One Twisted Valentine by T. Lee Alexis Read Free Book Online

Eva ordered a peppermint tea
of her own, the chitchat of friends reconnecting came and went and
the threads of their jobs were brought up to date. Through it all,
Lane was waiting.
    She saw the glow in Eva now. It had been building for
months. While a lot of people found themselves set on edge by the
whirl of holiday activities, Eva had never seemed more relaxed.
Lane was so desperate to know why she was nearly in tears. Eva
noticed.
    “What is it?” Eva asked.
    Lane didn’t know where to start, pressing her mouth
shut to keep the emotion from overwhelming her.
    “This year has been so awful,” Lane began. “Like
someone pushing my head underwater, only letting me up long enough
to gulp some air and do it again. We used to come here and bitch
about Charles and Pete. But you…”
    Lane looked at Eva, seeing the sympathy in her eyes.
The real empathy from her good friend lifted her spirits.
    “You fixed it. You guys got your shit together,” Lane
continued. “What did you do?”
    Leaning back in the booth, Eva rested her head with a
strange smile on her face. Lane knew her friend well, and could see
the gears grinding away behind her striking blue eyes. Lane could
see a secret was coming.
    “Well, it’s funny,” Eva started, pausing to find the
words. “It’s… funny.”
    Eva sighed, screwing up her courage. This must be a
big one, Lane thought. The thrill of mystery brought a smile to her
face.
    “What is it?” Lane asked.
    “Well, we kind of got depraved,” Eva said, a shy tilt
to her head. Looking past her friend’s surface embarrassment, Lane
could see an expression of subdued pride. “I mean, yeah, we had a
pretty hard road for awhile. You know, we had that big fight in
June? That’s where everything came to a head. What we’ve kind of
been keeping to ourselves is… Peter and I always loved each other,
but we were so deep in our ruts we kind of lost the thrill of
romance, the fun of pursuing each other. After that awful fight we
were desperate. It was ugly. We started ripping the band-aids off
things which had been building up for years. You know how a fight
is awful, but sometimes it’s what’s needed to give both people the
kick to talk about deep, secret thoughts. That’s what happened to
us.”
    Eva smiled and could see Lane was waiting for the
punch line.
    “We talked about how to recapture that spark from our
early days, how to give ourselves the space to be adventurous and
fun and surprised by the world. We went round and round and…
believe it or not… we’ve decided to kind of open our bedroom door
to others.”
    “Shut the fuck up,” Lane exclaimed. She squealed out
of laugh. It also came from the thrill of finding the hidden
workings of the world, a glimpse of the real people behind the
faces they present to the neighborhood.
    After a flash of shock, Lane realized of all her
friends, this was least surprising from Eva. A hundred questions
exploded in her mind. The bleakness around her evaporated in the
light of this bombshell.
    “You better tell me every fucking thing,” Lane said.
She swatted Eva’s arm. “I can’t believe you kept this from me, you
bitch. I thought we were friends.”
    Eva laughed too then gave a sound of mock sadness.
Her hand extended across the table to squeeze Lane’s.
    “Of course we’re friends baby,” Eva said. “But Peter
and I haven’t told anyone. We really haven’t done all that much.
We’ve just been talking about a lot of things. It’s almost like the
possibility of doing this has revived the habits we had when we
used to date, reminds us what it’s like to find someone, romance
them, seduce them. It might sound crazy, but the idea of Peter or I
messing around with someone has reminded us what we love about the
other. It’s brought us closer. When I think about finding someone
out in the world, and all that takes, I look back at Peter and even
with all his flaws, I feel very lucky to have found someone like
him.”
    With the last