Stone Cold, page 5
Now, before you get on your high horse and tell me that love is real, allow me to impart some additional wisdom on you (and yes, this is pro-bono). Science has proven that what we humans call “love” is nothing more than a chain reaction of chemical reactions in our brains, which flood our body with hormones that make us feel certain emotions. It’s a biological drug so powerful that some people can become addicted to it.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “love addict?”
Anyway, I imagine the people reading your stories are doing so because something in those pages triggers some kind of hormonal response that gives them a hit of dopamine and oxytocin and gives them all the feels.
To each their own. I won’t judge as we all have our vices. I just wanted to clarify my stance.
Best,
Stone
* * *
With my jaw cocked to the side, I tap out a response.
* * *
Stone,
I appreciate the clarification, but I have to respectfully disagree. While “love” in a scientific sense can be boiled down to a cocktail of hormones, “love” is a many faceted concept. It can be physical, emotional, philosophical, and spiritual. We can feel love in more ways than one. Some people feel it in their bones. Some people feel it in their heart. Some people feel it in their head. Love feels different to everyone who feels it. It’s magical in a sense. We can’t see it—but we can’t deny it.
It has the power to change lives for the better (and sometimes for the worse).
People kill for it.
People die for it.
People uproot their entire lives for it.
To refer to it as nothing more than a chain reaction of hormones is an insult to anyone who has ever experienced it.
I’m genuinely curious—have you ever been in love?
Best,
Jovie
* * *
The message shows as ‘seen’ immediately, but I don’t have time to sit around and wait for a response so I minimize my browser and pull up my Word doc. I’m halfway through a new chapter when my computer chimes, alerting me to a new message.
* * *
Jovie—
In my experience as a divorce attorney, I can attest to the fact that statistically half of the married population in existence believes they’re in love at one point or another. But eventually that love turns into a resentment so intolerable that those very same lovebirds will spend thousands of dollars and a year of their life trying to sever their once inseparable ties.
True love is supposed to last.
The majority of the time it doesn’t.
No one’s immune to playing the fool.
Best,
Stone
* * *
I waste no time responding.
* * *
Stone—
You didn’t answer my question so I’ll ask again: have you ever been in love?
Best,
Jovie
* * *
Three dots never appear on the screen, despite the message showing as ‘seen’. I wait a handful of minutes before closing out of my browser completely. This book isn’t going to write itself.
But as I’m deep in the throes of a love scene between the Duke of Wimberley and Lady Lattermire, I can’t help but wonder why Stone deflected my question.
During the three years I dated Jude, I never once saw Stone bring a girl home. I’d watch in awe as some of the prettiest ones would all but physically throw themselves at him and he wouldn’t bat an eye.
Once, I even mustered up the courage to ask Jude if Stone played for the other team or if he was closeted. It wasn’t my business, but I wanted to make sense of it. Jude assured me Stone was as straight as an arrow, and I never questioned it again after that. The two of them grew up together. They were thick as thieves. If anyone would’ve known, it would’ve been Jude.
I finish another chapter and pull up my Facebook again—curious to see if he’s responded yet.
But there’s nothing.
Clicking through his profile pictures, I rest my chin on the top of my hand. There are only five total. The most recent one looks like a head shot from his law firm. The one before that is a picture of him fishing off some dock, the sun setting over the horizon. The third image is Stone and Jude, their arms around each other, palm trees in the background. The fourth is a photo of Stone and Jude as kids, both of them straddling bikes, their knees scraped and covered in band-aids and dirt.
The final image hits me like a surprise left hook.
It’s the three of us in Jude’s car. Spring break. Sophomore year. We took a road trip up the coast to spend a week at Jude’s dad’s lake house. In the picture, Jude is driving, Stone’s riding shotgun, and I’m squished in the backseat between piles of pillows, bags, and snacks. The three of us are grinning wide, our faces slightly softer and younger than they are now, our eyes shiny and bright.
After Jude and I broke up, we stayed Facebook friends online. I didn’t want to seem petty and be the first one to delete him, and maybe he felt the same. I fully expected Stone to delete me at some point. He was never a fan of me for reasons I could never figure out. Maybe he was jealous of how happy Jude and I were? Maybe he was annoyed at constantly being the third wheel? It was impossible to know what he was thinking because getting him to open up about anything was like pulling teeth. Eventually I stopped caring if he liked me or not.
But the fact that he posted this picture and left it up all these years … begs more questions than answers.
Dragging in a deep breath, I let it go, closing my laptop lid, and then I grab Domino’s leash to take him for another walk. I need a change of scenery and some fresh air and a new perspective.
Stone has always been an enigma; an impossible riddle.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to crack him open just to see what’s inside.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s nothing but a frozen block of ice.
Chapter Nine
Stone
* * *
Age 20
* * *
“Hold on, hold on,” Jovie scrolls through the playlist on her phone. “I have the perfect road trip mix.”
We’re halfway to Paul’s lake house and we’ve already stopped three times—once so Jude could take a piss on the side of the road, another time so Jovie could stretch her legs after riding a half hour in the backseat, and a third time so we could play musical chairs. Apparently Jude was up late last night working on a paper and he asked if I’d take over behind the wheel while he crashed in the back.
I figured Jovie would crash in the back with him seeing as how the two of them can’t go more than five seconds without touching one another or exchanging lovey dovey looks, but instead she climbed into the passenger seat, buckled up, and told me my Legal Beagle podcast was making her die a slow, painful death.
“Aw, yeah. Here we go …” Jovie leans back in her seat as a song by American Authors plays over the speakers. Swaying in her seat, she sings along—though not too loud. Eyes squeezed tight. She cracks the window a few inches and the smell of her raspberry perfume fills the air. “Come on!”
Jovie punches my arm.
“Don’t you just love this song?” she asks between lyrics. “Best Day of My Life—this song instantly puts me in the best mood.”
I focus on the road while she sings along. We don’t make it past the next exit before she’s unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the sunroof.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What’s it look like?” She hoists herself up, until her upper body is sticking out the top of the car.
“Hope you like bugs in your teeth,” I tell her.
“What?” she yells from above me. “I can’t hear you?”
I don’t buy it.
Glancing at the rearview, I check to see if all this commotion has woken the sleeping prince in the backseat, but he’s out cold.
We cruise another couple of miles before Jovie finally lowers herself back into her seat as a Rolling Stones song comes on.
“That … was amazing,” she says, sweeping her hair back into place. “You have to try it sometime.”
“I’m good.”
“No, seriously. Do you want to stop and I can drive so you can try it?”
“Thanks but no thanks.”
“You know … I’ve known you over a year now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you just let loose.”
“That’s because I don’t need to let loose.”
“But you never seem like you’re having fun.” She pulls her sunglasses off her nose, cleaning them with the hem of her tank top.
“That’s because I’m not having fun … I’m studying.”
She slips the glasses over her face and angles herself to me. “What made you want to become a lawyer?”
“It just seemed like a natural fit.” I like the idea of sticking up for people. That and I can be an asshole if I need to be. Some people are too soft for a career in law. “What made you want to get a degree in creative writing?”
“Because I have a million stories inside of me and holding them in is sheer torture,” she says. “Sure, I could’ve been a teacher or a doctor or something practical, but then I wouldn’t have time to write all of these stories. I had to pick. So I chose the one that spoke to my heart the loudest.”
“Poetic.”
“Try telling my parents that.” She tucks a strand of ice-blonde hair behind one ear.
“They don’t approve?”
“It’s not that they don’t approve, I think they’re just worried I won’t have a job after college,” she says. “I think they keep picturing me as a starving artist.”
“Valid concern,” I say. “Do you have a back-up plan in case the writing thing doesn’t pan out?”
“Nope.” Jovie reaches for her Diet Coke from the center console, taking a sip. “The writing thing is going to work out.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know,” she says. “It’s like a gut feeling. I can’t describe it. I close my eyes and I can see my future so clearly. When I try to imagine myself doing anything else …” she swipes her hand through the air. “… it’s all black. There’s nothing. Writing is it for me. If it’s not writing, it’s nothing.”
“Sounds like something a starving artist would say …”
She sniffs through her nose. “My parents would agree with you on that.”
The song changes to an Alanis Morrissette number and I peek back at Jude again. “Should we wake him up? He used to have the biggest crush on Alanis. I’d hate for him to miss out on the acoustic live version of You Oughta Know.”
Jovie glances over her shoulder, a slow smile spreading across her pink lips. “Nah, he looks peaceful. We should let him sleep.”
Jude sleeps the rest of the drive there and Jovie sings along to every song while interspersing random tidbits of information like a human VH1 Pop-Up Video.
For past year that she’s been Jude’s girl, I swear the guy hasn’t stopped smiling. Not once. Every time she walks into the room, he lights up like a damn Christmas tree, and any time she goes home for the weekend or has a girls’ night, he sulks around like a man child. And I kind of get it … she brings sunshine everywhere she goes. She’s in a perpetual good mood, never hesitating to offer a witticism or crazy antic as long as it conjures a laugh or smile out of someone.
This woman truly gives no fucks. She’s just out here living her truth.
Secretly, as much as I feign annoyance at her little song and dance numbers, her corny dad jokes, and the little dramatic re-enactments she puts on every time she tells Jude about a book she just finished … I find it all sexy as hell.
Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened had she not run into Jude in the bathroom at that party. Would she have come back? Would we have talked all night? Would she have given me her number?
Would I be the one lighting up every time she comes into the room?
It’s dangerous to let my mind wander down that long and winding road to nowhere. What’s done is done. There isn’t any scenario I can think of in which Jovie could ever be mine. Even if she and Jude break up one day, she’d still be off the table.
No self-respecting man would ever go after his best friend’s ex.
Chapter Ten
Jovie
* * *
“You feeling better yet?” Monica asks over FaceTime Wednesday night.
I take a sip of chicken broth, tasting the salt on my tongue but nothing else.
“We’re making progress,” I say.
“So will I be seeing your face at brunch this Saturday?”
I give her a thumbs up and take another swallow. “God willing.”
She chuckles, sweeping her dark hair into a messy top knot. “Oh, did anything ever happen after you took that tag down the other day?”
I begin to shake my head and then I stop. “Yes and no.”
“What? What’s that mean?” she leans closer to her phone.
“Remember Stone Atwood?” I ask. “Jude’s best friend.”
She sways back, her head cocked. “Do I remember Stone Atwood … what the hell kind of question is that? Of course I remember Stone Atwood. Who could forget that icy stare and those broad shoulders?”
On the other side of the room, Domino snores on his dog bed, his little paws flicking like he’s chasing something in his sleep.
“So he messaged me that same morning you called,” I say. “And we’ve been messaging a little bit ever since.”
“Really? Stone?”
I nod. “It’s weird. I don’t know if we’re flirting or if he’s just being an asshole to me and I’m giving it back to him but the whole thing is … unexpected.”
“Do you think he wants to reconnect?”
I shake my head with a vehement no. “Absolutely not. There’s nothing to reconnect. He was always Jude’s friend. Like they were a packaged deal. I was always the third wheel and Stone made no effort to hide his feelings about that.”
The number of times Stone appeared to enjoy my company, I could probably count on one hand, maybe two. Most of the time I couldn’t get him to talk to me, let alone acknowledge my presence.
I never pointed it out to Jude because I didn’t want to cause any issues between them, but I always wanted to know if Stone was always like that—or if it had to do with me. Once I was so determined to crack a smile out of him that I danced around their dorm lip syncing to the Spice Girls and making a complete fool out of myself only for him to walk off halfway through to take a phone call down the hall.
“Then what do you think he wants?” Monica asks.
I shrug. “I don’t think he wants anything. I think he’s just being … Stone.”
“That says so little while saying so much.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Eleven
Stone
* * *
The Hannaford Supermarket is packed on this Friday afternoon. I imagine we’re all doing the same thing; ditching work a couple of hours early, grabbing some dinner items, and heading home to kick off our weekend. I wonder if this is what Paul meant when he told me there’s no such thing as a unique experience.
I tuck a six pack of Heineken beneath my arm and head for the meat counter to grab a porterhouse and half a pound of stuffed mushrooms.
“I mean, what would you feed a dog if you had one?” A pony-tailed blonde in neon blue yoga pants asks a pimple-faced butcher.
“I don’t have a dog, ma’am,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“But if you did though,” she says.
“I’d probably feed him kibble, ma’am.” His eyes shift toward the long line forming behind her.
“I guess I’ll just take two sirloins,” she says. “The eight ounce, not the five.”
The young man wraps the steak in brown paper for her before sealing it with a sticker.
“Anything else?” he asks.
“That’ll be all, thank you,” she says before taking the package, turning on her heel—and walking right into me. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
In her defense, I was probably standing a little too closer, but the little old lady behind me kept inching closer to me, which made me inch closer to her and it became a big circle jerk of inching.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath when our eyes catch.
I’d know those Pacific ocean blues anywhere, the ones so effervescent they almost make me forget it’s been about a week and a half since I ignored her last message.
“Jovie,” I say.
“Stone?” She squints, as if she doesn’t believe her eyes. Then again, I imagine I look slightly different than I did five years ago. Shorter hair. More muscles. Dressier clothes. Bigger big dick energy …
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
The little old lady behind me clears her throat, and I motion for her to go around me.
“I’m watching my neighbor’s dog and he’s refusing to eat. I think he’s depressed. I thought maybe if I got him a steak …” she shrugs. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Baltimore?”
She remembered …
Our senior year in college, I was accepted into the University of Maryland School of Law that upcoming fall.
“Yeah,” I say. “I was offered a position up here from one of my law professors who was opening a practice here.”
Her lips inch into a wistful yet friendly smile. I’m sure it’s strange seeing me here—of all people. Or maybe she’s looking at me but thinking about Jude. It’s hard to tell. I imagine seeing me all these years later rustles up some old memories she wasn’t prepared to think about at the grocery store on a Friday afternoon.
The last time I saw Jovie was before the ill-fated Tulum trip. We were sitting around eating burnt frozen pizza from the campus convenience mart and downing cheap beer. And if that weren’t enough, Jovie forced us to play some God-awful card game where we had to shout certain phrases and clap and make fools of ourselves, but by the end of the night I was drunk enough to actually enjoy it.
