Making Up Read Online Free Page A

with her first.”
    “And I thought I loved her.”
    “But you don’t?”
    She shrugged again.
    “ I wanted
her,” Holly said, “But it didn’t work out. Now you have her back. Just be happy for that, don’t push
her too much. She’s upset and confused and doesn’t know what she
wants, and if you push too hard, try and make her think about what
she doesn’t want to think about, you might drive her
away.”
    I
nodded. After a while said, “Thank
you.”
    “ And she’s
still my friend. So I care. And don’t
interfere in that.”
    I looked at her.
    “I’m probably not going to sleep with her
again.”
    “You promise?”
    “ Nope. But I don’t think I will.”
    More silence.
    “ Did you only
sleep with us so you could sleep with Erica?” I said.
    Another
shrug. “Maybe. Erica’s Erica. I always
thought I wanted her, but I never quite got around to telling
her.”
    “I should go,” she said.
    I nodded.
    “ Hey,” she
said. “By the way. I don’t owe you
anything. I still don’t, just because you tried to fuck
me.”
    “Okay.”
    “ But go easy
on Erica. If you want to keep
her.”
    “I will.”
     
    *
     
    Erica came home about seven, which was early
for her.
    “Hear you saw Holly today,” she said. “Don’t
fucking do that.”
    “You cheated on me,” I said back, “Don’t tell
me what I can and can’t do.”
    “Fuck you,” she said, and stormed off into
the bedroom.
    I followed
her. She was sitting on the bed crying.
Her mascara was running a little. She seemed more upset than was
warranted.
    “ Hey,” I
said, and sat beside her, put an arm around her. She leaned on me.
    “I don’t want this life,” she said, “I don’t
want to come home every day wondering what you’re going to call me
or accuse me of.”
    “I haven’t called you anything.”
    “ I know, and
that’s why I’m worried about it. I have
this awful feeling that one day you’re going to crack.”
    “And what?”
    “ I don’t
know. Just crack.”
    We sat there for a while.
    “ It pissed me
off that I couldn’t get her to do me,” Erica said. “Gareth did. He did it properly. But Holly
didn’t want to, and couldn’t make her. So I wanted to try
again.”
    “You could have told me.”
    “ I was
embarrassed. And besides, you looked like
you had a little too much fun.”
    I didn’t know
what to say to that. “You had Gareth
first,” I said.
    “ That was
just… fucking. Holly is a
friend.”
    “ That
probably wasn’t smart,” I said. “Picking
her.”
    “Probably not.”
    “Was there anything between you to, before
this?”
    “Not really.”
    “She seemed to think there was.”
    “ She’s a
dick. She imagines shit. Like that she
can eat pussy.”
    I looked at her.
    “ Shit,” Erica
said. “I don’t know, I guess I started
feeling something for her, because she’s a friend.”
    “ Remember the
thing?” I said. “Only once or twice with
the same person?”
    Something
we’d talked about, months ago, when her threesome thing had first
come up. You have sex with people, you
get close to them. That closeness threatens the main relationship.
So, if having threesomes, only do so rarely with each new person.
Once or twice but never more.
    “Yeah,” Erica said, “I forgot.”
    We sat
there. After a while she started to cry.
I hugged her again, said, “Sorry.”
    “Do something for me?” she said.
    “Of course.”
    “ Think about
everything. Decide if you want to leave
me or not, and decide now. Then, if you’re not, we can go back to
making this work. Us.”
    “ You want to
do that? Make us work?”
    She seemed
surprised. “Of course.”
    “I wasn’t sure you did.”
    “ Shit, of
course I do. Holly was just… a
distraction for a while.”
    “ I didn’t
realize.” She was looking at me, and I
realized what I hadn’t said. “I’m not going to leave you. Of course
I’m not.”
    She kissed me
and cried some more. “Thank
you.”
    “You didn’t know that?”
    “ I