Beyond Eighteen(72)

“You know, she probably had sex with him in the bathroom stall at the dance,” I added.

Joanie didn’t respond to my sex in the bathroom statement. As a matter of fact, her face started to change to a pale pink. Then it clicked in my head…J already slept with Nick.

“Oh my God, you slept with him.”

“Who, Dump Donnie? Of course.”

“No, Nick! You already had sex with him, didn’t you?”

Joanie’s cheeks grew to the deepest of crimsons. It was written all over her face. There was no way she could lie to me. I knew her quirks and foibles when she was holding something back.

Captain Richard came on the ceiling speaker and told us we could roam about the cabin. When she looked over at me, my jaw must have been on the floor. She smiled and reclined her seat. After a slight moment of silence, J continued, “And just so you know… Dump Donnie is nothing like Naughty Nick.”

“So you really like him? No more Dump Donnie or Rebound Robert? I mean, if you went that far with him…it must be the real deal,” I said as I got up and opened the cabinet above my head. A stack of navy blue blankets were perfectly folded in a neat pile. I grabbed two, tossing one at J and causing her to flinch as it landed against her chest. I snapped my blanket open as I fell back into my seat then snatched the remote on my chair and reclined as heat radiated across my entire backside.

“Yeah, Wil, it feels so different with him. It just feels right with Nick,” Joanie said as if her feelings were pouring from the guarded space in her heart.

“Well, then, I’m happy for you, J. I really am. I can’t promise Max will feel the same way, or that we’ll start double dating any time soon. But with time…” I answered her as honestly as I could. How could I not? She was my best friend in the world. I wasn’t going to lose her over a guy; even if that guy was Nick.

“Thanks, Wilson, I know it’s not easy for you. And it means a lot to me,” Joanie said before she adjusted herself in her chair. “God, this is the good life,” she moaned as she vibrated from the full body massage.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” I answered as I pressed the massage setting on the remote.

“Could you have ever imagined that your boyfriend, a government teacher, would have such a luxurious life?” Joanie murmured as her voice vibrated to the motion of the rolling ball against her back.

“Well, the jet isn’t his. It belongs to his dad’s company,” I answered in an equally vibrating tone.

“And who is the CEO of that company now, Wilson?”

“Well, Max is,” I answered. And suddenly it hit me. When I first swooned over him, and eventually fell in love with him, it never crossed my mind that he would be anything different than what I knew him as. He was Max, a humble, wonderful man who fell in love with me for who I was. I never saw him as someone who wore stuffy suits and worried about profit margins 365 days a year. That wasn’t him; he never would have asked for a life that would steal him away from his passion. He wanted to be the Max who brought me to Aspen on a regular airplane. He was the boyfriend who would rather take me ice skating than to an exclusive party with uptight people in cocktail dresses and tuxedos. What was happening to him wasn’t what he truly wanted. What I was experiencing was nothing more than a make-believe life of a lost girl who wanted to be Mrs. Max Goldstein. How was this going to change us?

“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Joanie asked as she lifted her head up to look at me. I looked back at her, her body now rolling back and forth as the massage changed settings, and didn’t say anything right away. Joanie took notice and pushed the button to bring her chair up to the sitting position. I noticed she sat patiently, waiting to hear the whole story rambling around in my head. I guess the loss of color in my face clued her in. “Wilson, what’s going off in that head of yours?” she asked again.

“When Max and I got together, I never thought he’d be doing anything but teaching,” I murmured. “And now, everything has changed so fast.”

“Yeah, well, I would say maybe for the better? He isn’t going to love you any less when he is CEO of GP,” Joanie said convincingly.

“That’s the issue, J. It isn’t for the better. Private jets, helicopters, and mansions in Aspen won’t give him what he truly wants in his life. I’m not saying it isn’t freakin’ amazing, and that some day, I too, may become accustomed to it as nothing more than the life I have simply because I am Max Goldstein’s girlfriend. All I’m saying is there has always been more to Max than the perks of being the son of an oil tycoon.”