CH 8  As told by JC, Liv, Kate, & Justin

When Kate and Koren get home, I’m upstairs and see the car pull into the driveway. I’ve been thinking a lot about the last day and a half. So far, nothing has gone as planned, or at least how I’m assuming things should have gone planned. Whatever that means.

I’m also curious. I’m curious about how much my wife knows about Lance’s death. About what really happened. I’m curious if she is keeping something from me. If she’s kept it from me our entire married life.

“Hi, babe.” She walks into our bedroom and sets her purse on the dresser. I turn and smile faintly at her.

“Hi.” I take a seat on the edge of the bed and watch as Kate runs her fingers through her hair, yawns, then plops down next to me. “I’m so tired. And all we did was window shop.” She lies down and looks up at the ceiling. “What did you guys do after we left?”

“Kate.” I say her name in a tone I know will make her attentive.

“What’s wrong?” She sits up next to me and pulls her knee up to her chin, reaching out and touching my arm with her hand.

“What is it? What do you know that you’re not sharing with me? With the rest of us?” I ask her before I realize the words have left my mouth.

“What are you talking about, Josh?” Kate looks at me quizzically, but I can sense a guilt and – what is that, fear?- in her eyes.

“I think you know what I’m talking about, honey.” I am staring into her eyes and she is doing her best to not look away, but I know it’s getting hard for her. “This whole weekend. This whole…stupid weekend was something you wanted to do. And ever since we all got here, all we’ve done is fight with everyone. Things come out, Kate. People talk. And I want to know the truth. I want to know if my wife is hiding something from me or if Chris and Justin are just full of shit.”

“What did they tell you?” Kate’s voice is shaky and I can tell she is doing all she can to not reveal more than she wants.

“You’re hiding something. That’s all I seem to hear. What are you hiding?” I’m not relenting and she knows it. “What? Did you sleep with Lance or something when we were dating?”

“Josh!” Kate scoffs and I can’t tell if she’s stifling a laugh or about to burst into tears. “I’m not hiding anything from you!”

“You’re lying to me, Kate.” My tone is firm and I’m doing all I can not to raise my voice.

“I’m not lying. I-“ She isn’t even looking at me anymore. She’s staring at the floor and shaking her head.

“What is it? Why can’t you just tell me?” I reach for her and she sucks in a breath. I start to feel like she might relent, like she might actually tell me what the hell has been going on for all these years.

“I swore to Lance I’d never tell anyone,” is Kate’s response. And for some reason, it makes me angry.

“I’m your husband!” I’ve forgotten about raising my voice and am yelling at her now. “And you’ve brought all of us here to this fucking beach house and you want us to all get along but you’re okay with the fact that you’re hiding something from me? From your own husband? From the man who knows you better than anyone el-“ I stop and shake my head. “Oh, I get it. Lance supposedly knew you better, didn’t he?”

“You know that’s not true, Josh.” Kate is whispering and I can see her wiping away tears. “You know me better than anyone on the planet. But I can’t break my word.”

“He’s dead, Kate. He killed himself. He’s not coming back and he’s been gone now for fifteen fucking years. So whatever you’re waiting on, it’s not going to happen.” I walk hastily to the door, then turn and look at my wife. “You know, I think you live in a fantasyland sometimes. You want this to be perfect and wrapped up all nicely in this stupid house and the truth is that none of us even like each other anymore.” With that, I walk out the door and shut it firmly behind me. I try to ignore the fact that I’ve never seen my wife looking so hurt as she did before I left the bedroom.

LIV

Koren is sitting across from me at the kitchen table. She’s sipping on a coffee and reading a Danielle Steele novel while I aimlessly twirl a piece of hair around my finger. I hear someone stomping down the stairs and turn to see JC. He doesn’t look happy and barely acknowledges us when he passes us in the kitchen.

“Chris still here?” He asks me but I shrug. The last I heard, Chris was going off with Joey somewhere. Justin had disappeared up to his bedroom and I’d been trying to think of a way to sneak up there with him, but so far no excuse seemed believable enough.

“Where’s Kate?” Koren asks and looks up from her book.

“Bedroom.” JC is rummaging through the refrigerator and sighs in frustration. “I’m gonna go to the grocery store. We need burgers to grill out tonight.”

“How are we grilling out if it’s raining?” I ask him and nod towards the window where rain is still pelting hard against the panes.

“Then we’ll cook ‘em inside. Whatever. I need to get some air.” JC shuts the refrigerator door and before he says anything else, is out the door.

“I’m gonna go upstairs,” I say to Koren who just nods and continues to read her book.

I waste no time and head straight for Justin’s bedroom. I knock softly and he opens it, grinning when he sees me.

“I was wondering when you’d get up here.” He opens the door wider and I walk in and sit down on his bed.

“I had to have a good excuse. You know that.” I bite my lower lip and chuckle at him. “It’s been a long time.”

“Too long.” Justin pounces on top of me and soon I’m lost in the feeling of him deep inside of me.

“So, Kate…” Justin says under his breath when we’re finished.

“God, that bitch gets on my last nerve!” I groan and roll away from him. I start to get dressed again. “Why the hell is she so insistent that we all come here anyway?”

“Because she wants it to be like she thought it was.” Justin props himself up on his elbow. “But I think you and I should figure out a way to keep this from happening again.”

“What do you mean?” I slip my tank top over my head and face him. “Just tell her we don’t want to do this anymore?”

“I was thinking of something a little more…permanent.” Justin’s voice has this weird timbre to it. It sounds a lot like how he sounded the night that –

“No, Justin.” I shake my head. “No, I can’t do that. Not again.”

Justin rolls out of bed and walks over to me. “Oh, Livvy. You know how easy it is. I make it easy. You enjoyed it so much last time.” He has me against the wall now and he’s cupping my face with his palm. “Trust me, okay? This time you get to leave with me.”

KATE

The rain hasn’t let up and I’ve been upstairs all afternoon and now into the early evening. I’ve been crying off and on wondering what I should do about the conversation I had with JC. He knows something. I have to tell him. But I just…can’t. I don’t want to break the promise I made to Lance.

It was about 2AM when dress rehearsal had finally finished. Lance and I were starring in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and our director was a perfectionist who kept changing the blocking to our scenes. I’d never been so tired and I’d had to cancel my date with JC.

“Let’s go to Denny’s.” Lance suggested when we walked outside together.

“Are you actually hungry?” I asked him and followed him to his car.

“Nah. But I don’t want to go back to the dorms. I’m pretty sure Liv is spending the night with Chris.” He unlocked his car and opened his door.

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, let’s go to Denny’s then.” I got into the passenger seat of Lance’s VW Bug and we drove the few blocks up the road to the restaurant.

We sat in a booth in the back and ordered pancakes and coffee. It was sort of our tradition after rehearsals, though normally after one that lasted as long as this one had, we would have gone back home.

“Kate, can I tell you something?” Lance asked after our pancakes had arrived.

“You know you can.” I replied and sipped my coffee.

“There’s a reason it’s not working out with any of these girls you’re setting me up with.” Lance looked at me and without even hesitating said, “I’m gay, Kate.”

So many things started to click and make sense. All of the reasons why he never had a girlfriend for longer than a week or a date that didn’t go beyond the first night out. I just looked at my best friend and smiled and said, “So I guess that’s why it never worked out with all those dates I set you up with?”

Lance just chuckled at me. “Probably.” He lifted his coffee mug and took a sip, then sighed. “There’s more.” Not waiting for me to reply, he said, “I think I’ve got it bad for Justin.”

“Justin Timberlake?” I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh, c’mon Bass you can do better than that!”

Lance shook his head. “Maybe I can. But, I dunno. I know he’d never reciprocate but I can’t help it.”

I made a face. “He’s so self-involved, Lance.”

“I know, Kate. I can’t help it. He’s…he’s becoming all I think about sometimes.” Lance looked down at his plate and then back at me. “Swear you’ll never tell anyone. Promise me. Not even Josh.”

I nodded my head and reached over to squeeze his hand. “I swear, Lance. I’ll never tell your secret.”

So I can’t tell JC. I swore to him and even if Lance isn’t here anymore, I don’t want to break a promise to my best friend.

The door to our bedroom opens and JC walks in but doesn’t look at me.

“Josh.” I stand up from the bed and walk over to him. “Josh, please believe me. I-“

He turns around to face me and sighs. “I don’t want to do this weekend anymore. It’s not fun. It only brings up bad memories and not good ones. And it stirs up emotions inside of me that make me angry at you.”

I don’t know what to say. All I can do is wrap my arms around his waist. “I love you, Josh. It’s not that I’m keeping anything from you, I just…”

“I’m your husband. Since when did you and I start keeping secrets from one another?” He lifts my chin up so I’m looking at him.

I can only shake my head and bury my face in his chest. I start to feel like I’m making a mountain out of the smallest mole-hill. Lance is dead. JC and I are going to be together forever. Why does this matter to me so much?

“Just tell me something.” JC says and I let out a shaky sigh, waiting for him to continue. “Did you sleep with Lance? I mean, even before you and I started to date?”

“No, Josh. I promise you. I never slept with anyone in college before I met you.” That part was very true. I’d fooled around with a few guys my freshmen year but once I met JC, it was over and done. “And especially not Lance.”

JC kisses me softly on my lips and I kiss him back. His hands wander up the back of my shirt and I shift when I feel his fingers tangling with my bra. Soon we’re on the bed and our clothes are in a puddle on the floor. We’re quiet and trying our best not to make any noise because of everyone who might be downstairs or next to us.

We whisper to each other and moan softly almost in unison and I suck in a breath when he goes deeper. It feels so good. So right. And I’m suddenly wishing it was just the two of us in this house together.

JUSTIN

Liv is easy to control. She always has been. Fucking her earlier today is proof that I’ve got her exactly where she needs to be.