Love on Lexington Avenue

by Layne, Lauren

  “Not me,” Audrey said, polishing off the rest of her doughnut. “Chocolate is my bae for now and always. It’s one rut I’m happy to be in. Does this new plan mean you’re abandoning your Barbie dream house?”

  “No, I still like the idea of some pink.” she admitted. “But just like with food choices, I’m realizing it’s more about variety. Something other than white walls, you know? I found this gorgeous marigold color for the foyer. Navy for the sitting room. Pink accents in the powder room. I’m still deciding on the upstairs, but the painting will be the final touch, so I’ve got another week or so to decide.”

  “That fast?” Audrey said in surprise.

  Claire shrugged. “Apparently. Scott’s true to his word that he works fast. I can’t believe how quickly everything has come together. Walls have been knocked down, furniture dragged away. New sinks and toilets for all the bathrooms. He’s doing the hardwood floors today, and I can’t even tell you how glad I am to be done with that nasty, ancient carpet. I slept with him.”

  Audrey choked on her latte. “Sorry, what?”

  Claire ran a finger around the lid of her cup. “I slept with Scott.”

  “I knew there was something going on there. Nobody dances the way you two danced at that gala without there being serious chemistry. When? How was it?”

  “Last night, and . . . epic.”

  Audrey’s eyes went wide. “Epic. I don’t know that I’ve experienced epic.”

  Claire gave her a look. “Not with Brayden?”

  Audrey wrinkled her nose. “It still skeeves me out to know we were sleeping with him at the same time.”

  “Same,” Claire said. “But I’m taking solace in knowing that while Brayden was competent, Scott was . . .”

  “Epic?” Audrey supplied. “I bet Brayden hates that from his front-row seat in hell.”

  “I just realized,” Claire said, glancing around. “This is all very reminiscent of our first meeting.”

  “It is!” Audrey said. “It was a few blocks north of here, and of course there’s no Naomi, but yeah. We’re basically at the site of our pact.”

  “You know, when I agreed to Naomi’s plan to help each other avoid men, I never thought that a little more than a year later, I’d be sitting in almost the same spot talking about . . . a man.”

  “We didn’t agree to help each other avoid men,” Audrey argued. “We agreed to help each other avoid the bad ones. And Scott’s not one of the bad ones.”

  Claire smiled at the decisive note in Audrey’s voice. “Says the woman who’s met him once.”

  “I know he’s one of the good ones because you think he is.”

  “Well, I also married Brayden.”

  “Still,” Audrey insisted. “You wouldn’t have, um, gotten back on the horse with anyone who was even remotely like Brayden.”

  “I love your optimism,” Claire said with a smile. “Maybe you can be the one to break the news to Naomi. Help spin it so that she doesn’t freak out?”

  “Why would she freak out? She was all on board with you getting laid, as she phrased it.”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t want me to with Scott,” Claire said, feeling a little guilty that she’d done the exact opposite of the plan she and Naomi had devised to keep Scott at arm’s length.

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

  “And she thinks Scott will hurt you?”

  “She knows Scott is leaving.”

  “Right,” Audrey said. “Wanderlust.”

  “Something like that,” Claire muttered, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “But at least you know he’s leaving. You’re prepared for it.”

  Claire nodded, even as a little knot formed in her stomach at the thought. She did know it. She’d known it all along. A couple of weeks ago, she hadn’t cared. Had maybe even been a little envious of his ability to pick up and go wherever the wind blew him, to agree to whatever project appealed to him in the moment, and as he’d put it, figure out the rest later.

  Now, however, the knowledge that she’d be unlikely to see him again after he was done with her renovation didn’t sit quite as easily. Now, she was painfully aware that she’d come to care for the man and that she’d done what she’d promised that she’d never do after Brayden:

  Set herself up to lose someone. And to hurt from that loss.

  Claire groaned. “Oh damn. I think I just realized that Naomi was right. I think I’m falling for a guy who’s already got one foot out the door.”

  “Maybe,” Audrey said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Maybe it’ll hurt. But you can’t shut yourself off from good opportunities just to protect yourself from risking the bad.”

  Claire nearly pointed out that Audrey could perhaps use some of her own advice. For all her optimism, in the year plus she’d known the other woman, she’d never seen Audrey put her heart on the line. But she always sensed that Audrey was still figuring that out for herself, and that it wasn’t her place to go opening doors that weren’t ready to be opened.

  Audrey squeezed her shoulder. “I’m so excited you brought me here to talk about boys. And that you’re having sex again. I’m kind of jealous.”

  Claire laughed. “Well, actually, that’s not why I texted this morning. The Scott problem aside, I’m having another dilemma.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m bored,” Claire announced without preamble. “I literally have nothing to do with my time, Audrey.”

  “Hmm,” Audrey said, removing her arm from Claire’s shoulders and sitting forward, her fingers tapping over her mouth in a thinking motion. “I admit I’ve been sort of wondering about that.”

  “Wondering what the hell I do with myself all day?”

  “No, I know you’ve kept busy furniture shopping, antique shopping, doing whatever the heck one does in Home Depot. But I also was sort of figuring that there might be a bit of a void when the house was done.”

  “Void feels like an understatement.”

  “Well,” Audrey said, “are you thinking you want to get a job? Start a club for widows of shitty husbands? Train for a marathon?”

  Claire gave her a look.

  “Right, not that last one. What about starting a blog? You could talk about home improvement stuff? Or, like, you could get a fancy, super-difficult cookbook and blog all about the process of trying to cook your way through it. People love that stuff. Sort of like that movie Julie and Julia?”

  “Maybe,” Claire said, not hating the blog idea, but not particularly warming to it, either.

  “Any hobbies? Scrapbooking? Oh!” Audrey turned toward her, eyes wide. “I know! Calligraphy. Remember when my girlfriend was throwing that fancy baby shower, but the gal she hired to address all the envelopes broke her wrist playing tennis? You volunteered to do it, and they were amazing. My friend couldn’t stop talking about it.”

  Claire snapped to attention. How had she not thought of that? She had taken calligraphy lessons as a teen, mostly as a way to satisfy her parents’ insistence that she have some sort of extracurricular activity, and to satisfy her lifelong aversion to sports. Their neighbor at the time did professional calligraphy and offered to give her lessons. Claire had agreed, mainly because it had appealed more than the drama club and debate team, and had fallen in love with it. She’d even made some money from the hobby during college when she’d answered an ad for the alumni department looking for someone to handwrite letters to the school’s biggest donors.

  She was good at it, and more importantly, she loved it. Which was why it was a little embarrassing to have to admit . . .

  “I don’t have much of the stuff for it anymore,” she told Audrey. “The paper, the nibs, I’d have to replace everything.”

  Audrey jumped to her feet. “Well, then I guess it’s a good thing we live in a city where you can literally buy just about anything. Come on. Let’s go find a craft store, or wherever they sell all that crap.”

  “What about your pi
ctures?” Claire asked, standing.

  Audrey waved her hand. “Please. We can do that later. This is way more important.”

  “Not really,” Claire said, even as she let Audrey link arms with her and drag her toward the park’s entrance. “Having your picture taken is your life. This is just a hobby.”

  “Instagram started as just a hobby for me, too, babe. Who knows? Maybe this will be the start of something amazing.”

  Claire felt something swell in her chest and realized it was joy. Audrey was right. This could be something amazing.

  A small part of Claire had come back alive in Scott’s arms last night.

  Now it was time for the rest of Claire to start learning how to live again as well.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

  Wouldn’t it just figure that when, for one of the first times in his life, Scott was actually excited about something other than work, work would demand more than usual of him.

  Normally Scott didn’t mind long hours or late nights, and he’d been prepared for a longer-than-normal workday given the demanding task of refinishing hardwoods, but he usually didn’t have a woman waiting for him at home. A woman that he was very much looking forward to seeing naked again.

  It was nearly eight thirty by the time Scott pulled his truck into the parking lot of his apartment building, and he was whistling.

  Whistling. Jesus. He barely recognized himself.

  Scott opened the door and was greeted immediately, first by Bob’s bark, then by Claire’s happy exclamation. “Hey! You’re home!”

  The first sound was welcome. The second even more so.

  His hand tightened on the doorknob just for a minute as he closed the door. He gave himself a firm reminder not to get used to it.

  In fact, the joy he felt at coming home to Claire was the reason he hadn’t let women into his house—or his life—in the first place. He didn’t want to get attached to happy times that wouldn’t last.

  Bob, a wiggling eighty pounds of excited energy, greeted Scott at the door. He didn’t have the heart to remind her that she wasn’t supposed to jump up on people. Realizing that the time was rapidly approaching where he’d once more have to leave her with a pet sitter, or load the poor girl into cargo for a long flight, he hunched down and gave the dog some extra love, even as he scanned the apartment for Claire. She was sitting at his kitchen table, her back to him, head hunched over whatever she was working on.

  “Just give me one second,” she said, more to herself than to him.

  Curious, he wandered to the table, looking over her shoulder. His kitchen table wasn’t small, but nearly every inch of the wood was covered in . . . stuff.

  “What am I looking at here?” he asked curiously.

  Her right hand finished what it was doing with a flourish, and she turned toward him. Scott blinked a little in surprise at the expression on her face. She looked happy. No, that wasn’t it. Claire was elated.

  He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so full of life, though his masculine pride liked to think that had the lights been on last night, she’d have looked the same when he’d had his hands and mouth all over her. At the memory, Scott’s body tightened, every fiber of his being wanting her again. It wasn’t a familiar sensation. He was accustomed to sex being more of a means to an end—a release he could get just as easily from one woman as the next. But he didn’t want any other woman. Just her.

  The sentiment was new. And it was annoying.

  “What are these, wedding invitations?” he asked to distract himself, gingerly picking up the white card on the table.

  “Oh, no. Just practice cards. I’m rustier than I’d realized.”

  “At . . . handwriting?”

  “Calligraphy,” she said. “Well, that one is. This one here’s more modern calligraphy, with a brush-tip marker rather than a traditional nib, see?”

  She held up two cards side by side. Both looked like fancy handwriting to him. “Okay.”

  Claire laughed. “They’re different, I promise.”

  She set the cards back on the table and absently massaged her right hand with her left as she perused the mess on his table. “I’d forgotten how gratifying this can be.”

  “Yeah?” He went to the fridge and pulled out a beer, held one up in silent invitation. Claire shook her head, but then stood and went to the wine bottle sitting on the counter from last night. She pulled a wineglass out of his cabinet—also courtesy of Sean and Shawn’s influence—and poured herself a glass as he popped the top on his beer.

  The easy intimacy of the moment left his mouth a little dry. He took a sip of beer before gesturing with the bottle toward the table. “Tell me about this.”

  “Well, for starters, I spent far too much on supplies,” she said a little guiltily. “I forgot how much damage I can do in a craft store.”

  “So, not a new hobby?”

  She smiled as she sipped the wine. She was dressed in tight black pants and an oversize black shirt, fuzzy socks pulled up to her calves. She looked comfortable. She looked at home. He took a gulp of the beer.

  “You’re sweet to think I could pick that up in a day,” she replied. “I actually started back when I was in high school. I hated sports, but my parents insisted I cultivate some sort of hobby, and for whatever reason, I got fixated on this. They put me in classes.”

  “They have handwriting classes?” Scott asked skeptically.

  “Calligraphy classes,” Claire corrected. “Anyway, I fell away from it after college, but I dabbled a little in my mid-twenties, even contemplated doing it professionally. You’d be shocked at how much people will pay for a good calligrapher.”

  “When’s the last time you did it?” he asked, watching the way she lit up as she talked about this.

  “Last year, I guess? I did some invitations for a friend of Audrey’s. Then Audrey signed Naomi and me up for some wine and lettering party in her apartment building. That’s where the brush lettering comes in, it’s sort of a faux-calligraphy style that newbies can pick up a little easier.”

  “Which do you like better?”

  “Traditional calligraphy will always have my heart,” she said with a grin. “It’s been around for centuries. But I see the benefits of knowing both. A formal black-tie wedding, I’d stick with the classic for the invitations. But place cards at a bridal shower? I might do the brush lettering with a nice bounce script.”

  “A bounce what?”

  “A slightly more casual, friendly lettering style.” She sighed happily and took another sip of her wine. “Anyway, thanks for letting me talk it out.”

  “What inspired this?”

  “Well, actually, it was Audrey’s idea. But boredom, mostly. Or rather, the expectation of impending boredom,” she said. “I realized once the house is done, I won’t have much to fill my days. Plus, while I don’t miss my corporate days, I do miss the satisfaction of good, old-fashioned work, you know? Of putting in the time, getting good at something, and getting paid for it.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t even know if I can build a business out of this,” she said, gesturing with her glass at the table. “And if I do, it certainly won’t bring in the gazillions that you make building skyscrapers. But it’d be a start. Actually, before I forget, I’m having second thoughts about making the two spare rooms at my place one big room. I might want to keep one as an office after all.”

  Scott tensed a little, the mention of her upstairs bedrooms causing a feeling of dread he’d been warding off for a few days, but she kept talking before he could put his finger on why.

  “I don’t suppose you know anything about websites?” she mused.

  “Zero,” he admitted.

  “That’s all right. Naomi’s plugged in to the whole entrepreneur network; I’ll hit her up for some guidance. Audrey, too, for that matter.”

  “Yeah, what is it exactly that Audrey does?” Scott asked curiously. “
Clarke mentioned something about Instagram at the gala.”

  “She’s an influencer,” Claire said. “It’s sort of . . . How to explain? Basically, she has a couple of hundred thousand people who follow her on Instagram just to see what she wears, how she styles her home, what makeup she’s wearing. She gets paid to promote some of it, but mostly I just think she likes sharing a part of herself with the world.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I can’t say I’d be much for it, either, but she loves it, and she’s good at it. In fact, I think she has just as much business acumen as Naomi; it just comes in a different format.”

  “The Instagram model, the jewelry queen, and the calligraphy ninja,” he said. “You ladies make a hell of a trio.”

  “Will make,” Claire corrected. “I haven’t earned my stripes yet. But maybe . . .”

  “You will,” Scott said with confidence. And not just to make her feel better. He suspected Claire was a lot more driven than anyone gave her credit for. And granted, he didn’t know much about calligraphy, but he knew that what he was seeing on his dining table wasn’t run-of-the-mill cursive. There was obviously some skill involved, and Claire had it.

  “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t even ask,” she said, turning toward him. “How was work?”

  Scott rolled his shoulders, her question giving him the same sense of unease as her welcome had.

  Welcome home! How was work? Next it would be, What do you want for dinner?

  All domestic questions signaled a lifestyle he didn’t want. He liked Claire, a lot. But the last thing he wanted was for her to think this would become some sort of routine.

  Needing to remind her—and himself—that he was not that kind of guy, his response was deliberately terse. “It was fine.”

  “Oh. Well. Good,” she said, clearly taken aback at his shortness. “Are you hungry? I can clear the table.”

  The hurt in her voice rubbed him wrong, even as he knew his behavior was irrational. He’d asked about her day; she was just being polite and returning the favor. And yet he hated that there was a part of him that wished tonight wasn’t just a one-time thing. That a part of him wished sharing a drink and talking about his day with someone he cared about could be something he could count on.