by AM Hartnett
She looked great. The blonde hair was back, pushed behind her ears by her sunglasses. Her legs were on display – had he ever seen her in pants? – with the sexiest black boots he could imagine zipped up her calves.
God, he missed walking up and giving that ass a squeeze, then closing his arms around her when she squealed. He missed the way she sighed afterward, and bit her lip just before he lowered his mouth to hers.
For the last few weeks he’d been debating with himself about going up there. Once he’d made up his mind to do something, he usually got right to it, but not this. He’d amp himself up to shoot upstairs and knock on her door, and his nerve would fail him. The idea of texting her gave him the shivers. He didn’t dare contemplate going up the fire escape.
So now he stood like a fool on the elevator. She hadn’t turned around. He could just go right back up and she’d never know he was there.
But one day he’d run into her again.
The doors started to close and he stuck his hand out to stop them, then went forward.
A few steps away, he stopped and sucked in a deep breath.
‘April?’
She ignored him. He didn’t blame her. He had been an asshole and according to Evie, he’d hurt her badly.
With a sigh, he took another step and leaned against the mailbox alongside her. ‘All right. Flowers won’t do it this time, but I just want to say –’
She looked up, then screamed and leaped back.
‘Jesus Christ!’ She tugged the white earphones away. He got the full blast of her scowl and flinched as she twisted the wires around her fingers. ‘What the fuck is the matter with you?’
‘I’m sorry! I didn’t realise you had your earphones in.’
‘So you just creep around strange women in the vestibule?’
He snapped back his reply and couldn’t help his laugh. ‘April, it’s me.’
She continued to frown at him for another few seconds, and then surprise pushed her back. ‘Are you kidding me?’
Seth shrugged and rubbed his hand over the lower half of his face. The naked lower half of his face to match the haircut he’d gotten. As bad as it was, her reaction wasn’t the worst he’d had so far. Mrs Boyd had seen him vacuuming the hall outside her apartment and threatened to call the cops because she didn’t recognise him.
He’d gotten rid of the beard and the hair, and spent the first day afterwards cringing at his reflection in the mirror. He’d forgotten how curly his hair went when it was short. It drove him crazy. He also hadn’t realised how many lines had formed around his mouth.
As for April, she narrowed her eyes as she regarded him. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘It was time,’ he said honestly, and felt a little tremor of unease as he said it, just like every other time he’d said it.
She took a step forward and tilted her head.
‘Weird,’ she said, and reached out. Her finger merely grazed his cheek before she seemed to realise what she was doing, then dropped her hand. ‘It looks good.’
‘Better?’
It tickled him to watch her try to keep the smile from her face. ‘Different. It’ll take some getting used to.’
She lowered her gaze and turned around, and he knew he was about to miss his only chance.
‘Can we talk?’
‘I’m – busy,’ she mumbled, moving past him to the stairs.
He followed after her, and as gently as he could he took her hand. ‘Just a walk around the block with me for a coffee or something.’
‘Seth, I don’t want to.’
She turned and sighed, and she looked so tired he wanted to wrap her in his arms and let her melt against him.
‘I’m going upstairs,’ she said quickly, and tugged her hand free. ‘Maybe some other time.’
Stepping back, he let her go. Maybe some other time. He knew what that meant.
Never.
Yet, midway up, she turned. ‘Did your cat die?’
‘No, why?’
‘He hasn’t been coming up.’
Seth took a step up. ‘I wipe one of the stairs with Pine-Sol every couple of days so he stays below it. I didn’t want him bothering you.’
‘You mean you didn’t want to come up looking for him, or didn’t want me coming down those stairs.’
‘No, that’s not what I mean.’ He went up two more steps and leaned against the banister. ‘Talk to me, please.’
She shook her head and tucked one earbud back in. ‘No, I’m not ready.’
Again she went up, this time out of sight, and again she came back down.
‘Come on, then,’ she said reluctantly.
He smiled, but with her frown he didn’t move.
‘God, your face. Walk in front of me so I don’t look back and trip.’
Chuckling, Seth moved past her and led the way to the third floor.
When she opened the door and he stepped in, he looked back at her with a grin. ‘So that’s what I’ve been hearing.’
She’d rearranged her entire apartment, or rather flipped everything so that it looked like a mirror image of what it once was. Even the bedroom, he discovered when he poked his head in.
‘This is after the fourth time. I keep changing it and then the next day I don’t like it, so I change it back.’ She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on the arm of the sofa, then spun around. Hands on hips with those slick boots up to her knees, as mad as she looked, she scared the hell out of him.
He reached up, then dropped his hand when he remembered his beard was gone. Once again, he was reminded how much he had relied on that cover and was left trying to figure out what to do with his hands.
So he sat down and took a deep breath.
‘I’m not going to waste your time or my breath with apologies,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t done any good so far, has it?’
‘The flowers were a nice touch,’ she said.
She dropped into the chair opposite the sofa and unzipped one boot. Any other time, he would have enjoyed watching her shedding her skin, but his guts were in such a twist he couldn’t think of anything but keeping from shoving his foot down his throat.
‘So I’m just going to ask you to believe me when I tell you I’m getting my head on straight. I’m not there yet, but I like to think I’m better than I was. That whole thing with the pictures – I just…I burned out. I should have waited until it happened before I got mixed up with you.’
‘This is starting to sound like that apology you’re not making,’ she reminded him as she tucked her feet close to her. ‘How are you getting your head on straight?’
‘I went to my doctor. He referred me to a grief counsellor. It didn’t really work for me, but the group therapy I’ve been going to has been better.’ He was still wary to admit that he was a guy who went to a weekly meeting, but he needed to be upfront with her. ‘I was pissed off that no one else could know what it was like losing my wife. Now I have a roomful of people who have lost their spouses who know exactly what I’m going through.’
If she had an opinion about this, she kept it behind pursed lips.
He leaned forward, clasped his hands together and went on talking.
‘I’m making little changes. The hair, obviously. I’ve been doing some remodelling downstairs: new paint, a new bed and new furniture. The idea of trying to build a life of my own always seemed like some big boulder I’d have to push up a hill until I was dead, but apparently it’s just little hills.
‘That’s my shit to deal with, April. It’s always going to be mine, and I can’t expect anyone else to take that on or even put up with me when I’m having trouble.’ He spread his hands open and sighed. ‘After jerking you around and then pushing you out, I don’t deserve another chance, but I want it, so, after all that rambling, I’m here to ask for it.’
He regarded her. For a girl who had always been so readable whenever they met, April was putting on one hell of a poker face now. If she cared at all about what he was telling her, she kept
it well hidden.
‘I don’t…know if I can.’
His hope crushed in his chest like a tin can in a fist. It hurt to look at her, so he turned his attention to the purple and white rug at his feet.
‘Seth, I tried really hard after that night to be understanding. Getting my pride stomped on because you couldn’t get over your wife dying isn’t exactly the sort of thing I can sit and bitch about without sounding like a terrible person. I had to keep it to myself and just say, “Oh, it didn’t work out” like it didn’t mean anything. I get that you need to deal with it, I do, but it doesn’t change how hurt I am.’
‘I know,’ he said miserably. The flimsy fantasy he had of her throwing herself into his arms and accepting his non-apology was quickly fading into nothing.
‘It’s good that you’re feeling better, but even if I said yes, we could have another go at it, I might spend every minute together wondering if there’s going to come another bad day where you shut down like you did. As much as I’d like to think I could handle it and be understanding, I really don’t know if I could. I’d only end up hating you and –’
She hiccuped and he dragged his gaze from her purple toenails to her face. Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes shone, and it dawned on him that she was the only woman he’d ever made cry.
He hated it, and he hated himself for coming up here and making it happen again.
‘I don’t want to hate you,’ she went on shakily. ‘Being with you was one of the best things to happen to me so far, and I don’t want it more spoiled in my head than it is.’
Sick to his stomach, Seth watched two fat tears race down her cheeks. He closed his fist against his thigh and the breath he took burned.
She spoke before he did. ‘I don’t think I can be just friends, either. I think we should just…not really talk unless we have to.’
He shook his head and cleared the grit from his throat. ‘That’s not going to be easy.’
‘It’s only for a year,’ she said, and sounded unconvinced as she got to her feet. ‘OK?’
No, it wasn’t OK, but he didn’t have anything else to say. He supposed he could get on his knees, but even if he thought that would work it wasn’t his style.
Feeling heavier than he was when he walked in, Seth stood and followed her to the door. She opened it and kept her gaze lowered as he paused in front of her.
‘One more thing,’ he said quietly. ‘I should keep my mouth shut, but this is going to be my last chance to say it: I was happy for thirteen years, deliriously happy –’
‘Seth, don’t.’
‘But, and this is what got me through the last few weeks: being with you was one of the best times of my life, too.’
This time when she started to cry, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He cupped her face and lifted it, and before she could protest he kissed her.
If it wasn’t for the salt of her tears at the corner of her mouth, the kiss would have been as perfect as every other kiss that came before it. She leaned into him, and as the hunger came back he forgot that they weren’t together any longer.
He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight, until she twisted out of his grip.
‘Bye,’ she whispered, and closed the door on him even as he was still stepping out.
Seth stood in the hall and stared at the wall opposite her entrance, unable to move, her warmth still bleeding through his clothes and the taste of her on his tongue.
I really could use a pep talk right about now, he thought, and was met with the same silence as always.
He rubbed the mist from his eyes and headed back down the stairs. Even if it consumed him, the overgrown lawn didn’t care how much it hurt.
She sat on the windowsill, hot cup of tea cradled in her hands. She hadn’t made up her mind yet. She wanted to go down to Seth’s window, but her pride insisted on having its way.
He dumped me.
He hurt me.
Yes, he had some issues to work through and it was probably best that he did it on his own, but he still dumped her, and the rejection still hurt her as much as it did when he had walked out her door that day.
But it was more than just her bruised ego that kept her from going down the fire escape.
She had told him the truth. For the past few weeks she’d been able to avoid Seth, but she hadn’t been able to avoid feeling like she just wasn’t the right woman for him at all, no matter how hard she’d fallen.
He’d lived an entire life, a full and wonderful life, and all by the time she finished high school, and that life intimidated the hell out of her. What did she have to offer him?
Nothing, as far as she could tell. A month of great sex and quiet evenings here on the fire escape couldn’t compare to the force of nature he had lost. She couldn’t even help him fill in the cracks that the past couple of years had created, and, in spite of what he had said earlier, that’s what he needed.
She had been so proud of herself with her stylish apartment and nine-to-five job. She’d felt so grown up when she woke up in the morning, and when she’d been with Seth she’d felt fearless, but now she felt small.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about him down there.
Was this what it was going to be like for the rest of the year? Sitting here, half-hoping she’d catch a glimpse of his shadow moving around down there while at the same time wanting to shut herself away and turn the television up so she wouldn’t have to catch the odd thump from below?
But wouldn’t it be so easy to go down there and tell him she would give him another chance? Let him kiss her like he had that afternoon?
Too easy, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t change anything. It would mask the hurt and mistrust, but it wouldn’t banish it altogether.
She settled back and lifted her cup to her lips, but froze when she saw the thing.
A white thing bobbing up and down on the top step of the fire escape. She held her breath, every childhood fear and scary movie she’d ever seen rushing up at her as she watched the thing appear and disappear out of sight.
It popped up again and she pulled her feet closer, then held back a squeal.
A kitten. A tiny white kitten who immediately homed in on her naked toes. It finished its struggle to conquer the last step and leaped towards her.
‘Oh, my God, where did you come from?’
She set her tea aside and picked it up. It was so tiny, she wondered how it had been able to get up the fire escape without slipping and falling three stories to the pavement.
It latched onto her shirt and let out a squeaky mewl, and all her toxic thoughts melted.
‘Did the kitten fairy bring you to cheer me up?’ she cooed and brought it up to her neck. ‘Oh, whoever owns you is going to have to fight to get you back.’
Then came the call.
‘Marco! Elf! Back inside!’
Elf?
She held the kitten out in front of her, and it squeaked again.
‘You’re not a gift from the kitten fairy. You’re a demon. You’re going to make me go down there to make sure you don’t become a puddle on the pavement, aren’t you?’
‘Elf!’ Seth shouted again, and made a whistling sound that made the cat’s ears prick, but instead of following the call it made to wriggle down her T-shirt.
‘Nope, nope, nope, I’m not fishing you out of my bra.’
She pulled herself up and braced herself for another impromptu face-to-face with Seth.
With the rattle of the fire escape, he stuck his head out. ‘Ah, hell. Sorry. I guess the Pine-Sol doesn’t work on her.’
He held out his hands and April dropped the kitten into them. Marco sprang from out of nowhere, butting heads with the kitten with a loud purr.
‘When did you get her?’
‘Last week,’ he said, chuckling as both cats climbed his massive shoulders. ‘I figured Marco could use the company while I was out in the evenings. It was a good idea until I came home and she was stuck on the curtains crying h
er lungs out.’
‘She’s so cute,’ she squealed.
The sight of him covered in two purring cats threatened to bash through the already crumbling wall she had built for her defence. Instead of going back upstairs like she knew she should, April squatted down and wiggled her finger under the kitten’s chin.
‘I’ll try and keep her down here and out of your way.’
‘That probably won’t work. She seems to be a real adventurer, what with the way she took on those stairs.’
She couldn’t take her eyes off him, not just because he looked so different. With his crooked smile as the cats encircled him, another brick in the wall crumbled. She’d missed his smile so much.
She missed him, and she realised she didn’t want to miss him any more. It wasn’t just the past she missed where the complications were hidden deep enough beneath the surface that she could pretend everything was normal. It was what she was going to miss that grabbed at her now. Getting a new kitten was such a small thing, but it was a part of the bigger everything else.
She didn’t want to miss his highs, or even his lows. She wanted to be there as he turned the pages on his new life, and she wanted him there for her. She didn’t want to be a forgotten dog-ear. She wanted to be a part of the next chapter.
Things would be bad at times, but they would also be good, and she wanted all of it.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked, gesturing up the stairs. ‘The water is still hot, and it’s nice enough that we can sit outside with your menagerie.’
He delayed so long that she worried he had changed his mind in the few short hours since he had left her apartment.
‘You know what,’ he murmured, pulling the kitten from his shoulder and shrugging Marco off, and April’s stomach churned as she felt the rejection. Then he grinned at her. ‘I’ve got some leftover fancy beer in my fridge. If you’re feeling high-class, you can come on in and we can find out how that shitty movie with the giant turtle fighting the dragon turned out.’
April giggled. ‘Can’t get more high-class than that.’
He rolled his chair away and offered his hand. Once she was inside, she held onto it a little longer, long enough to get over the urge to kiss him, only to have it surge back up as he stood and looked down at her.
