I’m tempted to ease the ache between my legs, but there’s no time. I’m presenting data in a meeting this morning, and final touches still need to be added.
When I’m near work, I stop at Lait Noir. It’s crowded, but the black-and-white café is small enough that I can see every table from where I stand in line. People are working, creating, connecting, right in front of me. Three girls share a table, but despite their open laptops, they’re all on their phones. Probably checking social media.
My heart skips at the thought of them coming across my photo. They’d never know they were in the same room as the person they were looking at. The author of the words they were reading. That would never happen—what are the odds they’d ever come across such a small, obscure account? But the thought alone excites me.
I take my coffee to go, and two hours later, I’m sitting across from several chuckling men in suits. My dad is always making grown men chuckle, a skill I wasn’t blessed with and have made no effort to cultivate.
“Let’s move on to campaign idea number three,” I suggest, plastering on a smile that’d put a contractor to shame.
“In a minute, Halston,” Dad says, tapping the table. “We haven’t even gotten to last night’s game.”
Grayson Dietrich, a CEO client, groans. “What a disgrace.”
My assistant and I exchange a look. She knows how my dad’s interruptions irritate me. Right about now, steam usually starts billowing from my ears. I’d hoped a promotion to Agency Analyst would stop my dad’s routine condescension toward me in front of others, but he’s shown no signs of slowing. He doesn’t see himself as patronizing. The clients want face time with the founder of The Fox Agency, and that’s what he gives them, regardless of how it makes me look to have my daddy sit in on meetings.
I can’t say much more about it than I already have, though. When I graduated college and told him I wanted to help artists reach the masses, he created this position for me. Every time we verge on an argument, I remember that and surrender first. He cares about me—I know he does—but when he thinks his way is best, there’s no alternative. Even if I want something different, I end up giving in.
My frustration quickly runs cold and soon, my thoughts pick up where they left off earlier. With just his words, his commands, Finn touched me. Having his camera on me was no less intimate than if it’d been his hands. Which isn’t a claim I can make yet.
Yet?
I’m as attracted to Finn as I am curious. There’s no question. He listens. Watches. I think he even understands me, or else he would’ve just turned my journal in and walked away. I don’t worry that he’s at home, flipping through it, laughing at parts. He gives me confidence and at the same time, the thought of seeing him again tightens my insides. He has a distinct pull, and that’s dangerous, because I can’t do anything about my draw to him.
Can I?
I shudder. Noticeably. The table vibrates. I’m about to blame it on the weather, but nobody’s paying attention to me, not even my assistant Benny, who’s using her pen to turn Dietrich’s logo into a penis. The men are still talking basketball.
I wouldn’t normally get out my phone in a meeting, not even during one of my dad’s infamous steamrolls, but I’m having trouble following protocol today. Work seems less urgent. My dad is less threatening. I’m running out of meds, so I only took half my dosage. I even skipped my third cup of coffee.
Finn’s profile is already open. There’s been hardly any activity since I checked this morning. Did he not use enough hashtags? Were we wrong, and the photo sucks? Or the caption? That could be the problem. I tried to warn Finn. It’s not like I have any business writing anything. My hand sweats around my phone.
Those comments, though.
Fucking hottt
What’s this quote from?
I want more of that. More of Finn and his ideas and his attention—even though I know it’s risky. Or because it’s risky. For so long, I’ve been moving through days, not rocking the boat, not taking too many chances. Anything more than that can result in mistakes, pain, loss. But maybe taking that photo last night woke up a side of me I put to sleep a long time ago. And maybe I want to do it again.
8
Less than forty-eight hours after I took her photograph, I wait for Halston under some trees on a park bench. Union Square was my suggestion. It’s not only close to her office and the job I had this morning, but it’s always busy here. There are crowds, but also privacy, and I think we need both. She seems to be acting out of character around me, and I’ve already gotten too close. I shouldn’t have admitted to jerking off. Between the light stalking, the photos, and that confession, she’ll think I’m obsessed. Even if we do have chemistry, I wouldn’t blame her for staying away. And if she doesn’t . . . she might be just as fucked up as me.
I spot her headed my way. She gnaws her bottom lip and surveys the crowd, holding two coffees and a shopping tote. She’s in black tights, a purple scarf, and click-clack Mary Janes. I only know what those are because my daughter wears them. When Halston spots me, she walks faster.
“I brought special coffee,” she says. She flings her stuff and herself onto the bench before handing me a cup and pastry bag. “Snacks too.”
“Thanks.” I set them on the other side of me. She takes in the bare branches over our heads, the skateboarders riding from one end of the square to another, the prep school teenagers nibbling on each other’s ears. At least, I think that’s what she’s seeing. I haven’t taken my eyes from her profile. Her soft, feminine features are only interrupted by a slight bump to her small nose. There’s a dusting of freckles by her hairline, and I get a better view of her tattoo—a small, multi-colored pastel feather that curves behind her ear. She crosses her legs. “This was a nice suggestion.”
“I love the parks in this city. I need them. Or rather, I need a break from all the chaos.”
“I never thought of it that way. I always saw them as a more scenic route to cross a block.” She smiles. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Anything else nice you want to mention?”
She laughs. “I’m too nervous to think of other adjectives.”
“Nervous? You seem like you’re in a good mood.”
“Do I? I guess I am. I don’t mean nervous in a bad way.” She cups both hands around her drink. “Coffee just makes me happy.”
I arch an eyebrow. She’s been drinking coffee since the moment I met her. “Are you sure there’s no other reason for your cheerfulness?”
She suppresses a smile. “No. Yes. I mean, it’s just the drink.”
“I was glad to hear from you.” I’d been home editing photos, wondering when or if she’d tell me whether she’d seen the post, the precise second Outlook had pinged with new mail. “Did you see the photo?”
Her breath fogs between us. “Yes.”
“And? Do you want me to take it down?”
“No.”
I smooth my hair back. I was worried. The photos are raw. I’ve grown attached to them, and I want to post the others, but only if she’s comfortable. “So it’s not as scary as you thought?”
“It’s . . . weird. And exciting. Weirdly exciting.”
“I’ve gotten more followers over the last day than I would in a month.”
“Really?” she asks excitedly. “It must be the time of year.”
“It must be you,” I say.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” I get out my phone. “I edited the other two photos just in case you wanted to see them first.”
She leans into me, peering over my shoulder, nearly in my lap, smelling like a spicy fall day. Suddenly, I can’t remember where the photo app is on my phone. I swipe between screens while she waits. Fuck. She’ll think I’ve lost it; I can’t even navigate my own phone.
“There it is.” She taps my screen and my camera roll pops up.
“I have captions picked out too,” I say. “If you agree.”
�
�I’m just not used to this. Seeing myself so . . .” She studies the screen a few seconds. “I used to be fat.”
I freeze, stunned by her bluntness. “I-I’m sorry?”
“Not obese or anything. But I just lost thirty pounds. I never considered myself sexy.”
I stay frozen. I don’t even blink. I was married long enough to know I’m in dangerous territory. Both speaking up and staying silent could be deadly decisions. I swallow. Twice.
“You’re turned off, right?” she asks. “It’s okay if you are. I don’t plan on gaining it back.”
“I’m not turned off,” I say. Wait. Shit. I walked right into that one. “I’m not turned on, either, I mean, that’s not—fuck. Never mind.”
She laughs. “Are you okay?”
I take a breath and start over. “You look great. You’re not planning on losing more, though, are you?”
“No. I actually wasn’t trying to lose it at first. It just started to come off.”
“How?”
“Stuff.” She holds her coffee up to her mouth.
“What kind of stuff?”
“Work. Stress, that kind of thing.” She takes a sip, returning her attention to my phone. She taps the screen a couple more times, but I keep my eyes on her. I don’t know what stuff means. I’m not sure we know each other well enough for me to press her, either. She smiles. “You got a couple more followers.”
All the times Kendra accused me of hating her body come bubbling to the surface. I was never turned off by my ex-wife physically, especially not post-pregnancy as she’d suspected. I’d found her even more beautiful. No, my disinterest in her all came down to her behavior. It was hard to get excited by someone I’d grown to resent. Kendra knew I was susceptible to guilt. Hell, I married her because of it. The longer we were together, the more she relied on that to get what she wanted. And the more I pulled away.
I give Halston the phone and pick up my coffee and pastry. If she re-opens the topic of weight, having food in my mouth will give me time to think of a potentially lifesaving response.
“I want you to post the second photo,” she says.
“Yeah?”
She nods.
I’m glad. Not only do I like seeing her on my account, but since she bruised my ego the other day by implying my earlier photos were boring, her stamp of approval means even more. I tear off some pastry and pop it into my mouth. “Then I’ll post it to—” I jerk forward and spit croissant onto the sidewalk. “Fuck. Is this . . . it’s—”
“Chocolate-pistachio,” she says. “Why?”
I widen my eyes and check the coffee cup in my hand. Quench Coffee is printed across the cardboard sleeve, and I can’t fucking believe I didn’t see it. I’ve been avoiding the place for over a year.
“You said Quench was your favorite spot,” she says hesitantly. “So I decided to surprise you.” She gasps. “Are you allergic to nuts?”
“Huh? Nuts? No.” I run my tongue over the roof of my mouth, trying to scrape away the taste of chocolate and coffee and her.
Sadie.
“The girl said this was their most popular pastry.” She takes the bag from me since I’m holding it out like a dirty diaper. “You don’t like chocolate?”
I like chocolate as much as the next person, I’d be a freak and a liar if I said I didn’t. But I still taste Sadie in it, the chocolate-pistachio croissant she fed me the first time I laid eyes on her and then again outside my apartment door before she went home to her husband. “I had an affair with a married woman while I was married,” I say. “I wasn’t trying to. It just happened.”
Halston pulls away, her eyes trained on my face. “You . . .” As my words process and her expression falls, I realize why she seems different today. She’s more expressive. Her eyes are brighter, less clouded. “You were married?” she asks.
I don’t think Quench’s excellent coffee was the reason for her good mood. I think it was me. I think it was finally freeing words she’s been bottling up for who knows how long. And now I’ve ruined the moment like a fucking asshole. But my relationship with Sadie was based on dishonesty and deception, and I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t go back down that path. “She lives in Connecticut,” I say. “My ex-wife.”
Halston scratches her eyebrow, leaving a red streak across her forehead. “Um, wow. Did you love her?”
“Kendra? Not how a husband should love a wife.”
“I meant the other woman.”
“Oh.” Sadie. She’s the physical opposite of Halston, tall and slender with black hair, blue eyes, sharp features. Sadie was confident, professional, unemotional. I think the one thing she had in common with Halston was that she was sad. When I met Sadie, there was pain in her eyes, and over the last year, that’s how I’ve imagined her with him. Miserable.
Except that now, sitting next to Halston, I realize I didn’t think about Sadie at all yesterday, and I wonder if I still want her to feel those things—regret for the life she gave up with me, despair because she’d made the wrong choice. Maybe I don’t need to think of her that way anymore. Maybe I can hope she’s happy, even if it’s with him. Nathan, that fucker. He hit me, square in the jaw, and I deserved it, but he’s still unworthy of her.
“I wanted to love her,” I say. “I thought she was so many things, and she was . . . for a while. I was what she needed at the time too.”
Halston shifts away from me. “Are you actually divorced? Or ‘separated’?” she asks with air quotes.
I’d like to disappear now. I definitely didn’t see us having this conversation today, or maybe not ever. It’s too much for the little time we’ve known each other, and it’s only half the story. “We’re divorced.”
“If you didn’t love her like a husband, why’d you marry her?”
That question has the most straightforward and complicated answer possible. I got her pregnant. But Halston already looks skeptical. Telling her about Marissa might scare her off, and to be honest, it scares me too. Marissa was a mistake, and a blessing, and as my daughter, she’s my weakness. This past year, I haven’t been the father I want to be because my affair gave Kendra a reason to skewer me. I can’t be this vulnerable with someone who absolutely does not belong to me. “It gets into some personal stuff,” I say. “I don’t want to lie to you, so let’s not talk about it.”
“I understand. I have that stuff too.” She looks at her hands but nods. “So will it be weird for your ex, what we’re doing?”
“What are we doing?”
“The photos. The erotic captions?”
I can’t lie. It makes me happy to hear we’re doing something together. “They’re two separate things. And I’ve learned a valuable lesson this past year. I’m a better man when I’m not trying to be someone other than myself.” I dip my head to catch her gaze, waiting until she looks at me. “It’s a lesson I wish I’d learned earlier,” I tell her. “Don’t hide who you are. It’ll come out somehow, some day, and you’ll have struggled with it for nothing. Take chances and risks. Make mistakes. Especially now.”
“Why would anyone want to make mistakes?” she asks tightly.
“They’re necessary. It’s how we grow.” Having an affair might’ve been a mistake, but it got me to realize that marrying Kendra out of obligation was the wrong decision. It forced me out on my own. It led me to this bench, and for that, I’m not sorry. At least not at this moment. I like being here with Halston. “If I can help save you from the regrets I have, I want to,” I admit. “I know I should leave you alone. But I’ve never been good at listening to my head over my heart. It’s just who I am.”
“Are you saying you won’t leave me alone?”
I take a breath. “I can’t do it again, the affair. I won’t. I never saw Sadie as a fling. I thought she was—the one. I want more in my life than sex.” I don’t look at Halston when I speak. It’s not exactly easy to say. I have feelings for her, but I won’t push her. I pushed Sadie and dug my own grave in the process.
&
nbsp; “You think being with Rich is a mistake?” she asks. “That’s my boyfriend’s name—Rich.”
I take a sip of the coffee. Damn, it’s good. So are croissants filled with chocolate and topped with pistachio. How could chocolate and toasted bread not be good? How could Halston and I not be good? She was literally dropped at my feet. She might be what I’ve struggled for, the person love and romance and fate came together to give me.
But she’s not mine.
I have to believe she never will be, otherwise I’ll make all the same mistakes I did with Sadie.
“I wouldn’t know,” I tell her. “And if I did, it wouldn’t be my place to say. How’d you meet him?”
“My dad kind of set us up, I guess.”
“That stuff you wrote in the journal . . .” I don’t want to know the answer, but maybe if I hear it, it’ll make it easier for me to keep my hands to myself. “Was it about him?”
“What? God, no.” After a second, she laughs. Hard. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a genuine reaction. “He’s not like that. Rich’s very even-tempered. Logical. He’s attractive, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not that attracted to him. That’s why he’s good for me.”
My mind reels. It’s not about sex. All those things she wrote, the heartache she poured into the pages—it’s not for him. I’m not sure I’m relieved, though. If I don’t need to worry about Rich, then who else is waiting in the wings? “What do you mean he’s good for you?”
Yours to Bare Page 6
