“Wow,” she said. “You sure someone lives here?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s spotless. Do men really live like this?”
“I take care of my things.”
“I see that.” Her eyes fixed on the blank spot above the sofa, and she pointed. “I see you made room for my painting already.”
“I did.”
She smiled, and I could only imagine how validating it felt for her to have someone love her work as much as she did.
“Have a seat.” I pointed to the place I’d set for her at the island. “Wine?”
“Please.” She reached for the glass I’d poured for her and took a careful sip. “You have a good day at work today?”
I shrugged. “As good as could be expected.”
“I don’t even know what you do,” she said, forking some chicken. “I kind of like not knowing because I have this idea of you, and I like it.”
I chuckled and swallowed my bite. “What’s that?”
“You’re always so dressed up,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling as if she hadn’t been nearly in tears just fifteen minutes earlier. “I think you work in money. Wall Street, maybe? But you’re not an asshole, though, so I don’t know. Maybe you run your own company? You have this air about you like you’re in charge. And you’re kind of on the quiet side. Like you’re always thinking. So right there, I can tell you’re smart.”
I smiled, never taking my eyes off her as she rambled on. Apparently, she’d been thinking about me quite a bit.
“It’s your facial hair that throws me off,” she said, squinting at me from across the island. My place was dark save for some mood lighting, and the reflection of the city lights seeped in the windows and cast soft illuminations on her face. “Not a lot of guys can pull that off, but you can.”
“Thanks,” I laughed, running my palm along my meticulously and closely trimmed scruff. “It’s winter. It’s functional.”
She took another sip of wine glancing around my apartment. “You decorate this place yourself?”
“No,” I said. Daphne had begged me to let her do it, but I never wanted her to leave her stamp there. I’d have sent the wrong message. “I hired someone.”
“You have a very… distinct style,” she observed. “Masculine. Clean lines. Muted colors. Says a lot about you.”
“Does it?” I glanced around.
“You’re a no muss, no fuss guy, aren’t you?” she said, hopping down from the barstool and leaving the rest of her plate untouched. She walked over to my bookcase dragging her finger across the spines of my collection. “Reader. Figures.”
“You like to read?”
“Do I look like someone who likes to read?” She spun around and shot me a playful look rendering the teary-eyed girl from earlier null and void. “I can’t sit still for two seconds.”
“That is true,” I said, staring at her untouched dinner. This girl was night and day from me. We had nothing in common. And yet I was completely and utterly mesmerized by her. In a sky full of stars, she was the shooting kind—the fiery comet—and the movement amongst all the stillness. And I was the moon—quiet and still—observing it all from my unmovable place in the universe.
“Christmas is in a week,” she said, flitting over to the window and peering down at the street as people swept along the sidewalk carrying shopping bags from their last-minute excursions. “Any plans?”
“Might work,” I said.
She spun around and made a face. “Not going home to see your family?”
“Nope,” I said, staying mum. My family was a complicated mess of upper-crust dysfunction chock full of First World problems.
“Me neither,” she sighed, her fallen expression telling me not to pry. “I’ll be here. Mia’s going home to Connecticut. She invited me, but I think I’d rather stay here and paint.”
I smiled to myself. We both seemed to lose ourselves in our work and burying our unspoken burdens with passionate distractions. Maybe we weren’t so different, after all.
“You sure you have to work on Christmas?” she asked.
“I don’t have to, no.”
She stepped back toward the kitchen where I still stood, never having moved. “Maybe we can meet up or something?”
My brows raised, surprised at her eagerness to spend time with me having only recently just met me. It always took me a long time to warm up to people, sometimes years. But the warmth of her personality was nothing short of inviting, and I couldn’t say no to those big brown eyes of hers. I’d have lived in the familiar strangeness of her sparkling stare forever if I could.
“Yeah, we can do that,” I said.
“No one should be alone for the holidays,” she mused, staring down at the stained concrete floor beneath us. “We can do something fun. Maybe walk the city or something? I love when the city feels vacated. Is that weird?”
I shook my head. I loved it, too. It was why I took my nightly walks. New York during the day was hustle and bustle, excitement and chaos. On the street, I was anonymous. And late at night, it was like I had the whole place to myself. Quiet and solitude was the only thing that ever really felt like home for me.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Her face lit up.
7
SOPHIE
Christmas morning, I stood at Jamison’s door, a small wrapped box in my hand and took a deep breath as I knocked. A minute later, the door swung open, Jamison’s blue eyes drinking me in as he waved me inside. A thick, gray sweater hugged his broad shoulders. A faint cloud of aftershave saturated the air as if he’d just showered.
His place was dark, lit up by city lights and the crackling of a fire in his living room fireplace.
“Here,” I said, handing him the small box wrapped in multi-colored birthday wrapping paper. “Sorry. I didn’t have any holiday paper.”
He smiled uncomfortably. “I didn’t know we were exchanging gifts. I’m, uh, a little unprepared.”
I waved it off. “It’s not a big deal.”
He tugged at the paper, gently ripping it and pulling out the small wooden box and propping it open. “Cufflinks?”
“I got them at this indoor flea market thing in the Meat Packing District,” I said. “They’re handmade by this artisan from Vermont. Sterling silver and obsidian. You always wear suits, so I just figured…”
The gal who made them told me obsidian represented life and death, which was sort of what Jamison was beginning to remind me of. I was straddling the line between both worlds when he came along.
“They’re perfect, Sophie,” he said, taking them out and rolling them around in his hand as he examined them. “I love them. Thank you.”
I shrugged, quickly realizing I still donned my marshmallow coat. “Did you want to go for a walk?”
He stood so still, so steady, and I was nothing but a ball of nervous energy as usual.
“Yeah, we can go for a walk.”
Jamison set the box down on his island and grabbed his coat from the rack by the door.
“It’s not too bad out,” I said, holding my hands up. “Look. No gloves.”
We hit the street a moment later practically having the entire city to ourselves. I thought about the snow day we had when I was fourteen. School was canceled, and a storm system had dumped a foot of snow on our little town. My parents were at work, and I’d convinced my sisters that we should walk to the mall which was miraculously still open. We had the whole place to ourselves. We ran and skipped and messed around, completely carefree and living in the moment, making it back home before our parents got off work. It was always our little secret—a precious moment buried forever.
“I love when everyone goes out of town,” I mused, skipping along. Jamison walked slow and steady like a freight train, his eyes fixed on me as if I amused him. “Want to head up to Midtown? Maybe see the Rockefeller tree?”
“Sure.”
I slowed down a
bit letting him catch up with me. He was always so calm and quiet, a stark contrast to my rapid-boil personality, and it was becoming quite soothing.
“I need to get you a present,” he said as we strolled up the sidewalk. I wasn’t sure why he was so fixated on that. The cufflinks were nothing in comparison to the things he’d done for me if we were keeping score.
“No,” I said, swatting his shoulder. “Please. Don’t.”
“I will,” he said. “Stores are all closed today, but I’ll get you something.”
I glanced up offering him a polite grin and completely missing the pothole of melted snow, which promptly took the ground out from under me. My body fell in slow motion as my arms wind-milled reaching for something to grab onto until someone caught me before I could hit the ground.
Jamison’s arms hooked under mine wrapping around me and steadying me back up to a standing position. My cheeks burned red hot. There was no playing it cool. There was no recovering from that or hiding the fact that I was the world’s biggest klutz. My heart drummed in my chest as I breathed him in. Something about being so close to him made me forget what I was thinking about for small moments.
“Is that coffee shop open?” I said, pointing across the street and tugging my coat into place even though I wanted to curl up in a hole and pretend that hadn’t just happened.
“It appears so.”
I grabbed him by the arm, checked for traffic, and tugged him across the crosswalk to the other side of the street where I could practically taste a mocha latte on my tongue.
“Want anything?” I turned to him as we waited in line for our turn. A minute later, he ordered a tall, black coffee and reached for his wallet before I had a chance to object.
Coffees in hand, we braced ourselves for the brisk Christmas weather once again and trekked back outside heading north to Midtown.
It was my second Christmas in the city and my first time seeing the Rockefeller tree. The holidays had lost their special, warm-me-up feeling after my sisters died. They’d have loved the giant display.
Each Christmas, the five of us would load up in the Suburban and make the hour trek to Winkleman’s Tree Farm just outside of Albany to pick out the perfect blue spruce. Mom would let it sit in the breezeway to acclimate for a day or two, and then we’d spend a quiet Sunday afternoon decorating it while Dad sat in his recliner sipping eggnog and letting us girls have at it. The tree may have looked like Christmas elves threw up all over it by the time we were done, but my parents never said a word.
The older I got, the more I realized how tedious and monotonous Christmas traditions could be for my parents. The same thing every single year. The same songs on the radio. The same movies on TV. The same sugar cookies cut in shapes like stockings and snowmen. And the older I got, I realized how much they did just to see those smiles on our faces.
I wiped a tear from my eye and brushed it off hoping Jamison didn’t see.
“You like Christmas?” I asked, turning to him. He stood quietly, eyes glued to the majestic tree before us.
“Are we being honest?” he asked, pursing his full lips, his ice blue eyes vivid against the white and gray backdrop of the day.
“Always.”
“No.” He slipped his hands into his pockets, unapologetic. “It’s just another day to me.”
“Oh,” I said, drawing inwards. He didn’t have to spend Christmas with me. I thought I was doing him a favor by keeping him company. I must have had it all turned around. “I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t have asked you to hang out today.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
“I’m so embarrassed.” My hands flew to my cheeks. “I got you a gift. I bugged you about hanging out on Christmas. I was trying to make it all fun for us. And here you were just doing me a favor.”
He inched closer to me, staring down into my eyes as a smile curled across his lips. “Sophie, it’s fine. I wanted to hang out with you.”
“You did?”
I gazed up into his unreadable expression as he studied me. “I did.”
Out of all the people in the world, he wanted to spend his Christmas day with me. I blinked away another tear before he noticed.
8
JAMISON
“You want to come up?” I asked when we returned to our street. The sun had long gone down, and the sky was as dark as midnight. We’d spent all day walking the city, and in an instant, the day had come to an end. Streetlamps lit the space around us casting shadows on our faces.
We stood outside my apartment building, just the two of us on a near-empty street. We’d walked many miles, sipping hot drinks as Sophie rambled on about anything and everything. If her feet ached in her boots, she never complained once.
Being around her pulled me out of my cold, gray world, and in a weird way, she was magical. I’d never met anyone who lived in the moment more than she did. Sophie Salinger was the living, breathing definition of living life to the fullest.
Her gaze turned up toward the windows above us as she thought about it for a moment. Her lips twitched to the side. “I want to, but I have to open the shop early tomorrow.”
I disguised my disappointment with a tight-lipped nod never taking my eyes off her. “I understand. I have to work tomorrow, too.”
“I had fun today,” she said, her full lips spreading into a wide smile. Her entire face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Me, too.”
“What are you doing for New Year’s?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “Vinny’s having this party at the karaoke bar down the street. Mia and I are going. You should come.”
For the last ten years, I’d painted the town red with Daphne each New Year’s Eve. I was looking forward to having a quiet one all to myself for once.
“Please?” Sophie said, clapping her hands together. “Don’t make me beg!”
I stifled a smile.
“I’ll sing anything you want,” she said, her brown eyes gleaming. “Anything. You pick it. I’ll sing it. Nothing off-limits. Not even the Macarena.”
I scratched my brow and shook my head. “I’ll think about it.”
She offered a fake pout. “Well, I hope you decide to come.”
The wind picked up out of nowhere blowing her hood behind her shoulders and her hair across her face making her laugh.
“I’ll see you around, Sophie.”
She smiled and nodded, lifting her hood over her head and turning to sprint back toward her place before the wind blew her away.
I’d worn the cufflinks every single day the week after that. Each time I’d catch their reflection, I’d think of Sophie.
We were from two entirely different worlds, living completely different lives, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Sophie was like a good book. I wanted to get lost in her, in the idea of her. The idea of us. What could be, if only. I tried to imagine the way a girl like her might love. Deeply. Passionately. Without fear.
“Jamison.” The clicking of approaching heels and the nails-on-a-chalkboard voice pulled me out of my daydream. I spun around to see Daphne. “Are you going out tonight? For New Year’s?”
I shook my head as her eyes searched mine. “Staying in.”
“Shame,” she said, reaching her finger across the polished buttons of my jacket and grazing the outline of my embroidered name tag. “I’m going to a party at Hillary and Enzo’s. You want to join me?”
I shook my head again. “Thanks, but no.”
“What is with you lately?” she huffed. “You’re walking around in a daze.”
I grabbed a file from my desk and slipped it under my arm, glancing up at the clock. Daphne stepped into my space, inches from my face. The strong scent of her tuberose perfume that had once enraptured me now suffocated me.
“You okay, Jamison?” she asked with her soothing therapist voice. The energy was charged between us, though it was all coming from her end. She wanted to touch me, to kiss me again. She wanted to pick up right where we’d lef
t off. I could see it in her eyes.
“Absolutely,” I said, brushing past her to leave.
“Did you have a nice Christmas?” she asked in an attempt to stall me.
I stopped and turned back toward her, my lips twisting into a smile as my day with Sophie came to mind. “I did. It was perfect.”
“My mom said to tell your mom hello,” she said.
I threw Daphne a look. She knew damn well I wasn’t on speaking terms with my mother. I spun back around charging forward and heading back to work.
I slipped out of my suit after work and changed into jeans and a button-down shirt, layering a thick, navy sweater on top. By ten o’clock, I slipped on my jacket and shoes and headed down the street to Great Duets.
Even from half a block away, I could hear the thumping of music, and I watched as drunk partiers stumbled out of the bar to catch fresh air and a few drags from a cigarette.
I brushed past them entering the darkness of the bar. My eyes instantly scanned the room for Sophie spotting her dancing away next to a corner table in her own little world.
“You came!” she shrieked the moment I approached her table. Her face lit up, and she threw her arms around my neck pulling me down toward her. She shoved a half-finished beer in my hand, “Here, take this. I’m up next.”
I found a seat at the table next to Mia, hung my coat on the back of the chair, and sat back as the MC introduced Sophie, and she hopped up on the stage.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately,” Mia said with a wink, sitting back and waiting to be entertained.
I sipped Sophie’s half-finished beer as the music began to play. A cheesy background with a sunset filled the screen behind her as lyrics scrolled along the bottom.
Sophie’s velvet voice sailed from her full lips with minimal effort as she sang the opening line of Landslide.
“Woo!” Mia yelled out as she slipped two fingers into her mouth and added an ear-piercing whistle that immediately drew a laugh from Sophie mid-note.
The Promise of Everything - Garner-Willoughby Brothers Book Three Page 4
