I snuggled into my pillow, relaxed, replete, simply existing in the moment. Fully present in my skin. I didn’t need to check for comments on my blog. I wasn’t worrying about texts from home.
But I did have to pee.
Cautiously, I sat, scooting toward the end of the mattress, holding my breath as I navigated over his feet.
My clothes still lay in a heap on the floor. I jammed them into my laundry bag and glanced at my phone on the dresser. Two messages from Meg—that’s right, she was at the farmers’ market this morning—and . . . Oh God, look at the time. I was going to be late for work. Surreptitiously, I scraped open a drawer.
If I took the phone with me into the bathroom, I could call Meg. I grinned a little. For once, I had something to tell her. I, prickly, unromantic, bad-tempered Jo, had just had wild crazy sexy times with my boss in the shower. And the loft. And it was awesome.
A sound, the merest vibration on the air, made me turn. “Chef.”
The amused look was back. “Eric.”
“Right.” I knew his name from his bio. Not that I’d ever used it. I flushed, clutching my underwear to my chest. Like he hadn’t spent the past few hours exploring everything I had to offer. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just . . .”
“Getting dressed.”
“Yeah.” I watched as he turned and descended the ladder. Well, who wouldn’t? He had a butt like a football player. Years of working in restaurant kitchens had made him agile in tight, confined spaces. As he’d already demonstrated this morning. Twice.
He stood before me, a large, naked man, at ease in his body.
“Do you want to, um, borrow a clean T-shirt?” I asked.
His expression climbed from a four to a six on the amusement scale. “I do not think your clothes will fit me.”
“Very funny.” I rummaged in the drawer again. “Here.”
He looked at it for a long moment. Looked at me. Like maybe he didn’t want to wear another man’s shirt. And then, with a shrug, he pulled it over his head.
“I have a lot of them,” I said.
“I see.”
“I buy them big. To sleep in.”
He glanced down at his chest. “NYU,” he read, upside down. “This is where you went to school?”
“Graduate school. Yeah.” Exchanging small talk, the way you did with strangers before you had sex. Something had been lost when I climbed out of bed. I swallowed. “Sorry. I’m not very good at this.”
“On the contrary,” he said politely.
“That’s sex. I like sex.” At least, I’d liked sex with him. Something to think about later. “I’m not very good at . . .” Relationships? We didn’t have a relationship. He was my boss. “The part that comes after.”
“This part.”
“Yes.”
He regarded me thoughtfully. “Sex is like food, yeah? Something the body needs. Maybe a dish is not prepared to your liking, but if you are hungry, you eat. Maybe next time you make it a little differently. Or you choose something else.”
I nodded. What was he trying to say?
“But sometimes . . .” His hand curved around my neck, drawing me close. Closer. “You try something so much to your taste, you would not change a thing. So good,” he whispered against my lips, “you don’t want anything else.” His thumb stroked the side of my throat, making my skin prickle to attention. “I have such a taste for you, Jo.”
Everything inside me melted: my brain, my knees, my spine. He kissed me, warm, openmouthed kisses, coaxing my response, making me hungry for him all over again.
“I’m going to be late for work,” I warned several minutes later.
He glanced over my head at the clock. “It’s only noon.”
Right. Because he came in later, after the rest of the staff, when the bulk of the prep work was done.
“I have to be there by one,” I reminded him.
Reluctantly, it seemed, he released me. “Then I will take you.”
“Um. I don’t think we should go in together. I don’t want everybody thinking I’m one of your . . .”
He raised an eyebrow. “One of my . . .” Definitely a question this time.
Well, shoot. In all fairness, he didn’t have a reputation for shagging the staff—no more than I made a habit of inviting men up to my apartment. But I didn’t want him to think I was angling to turn our hookup into, well, anything else.
“I don’t want to put you in an awkward position,” I mumbled, my gaze anchored to his chest.
“Jo.” His voice was patient. “People will see what they want to see. Whether we walk in together or not.”
“But they’ll talk.”
“Let them. If I walk down the sidewalk wearing a hoodie, to some eyes I look like a thug. But that’s on them. I don’t have to be limited by their vision. Who I am, what I choose to wear or do . . . That’s on me, yeah? I am myself, whatever they choose to see.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“You think so,” he said without inflection.
Oh God. Had I actually just told him that it was easy for him to be himself when other people—strangers, customers, cops—judged him by his appearance?
My face flamed. “I only meant . . . You’re Chef.”
“Eric. And you . . . You are yourself.” I looked up. He met my gaze. The curve of his mouth almost undid me. “Jo.”
I smiled back uneasily. Because I hadn’t been myself with him. Not completely.
It was okay to hide the whole blogger thing when he was simply my boss, I rationalized. I mean, I didn’t know everything there was to know about him, either. But now . . . How much of the truth did I owe him now?
What did I owe myself?
CHAPTER 10
Meg
Even though I was gone from the twins all day, I showered and blow-dried my hair when I got home. Shaved my legs. Shaved everywhere, my heart quickening in anticipation. As if I had all the time in the world. As if I were single and childless again, getting ready for a big date instead of going to a Christmas party at Sallie’s.
I’d always liked dressing up, doing my hair and nails and makeup. Unlike Jo, who considered most feminine rituals with scowling suspicion. When we were younger, I practically had to drag her to prom.
* * *
The whole concept of prom is an outdated fantasy,” Jo had declared as we got ready in my room. Beth and Amy curled against the pillows, watching me primp, taking pictures, while Jo sprawled across the foot of the bed, her nose in a book, as usual. I glanced at the cover. The Second Sex by Simone Somebody. “Part of an archaic culture that perpetuates normative gender roles,” Jo continued loftily.
I plugged in my flat iron, determined that tonight my hair would achieve the glossy smoothness of a model in Elle magazine. “If you’re expecting me to make a snappy comeback, you’re going to have to speak English.”
Jo flopped onto her stomach, wrinkling her dress. “I mean, it’s stupid. All that fuss, waiting for some boy to ask you out. I don’t need a date to a dance to validate my feelings of self-worth.”
“You only say that because Trey asked you weeks ago,” Amy said.
“Because we’re friends,” Jo said. “At least Trey isn’t going to get all weird on me.”
“Prom isn’t about your date. Not really,” I said. “It’s a rite of passage.”
I was going with Ned Moffat. A sort of pity date, because Sallie got tired of waiting for him to ask and accepted Charlie Campbell’s promposal instead. Trey was picking us all up in his grandfather’s town car (Mr. Laurence had hired a driver and everything), and we were all meeting up at the Gardiners’—before prom, to get our pictures taken with all our friends, and for the after-party.
“It’s about being with your friends,” Beth said.
“Shopping for a dress,” Amy said
.
I nodded. “Buying shoes.”
Jo regarded my pretty silver sandals doubtfully. “You’ll probably break an ankle in those things.”
Amy sighed with just a touch of envy. “I think you look beautiful.”
“You both do,” Beth said.
Jo clambered off the bed to stand beside me in front of the mirror. “I guess we don’t look so bad, do we?”
I smoothed the skirt of my silver gown. I’d bought it off the sales rack at the old-ladies’ shop in town, but Momma and Amy had transformed it, taking off the sleeves, altering the bodice to fit just right. Jo dug her dress out of the church donation pile, but if you didn’t notice the stain on the skirt, she looked really nice.
I smiled. “Not bad at all.” I tested the temperature of the flat iron. “All right, it’s ready.”
“Right.” Jo brandished the hot straightening wand. “Let’s do your hair.”
* * *
My phone lit up, interrupting the flow of memories.
I smiled. It was like Jo was psychic or something.
But it wasn’t Jo, it was Amy, WhatsApp-ing from Paris, four thousand miles and six hours away. “Hey, sweetie,” I said warmly. “How’s life in the fashion world?”
I propped the phone against the mirror so I could see her face as we talked. Or rather, as she talked and I listened, making occasional encouraging noises.
Our Amy would never admit it, but she sounded homesick. Well, it had been hard for her, leaving Mom. She’d had only a week to settle into her new job, her new digs. I reckoned she must be feeling lonely.
I listened as she hinted at some workroom drama, told a story about a club she went to the night before, a British boy band she followed on YouTube. “You went by yourself?” I asked. “What about your roommate? Chloe?”
A hesitation, so short I could blame it on the phone app. “She had other plans.”
I dotted concealer under my eyes. “You could have asked somebody else.”
“Meg, this is Paris,” Amy said. “People here stick to themselves. Unless your French is, like, perfect. Anyway, it was a good thing I was alone, because I went around back afterward. To meet them, you know? And Fred Vaughn was trying to talk to his fans, and I got to translate for him, and . . .” She paused dramatically. “He asked me to hang out with them backstage!”
Of course he did. Because things happened for Amy. She made them happen. “That’s amazing.”
“Right? So then I followed him on Instagram, and Meg—this is the best part—he just followed me back!”
Carefully, I applied eye shadow. “Why is that the best part?”
“Because he’s got over a hundred thousand followers. Even more on Twitter. So if he follows me, and his followers follow me, it builds brand recognition for my line.”
I smiled at her enthusiasm. “You have a line now?”
“I will,” Amy said. “Anyway, Vaughn invited me to New York to see them play at some club on New Year’s Eve. It’s not Times Square, but still . . . New York! I’ve always wanted to visit the Garment District. Go to Mood!”
I lowered my lash brush. “I thought you had to stay in Paris this Christmas.”
“I do. Not that there’s anything really happening here over the holidays. The studio is clearing out already.” Amy sighed. “But I can’t afford to come home.”
“If you need us to help . . .” I offered. A last-minute ticket over Christmas would cost the moon. But it would be worth it, to have my sister home.
“No, no,” Amy said. “I’m fine. You know me, I’ll find something to do. How are you all? How’s Mama?” She pronounced the word the French way, MaMA.
“Momma’s fine.” Should I tell Amy about the fall? But she’d been so upset, leaving when our mother was in the hospital. I didn’t want to worry her more. “Sweetie, I have to go. John and I are going to a party tonight at Sallie Moffatt’s.”
“Oh.” Amy’s pretty face fell. “I should let you get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
“Not for a party at Sallie Moffat’s.”
I glanced down at my black slacks and sweater. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“Nothing, if you want to look like Mom. Do you still have that red dress? The wrap one?”
“It doesn’t fit.”
“How do you know?”
“Amy, that dress is older than the twins. I bought it before I got pregnant.”
“It looked great on you. You should try it on. With shapewear, obviously.”
Five minutes later, I eyed my reflection in the mirror, my face almost as red as my dress.
“Hot,” Amy said.
“Very hot. I’m sweating from getting into this thing. And my stomach sticks out.”
“Nobody’s going to look at your stomach. They’ll be staring at your boobs.”
I laughed, slightly out of breath. The shapewear squished and reshaped my post-baby bod, squeezing my mommy tummy to cleavage. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“It should. The girls look great,” Amy said.
“Well.” I twisted and turned in front of the mirror. The dress swirled and settled around my knees, pretty and feminine. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
“Nope,” Amy said firmly. “Très élégant.”
I checked my reflection one final time. Bank Meg smiled back at me.
“Don’t you look pretty,” Miss Hannah said as I came downstairs.
“Thank you! Thanks for coming tonight.”
“It’s my pleasure. You all have a good time.”
I turned hopefully to John. He looked me up and down, smiling in the old way, his brown eyes warm. “Nice,” he said. “New dress?”
I twirled. “This old thing?”
“Pretty, Mommy!” Daisy said. DJ watched mistrustfully over his thumb.
“Thank you, sugarplum.” I stooped to kiss their smooth blond heads. Despite the shapewear, I could still bend. I breathed in their good, fresh-from-the-bath baby smell. “Be good for Miss Hannah now. Say night night to Daddy.”
They bounced into his arms. “Night night, Daddy.”
“Daddy, night.”
He hugged and kissed them. “Good night, cookie monsters. I love you.”
They hugged him back, all smiles. But when I got my coat, DJ clung and Daisy wailed.
“You go on,” Miss Hannah said. “We’ll be fine.”
I handed DJ over to her capable arms, feeling guilty.
“I’ve never left them with anyone but Momma,” I said to John in the car.
“They’ll settle down as soon as you leave.”
I snuck a look at his profile, lit by the glow of the dashboard. “They’re probably upset I was gone all day.”
“They’ll get over it.”
I clasped my hands in my lap. “I thought maybe you were upset, too.”
“I don’t like to see you work so hard all the time, that’s all.” He glanced my way. His slow smile warmed me from the inside out. “It’s good for you to get out sometimes.”
An electric pulse flickered inside me, like the tick of the turn signal. “It’s good for us to get out.”
He didn’t say anything. Communication wasn’t our strong suit. But he reached across the console and took my hand, holding it on his thigh all the way to Sallie’s. His hand was warm and firm on mine. The flicker became a current. I felt happy, breathless, and not just because the shapewear was cutting off my air. The white lines on the road beyond our windshield flashed by like we were finally getting somewhere.
* * *
Sallie and Ned had bought a house on a golf course in the same gated community as her parents. We drove past lit tennis courts and landscaped ponds, up a long, circular driveway to a parking area filled with Lexuses and Land Rovers, Teslas
and Maseratis.
“There’s Trey’s car,” I said.
A valet opened my door. I stepped out, off-balance in my party heels.
John handed the valet the keys and came around, steadying me with a hand on my elbow. He shot a wry glance up the curving double staircase to the front door. “You didn’t tell me your friends lived at Tara.”
“We’ve been here before,” I said.
“You were here,” he said. “For a shower or something.”
A baby shower for Belle, back when John and I were first married. Before I got pregnant. I squeezed John’s arm as we went up the steps. “It does feel a little like a movie set.” Or a magazine spread, the December issue of Architectural Digest, maybe, or Southern Living, white lights everywhere, twining on the crepe myrtles in the yard, glowing in the windows, twinkling along the path to the boat dock. Full-size Christmas trees, decked in more lights and red ribbon, framed the open door and the people milling around inside.
“Thanks for buying the tree today,” I said to John.
He shrugged, handsome and uncomfortable in a navy blazer and tie. “One tree. Big deal.”
“If I don’t have to do it, it is a big deal.” He slanted a look down at me. I stumbled. “I mean . . .”
“I know what you meant,” he said quietly.
“Meg, you came. How nice.” Belle, materializing out of the glittering crowd in the foyer, wore wide-legged silk pants and a very sheer top. Obviously she didn’t need shapewear. Or a bra, apparently. “And you must be Jim.”
“John.”
“Of course. Welcome.”
My dress was all wrong, I thought as we exchanged air kisses. I resisted the urge to tug at the nylon creeping into my butt crack.
“Hey, Hot Mama.” Sallie’s husband, Ned, appeared, drink in hand, and moved in for a hug. “You’re on fire tonight.”
Meg and Jo Page 16
