,” Meredith said.

  Chapter 11

  “You took a cab here, right? Let me drive you home.” Meredith ran her hand down my arm, then clutched lightly but briefly at my wrist. “Let’s talk about this. Okay?”

  She seemed nervous as she pulled out of the parking garage, tapping the steering wheel too rapidly to match the beat of the music. She had her iPod hooked up, and I lifted it to see what she was playing. A song I didn’t know, something slow and syrupy. It reminded me of slow dancing and the heavy scent of flowers, tiny twinkling white lights strung through mosquito netting. That sort of thing. Sexy music.

  I wondered if she’d picked it on purpose or if it was coincidence. When the next song came on, something much the same, I figured she’d made a playlist. I put the iPod back.

  In the light from the dashboard, Meredith’s eyes flashed. She kept them on the road, after giving me the quickest of glances. “I need directions.”

  “Across the Market Street Bridge to Nineteenth Street, near the library. I’ll show you.”

  She sighed. Her fingers rap-a-tapped. We rode in silence except for when I gave her directions, until she pulled up in front of my house. When she turned off the car, the music didn’t stop but the dash went dim. We sat in the dark and listened to a woman sing about longing.

  I said nothing.

  When the song ended, Meredith pushed the button to turn off