Anything Between Us (Starving Artists Book 3)

by Mila Ferrera

  My phone rings, and my heart kicks into high gear. But it’s only Stella. “Hey,” I say.

  “Hi, Nate,” she says. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure. I just got home.”

  “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me with Daniel’s party?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Some help carrying things. The cake is going to be pretty heavy, and it’s tall.”

  “Tall?”

  She makes a funny little sound in her throat, halfway between a laugh and a whimper. “I got a bit ambitious. It’s going to take a few days to create, and I think I might have a breakdown if I trip on the stairs and drop it.”

  “You’d rather me trip on the stairs and drop it?”

  “Without question.”

  “You’re really going all out.” I can’t help but smile. If Daniel does settle down, I’ll be happy if it’s with a girl like Stella. She seems really sweet—and in some ways, she reminds me of my mom, though I won’t mention that to my brother because it would probably be weird for him. “When do you need me?”

  “I have a therapy appointment until four that day, so maybe we could meet at Emmanuelle’s after? Like quarter past?”

  “Therapy …” She said it as casually as she might mention getting her nails done.

  “Yes?” Stella asks.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I didn’t mean to call attention to …” This is awkward.

  “I had a pretty bad anxiety disorder,” she tells me. “But things are better now. I’m just in maintenance with the therapy. I don’t have to go every week anymore.” She sounds so matter of fact.

  Then it hits me. “Did my brother tell you to talk to me about this?”

  She pauses. “He’s worried about you, Nate. Are you mad?”

  “Not at you.” I let out a breath, realizing I’m not actually mad at Daniel, either. “You just sound so … relaxed about it. And Daniel knows?”

  She lets out a quiet laugh. “Of course he does. He’s gone to a couple of my sessions. He and Romy pushed me to do it in the first place—and I’m so glad they did.”

  I guess Sasha was right—my brother’s attitude about therapy has either changed, or I never understood it in the first place. “Was it hard?”

  “My therapy?” She laughs again. “It was miserable sometimes. I had to face all the things that scared me the most. I had to go to all the places that made me most nervous, and I had to do it alone to make sure I didn’t depend on anyone else to get through it.”

  Sounds like my therapy, actually. I had pictured lying on a couch, whining about my problems, but this is so different from that. “But you did it, apparently? And it got better?”

  “It gave me my life back.”

  I blow out a long breath. That sounds so nice, but it feels as far out of reach as the moon.

  “So,” she says after I’m quiet for a moment. “Can you help me with the cake?”

  “What? Oh. Yeah. I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks! And Nate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t be mad at Daniel. He loves you, and he’s worried about you.”

  “I’m not mad.” But I can’t quite bring myself to tell her that I’ve started some therapy of my own—I want to be able to quit without Daniel giving me shit for it.

  Stella and I hang up, and I pace my apartment. The restlessness is back again, what Dr. Harper calls “psychomotor agitation.” He’s got the psycho part right. That’s how I feel. Like I want to jump out of my skin, and I’m not even sure why. All I know is that the one thing I want to do—walk down the street and into the co-op, take the stairs two at a time, and see Sasha—will only end up making me feel even more crazy.

  Rain taps against the panes, and I peek through the shutters to see a downpour outside. I’m below street level, so I get a view of the sidewalk as a passing car hits a puddle that throws about fifty gallons of grayish brown liquid onto some poor woman in a bulky trench coat who was jogging by.

  I do a double-take and press my face to the window, squinting at her until she disappears under my building’s awning. “What the …” My intercom buzzes. Stunned, I walk over to it and press the unlock button without checking to see who it is.

  Because I already know.

  Her footsteps sound on the stairs a moment later, and then she knocks on my door. I look down at myself. I’m still sweaty from the session, and I really need a shower. I also probably look completely shell-shocked.

  She knocks again. “Nate?” Her muffled voice through the door has the same effect on me it always does, awakening a craving so powerful that I feel it in my bones. Hesitantly, I open the door, just a little. She smiles up at me, dripping wet, cradling a ceramic bowl against her chest. “Hi,” she says.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She tilts the bowl away from her chest, revealing a grease-spotted paper bag. “I brought you lunch.” She pushes her wet black hair away from her face. Her teeth are chattering.

  I open the door and step aside. “I’ll go get a towel.”

  She comes inside and puts the bowl on the table as I grab my one spare towel from the bathroom. “Thanks,” she says as she takes it. She strips off the coat, which is way too big for her, revealing a paint-stained T-shirt, ripped denim shorts, and worn boots. She slides them off and leaves them by the door. She’s wearing bright pink socks with salamanders on them.

  She bends over to towel her hair dry, giving me a perfect view of her ass. My fists clench as I stomp down the sudden urge to grab her hips. Is she doing this on purpose?

  “I got us some sandwiches from that new place downtown,” she’s saying. “The one where Frank’s used to be?”

  I nod mutely, distracted by fantasies of yanking those shorts down and bending her over the table. I’m getting hard thinking about it. What the hell is wrong with me?

  “It’s pretty good, actually,” she continues. “I got one veggie and one Italian. I didn’t know which one you’d like best.”

  I turn away, opening the cabinet and grabbing myself a glass, which I fill at the sink, a convenient way to keep my back to her until I can calm the fuck down. “What are you really doing here, Sasha?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder as she straightens up and drapes the damp towel around her shoulders.

  “I know you had a session today.”

  I guzzle half a glass of water and finally turn back around.

  She tilts her head. “You’ve come by the last few times.”

  “I didn’t realize we had a standing appointment.” I sound like an asshole.

  It doesn’t seem to faze her. Instead, she gently says, “After you told me what the therapy was called, I looked it up. You’ve really got to listen to a recording of yourself talking about the trauma?”

  I roll my eyes, trudge to my couch, and drop onto it, all my agitation gone. Suddenly, I’m just exhausted. “I don’t need two psychologists.”

  “Is that what you think I’m trying to be?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Her shoulders sag. “I’m trying to be your friend.”

  “Look. I’m not really up for—”

  “It’s a pair of sandwiches, Nate, not a lifelong commitment.”

  My stomach growls, and she smiles. “I bet you want the Italian one.”

  She comes over with the bag and plops down next to me. “I realized I’ve been doing this wrong,” she says as she offers me one of the sandwiches.

  I unwrap the sub—soft Italian bread stuffed with salami, cheese, peppers, and onions. My breath’s gonna be a nightmare after this one. “I’m not sure how you can say that as I salivate over this thing you brought me.”

  “Like you said, I don’t want to be your second therapist. Seems like you’ve got your hands full with the one you have.”

  I let out a grim laugh and dig in. The salty, oily taste bursts across my tongue, and I groan. I make two-thirds of it disappear
within the space of a minute.

  She watches me in apparent satisfaction before unwrapping her own, slightly less obscene sandwich. “I don’t want you to start avoiding me.”

  “I wasn’t avoiding you,” I lie.

  “I haven’t seen you much in the past week. Do you want me to leave you alone?” she asks.

  No, I want her to come over here and crawl into my lap. I want to strip off that baggy T-shirt she’s wearing. I want to taste her skin. I want a whole bunch of stuff I can’t have. I refocus on my sandwich as I say, “I don’t know what I want, Sasha. Don’t you have work you need to do?”

  “I filled up my kiln, and it’ll be going until tomorrow. And I don’t need to head home for another few hours. Dad’s with his caregiver, so I had some free time.” She looks over at my table. “I brought you a housewarming gift.”

  I swallow the last bite of my sub and walk to the table. The ceramic bowl is a deep purple with a dark red swirl inside, and it’s huge. “How long did this take you to make?”

  She smiles. “I had it to bone dry when I decided it needed to be yours. I’ve spent the last week working on it, off and on. I figured you could use it for popcorn.” She looks around. “Do you even have a TV?”

  “I have a laptop.” I look down at the bowl. “You really made this for me?”

  “I wanted it to be manly, but pretty. Kinda like you, I guess.”

  I glance over and see that she’s blushing, and I have to look away just as fast. It reminds me of how she looked as I lowered her to the floor that first night, her hair mussed, her face flushed, her legs shaking. “I love it,” I say, my heart thumping. “I’ll have to buy some popcorn.”

  “I brought some,” she says, then takes a bite of her sandwich. “In the pocket of my coat. My dad’s coat, actually. I figured he wouldn’t miss it today.”

  I pick up the coat and fish in the bulging front pocket, my hand emerging clutching a package of microwave popcorn. “Looks like dinner.”

  “I was going to suggest a rainy afternoon movie.”

  I eye her on my couch. “You have one in mind?”

  “Did you ever see Ghost? I saw it when I was a kid, and it made being a potter look so sexy.”

  “I’m in.”

  She claps her hands in this adorable, childlike way she has, then crumples the wrapper for her sub and carries it over to the trash. She pops the popcorn while I fetch the laptop from my bedroom. Within five minutes, we’re on the couch as thunder crashes outside. After some wrangling over positioning and comfort, we end up lying on the cushions with the computer on my lap while she snuggles in next to me with the popcorn.

  I inhale the citrus scent of her hair and shift the computer to cover evidence of my growing hard-on. She has no idea how tricky it is for me to be this close to her. But as we settle in, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be in the whole world. The restlessness I felt earlier has burned off, and her warm curves hold me to the earth.

  There’s a part where the two main characters get all sexy with the pottery wheel. Sasha and I laugh as the two of them run their hands up and down a wet clay column that is the most obvious phallic symbol ever. The whole scene is actually kinda similar to what we did the other day in her studio space … minus the actual romance, I guess.

  “This scene was my sexual awakening,” Sasha says with a giggle, and I laugh but inside I’m dying because I want her so badly.

  It’s all perfect until the scene where the guy gets shot. Blood everywhere.

  He dies with his eyes open.

  Nausea surges up my throat like a flash flood. I push the laptop off me and stand up so abruptly that Sasha loses her balance and spills the popcorn.

  “Oh my God,” Sasha squeaks. “Nate …”

  I hold out my hand, feeling like an absolute lunatic. “No. I’m good. Give me a second.” I try some of the deep breathing Dr. Harper taught me how to do. I pace. I lean on my table and stare at the wall, wishing she wasn’t right behind me, staring while I fall apart.

  I stiffen as I feel her hands on my back. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t know—”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I say. “And I’m all right. Really.” Not really.

  “What can I do?”

  Don’t look at me, part of me wants to say. Leave. But another part of me is desperate for her to stay. “I don’t know,” I mumble, letting my head hang as the panic gradually subsides, leaving me shaky and sweaty. Her hands haven’t left my back, and when I finally work up the strength to straighten up and turn around, she slides them around my waist and hugs me. I rest my chin on the top of her head and close my eyes, synching my breathing up with hers.

  After a few minutes, she takes me by the hand and pulls me over to the couch again, guiding me down and snuggling into my chest. “We could skip the movie,” she suggests. “We could just … be right here.”

  “That sounds good.” Because right now, I feel as wrung out as I do after ninety minutes of PT. Like I’ve run miles with a sixty-pound ruck on my back.

  Her hand slides onto my chest, over my heart. I know I’ve revealed myself as pathetic yet again, but I’ll deal with that later. Right now, I need this. I need her head on my shoulder and her arms around me. I relax into the cushions and let myself feel it without worrying about what comes next.

  We stay like that long enough for my thoughts to settle and crystallize. I can’t go on like this. I should be able to watch her favorite movie without falling apart. I should be able to hang out like a normal person. This is bullshit. I can’t blame her if she doesn’t want me for anything more than a friend—what fucking use am I to her when I’m like this? What can I possibly offer to her or anyone else?

  I need to fucking unfuck myself, or I’m going to lose this woman in my arms. Having her this close fills me with a steely kind of determination. I stare up at my ceiling as I feel it wind along my limbs.

  I’m not going to quit—therapy or anything else. I’m going to force myself to follow through. I’m going to trust Dr. Harper when he says it’ll get better if I do the work. We’ll see. But I do know one thing: I’ll walk through fire if it means I can feel Sasha’s head on my chest and her arms around me again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sasha

  After getting Dad settled in for a movie with Cathy watching over him, I take a shower and get ready for Daniel’s party. I evaluate my wardrobe options—I only own three dresses. One is my green dress, the one I wore a month ago, the night I met Nate. Short and tight and obvious, and probably trying too hard.

  I could wear what I think of as my wedding-and-funeral dress, a simple black number that looks a little severe for a birthday party. I don’t want obvious, but I also … want him to look at me. And want me.

  I’ve seen Nate every single day this past week. Just to hang out. As friends. He’d started avoiding me, I think, but after I showed up at his place last week, something changed. He’s helped me unload pieces from my kiln and pack another batch of bowls to take to Yelena’s boutique. I gave him another lesson on the basics of throwing on the wheel, and we both joked about that scene from Ghost—we even did a comical re-enactment that left both of us up to our armpits in rapidly drying slip … and me going home to touch myself because I was so wound up afterward. He taught me how to play some Grand Prix racing game on the new TV and gaming system he set up in his dingy little apartment. He let me open the shades to let in a little more light, confessing that he needed to learn to tolerate the exposure. He made me scrambled eggs when my stomach growled, apologizing for not having more food in his fridge. We went for a walk, and we held hands, and I didn’t want to let go.

  I’ve touched him more than I should. I’ve thought about him more than I should. And the more I have, the more I’ve questioned whether my vow of solitude is really so necessary. I’m not committing to anything here. I’m just having fun. Why overthink it? Why worry about the future? Why not focus on now?

  That’s w
hat I’ve decided to do, starting tonight. I know he’ll be at this party, and I’m going to … I don’t know. Apart from my quick and dirty once-a-year flings, I haven’t actually initiated anything with a guy ever.

  I pull out my slate dress. It’s got a nice sheen and a cowl neck that reveals peeks of cleavage without being in-your-face. Because it’s so simple, I wear my black high-heeled sandals with ribbons that I wind up to mid-calf and tie in bows. It’s a tiny bit dressy for a party with a bunch of grungy artists who only clean up for gallery openings, but Stella did say she was doing passed hors d’oeuvres and champagne, so it seems like she’s aiming for classy.

  When I enter the living room, Dad looks up at me, and he grins. “You look beautiful, Mira.”

  It’s like a little pinprick to my heart. “Thanks, Dad,” I murmur.

  Cathy, sitting next to him, whispers that I’m actually his daughter and not his wife, but he’s already back to watching a documentary about the reign of Caligula. My aunt meets me as I reach the front door. “You look so lovely,” she says, squeezing my arm. “Stay out as late as you like. We’ve got everything under control here.”

  I bite my lip. “I may take you up on that.” If everything goes well, that is.

  She waves enthusiastically as I pull out of the driveway. I spend the drive over to Daniel’s apartment with my heart thrumming, trying to think of ways to get Nate alone. I’ve seen how he looks at me, like he’s starving and I’m the buffet. I’ve seen how he turns away sometimes, his fists clenched like he’s trying to control himself.

  God, I want that again. That ferocious energy, the coil of his muscles. I want it all focused on me. I want him to pin me with those blue eyes and cage me in his arms. I want to see the look on his face when I touch him. By the time I pull up outside Daniel and Nate’s apartment building, I have to give myself a few minutes to calm down, even though it’s already almost nine and the party started over an hour ago.