Can't Help Falling

by Cara Bastone

  “If I talk, you’ll listen,” she repeated, looking at him like he’d just spoken Finnish.

  “Simple as that. I promise you I will.” He ducked his head from one side to the other. “I’m stubborn. So, there’s that. But I don’t ever want to make you feel unsafe. Ever. In any capacity. Obviously physically. But I mean that emotionally as well. Mentally.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Psychically? Mystically? I don’t really know what you’d call it. But I know you well enough now to know that you’re operating on a different plane than I am sometimes. And if I’m ever doing something wonky...with my energy. Just clue me in. Give me a chance to fix it.”

  She took her eyes away and pressed her forehead to his collarbone. He could feel her fingers plucking at the hem of his sweater. “You’re asking for communication.”

  “Well.” He adjusted his grip around her waist and rested his chin on her head. “I’m a talker. Just ask Sebastian.”

  She laughed, tilting her head back and catching his eye again. “But you’re so bad at communicating with Kylie.”

  He laughed now. “Ky seems to kind of be the exception to my rule. But she and I are figuring out how to talk to one another. For a while, you were an exception too. I had no idea how to talk to you. But I wanna figure it out. Even if, in the end, we’re just friends who made out a few times, I wanna be able to really talk to you, Fin.”

  She plunked her head back down and spoke into his sweater again. “You’re saying you want to know me. Really know me.”

  “Bingo.”

  She sighed and mumbled something he couldn’t quite hear. But he could have sworn he caught the words peacoat-wearing feelings-haver and maybe even Hamptons hair, but he couldn’t be sure. When she looked back up at him, she was chewing her bottom lip. “All right,” she said. “Let’s order takeout.”

  * * *

  THEY ATE TAKEOUT SUSHI for dinner, sitting on her living room floor. Tyler asked questions about her work, and she asked questions about his. She made them tea and Tyler tried very hard to drink his with a straight face but she saw right through him, laughing and getting up to add cream and sugar to his.

  They hadn’t turned on any lights in the apartment and by the time Tyler mentioned that he should probably get home, she was simply a blue shape on the floor next to him, silhouetted only by the dim natural light filtering in from the kitchen.

  She agreed to walk him to the train, and they got bundled up in the dark, neither of them wanting to turn on any lights, knowing it would burst the bubble of the warmest, most exhilarating afternoon he could ever remember having. When they got out into the February air, it was fresh and crisp, all of yesterday’s low fog long gone.

  “The moon is even smaller than yesterday,” he observed as they strolled along, his hands in his pockets and her arm crooked through his.

  “It tends to do that,” she said with a smile.

  She chatted to him about moon phases and different cultural beliefs about them. Neither of them said anything at all about the fact that they’d bypassed the train stop and headed straight into Prospect Park. They strolled the pedestrian path, and a dry, crisp snow began to lightly fall. There was something exciting and renewing about this particular snowfall. It was nothing like the usual stomach-plummeting, face-palming dread that typically accompanied a February snow in Brooklyn.

  They turned back and exited the park, walking along the cobblestone sidewalk that lined one side of Ocean Avenue. They were headed back toward the train, sure, but also back toward her house.

  “Weirdly,” Tyler said. “I’m kind of hungry again.”

  Fin glanced at her phone and laughed. “You are never going to guess what time it is.”

  “10:45.”

  “It’s 8:15.”

  “What?” Tyler confirmed the time on his own phone. “Jeez. We let the light fade naturally in your apartment and it got me all turned around, I guess.”

  “We ate that sushi at like 5:00 and called it dinner.”

  “And then took a three-mile stroll. No wonder I’m hungry.”

  “Ty?”

  He looked down at her, snow in her hair, an innocent question on her lips, cars honking and revving past on one side, the park, dark and peaceful on the other side. And he knew two things then, unequivocally. One, his feelings for her last year had not just been a crush. They’d been real and intense and meaningful. And two, she hadn’t extinguished them with her speech at the ball game. Nope. She’d just locked them in a back room, and he’d mistaken them for gone. But here they were. Intact and restless after all that time locked away. It was all he could do to try to shush those feelings, calm them, soothe them, convince them that he wasn’t going to sequester them any longer.

  “Yeah?” he said gruffly, hoping that everything he’d just discovered wasn’t served up on a platter for this psychic to see.

  “Wanna come over for dinner?”

  He laughed and nodded and they headed back to her apartment. When they got there, she immediately turned on some lamps, turning her apartment moody and, to Tyler’s mind, sexy. Her casual cleaning outfit was even more devastating to his senses when she was revealing it bit by bit. Unwinding her woolen scarf from around herself, unbuttoning her winter coat. He slid the coat off her shoulders, and she whirled around, a look in her eye that was somehow fierce and soft all at once.

  “It just kills me when you do that.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “When you help me with my coat.”

  “Oh.” For some reason, he felt his cheeks heat. “I...didn’t even think about it. I guess it’s reflex.”

  “You also open cabs and hold the elevator doors open like they might slam closed and chop my head off.”

  “Well, I—”

  “It’s very cute,” she said, stalking forward.

  He took a step back and found the front door up against his back. She went up on her toes and rubbed her cheek against his. Knowing just how much stubble she’d be finding there, Tyler winced. He was closing in on his necessary second shave of the day.

  “Annoyingly cute,” she said, dropping back to the flats of her feet. “I tried not to have a crush on you, but then you just kept helping me with my coat.”

  She turned on her heel.

  “How about Italian?” she called over her shoulder. “I’m feeling carby. And I think I have a bottle of red.”

  She disappeared into her kitchen, and he was left staring at the place where she’d just been.

  Crush.

  Crush.

  Crush.

  “Fuck,” he whispered to himself. Over the year, in order to save his own sanity, he’d convinced himself that she wasn’t into him. He’d made the landscape between them as barren as possible, determined not to let hope bloom there, knowing just how lethal that could be for him.

  But now here they were.

  They had a glass of wine each with the Italian food that was delivered forty-five minutes later. They sat facing one another with their backs on opposite arms of the couch and when the dinner was done and Tyler had put away the leftovers, he came back and sat down again in the same way. Only this time he pushed one of his feet forward. She did the same, laying her toes over his and making his heart bang.

  “You’re wearing your purple socks,” he noted.

  “It’s my favorite day of the week when I get to wear the socks you bought me.”

  “I’ll get you more.”

  The wine had been just enough to make them both dozy. He thought of the cold, fresh snow outside and shivered, not wanting to ever leave the sexy, colorful cave of Fin’s home. When she pulled the afghan over them, he didn’t protest. When she slid down farther and tossed him a spare couch pillow, he certainly didn’t say a word.

  And when, roughly seven hours later, he woke up with one of her ugly-cute feet in his fac
e, he just laughed.

  “You always wake up laughing?” she asked, stretching and basically kneeing him directly in the ribs.

  He grunted, kept laughing. “Only when I realize that I slept over at Serafine St. Romain’s house and didn’t score.”

  “Don’t bro out on me now, Leshuski.” Fin rolled up and stretched for real, yanking the blanket off of him as she stood. “I actually slept a little bit. Surprise, surprise.”

  “You’re not a sleeper usually?”

  She turned to him with that emoji eyebrow in full cannon. “Do I strike you as a good sleeper?”

  He laughed again, sat up, grabbed her by the waist and dragged her back under the afghan, this time right side up, with her nestled against him. “Don’t go anywhere yet. It’s early.”

  “You have no idea what time it is.”

  “It’s still dark out!”

  “It’s winter, it’s always dark out.” But she surprised him by snuggling into him all the same. She was warm and soft and pressing her forehead under his chin. Neither of them mentioned that her thigh was laying directly over a very awake part of his body. They were both adults, both understood the manner in which they wanted one another. Tyler couldn’t help but let his hand trace down her back, play with the top seam of her leggings.

  She shifted against him. “You’re a mountain man in the morning.”

  He groaned, dragging a hand over his face, scraping over his beard with chagrin. “Ugh. I know. I usually shave before bed to prevent this from happening. Otherwise it takes me twice as long to shave it off in the morning.”

  “I can’t believe your beard grows that fast.”

  “So does my hair. I get it trimmed every two weeks.”

  “Between that and the gel, your hair budget must be through the roof.”

  She was biting her lips together, so Tyler was fairly certain she was teasing him. “I do not use hair gel.”

  Cue the emoji eyebrow.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “I might, on occasion, use a little pomade. But these are just good-hair genes you’re witnessing.”

  “It’s so strange how you and Kylie can look so different and so similar at the same time.”

  “I know.” Guiltily, his thoughts traced back to Kylie for the first time in twelve hours. It was strange not to have been dwelling on her while she was on her trip. She’d been foremost on his mind for months. He instantly felt guilty, and suddenly nervous, like just because he hadn’t been keeping her in his every thought, that something bad could have happened, and it would be all his fault.

  “She’s fine,” Fin told him, doing that thought-reading thing she did so well.

  “How do you know?”

  “One, I’m in tune with her. If something terrible were to have happened, I’d have an intuition about it. And two, she’d text you if something happened.”

  “Or she’d text you.”

  Fin nodded in concession. “She trusts us, Ty.”

  A wind chime sound went off in her bedroom and this time Fin sat up for real.

  “That’s my alarm. I have a client meeting in an hour and a half up in Greenpoint.”

  “Eesh. You’ve gotta get going, then.”

  “There’s a bagel shop on the way to the train if you wanna grab a bite with me.”

  Tyler finger-brushed with her horrible natural toothpaste and sat on her couch as he watched her pace around the house, getting ready for the day. Twenty minutes later he grinned at her as she scrabbled with the lock on her door.

  “Still feeling befuddled, Ms. St. Romain?” he asked, leaning against the wall of her hallway.

  He walked her to the bagel shop, and by the time they’d gotten their orders, it seemed she’d found her footing again. Wordlessly, she’d taken his coffee from him and fixed it with cream and sugar, just the way he liked. She was running late, so they got their bagels to go, slurping on their coffee cups as they walked to the train.

  “You gonna be able to work today?” she asked.

  “I’ll head home and give it a shot.”

  “I—” She stopped walking so he did too. “I want to come over after my appointment.”

  “Yes,” he said immediately. “Please do.”

  “Good.”

  He kissed her underground, after swiping into the train station, but it wasn’t the kiss that stayed with him for hours afterward, it was the hug. Her arms clinched around his back, her forehead against his neck, his head bowed into the negative space above her shoulder. It was a seal on the end of their night together. A stamp saying, “We did this, it felt good.”

  They split ways to catch their separate trains, and Tyler was glad that her train came first. He hadn’t known how good it would feel to watch her head to work, to see her off safely. It didn’t make him feel left behind. No, it gave him purpose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “CAN WE GO to your house?” Tyler asked the second he swung open his front door for Fin. She blinked at him. He already had a stocking cap and a scarf on, his jacket swinging from his fingertips, his shoes perfectly knotted.

  She quirked her head to one side, trying—and failing—to catch his mood. He looked a little harried. A little guilty. “Why?”

  Tyler glanced back at the apartment behind him, shifting on his feet. He was freshly shaved, and she could smell toothpaste and deodorant on the air. She suddenly felt like the fuzzy penny you sometimes find at the bottom of a purse. For once, she wanted to be as polished up as Tyler.

  “It felt weird to be here without Kylie. And I think if I have you over...”

  “It’ll feel even weirder.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Like I’m lying to her or something.”

  They’d been given the gift of forty-eight hours to explore this thing between them without having to explain it to anyone yet.

  “I get it. When we’re at my house, it feels like we’ve got a little stolen time to sort of chart the waters.”

  “Right.”

  “But when we’re here it’s like we’re...cheating?”

  Tyler grinned. “Exactly. I knew you’d understand.”

  He leaned forward, cupping her elbow and pressed his mouth to hers. “Damn.”

  He leaped back and so did she, one hand over her mouth.

  “Seriously,” he groused, rubbing his lips where they’d just been static shocked. “What is that?”

  She shrugged. “My place?”

  Tyler just kind of blinked at her for a moment. “It’s really surreal to hear you say that to me.”

  She huffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re not over that yet? I like you, Ty. I want you to come over and get under my afghan with me.”

  “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head and tugging his coat on. “This is not a dream, Tyler,” he muttered to himself, making her laugh.

  They bumped shoulders on the way to the train. If it had been warmer, Fin wondered if they’d have held hands. But as it was, both sets of their hands were firmly ensconced in pockets. When they got on the train, it was midday and uncrowded, but still, they sat rather close on the bench seat. The train swayed and jolted, knocking his knee into hers. Fin stared down at their legs, that single point of contact. As she watched, Tyler pulled his large, booted foot back. He crooked it around hers, their ankles crossing, the entire sides of their boots touching. Fin caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked up at him. His eyes went from where their ankles crossed to hers. His navy blues looked slow and lazy, like he was turning to her underwater.

  They practically ran home from the train, both of them desperate to get out of the cold winter air and somewhere warm. Her house, her couch, under her blankets, against one another.

  Tyler nearly vibrated next to her in the elevator up to her apartment. Neither of them spoke.

  They speed walked down the hallway to her
door, and Fin considered it a small miracle that she didn’t drop her keys. The second the door was open, Tyler shouldered his way in, slamming it behind them, unwinding his scarf, unzipping his coat, yanking off his hat.

  His hair stood up straight for one moment before it cascaded back down into its perfect fall. When he turned to her, she saw the need in his eyes, the nerves, the desperation.

  And even in the midst of all that, he hung up his coat, folded his scarf, lined his boots up carefully.

  She nearly didn’t keep the groan contained. Why did everything about this man just kill her? She’d never been into neat freaks before. So why now? Why this preppy blond with his collar all but popped?

  He helped her slide out of her coat, though she could feel the impatience thrumming through him.

  “Remember when I helped you with your coat zipper?” she asked, surprised when her voice came out breathlessly.

  “I remember,” he said, just as breathless. “I held my breath while your hands were inside my clothes. I felt like if I so much as inhaled, you would have slapped the shit out of me.”

  “I don’t touch people,” she told him, turning around to face him as he hung her coat up. “Almost ever, Tyler. I don’t really like it. It’s too intimate, sometimes it’s even invasive. But that day? Feeling the way your body heated up the air around you? I wanted to touch you. I wanted to press my chest to yours and zip that coat up around both of us.”

  “That can be arranged,” he told her, stepping close enough for her to be able to see the large gulp that traveled down his throat.

  “I like touching you, Ty,” she confessed, the words not much more than a rasp as they left her lips. “And I’ve wanted to, for a long time.”

  “You have no idea, love.” He bent at the knee, landed palms on the backs of her legs and lifted her clear off the floor.

  Fin, who was by no means short and by no means light, made an eeping sort of sound and clutched at his shoulders. But she felt the strength there. The tensile smoothness of his muscles. He took two long steps and dumped her backward onto her couch, following her down. Fin laughed, her hair flying everywhere, but the laughter stopped when his mouth came down over hers.