Slip of the Tongue Series: The Complete Boxed Set

by Hawkins, Jessica

  “Mom?” the girl asks, her voice high-pitched.

  “I’m kidding, sweetheart,” she enthuses. “There are no rats.”

  “Well—” I start.

  The woman cuts a finger across her throat and shakes her head. She knows. Rats generally stick to the underground, but I’ve seen a mouse or two in my time at the apartment. Or three. We share a smile as the doors open.

  The woman heads down the hallway with her child as I pull Ginger along. She stops at 6A. I look between the door and her. She’s knocking.

  I draw my eyebrows in. She’s knocking? The hallway no longer feels warm. My fingers are like little icicles, so I stick one hand under an armpit, keeping Ginger close with the other. Should I keep walking or say something? How do I ask her if she’s confused about where she lives without offending her?

  “Should we hide?” the girl asks.

  “Yes, let’s.” They both move out of the way of the peephole, so it’s just me standing there, stuck to the spot.

  Why we’re all here in front of Finn’s apartment, I can’t fathom. Before I make any decisions or come to a single conclusion, Finn opens the door. He’s sweating, and his hair is in complete disarray, but he smiles at me as if I’m holding an oversized check with his name on it. “Hey,” he says softly, affectionately. “You must be looking for—”

  “Boo,” the girl screams, popping out from behind the wall.

  He jumps, bracing himself against the doorframe. His entire body locks up. “Ma-Marissa?”

  My blood runs as cold as my hands. Marissa—the name from one of the boxes in Finn’s apartment.

  She leaps, and he lifts her up without a thought. The woman peeks out from the other side of the wall, grinning. “Surprise!”

  Finn’s mouth drops open. “Kendra? What’re you doing here?”

  The woman—Kendra—moves in front of the door and rolls her eyes at me. “We drive an hour from Connecticut to see this new apartment, and that’s the greeting I get. Men.”

  If I look as horrified as I feel, she doesn’t seem to notice. My stomach cramps, as if it’s going to bottom right out. Just last night, Finn said he wanted to kiss me. And now I’m standing in the middle of his . . . family?

  “Babe,” Kendra says, “you’re sweating like a whore in church. You still haven’t fixed the furnace thingie you told me about?”

  “I—”

  A familiar silhouette—my familiar silhouette—comes into view behind Finn. Nathan saunters into the doorway with a wrench in his hand. “Nathan Hunt, at your service.”

  What’s going on? I give Nate an inquisitive look, but he’s smiling at Kendra. Finn and I exchange a glance. We haven’t done anything beyond walk, talk, and unpack. But our friendship suddenly feels like a dirty secret for which we’re about to get busted.

  “Oh, my,” Kendra says to Nathan, dumbstruck. “You’re the landlord?”

  It’s not an unusual response for Nathan to receive from women. In a suit, he looks as though he stepped out of a GQ spread—but this? He’s slick with sweat. His flannel is open to the neck. His chocolate-smooth brown hair is mussed. If possible, he’s even more fuckable.

  Nathan wipes his hand on his jeans and holds it out. “Your neighbor, 6B. Sadie’s husband.”

  Kendra takes his hand and blinks. “Who’s Sadie?”

  “I am,” I say quietly, as if I’m ashamed by the name.

  “Oh.” She smiles warmly at me. “So you’ve met my husband.”

  I look from her to Finn, confused. Are they separated? Divorcing? I don’t like being in this position—dazed, and feeling weird about something I haven’t even done. It’s Finn’s fault I feel this way, so I look to him, a film of red creeping over my vision.

  Finn rubs the back of his neck, appropriately sheepish. “We met the day I moved in,” he says, gesturing at Ginger, “the dog ran off after a squirrel, and I chased her down.”

  “Then he came over for a beer,” Nathan says, grinning. “Or so the story goes. I wasn’t around.” He’s friendly by nature, and his smile is authentic, so I don’t think he means anything by it.

  “Really?” Kendra asks. Her smile wavers a little, as if that concerns her. Then again, I’d be concerned too if my husband had moved out of my house to get his own place. “How nice to have a young couple next door,” she adds.

  “I agree.” Nathan bends over to the girl. “And who’s this?”

  She glances up at her mom before she says, “Marissa.”

  “Nice to meet you, Marissa.” He smiles. “How old are you? Seventeen?”

  She laughs. “I’m seven!”

  “Oh yeah. I should’ve known.” Finally, Nate glances up at me. Under his bright, happy veneer, I recognize something darker. “I have a niece your age.”

  My throat dries, and I swallow. I wonder what he’s trying to tell me with that look. ‘And a niece is all I’ll ever have’?

  “Does she live in the city?” Kendra asks. “Maybe we can get them together.”

  “No,” I answer for him. I don’t want this to continue. To me, Bell is sacred, and she doesn’t belong in this conversation. “I thought you went to work,” I say to Nate.

  “Not yet.” He straightens up and comes out of the apartment to stand by me. “You didn’t mention Finn had a family,” he says, looking dotingly on Marissa. “I would’ve tried to get to the heater sooner.”

  Everyone turns to me. “I . . .” I pause. “I guess I didn’t think of it.”

  “I figured. Anyway, I can’t fix the radiator right now. I need a part from the hardware store.” He looks at Finn. “If you can pick it up, I should be able to finish later. If that doesn’t work, though, it might need to be replaced.”

  Kendra makes a face. “So it’s going to stay this hot? Can’t the landlord do something?”

  “He’ll give you the runaround for weeks,” Nathan says. “I’d remove it, but you can bet your,” he glances at Marissa, “you-know-what the cold’s going to be worse.”

  “It’s fine. She’s heard worse,” Finn says about Marissa. “Mom here’s got the mouth of a sailor.”

  “And you fucking love it,” Kendra says, slipping her arm around his waist. Finn glances briefly at me and then away. In my experience, this isn’t how separated couples act. I swallow at the subtle display of affection, and ashamedly, feel the slightest tinge of jealousy. “At the altar,” Kendra continues, “when the priest asked if I took Finn to be my husband—”

  “She said ‘Of course I fucking do,’” Finn rushes out, slurring the words together. “Not only have I lived the story, but I’ve heard it over and over.”

  “They haven’t, honey.” She rises up to kiss his cheek, then runs her hand over the stubble on his chin. “This is new.”

  His jaw tenses. “It’s Movember. Mustache November. I’m growing it out.”

  “Great,” she says cheerily. “Maybe I’ll grow my hair out too.”

  A stiff giggle escapes me before I can stop it. She isn’t talking about the hair on her head. When Nathan understands, he also laughs.

  Finn doesn’t look amused. He moves away from her. “Let them go. They have to get to work.”

  “I do,” Nathan agrees, “and I need a shower.”

  The men shake hands. “Thanks again,” Finn says. “I owe you.”

  “Not yet,” Nathan says. “But once I fix it, I expect a six-pack. And none of that generic bull. The expensive, craft beer.”

  “Nathan,” I scold, shaking my head.

  “What?”

  Finn smiles. “You got it.”

  Nathan flashes Kendra his panty-dropper smile. I know it well, but not from this angle. Does he smile like that often when I’m not around? “Nice to meet you ladies.” His eyes linger on Marissa. He started looking at babies that way last year. At least, that’s when I started noticing it. Is it wrong for me to be jealous of a little girl?

  I follow Nathan inside our apartment, my mind spinning. I feel like a fool in a number of ways. I want
to know what Nathan and Finn talked about. Why Finn didn’t mention a family.

  As soon as the door closes, Nate’s smile is gone. He unbuttons his flannel as he walks away.

  “You didn’t have to go over there,” I say. My tone is unintentionally accusatory.

  He disappears into the bedroom.

  My blouse sticks under my armpits. I’m hot one minute and cold the next—it’s starting to annoy me, and winter hasn’t even technically begun. I remain where I am. Finn claimed honesty was his reason for telling me he wanted to kiss me, but not mentioning a family was a lie. I don’t know why I care. It’s not my business. I don’t like being blindsided, though.

  I remove Ginger’s leash. Belated embarrassment over my behavior sets in. I’d thought Finn was flirting with me. And it was as if everyone in that hallway just now was in on the joke, waiting for my reaction to finding out Finn was married. Even Nathan.

  What do I care anyway? I hang up my coat. I’ve got something pretty good right here in my own apartment. Our hot sex from a couple nights ago hasn’t been far from my mind. I find Nathan in our bathroom, steam curling over the top of the shower rod. I pull the curtain open.

  His eyes are squeezed shut as he scrubs shampoo into his hair. “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Joining you,” I say, unbuttoning my collar.

  He doesn’t respond right away, doesn’t look at me. “Didn’t you already shower?” he asks.

  “I don’t care.”

  “You were leaving for work.”

  “I, don’t, care,” I intone. I pull my blouse out of the waistband of my skirt. “You know how I get when I’m in the mood.”

  His cock twitches. My insides clench. Yes. This is what I want. Seeing his desire with my own eyes will always get me warm between the legs.

  Nathan runs his hands over his face and rinses. “I’m already late.”

  “So what?” I slide my hand down his bicep, elbow, forearm. I reach for him. “I want you.”

  He catches my wrist. “I said no.”

  I withdraw. Shower water drips from my hand to the toe of my boot. “What?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you. I’m late.”

  “That’s never stopped you before.”

  “And I don’t want to.”

  My heart cracks, and it must be audible. Nathan drops his eyes from my face to my chest. He can switch off his attraction to me, just like that? Or have I been blind, in denial? Maybe he’s felt this way for some time. “You mean me. You don’t want me.”

  He looks away, and after a brief hesitation, picks up a loofah. He squirts body wash onto it but doesn’t move, as if he’s forgotten its purpose. “No. Not right now.”

  It dawns on me that maybe he didn’t want me the other night, either. Maybe he wanted a slut, not a wife, and that’s what I gave him. But it’s a lot harder to pretend you’re fucking someone else when it’s daytime. “Then when?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I’m not having this conversation in the shower.”

  “Are you kidding me? You can’t just drop this on me and end the conversation.”

  He turns his back to me and puts his palms against the wall. “Maybe not. But right now, I think it’s best if you leave me alone.”

  My jaw tingles. My blouse hangs open. It didn’t really occur to me, over the past couple months, that he might not want me. If he’s angry, if he’s sad, if he’s screwing someone else—that, I can find a way to deal with. But if he feels nothing for me? That’s as deadly to our relationship as a bullet in the heart. My hand hovers over his back. “Why?”

  He slaps the tile with one hand. “For fuck’s sake, Sadie. I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I step back, almost tripping over the bathmat. My urges jump from ripping the shower curtain off its rings to begging him to stop this. I don’t know which of the two will make things worse and which will make things better. Is it even that black and white? Stumped, I leave the bathroom, leave the apartment, leave his bullshit. In the elevator, my hands shake as I close my blouse, tuck it back into my skirt, and get my coat on.

  Before all this, Nathan had never denied me so much as a kiss. I’m the one who pulls my hand out of his first, who has to be called back to the doorway for a goodbye peck when I’m running off to work. I love his affection. Sometimes I forget to show mine, but he doesn’t.

  He takes care of me—not because he has to, but because he wants to. That’s the fundamental difference between him and other husbands I know. A few years back, my girlfriends and I went to Atlantic City for a weekend. I drank one or six too many dirty martinis, got sick, and according to my friends, wouldn’t calm down without talking to Nathan. He picked me up that night, a three-hour drive to the casino and another three back home. I fell asleep with my head in his lap as he stroked my hair with one hand and steered with the other. In the morning, anyone else would’ve lectured me. But he made me bacon and eggs while we laughed.

  Outside, the sun shines, but it’s blustery. The wind freezes my ears, nose, fingers. Somehow, it gets inside me and ices over my heart. The heart that’s unprotected and defenseless because Nathan broke down the walls around it.

  Because Nathan once loved me hard enough to make me feel safe in his care.

  “Space. That’s something I’ll never give you too much of. Promise me the same?”

  EIGHT

  Amelia Van Ecken gives me a dirty look across the conference table. I don’t know how long I’ve been on the receiving end of my boss’s stink eye—black-framed glasses tipped to the end of her nose and everything—but I know why. We’ve been in this meeting forty-five minutes, and I haven’t contributed a word.

  When she dismisses everyone from the conference room, she tells me to wait. “Let’s go to my office.”

  I shut my laptop and follow her out. Amelia Van Ecken Communications, or avec, takes up the seventh floor of an office building near Bryant Park. The open, partition-less space is bright with sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a chandelier in the center and plush, blue velvet club chairs near the elevator. She never reveals her real age, but for her early-thirties, she’s done more than almost anyone I know personally.

  “Howie,” Amelia calls. Her long, blond bob moves as a unit, like it belongs on a Lego instead of a human. “We’ll take two lattes from that place I like. You know the one.”

  Howie slowly rises from between the rows of desks where my colleagues tap and click furiously. His mouth is thinned into a line. “Do I look like your assistant, Amelia?”

  “All you boys under thirty look the same to me. I don’t know where Jack is. He must be cleaning up the meeting.” She stares him down. “It’s on Sixth Ave.”

  Howie scowls at me. I shrug. He knew what he was getting in to when he was hired.

  “Bring them straight here,” she adds. “A cold latte will put me in a bad mood.”

  “What do you call this?” he mutters.

  She hears him, but to her, it’s likely a compliment. Amelia employs male underlings so she can get back at her ex by ordering them around. Nobody says it, but we’re all thinking it.

  “Shut the door and sit.” She flops into her white leather chair and checks a gold-rimmed, Kate Spade desk calendar while speaking to me. “What was that today?”

  “Which part?” I take a seat across from her and cross my legs.

  “Don’t bullshit me. I expect more. That’s why I promoted you instead of Howie.” She points a black and white polka dot pen at me like a command. “You were distracted.”

  I was. If only it’d been the other way around, and work had been enough to distract me from my life. Too much has happened in just a few days. Before Nathan turned down my advances, I’d suspected this was just a phase. Now I have information I can’t ignore. Somewhere along the way, Nathan and I have gone from a team to opposite sides.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I have a lot on my mind.”


  She nods, and her leather seat creaks. “Divorce the asshole. Believe me, you’ll be better off.”

  My cheeks crack when I smile, as if they’ve been out of use for a while. “You loved Nathan when you met him at last year’s holiday party.”

  Her eyebrows gather, but magically, no wrinkles appear. “Did I? Oh, yes. I forgot. It’s coming back to me.” She waves a manicured hand. “Honey, he’s too handsome to be a good husband. You can’t have both.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “As logical as that sounds, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Nathan is . . .” Again, I’m having trouble describing his character. I could tell her how he puts others before himself, and that he loves and trusts blindly—too blindly sometimes. But words don’t seem like enough.

  Amelia sighs. Her veneer clears a little, like wiping steam from a mirror. “I remember, Sadie. I kept thinking how obvious it was that he just adores you. He always made sure you were enjoying yourself.”

  I straighten my back a little as warmth seeps through me. Even she sees how perfect we are, and considering her views on marriage nowadays, that’s a feat.

  “I remember that we were deep in conversation with some clients,” she continues, “and your husband brought over a round of drinks without prompting. The clients loved it.”

  “That’s Nathan,” I say. My smile wavers. Or, that was Nathan. This year’s party is in a month. I don’t think he’ll want to come. If he does, though—how long can we fake it? Will Amelia and my colleagues see right through us? “This isn’t about me, though,” I tell her. “Nathan and I are great. I’m worried about a friend, actually.”

  She pops her lips open. “Sure.”

  “Honestly.” Amelia talks about her personal shit all the time, so I know what she’s been through. I’m not comfortable bringing my problems into the office, but I need to talk to someone who might understand. “A very close friend. She’s not doing well.”

  There’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” Amelia says.