Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Chocolate-pistachio,” she says. “Why?”

  I widen my eyes and check the coffee cup in my hand. Quench Coffee is printed across the cardboard sleeve, and I can’t fucking believe I didn’t see it. I’ve been avoiding the place for over a year.

  “You said Quench was your favorite spot,” she says hesitantly. “So I decided to surprise you.” She gasps. “Are you allergic to nuts?”

  “Huh? Nuts? No.” I run my tongue over the roof of my mouth, trying to scrape away the taste of chocolate and coffee and her.

  Sadie.

  “The girl said this was their most popular pastry.” She takes the bag from me since I’m holding it out like a dirty diaper. “You don’t like chocolate?”

  I like chocolate as much as the next person, I’d be a freak and a liar if I said I didn’t. But I still taste Sadie in it, the chocolate-pistachio croissant she fed me the first time I laid eyes on her and then again outside my apartment door before she went home to her husband. “I had an affair with a married woman while I was married,” I say. “I wasn’t trying to. It just happened.”

  Halston pulls away, her eyes trained on my face. “You . . .” As my words process and her expression falls, I realize why she seems different today. She’s more expressive. Her eyes are brighter, less clouded. “You were married?” she asks.

  I don’t think Quench’s excellent coffee was the reason for her good mood. I think it was me. I think it was finally freeing words she’s been bottling up for who knows how long. And now I’ve ruined the moment like a fucking asshole. But my relationship with Sadie was based on dishonesty and deception, and I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t go back down that path. “She lives in Connecticut,” I say. “My ex-wife.”

  Halston scratches her eyebrow, leaving a red streak across her forehead. “Um, wow. Did you love her?”

  “Kendra? Not how a husband should love a wife.”

  “I meant the other woman.”

  “Oh.” Sadie. She’s the physical opposite of Halston, tall and slender with black hair, blue eyes, sharp features. Sadie was confident, professional, unemotional. I think the one thing she had in common with Halston was that she was sad. When I met Sadie, there was pain in her eyes, and over the last year, that’s how I’ve imagined her with him. Miserable.

  Except that now, sitting next to Halston, I realize I didn’t think about Sadie at all yesterday, and I wonder if I still want her to feel those things—regret for the life she gave up with me, despair because she’d made the wrong choice. Maybe I don’t need to think of her that way anymore. Maybe I can hope she’s happy, even if it’s with him. Nathan, that fucker. He hit me, square in the jaw, and I deserved it, but he’s still unworthy of her.

  “I wanted to love her,” I say. “I thought she was so many things, and she was . . . for a while. I was what she needed at the time too.”

  Halston shifts away from me. “Are you actually divorced? Or ‘separated’?” she asks with air quotes.

  I’d like to disappear now. I definitely didn’t see us having this conversation today, or maybe not ever. It’s too much for the little time we’ve known each other, and it’s only half the story. “We’re divorced.”

  “If you didn’t love her like a husband, why’d you marry her?”

  That question has the most straightforward and complicated answer possible. I got her pregnant. But Halston already looks skeptical. Telling her about Marissa might scare her off, and to be honest, it scares me too. Marissa was a mistake, and a blessing, and as my daughter, she’s my weakness. This past year, I haven’t been the father I want to be because my affair gave Kendra a reason to skewer me. I can’t be this vulnerable with someone who absolutely does not belong to me. “It gets into some personal stuff,” I say. “I don’t want to lie to you, so let’s not talk about it.”

  “I understand. I have that stuff too.” She looks at her hands but nods. “So will it be weird for your ex, what we’re doing?”

  “What are we doing?”

  “The photos. The erotic captions?”

  I can’t lie. It makes me happy to hear we’re doing something together. “They’re two separate things. And I’ve learned a valuable lesson this past year. I’m a better man when I’m not trying to be someone other than myself.” I dip my head to catch her gaze, waiting until she looks at me. “It’s a lesson I wish I’d learned earlier,” I tell her. “Don’t hide who you are. It’ll come out somehow, some day, and you’ll have struggled with it for nothing. Take chances and risks. Make mistakes. Especially now.”

  “Why would anyone want to make mistakes?” she asks tightly.

  “They’re necessary. It’s how we grow.” Having an affair might’ve been a mistake, but it got me to realize that marrying Kendra out of obligation was the wrong decision. It forced me out on my own. It led me to this bench, and for that, I’m not sorry. At least not at this moment. I like being here with Halston. “If I can help save you from the regrets I have, I want to,” I admit. “I know I should leave you alone. But I’ve never been good at listening to my head over my heart. It’s just who I am.”

  “Are you saying you won’t leave me alone?”

  I take a breath. “I can’t do it again, the affair. I won’t. I never saw Sadie as a fling. I thought she was—the one. I want more in my life than sex.” I don’t look at Halston when I speak. It’s not exactly easy to say. I have feelings for her, but I won’t push her. I pushed Sadie and dug my own grave in the process.

  “You think being with Rich is a mistake?” she asks. “That’s my boyfriend’s name—Rich.”

  I take a sip of the coffee. Damn, it’s good. So are croissants filled with chocolate and topped with pistachio. How could chocolate and toasted bread not be good? How could Halston and I not be good? She was literally dropped at my feet. She might be what I’ve struggled for, the person love and romance and fate came together to give me.

  But she’s not mine.

  I have to believe she never will be, otherwise I’ll make all the same mistakes I did with Sadie.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I tell her. “And if I did, it wouldn’t be my place to say. How’d you meet him?”

  “My dad kind of set us up, I guess.”

  “That stuff you wrote in the journal . . .” I don’t want to know the answer, but maybe if I hear it, it’ll make it easier for me to keep my hands to myself. “Was it about him?”

  “What? God, no.” After a second, she laughs. Hard. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a genuine reaction. “He’s not like that. Rich’s very even-tempered. Logical. He’s attractive, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not that attracted to him. That’s why he’s good for me.”

  My mind reels. It’s not about sex. All those things she wrote, the heartache she poured into the pages—it’s not for him. I’m not sure I’m relieved, though. If I don’t need to worry about Rich, then who else is waiting in the wings? “What do you mean he’s good for you?”

  “I used to be very emotional. Reckless. But I don’t get like that with Rich.”

  “Okay, but your writing is so passionate, it practically burns up the page.” I steel myself for her answer. “Who was it about?”

  She gets quiet, picking at the lid of her coffee. Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold.

  Somebody hurt her? She must have a Sadie too, and it isn’t Rich. I should’ve guessed. The question is, how deep does the damage run? Has she healed, or does she need more time?

  Eventually, I put my hand over hers to stop the scratch of her nail against the plastic. “Tell me. Who was he?”

  “Nobody.” She looks utterly miserable as she says it. “And I’m not being coy. It’s really about nobody. I’ve never experienced anything like what I’ve written.”

  My chest tightens. It’s an answer I didn’t even think to expect. One I find hard to believe, but one I actually like. “Never? Nobody?”

  “I guess that makes me weird.” She flinches. “Right?”

  Halston wants
to be consumed. It’s there in her words. I could be that for her—I already feel it, and we’ve barely touched. “Weird? No. Surprising? Yes. I’d have thought you’d have many broken hearts in your wake.”

  She smiles a little. “Nope. It’s just never happened for me, that intensity. I guess that’s why I have to write it. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it.”

  I realize I’m still touching her, and I put my hand back in my lap. I chased that passion and took risks—my marriage and Sadie’s, my dignity, and, my biggest regret of all, my daughter. Because of my affair and subsequent divorce, I’ve gone from seeing Marissa every day to twice a month. That’s twenty-four times a year and more than I deserve, according to Kendra.

  “It’s supposed to help your craft, right?” She half-laughs. “Heartache . . . longing.”

  Supposedly. Not always. My work has apparently suffered since my spirit was crushed. “Seems to work in your favor.”

  “I want to do it again.”

  She rushes the words out, but I take a beat to study her. “Do what?”

  “The photo.”

  “We are. I told you I’d post the next one.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She folds a knee under herself and faces me. “For so long, I’ve been going through the motions. But I’ve felt like a new person the past couple days. Reinvigorated, or maybe just invigorated for the first time.”

  I lean my elbows on my knees and massage my face, frustrated. Because I know what she’s going to say, and it’ll be everything I want to hear.

  I want her in front of my camera again.

  I’ve been sleeping for the last year, and she’s the only thing that’s made me feel awake.

  “I want you to take my picture again,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.”

  I can’t say no to her, and I can’t tell her that what I need in order to say yes is her. Completely, unequivocally, with no chance of her returning to her boyfriend or anyone else. I need her to be mine before I go down this path again. Halston has to get there on her own, though. I can’t, I won’t, make her choose me like I tried to with Sadie.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asks.

  I look forward. A stoplight changes from red to green. A man steps off the curb, narrowly avoids getting hit by a taxi, and darts through traffic anyway. Are any of us really awake? Are we making decisions about our lives, or just letting things happen to us? Is that why we like art, why Halston needs it, because without it, we’d never feel anything out of the ordinary?

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” she asks. “If it’s about Rich . . . he won’t care. He won’t even know.”

  “That’s not why. The affair I had, the husband found out. He hit me.”

  “Rich wouldn’t never—”

  “It didn’t even hurt, not compared to watching her leave with him.” I can’t look at Halston or I’ll give in. “I wanted her, and I want you. I want to photograph you. That’s the problem. When I found the journal, I thought about it for days, and now all I can think about is you. I might be, I don’t know, obsessed.”

  She doesn’t respond. I don’t blame her. We sit that way a while. Even as skateboards wheel across concrete and down railings, as a woman loudly laments about work into a cell phone, as car horns blare, through all of it, I can hear her breathing.

  “Your lunch break is over,” I say. I have no idea if it is, but it’s been at least an hour since she left her office. “I’ll put up the other photos tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Tonight,” she says. “Please? Please.”

  She gets up but doesn’t move right away. I stare at the ground until she leaves. I know when she does because she takes her body warmth with her, and it’s just now I realize how cold I am. I look up, and that’s when I see it. Today’s version of the red bra and hidden tattoo.

  Her sheer tights have a thin, solid line running down the middle of the back. It starts somewhere under her skirt and ends inside her sweet, schoolgirl, buckled-up Mary Janes. Maybe the stripe extends along the arches of her feet, to her toes. It wasn’t on the front of the tights; I would’ve noticed when she walked up.

  I can’t help wondering if she wore them for me . . . and I almost missed them.

  9

  I want to photograph you.

  I thought about your journal for days.

  All I can think about is you.

  I unlock the door to Rich’s Tribeca apartment. Finn’s definition of obsession has been on repeat in my head since lunch. I’ve clung to many things in my life for comfort, but never a person. And I’ve never had anyone cling to me, or ask about my feelings out of simple curiosity, or tell me I’m talented.

  And then there’s Rich.

  “Dinner in an hour,” Rich says when I walk into the kitchen. He’s fresh from a run, seated on a stool at the island. With his eyes glued to his phone and his ear buds in, I’m not sure how he knows I’m here.

  I dump my things on the counter. “Great,” I mutter. “I was just wondering the best way to waste a few hours of my life.”

  He looks up, removing the earphones. “What?”

  I begin unbuckling my shoes. “Nothing.”

  “What’s that?” he asks, nodding at my shopping bag.

  “Stationery.”

  His eyes glaze over—as I’d hoped. He knows I have a few ‘notebooks,’ but they don’t mean anything to him. Before meeting Finn this afternoon, I stopped at my favorite local home store for another journal. I’ve been feeling new things the last couple days, things that deserve their own fresh pages.

  “How’d the presentation go yesterday?” Rich asks. “Is it going to be a good dinner?”

  “It’ll be fine. Daddy sat in, so everyone’s happy.”

  “He won’t always be around for those meetings,” Rich says, sensing my sarcasm, even if it doesn’t surface often. “Learn what you can from him.”

  I look in the fridge and roll my eyes. “Might want to save the extreme sucking up for when my dad’s actually in the room.”

  “I’m not sucking up. I’m trying to get you to see the silver lining. And remind you that he won’t be around forever. I wouldn’t want you to look back and have any regrets about your relationship.”

  I grip the door handle. Rich has some goddamn nerve talking to me about regrets. I know that feeling better than anyone. I came to the fridge for water, but I bend over and grab a bottle of Chardonnay I’d shoved into the back corner of the bottom shelf.

  Rich eyes me as I uncork it. “I thought I got rid of that.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Wisely, he doesn’t respond. “Did you wear those to work?”

  “What?” I ask, playing dumb as I pour a glass.

  “Those tights.”

  Rich rarely comments on my wardrobe, but then again, I rarely wear anything other than black, gray or navy. “They’re trendy.”

  “Is trendy right for an office environment?”

  “Clients like to know we’re cutting edge.”

  “Our clients are mostly white men over fifty. I guess they’d notice, though . . .”

  Just like with my dad, I try not to get into arguments with Rich. Tonight, though, I’m feeling feisty. Blame it on Finn. Or on the fact that I’ve been halving my pills the last week. Either way, Rich is trying to make me feel bad about the tights, and I’m not going to let him. I sip the wine. “Are you jealous?”

  He looks taken aback by my out-of-character question. “I’m just not sure it’s appropriate,” he says slowly. “Is it Benny? Are you trying to fit in with her?”

  “My assistant?”

  “She’s always wearing stuff that’s borderline sexy. She gets away with it, but it’s not really appropriate. Maybe she’s not the best influence on you.”

  If he says appropriate one more time, I might blow. This is generally the time I start to back down. Admittedly, though, I’m a bit curious what’ll happen if I test his limit. “I had
n’t really noticed Benny’s sexy wardrobe,” I say, which is not exactly true. “But I guess you have.”

  “Are you jealous?” he asks. “She has a boyfriend.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I take an interest in the people I work with,” he says, tilting his head forward. “Don’t you two ever talk about that stuff? You’re together all day.”

  “Not really.” Benny may be my assistant, and a very good one, but she’s only a year younger than me. She holds me together, rolls her eyes along with me, keeps me on schedule. We get each other, but we’re different. Several piercings rim the edge of one of her ears, and her tattoos constantly peek out from her skirts, low-cut blouses, and sleeves. We’ve hardly spent a minute together past six o’clock. Our personal lives just don’t come up. “We gossip sometimes, but just about work.”

  “That’s fine by me. She’s not a friend I’d choose for you. Anyway, I really don’t think you should wear them to dinner.”

  “What?

  “The tights.”

  I wasn’t going to wear them to dinner, but now I want to, just to piss Rich off. “Why don’t you let me choose my own friends and worry about how I come off to clients? Newsflash—I’m not one of those girls looking to date my dad, you should definitely know that by now.”

  “I see. So you’re going to turn this argument into another of your dad’s faults. All I said was those tights are a bit sexy for work.”

  After a long, in-your-face gulp of wine, I set down the empty glass and leave.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  I suddenly feel gross and sticky. “Shower.”

  “I was going to shower,” he calls.

  “I won’t be long.”

  “We don’t have time. We’ll have to take one together.”

  I start stripping in the bathroom. “Fine.”