Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/n: Thank you so much to everyone who left feedback for the last chapter! I am so, so grateful that you continue to take the time to let me know what you think.
Maelstrom
By Ryeloza
Part IV
i.
At home that night he pours himself a drink and downs it.
Continues.
Doesn't stop until he can't remember his name, let alone another rejection from the woman who once promised to stand by him until death parted them.
ii.
He spends the next day working up the resolve to tell Glenn that he's coming to the dinner alone, and never quite finds the guts to actually say the words. He's plagued by a nagging feeling that Glenn will simply scrounge up some date for him, and that it will be a girl who is young enough to be his daughter. Just the thought of it makes him ill, and so when Glenn stops by his office to "check in" (something he's been doing more and more frequently), he can't bring himself to confess.
He wants to blame her for turning him down. Almost succeeds.
iii.
That night he's well into his second, no third, drink when there's a knock at his door. For one stupid moment, he really thinks that it's her, and despite the way his heart leaps into his throat and his stomach gets kind of queasy, he stubbornly finishes his drink before ambling over to answer the door.
It's not her.
"Renee?" He stares at her. "What—Why—"
"No thanks, I don't want to come in."
He can't tell if she's being sarcastic. Dazed, he steps back a little and kind of gestures for her to come in, but she stays in the hall. His mind is still so wrapped up in the fact that she's here that he doesn't even notice that she leans toward him for a second, wrinkling her nose rather disgustedly. "You've been drinking," she observes.
"Bad day." Week. Month. Year. Maybe soon the rest of his life.
"Yeah, well, that's why I'm here. Lynette told me about your little dinner invite."
"She did?"
"Far be it from me to interfere," she says, and he snorts (because there's no amount of alcohol in the world that could stop that from being hilarious), "but I figured I'd help you out. Considering."
"Huh?"
"You need a date for Friday, right?"
"What? I…Well, yeah."
"What time?"
It takes a minute for his sluggish brain to put two and two together. When he does, the mix of emotions that runs through him is off-putting to say the least. Relief that he doesn't have to talk to Glenn, annoyance that Renee is so presumptuous, a niggling doubt that maybe by date she really means date…
"I don't think this is such a good idea."
Renee gives him a long, assessing look. In twenty years, they've never really been close. Barely even saw each other before she moved to Fairview. And still, somehow sharing a secret for all those years has made them capable of knowing one another better than one night of drunken intimacy ever could have. "If you think I'm going to sit by and watch you take some cheap floozy out while you're still married to my best friend, you've got another thing coming," she says. And he knows it's a reassurance.
"Fine." It comes out beleaguered; mostly, though, he's glad a solution has fallen into his lap without even trying. "Dinner is at eight."
"I'll be here at seven."
iv.
The dinner is nice.
It sounds like a bland assessment, but it's the only word he can think of to describe it. The two hours of carefully staged laughter that he thinks everyone must be aware of, but no one points out. A meal of overpriced wine and unadventurous dinner salad and undercooked chicken and orange sherbet for dessert. A long night of schmoozing and mildly interesting conversation.
Renee is practically a professional. She's flirtatious to all the men without being crude; she smiles at all the right times; and she smoothes over any lull in the conversation seamlessly. And Glenn is impressed. They're all impressed, really, but Glenn shoots him a look that reads, "Don't let this one go." It should be funny, but it isn't.
It should be thrilling—a full-out success; a recovery from his catastrophic misstep in Seattle.
But it's really…not.
v.
When they get back to his place, he invites Renee up for a cup of coffee, though he doesn't bother to hide the hope that she'll say no and just go home. He's tired and just wants to go to bed and not think about the dinner anymore. But if Renee realizes that the offer is hollow, she chooses to ignore it. "Coffee sounds great," she says, and she's out of the car before she can see him blanch.
He doesn't even know if he has any coffee; usually he just hits up the shop down the street in the morning.
As he gets out of the car, mentioning this to her, trying to sound off-hand, but really just sounding rude, she simply smiles. "Well a nightcap then," she says. "You can't tell me you don't have alcohol."
Of course. It's the only thing that's been getting him through Saturday. And Sunday night after the kids leave. And lately the weeknights when he can't fall asleep. "Sure," he mumbles. "Great."
"Great."
vi.
Renee is oddly quiet, and the silence between them should be uncomfortable, but the truth is that he's too busy wondering how long she'll stay to care about the lack of conversation. As he hands her a drink, she unfolds from the couch almost like liquid, standing and walking toward the fireplace, eyeing the apartment with calculating eyes. "This is a nice place."
"Yeah," he agrees, not accepting a compliment for something that really isn't his. "Not really my taste, though."
Too sleek, too polished, too dark, too neat, too cold…
"Well if you're looking to redecorate—"
"It's not mine to change," he says. It sounds like a more valid excuse than protesting that he's not about to have his wife and her friend redecorate his…whatever this is. Home without a family. Temporary address (although even that's not true; Lynette still sends his mail with Penny every week). Place to crash.
"Oh right," says Renee, jolting him from his musing. "The company's putting you up, right?"
"Yeah."
She nods appreciatively. "They must be real happy with you." And then, almost too quickly, she adds, "You know, it's probably a good thing this didn't happen when you were in your twenties."
He doesn't say anything. It's very obvious to him that Renee isn't up here for a drink or to chat amicably or to see how he's doing. She runs her hand over the minimalist accents on the mantle with a feigned casualness, and he really doesn't appreciate her attempt at staging a conversation. Not that his lack of response stops her.
"If this had happened in your twenties, there's a good chance you might have turned into a douchebag."
"Oh really?" He drinks to hide any hint of a smile; despite himself, he's almost amused. Renee, trying to be subtle. She's nearly as bad at is as Lynette is.
"Yeah," she continues, ignorant of his thoughts. "When you're that young, it kind of all goes to your head. You lose sight of things, forget who you really are deep down…Before you know it, you're married to a woman who's mostly with you for your money and who'll either leave you the moment your checking account takes a plunge or…"
"Or?"
She shrugs and picks up one of the objects on the mantle. "Or end up like me. Out for vengeance after being cheated on by said douchebag."
"Well," he sighs, coming over and removing the ugly, pointy glass object from her hands, "it's a good thing I'm not in my twenties anymore."
"Exactly. You're more grounded. You've already picked a woman who you know is going to stick by you whether you have money or not, hell, whether you have a job or not. So the money's really just a reward for both of you after so many years of struggling and working hard and having more kids than you can afford. There's no reason it should change you…Oh…Wait…"
"You're hilarious, you know that?"
"And you're acting like a jackass."
He feels his features twist in disbelief even if deep down he can't quite feel as indignant as he thinks he should. Still, Renee doesn't know that, and as he sets the knickknack back on the shelf and turns away from her, she rounds on him, not a vicious, desperate movement as it would be on Lynette (who puts so much fucking passion into everything), but one that means business nonetheless. "Look, no one else is going to say this to you, and as your friend—"
"Oh, we're friends now?"
"Proving my point for me, Tom." Her eyes soften for a moment, almost smiling, more pitying. It's a look he doesn't need to see from anyone, least of all her. "Look, God knows Lynette isn't perfect, but of the two of you, you're the one who needs to get his priorities in order."
He shakes his head, a defense against the unwanted, misguided advice. She doesn't know what she's talking about, and he doesn't appreciate her butting in where she doesn't belong. "She's the one who wanted me to take this job. I was fine staying where I was. She's the one who wanted the money—perks—whatever."
"Have you met Lynette?"
"No offense, but I think I know my wife better than you." Lies, lies, lies. The woman he's been married to for so long is lost to him, and he couldn't explain her anger with him right now if he tried. "This is between me and her, so you need to let it drop."
"If you would both stop being so stubborn and talk about this, you wouldn't be separated right now."
"Oh like I'm really going to listen to a woman whose marriage was basically an exchange of sex for money."
The remark hits her hard; her face, which usually hides all emotion, actually crumples in pain; only the faintest stoicism remains. He feels the briefest pleasure (she's been unnerving him for years and years without the tiniest flicker of regret), and then guilt creeps into his heart. With effort, he represses it, refuses to apologize, though he can tell she's waiting for him to take it back.
He won't.
Their silence is shattered by a knock at the door, and he's grateful for the interruption. Grateful that he doesn't have to stare down Renee until she realizes that he's not going to revoke his words. Grateful that one way or another, this is going to end right now.
Grateful until he opens the door and sees Lynette standing on the other side.