“Yep,” Raven nodded solemnly. “Remind me to never have sons.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, turning my attention back to the schoolyard.
“So,” Raven prodded. “What happened last night?”
“Nothing,” I said dismissively.
“Well it must have been something. You’ve never stayed out that late. Especially not with a guy.”
“He’s not a guy,” I reminded. “According to Child Protective Services, he is Emmy’s temporary legal guardian.”
“Ok, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s sex on legs,” Raven pointed out. “Or the fact that you went home with him last night.”
This time I couldn’t resist the urge to burst out laughing, and I’m glad I did. It gave me an excuse for the bright red blush that crept over my cheeks. And that was not the only reaction my body had at the mention of Caleb Preston. I also felt a hot tingle between my legs; the same electric jolt I felt last night, when we kissed.
“Seriously though,” Raven said, scooting a little bit closer to me and lowered her voice. “Did anything happen between you two?”
I kept my eyes pointed away, because I knew I would just keep blushing if I had to look Raven in the eye.
“We kissed,” I admitted.
“What!” Raven gasped, and I hear the soft thud of her cheese stick slip from her fingers and land on the concrete. “Daisy! That’s crazy! You never kiss anyone!”
“I know!” I shushed her, shooting her a quick glare. “And not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t plan on kissing him again. It was a one-time thing.”
“I wasn’t… I didn’t mean it like a bad thing,” Raven stammered quickly. “I’m just… shocked. He’s not really your type.”
“My type?” I shot her an inquisitive look. “Or do you mean that I’m not his type?”
“Well, both I guess,” Raven shrugged. “He’s not your type, because you’re a total prude who won’t date anything with a pulse… even a vibrator. And you’re not his type because he only seems to date the kind of girls who wear lingerie as formalwear.”
“Ok, first of all, I’m not a prude,” I protested, reminding myself to keep my voice down. “I just don’t see the point of wasting my time or effort on a guy that would inevitably lie, cheat, or leave me.”
“That’s such an unhealthy outlook,” Raven interrupted. “You’ve got to let go of these weird dating hang-ups that you’ve been holding onto for years. Your dad was an asshole, I get it. And some guy broke your heart in high school. But that doesn’t mean all men are assholes. And it’s definitely not a valid reason to never try dating.”
I ignored what Raven said and I ignored that she’d brought up one of my most vulnerable insecurities.
“Second of all,” I said, pretending she never interrupted me, “I don’t need a vibrator. There are more fulfilling things in life than sex, you know.”
“Says the girl who has never had sex,” Raven said, pressing her lips together smugly.
“I don’t need to have sex to know that it isn’t worth all the heartache and baggage that comes along with it.”
This was a conversation that Raven and I have had dozens of times. She has never been able to wrap her head around me being a virgin, and I’ve never been able to accept her casual outlook on sex.
I haven’t told Raven all the reasons why I was so reluctant to have sex. The biggest reason wasn’t about my emotional hang-ups or trust issues, although those were significant factors as well. The biggest reason why I had avoided sex for my entire adult life was because I could never have an orgasm by myself.
I have tried everything: vibrators, toys, my own hands. Nothing. The closest I’ve gotten was tingles. Little waves that tickled as they pulsed through my veins. Which was not exactly the spine-tingling pleasure that movies and women’s magazines promised me.
Maybe it was selfish, but I guessed I always figured that if sex was just going to lead to disappointment at best, and heartbreak at worst, what was the point of trying at all? I was happy enough living life without all the complications, and I didn’t think I was really missing out on anything.
Until last night. Until kissing Caleb awakened something inside me that I had never felt before. It scared me, but at the same time, I wanted more.
I was trying to think of a way to express this to Raven, when my thoughts were interrupted by the familiar scuffle of boots running over concrete.
I glanced up and saw Emmy running up to me, a giant smile spread over her face and a paper card in her hands.
She plopped down on the steps and handed me the card.
“This is for you,” she said, but before I get a chance to respond she was running off again to join a few other girls playing hopscotch.
“I can’t believe that’s the same child that wouldn’t speak word to anyone last fall,” Raven observed. “You really did a great job with her, Daisy.”
“Thanks,” I said absently, too distracted by the card in my lap to really hear or process what Raven said.
It was a piece of pink construction paper that has been folded in half. In Emmy’s shaky handwriting, spelled out in giant crayon letters, the front of the card read “THANK YOU.” Beneath the words, there was a stick figure drawing of a family, scrawled in the same shaky hand. There was a tall man with a blob of brown hair, and he was holding hands with a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Rapunzel, and she was holding hands with a little girl. A little girl with Macaroni-Orange curls and a pink princess dress. Underneath the three smiling figures, there was a round blue bowl full of squiggly brown lines, which I assumed represented Ramen noodles.
Raven leaned over, resting her chin on my shoulder to inspect the card.
“Holy shit,” she said under her breath.
“What?” I asked, automatically defensive of Emmy’s card. “It’s a sweet picture of the three of us. She probably liked that we all spent time together last night.”
“Is that what it is?” Raven asked skeptically. “Three people just hanging out? Or did she draw a family?”
I hadn’t thought about it like that, but now, when I glanced back down at the card, it’s all I could see, a family of three, holding hands, smiling.
Shit.
I opened the card and I was surprised to see that the message inside wasn’t written in Emmy’s jittery penmanship. Rather, the message inside was scrawled neatly in black pen ink. Somehow, I knew immediately that it was Caleb’s handwriting.
I instinctively pulled the card closer to my chest, trying to hide the message from Raven. The message was short and to-the-point, but it still took me about twenty attempts at reading and re-reading it before the words sink in:
“You turned what could have been the worst night in the world, into the best. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I hope you’ll let me thank you in person. Dinner?”
7
CALEB
I let go of the rubber hand grips, letting two-hundred pounds of weight drop slam back into the stack behind the weight machine. Then I leaned forward, and took a deep breath while stretching out my biceps to alleviate the hot burn that crept through my muscles.
“You’re just a little rusty because you haven’t been coming in enough,” Aaron said, chucking a fresh white towel in my direction. I caught it, even though it meant flexing the same muscle that were throbbing in my arms, and I used the towel to dust off the fresh glaze of sweat that had formed over my head and shoulders.
“The more you lift, the easier it gets my friend,” Aaron said, as he slapped me on the back and chucked his own towel into the hamper and strode across the gym to bench the pair of dumbbells he’s hoisted up.
Aaron Richie was one of the first neighbors I met here at The Camden, and he was probably my closest friend in the building. He had made his fortune young when he launched a tech startup out of his garage in Queens. The company spread like wildfire, and after a few years in business (and a billion in pro
fits), he sold off his shares in the company and retired early.
Aaron still invested here and there, but his main passion in life was fitness. The Camden’s private gym was basically his kingdom, and I would almost always find him polishing off a set of bicep curls at the weigh rack or lecturing one of the new guys on the merits of high-intensity interval training at the treadmill.
Aaron was spending so much time at the gym that he finally decided to launch his own personal training business last year. He didn’t do it for the money. In fact, he didn’t even bother charging most of the guys here at The Camden. Aaron just did it because he loved working out.
I was his first client, and Aaron helped me create a fitness routine that fit in with my busy work schedule. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been the best about keeping my routine lately and now my stiff muscles were the price I had to pay.
“Talk to me, Caleb,” Aaron said, swinging around a chair and sitting down to face me.
“What?”
“Something’s on your mind. I can tell when someone isn’t focused.”
“It’s nothing,” I said dismissively. “Just the usual, family stuff, life stuff.”
“Ok,” Aaron said, refusing to give up. “Start with the family stuff.”
I let out a heavy breath and shifted around on the weight bench, stretching my arms out again.
“The family stuff…” my voice trailed off, and I shook my head. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I don’t charge by the hour,” Aaron joked. “Is this about your sister?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Calista.”
I’ve tried to explain the strange dynamic between my sister and I before, and I was actually touched that Aaron remembered.
“She’s not doing too well. I don’t know if it’s drugs or alcohol or both, maybe. All I know is that I got a phone call a few days ago, telling me that my niece has nowhere to go if I don’t take her in.”
“Damn,” Aaron shook his head. “How’s the kid handling it?”
“She seems to be doing well,” I shrugged. “Better than she should be, considering the circumstances, I guess. But I don’t know, I guess I just feel in over my head. I’ve never really been around kids before.”
“That’s not true,” Aaron protested. “You’re great with Morgan.”
“That’s different,” I shrugged, and recalled the last time I had seen Aaron’s daughter, Morgan. “Spending a few minutes talking to a kid is a lot different than raising one.”
“You made quite an impression on Morgan,” Aaron said with a shrug. “She named one her Ken dolls after you.”
“Really?” I looked up, surprised. Aaron nodded.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly. “Fatherhood isn’t easy and things have been especially tough since everything that went down between Morgan’s mother and I.”
He was referring to his messy divorce from Morgan’s mother, a former supermodel whom Aaron had loved and adored, right up until he found her in bed with another man. The divorce had left Aaron cynical towards love, but had only strengthened his resolve to be a good father for Morgan. He talked about her all the time.
“Anyway,” he said quickly, “I always thought you’d be a good dad.”
“Why?” I ask, stunned.
“Just a hunch,” Aaron shrugged. “Some people seem like they’re cut out to be fathers and you always seemed like one of those guys to me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I was surprised, maybe even partially flattered. But there was something about raising kids that also made me a bit nervous.
The idea of fatherhood has crossed my mind a few times, but after growing up and watching my family shatter, I never trusted myself to start a family. I didn’t like making promises that I couldn’t keep, and I felt like starting a family was the ultimate promise. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to make a promise that big.
“Maybe you’ll feel differently once you’ve met the right person.”
Immediately my mind went to Daisy. I remembered how stunning she looked the other night, her blonde hair in loose waves and her blue eyes reflecting the want that I felt for her. I remembered how she felt in my arms, how her lips tasted. I felt myself get hard just imagining how good her body would taste. I shifted around on the weight bench awkwardly.
Maybe I should have used more restraint that night. Maybe I should have held back, or kept things platonic between us. I was tempted by beautiful women on a daily basis, and I have no problem saying no. I don’t know what made Daisy Wright any different. I don’t know why I couldn’t keep my hands off of her. Why I felt so certain that I needed her. And I don’t know why watching her rush out of my apartment left me feeling so confused and conflicted.
All I knew is that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since then.
I had to see her again.
8
DAISY
By the time Friday rolled around, I somehow rebranded Caleb’s dinner invitation as a ‘teacher meeting.’ You know, the sort of meeting that a concerned parent (or, in this case, emergency custodian) arranged with a sympathetic teacher (in this case, me) to discuss the academic future and developmental well-being of their precocious child (in this case, Emmy).
During my tenure at Bellamy Day, I have played the role of sympathetic teacher at plenty of these dinner meetings. I’ve listened compassionately as housewives fretted about their child’s pending admission to prep school. I’ve soothed absentee fathers who wondered why their kid had turned into a playground bully.
These meetings usually took place somewhere sterile and uninspired; over bento boxes on Lexington Avenue, or bodega sandwiches nibbled on a bench in Central Park. These ‘meetings’ definitely did not take place in a Michelin-star rated restaurant, and definitely not over a bottle of Jacques Selosse champagne that cost more than my monthly share of the rent payment back in Williamsburg.
As soon as I reached the doors of the NoMad Hotel to meet Caleb, all of my carefully crafted convictions of this being a strictly-business ‘meeting’ arranged to discuss Emmy’s well-being at Bellamy went straight out the window.
As soon as I saw him waiting, hands tucked into the pockets of a sleek black slim-fit suit, face illuminated in the glow of a street lamp, I realized that it was, indeed, a date.
And I was screwed.
Caleb reserved a table for us in a dimly-lit corner of the NoMad Hotel’s restaurant. The restaurant was full of the chatter of fellow diners, but our little corner felt blissfully private. I was the sole object of Caleb’s attention.
And sitting there, under the intense scrutiny of his gaze, the memory that I had tried so hard to suppress all week -- the memory of our kiss -- was suddenly on the forefront of my mind.
“Are you nervous?” he asked me after the waiter pours our champagne and scurries away.
“Not at all, Mr. Preston,” I fibbed, hoping he doesn’t see the way my heart was pounding furiously against my rib cage.
“I insist you call me Caleb,” he said, almost sternly.
“Mr. Preston,” I repeated stubbornly, intent on holding my own in this conversation. “I prefer to keep things professional with the parents of my students.”
“Miss Wright,” Caleb said, trying out my name and smiling, like he was savoring the taste of it on his tongue. “Let’s drop this charade. We wouldn’t be sitting here if we hadn’t already crossed that line.”
“That was a mistake,” my cheeks turned hot pink. “A lapse of judgement.”
“Was it?” Caleb asked, raising a doubtful eyebrow. “The way your heart’s about to burst through your blouse suggests otherwise.”
I flicked my eyes down to the low neckline of my black silk blouse, an item I borrowed from Raven’s closet when my own wardrobe failed to provide anything suitable for my not-a-date with Caleb.
He took a coy sip of champagne, reveling in watching my nerves simmer.
“Why di
d you agree to meet me tonight?”
“I was under the impression that we could clear the air, Mr. Preston, share a professional meal and discuss how this transition is going to impact Emmy’s performance at Bellamy.”
I hated the sound of those words as they came out of my mouth. It was the same kind of canned, generic phrasing that the administration at Bellamy just loved to use when discussing a “problem child.” I hated that kind of talk, and it was obvious from the disdain on Caleb’s face that he hated it too.
“Drop the act, Daisy,” Caleb said sharply. “If I wanted a parent-teacher conference, I would have barged into the headmaster’s office already. We both know that I’m not here to play the role of whiney Upper East Side parent, alongside the fact that you’re not here to play the mousy little teacher.”
I gulped on my champagne, forcing myself to swallow and breathe. If anyone else spoke to me that way, I’d be furious. Growing up in Brooklyn, I learned early on to stand my ground. But I did not feel an ounce of anger then, simmering in the heat of Caleb’s stare. I felt wildly turned on, like my entire body was engulfed in the energy between us. And while every instinct I had told me to resist, my brain could not stop my panties from growing wetter or my heart from hammering harder.
Caleb Preston was different tonight. This was not the same Caleb that sat in my office a few days ago, or the one that served Ramen noodles and watched a Disney movie with his niece. He was in his element. Powerful.
“So why are we here?” I asked, forcing myself to match the intensity of his tone.
“You already know the answer to that, too.” He moistened his lips with a quick flick of his tongue, and I remembered how he tasted that night.
“You should know that I don’t date,” I said firmly.
“Good,” he smiled. “Neither do I.”
“And I don’t do,” I paused, struggling to find the right word, before finally settling on, “whatever this is.”
“This is just dinner,” Caleb said, flashing an innocent smile.
Before I had a chance to protest, the waiter intruded to take our order. I hadn’t even opened my menu yet, but Caleb ordered for us both, and my mind was racing with so many flustered, conflicting thoughts that I barely listened as he did.
Triplets Make Five Page 37
