Between You and Me

by Lynn Turner

Emanuela gasped. “You didn’t!”

  “I couldn’t get Morris, so I got the next best thing.”

  He looked so sexy in his thigh-hugging denim and black shirt, the curling waves of his hair smoothed back. His lips twitched and his arms remained folded, his eyes narrowing at her in amusement.

  She grinned and stepped into his personal space, taking his arms and wrapping them around her. “I don’t want to know how much this is costing you.”

  “Worth it.”

  He drank her in with his eyes, his fingers flexing against her hips. His voice was huskier when he spoke again. “You look too good to be going out without me. Allie’s gonna be a no-show. I hope you aren’t too disappointed.”

  “Not too,” she said, against his lips. “Not at all.”

  They moaned at the soft, lingering touch of their lips, familiarizing themselves with touch and taste and smell again.

  “Happy birthday, beautiful,” he said, pulling away.

  “Thank you. I can’t believe you did this.”

  “We’re just getting started, baby.”

  ****

  They sat on one of the plush, deep purple couches of Raines Law Room, partially hidden from the view of other patrons by semi-sheer purple curtains. The dimly lit cocktail lounge mimicked the speakeasies of the 1920s, with its exposed brick walls, luxurious antique furniture and vintage artwork.

  The wallpaper design was of tiny black figures engaged in various positions of the Kama Sutra. “Oh my God!” she whispered. “This better not be a swinger’s club, Finn.”

  He cracked up, leaning in to murmur in her ear. “Will you relax? I’m not sharing you with anyone, Emmi.”

  The waitress brought their drinks, and after instructing them to ring the tableside bell for anything else, they were left alone.

  “Remind me to send Simon another thank you card,” she said. “He keeps letting you ditch him for me.”

  “He’d do the same to me in a heartbeat if Jamie was the one who lived across the country. But I do still owe him for making him give the talk at MIT without me so I could satiate my horny girlfriend.”

  She gasped and pulled away. “Excuse me? You were giving me moony eyes and talking about marrying me the next day. How else was I supposed to respond?”

  “I’m not complaining, Emmi,” he said, pulling her back to him. “I like it when you get all worked up.”

  She was about to groan at his continued teasing, but something in his pocket pressed uncomfortably against her thigh. She decided to give him a dose of his own medicine, moving her hand deliberately over the small bulk at his hip. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

  “I’m always happy to see you. Will you stop undressing me with your eyes? It makes me feel cheap.”

  “Ugh!” She elbowed his ribs. “You’ve been made. Hand it over, mister.”

  He laughed again and leaned away from her a bit, raising his hips slightly to remove a small gift box from his pocket. “I wanted to get you something meaningful. Hopefully it’s the right size.”

  She leaned in to give him a peck on the lips and eagerly opened the box. She lifted a braided white gold watch from the box. There were tiny diamonds around the bezel and a shiny, mother-of-pearl face.

  “Wow. Finn…it’s beautiful!” Almost immediately, she frowned. “Wait…” She looked at the face again, bemused. “It’s blank. How does it work?”

  He took the dainty watch from her and undid the clasp, fastening it around her slender wrist. “It’s a watch that doesn’t tell time.”

  Her eyes widened in curiosity.

  “There are no hands, no numbers, no calendar of any kind,” he said. “It’s essentially a bracelet that looks like a watch. I wanted you to have something to remind you that what we have isn’t dependent on time. I don’t count the weeks or months we’ve known each other to determine how I feel, or if we’ve been together long enough to trust in ‘forever.’ In my mind, we were a done deal before we ever met. We just needed to cross each other’s paths so our souls would recognize each other.”

  Emanuela swallowed through a haze of tears—and slight inebriation—before silencing him with a kiss. Her eyes were open, hungry for his features, but he was a blur. Her hands rose to hold his face. If she couldn’t see him clearly, she at least wanted to touch him, to feel the muscles of his face move as he kissed her back. Her mind was quickly wandering away from her in that moment, and the last thoughts she remembered before she was swept up in him completely were that he tasted of scotch and mint, and that she didn’t think it was possible to love anyone the way she loved him.

  ****

  Emanuela sat next to Finn in the back of their rented cab, absentmindedly tracing the grooves of his abs beneath his shirt with her fingers. The cooler air of late September cleared her head from the cocktails she drank, and she realized they’d turned much too early. The street sign read “W. 46th St.”

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  He caught her roving hand in his and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. “You’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, they arrived at The French Quarters, a boutique hotel that instantly reminded Emanuela of their time in New Orleans with its red brick façade, intricate wrought-iron balconies, and gas-lit street lamps on either side of the entrance. Finn smiled at her astonished expression before thanking the driver and taking her hand to guide her inside.

  Their room was modest, but charmingly decorated with a modern take on the French style of historic New Orleans. There was an exposed brick wall behind the queen bed, the skirt and shams matching the white and navy floral curtains on the window. Two red-shaded lamps stood atop the buffet in front of the bed, reminding Emanuela of the lamps in their hotel room in New Orleans.

  “Finn…”

  “It’s where I first realized I was in love with you,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “I know it’s not the same—”

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “I don’t even know how to tell you how much this means to me.”

  He held her a whisper away from him, his hands low on her hips, and looked into her eyes. “You just did.”

  They took their time, fabric against fabric as their bodies pressed together; skin against fabric as they undressed each other; and skin against skin as their hands trailed and stroked, kneaded and clasped.

  “I love you, Finn,” Emanuela said afterward. “I wanted to tell you first so I wouldn’t be the one to say—”

  “Ditto,” he said, still recovering his breaths.

  “Your nostrils are flaring.”

  Her grumbling stomach interrupted the response Finn had on his tongue.

  “Animals, both of us.” He rolled from her carefully to get cleaned up and order room service.

  They shared crab cakes, crawfish cakes, and Cajun fries dipped in remoulade from the restaurant downstairs. Emanuela sat on the bed in one of Finn’s T-shirts, and he sat in the only chair in the room, pulled up to one of the end tables, stuffing their faces and chatting contentedly.

  “I can’t believe you two pulled this off,” she said. “I can usually tell when Allie is up to something—Well, she’s always up to something, so maybe that’s why I didn’t think anything of it.”

  He looked at her in disbelief. “You’re full of shit, you know that?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Fine. You’re that good. But you know what you missed, Doctor Kane?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t have a change of clothes, and I don’t do walks of shame.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I gave Allie a room key earlier”—he stood to pull a garment bag from the closet—“or you’d never leave this room.”

  She wiped her hands and stood to open the bag. “Oh my God!” she shrieked, almost missing the card that fell to the floor in her excitement.

  Finn looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  She removed the red Donna Karan wrap dress from the garment bag. “Nothing. I have a dress
just like this in green because the red was sold out,” she said, reading the card.

  I still want the green one. It will look better on me. Happy birthday, Em.

  Love,

  Allie

  Finn bent to kiss her nose. “There’s one more thing,” he said, pulling a familiar pale blue box from the shelf in the closet.

  She grinned. “Canelés.”

  “Not quite.”

  She peeked inside and her eyes lit from the inside out. “Beignets.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Five Weeks Later

  “Okay, I got one,” Emanuela said. She lay on her side, peering at Finn on her screen through sleepy eyes.

  “One more,” he said. “Allie will kill me if you get run over by a taxi tomorrow because you can’t see straight in the morning.”

  “Jamie would kill you first, and then ship your body off so Allie can tie weights to it and dump it in the Hudson.”

  His face went blank at the detail she’d come up with on the spot for his untimely demise. “That is decidedly morbid.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth to cover her burst of laughter. “Hey, you started it,” she said when she could breathe again. “You wouldn’t be at the bottom of the river right now if I hadn’t been creamed by one of New York’s finest.”

  His gaze roamed her face, his eyes narrowing. The only light in her room came from the bathroom, and the ever-present glow of the city through her window. He looked like he was someplace else for a moment, the thoughts running through his mind transforming his features from one expression, to the next, to the next…

  “Finn? Where were you just now?”

  He came to at the sound of her voice. “I’m sorry.”

  Emanuela propped her head up on her hand and waited.

  “Do you remember what you felt last time?” he asked.

  She nodded. They didn’t have a name for whatever it was—the sudden onslaught of raw emotion that hit them every so often and ruined even the best of their days apart.

  Some days felt normal—whatever that meant in their situation. They called each other to say “Good morning” and went to work, video chatting at night no matter how crappy the connection. The nights she went out with Allie, or Finn stayed late at Simon’s, they texted each other, or at the risk of being corpses the next morning, video chatted anyway because they desperately needed to see each other’s faces. Moments like this when their guards were down, when they shared moments other couples could have face-to-face, they felt tired with longing. There was no cure but to ride it out.

  “I remember,” she said, feeling traces of those feelings creeping back up at the memory. “You’re feeling it now.”

  He nodded, offering a weak smile.

  “Ugh, I’m so sick of this.” She tore her comforter away and climbed out of bed. He called after her, but she’d already flicked on the light and come back to bed, this time sitting Indian style a foot away from her screen. She unceremoniously peeled her nightshirt up and over her head, leaving herself bare from the waist up. She grinned triumphantly at Finn’s softly expelled curse.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, stunned.

  “Snapping you out of it. Now you… Chop, chop!” she said, snapping her fingers.

  He shook his head and did what he was told.

  “Good,” Emanuela said, satisfied.

  He reached out a hand, flexing his fingers, pretending to grope her.

  “Knock it off!” she said with a giggle. “Now back to the question.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Emmi,” he groaned. “Put your shirt back on. I’m okay now.”

  She preened a little, straightening her posture to push her breasts out even more. “You sure?”

  Another wordless groan and she did as he asked, but took her time turning the shirt right-side-out and pulling it down once she had it over her head.

  His face was stone. “Don’t tease me, Emanuela. I’ve racked up quite a few flyer miles.”

  She swallowed. “Is it still my turn?”

  He smiled, nodding once.

  “Okay. Let’s say we get into it while we’re apart—something big that neither of us wanted to compromise on—What would you do?”

  “If that was going to happen, I think it would have by now,” he said. “We’ve discussed all the hard stuff, like faith and family.”

  “That’s true… Let’s say we have an argument that escalates and we say things that are hard to take back.”

  “Well, flowers are out.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And it’s not clear who started it?”

  “No, and I’m stubborn. But you’re not,” she said. “So it’s on you.”

  “Oh, I see,” he said with a grin. He thought for a minute, and then his mouth widened into a brilliant smile. “I’d ask you to meet me halfway.”

  “But I just said we couldn’t—”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant. Hang on…”

  She folded her arms across her chest and waited. He reached for his cell phone and tapped away at the screen. When he looked up again, she was waiting with amused curiosity. “Well?”

  “Buffalo, North Dakota.”

  “What?”

  “That’s exactly halfway between Oak Harbor and New York City,” he said. “Google it.”

  She picked up her phone and tapped the name of the city into the search engine. “Oh my God, Finn! This says Population 197! There are more buffalo than people!”

  “I’ve always wanted to try a buffalo burger.”

  She snickered. “Stop! What the hell would we even do there?”

  “Eat, sleep, have angry makeup sex.”

  “I can’t believe you!” she said in disbelief. “You’d really do that?”

  “I would. If I thought for a minute that we were falling apart, I’d book us a room at the…” He tapped something into his phone again and frowned. “Well, there isn’t a hotel in Buffa—”

  “Oh my God!” Emanuela lost it. “We’re doomed!”

  He ignored her, scrolling the small screen on his phone with one finger. “Fargo is very close by, several hotels. Can you live with three stars?”

  She took a deep breath to halt her laughter, blowing slowly as she exhaled. “I can live with three stars. Only for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Fighting with you could get costly.”

  “Well, I’ve recently come into some money.”

  She snickered again. “Your turn.”

  Finn’s expression sobered then. “What if I could help fix a broken friendship?”

  “Finn—”

  “I spoke to him, Emmi. We talked for at least twenty minutes.”

  “That’s great,” she said stiffly. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Emanuela—”

  “It’s not on you, Finn. Philip betrayed my trust. He has to come to me.”

  “I’m not denying that. I’ve lived long enough to know that even good people do shitty things sometimes. I know how much his friendship meant to you and how stressful it must be to work with him the way things are right now.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want you to resent me later.”

  Though his words were getting through to her, she wasn’t ready to admit she wasn’t completely indifferent to her fractured friendship with her boss. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, but in her reserved tone. “I’m fine. The gala is just a couple of weeks away and then I can put this whole thing behind me.”

  ****

  “Anata wa totemo shinsetsu desu,” Emanuela said courteously into her office phone. “Oyasumi nasai.” The client on the other line graciously corrected her and her face heated. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, switching back to English. “It’s morning there. Of course! Sayonara!” She hung up with a sigh and rubbed her temples, scolding herself for her blunder.

  “Your Japanese is still great,
” Philip said from her doorway.

  “I—” She nearly jumped from her skin. “Thank you.”

  She eyed him for a moment, not sure she wanted to open up to him. He looked comfortable leaning against the doorframe, his hair tousled, his hands stuffed into his pockets. She narrowed her eyes. There was something different about him. His deep brown eyes were nearly clear of the circles that surrounded them for… How many weeks has it been? They’d been walking on eggshells around each other for so long—only speaking professionally and not daring to make prolonged eye contact—that she hadn’t noticed his newly trimmed hair, his clean-shaven face and his noticeably less tense posture.

  “Em.” His gentle voice pierced through her thoughts, and she snapped out of it. She must have been staring a hole straight through him.

  “I’m off my game,” she said. “I was slower than usual. They spoke much faster than me.”

  “You’re out of practice.” He shrugged. “You missed Tokyo this year.”

  She looked away just in time to see Lydia quietly leaving for the day. “I know.”

  “Brian doesn’t know a lick of Japanese. And he’s not that nice to look at,” he said with a grin. “I really had to have my wits about me this year without my partner around to keep me straight and charm our competitors.”

  “Philip…”

  “I don’t deserve it—I know I don’t, Em. But if there’s a chance that things don’t have to end this way—” He looked at her more intently this time, pleading with his eyes. “Think about it, will you? Your forgiveness would mean the world to me.”

  He didn’t stick around for her response, and she didn’t have one anyway. She needed time to think about accepting the olive branch he’d extended.

  ****

  “Don’t call yourself a chef if you’re gonna let a little tiny cake kick your ass, Jamie,” Allie yelled across her kitchen, waving Emanuela over to a barstool.

  Emanuela obediently sat down to observe the spirited exchange between her two friends and gorge herself on the smorgasbord of baked goodies resting on Allie’s counter.

  “Listen, okay? These are not cakes, babe. They’re the vittles of little demon spawn. Even the pan looks evil.” His exasperated complaint came loud and clear through the speakerphone.