by S. L. Naeole
I laughed, the freeing sensation of it making me giddy and filling me with warmth. “This is me saying thank you. Thank you for the car. Thank you for last night. Thank you for…for not being what I expected.”
We’d stopped spinning and he was looking down at me, his arms holding me so tightly against him that it felt like the buttons on his shirt were leaving indentations on my skin beneath my polo. “And what is it you expected?”
My tongue turned to lead in my mouth, my heart protesting along with my head against the inexplicable need to explain to him. To tell him the truth. I’d never done it before. I’d never wanted to before. But Michael…I wanted to tell Michael.
“When you come back, we’ll talk,” I promised.
“We’ll talk,” he repeated, as if saying the words would seal them, bind me to them.
Nodding, I loosened my arms but his grip remained just as firm. He was holding me as if he didn’t want to let go, and I knew down to the nerve endings in my pinkie toe that I didn’t want him to let me go, either. “Have a safe trip, Michael.”
A slow, sensual smile lifted his lips, a smile that traveled to his eyes and filled them with such sparkle and emotion, my heart swelled with a sensation that stole my breath and shook me with its intensity. “Mal,” he said quietly.
“What?”
Nudging my nose with the tip of his, he repeated it. “Mal. My friends call me Mal.”
“And your girlfriends?” I said, because I couldn’t help it and I’m an idiot.
“I don’t have girlfriends, Victoria. But I have a girlfriend…if she’ll have me.”
He’d done it again, said the G-word, and my belly somersaulted at the knowledge, at the sound of it. “She will,” I breathed in reply, because I had no voice left.
“Well, then my girlfriend will also call me Mal.”
I lifted myself onto my toes and pressed a soft kiss against his chin since that was all I could reach despite my heels. “Then have a safe trip, Mal.”
Finally, his grip loosened and I slid away from him, immediately feeling the loss of his heat and hardness and missing its constancy. “You be good while I’m gone, sweetheart. I’ll call you later.”
Nodding, I stepped away as he turned to climb back into the car once more. Only then did I notice the man who’d been holding onto the door. He smiled at me and dipped his head once before closing the door after Michael. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment. How could I have not seen him? He’d been standing there the entire time. He’d heard us. He’d…seen us.
“Miss Oh,” he said to me, his expression betraying nothing, his demeanor as cool and confident as Mich—Mal’s.
“Lyle,” I replied, recognizing the silhouette, his features partially hidden by the shadow his head cast across his face. My original Shadow Man. He disappeared around the other side of the SUV.
The rear window of the car rolled down then and Michael’s head appeared, his face looking all serious and business-like. “What are you doing on the eighteenth?”
My mental calendar immediately flashed in my head and I replied, “That’s the night of the AITTIA gala, so I’ll be busy.”
He grinned. “Good.”
“Good?” I was incredulous. “Did you not just hear me say that I’ll be busy?”
Nodding, the grin not leaving his mouth, he said, “I should hope so. You’ll be my plus one.”
Surprise streamed through me, but before I could respond the SUV drove away, the dark tinted window rolling up and closing him off to anything I could have shouted after him. I stood in the parking lot until I couldn’t see the rear lights anymore and then turned my head, the unmistakable feeling of being watched prickling the back of my neck.
From the window of my living room, I could see the faces of my friends.
All of them.
Including Holly’s.
Shit.
I threw myself into my work. I drowned in my work. I distracted myself with my work.
Holly refused to speak to me. She refused to speak to the others, too, but no matter how they prodded I refused to tell them why, insisting that this wasn’t something I had to right to reveal. Of course, by the twelfth time I’d told one of them to ask Holly to explain, I was already halfway convinced that the reason I didn’t say anything was that I didn’t want the others to hate Michael the way I should have, and then hate me because I didn’t.
Vonne, who shared a room with her in our apartment, told me that Holly was spending long nights on the computer she had set up in the corner by her bed, working with her design tablet and barely getting any sleep. This worried me because Holly loved sleep more than newborn babies did. She could sleep through a parade if she were the float.
And more than the refusal to speak to me, more than the fact that she wasn’t sleeping, was the fact that she’d completely opted to avoid seeing me as much as possible. I almost never saw her in the apartment anymore. Roy was here more than she was.
She made an appearance at Roy’s birthday party on Saturday and joined Lara, Vonne, and I in celebration when he’d proposed to Kara as soon as we finished screaming an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday. The five of us were a unit again, a happy, tearful, hugging unit. For all of twenty-eight seconds. And then she made her excuses and left.
Monday came and went. Tuesday, too. The days blended into each other almost painlessly, yet I hurt. I’d rarely seen Holly at work PTM—Prior To Michael—but now it was like she was never there. I’d emailed Eric, the head costume designer for MOAT, on Wednesday asking if he didn’t mind sending me a picture of the costumes for the three ballet dancers who’d be posing live in front of the Degas at the AITTIA exhibit, because I knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from throwing in a mention of Holly. When he’d responded, his email had, indeed, included several photo attachments of gloriously muted ballerinas, their olive green and dusty blue costumes more elegant and intricate than the painting that had inspired them. But in all honesty, I didn’t care about the costumes.
Instead, I drank up the three sentences he’d written about Holly, feeling immense guilt and grief over the state of our friendship.
Holly’s been turning in some great work lately. She’s really found her stride and her muse has totally kicked her in the ass. Heartache will do that to you I guess.
Heartache. That’s what I felt, too. Only I had the buffer of Mal’s feelings for me, and the label he’d given me before he’d left. What did she have except a memory of rejection and the image of him kissing me in the parking lot?
Fuck, I’m a shitty friend. A shitty, selfish friend. Who would have ever thought that it would be me that would break the “Sisters Before Misters” clause of friendship? Me, the untouchable one? Me, the one who’d vowed to be the crazy cat lady of the group—even though I hated cats—just so that my friends would have a guaranteed babysitter when they eventually got married, had kids, and lived a life?
But with one look, one touch of a dampened finger, I was ruined. Michael was King Midas and with one touch he’d frozen all of my plans and encased them in gold, encased who I was in gold, and the only way I could break free was to be someone else. Someone who hurt my friends, friends who’d been with me through a living nightmare, who’d supported me, healed me and followed me across thousands of miles just so I wouldn’t be alone. I’d put wanting to be with Michael ahead of Holly’s feelings, and by doing so I had cemented my place in the hall of total bitchdom.
My phone buzzed and my heart fell at the sight of Michael’s name. I fought inwardly with the desire to read his message, to feel the tickle of passion that always trailed up and down my spine at his words—even the innocuous ones. My finger hovered over the screen.
The sudden trill of a call coming through saved me from having to choose. Del’s number appeared and I quickly swiped to answer.
“Ri! I am at the airport. Where are you?”
Airport? Shit! I’d forgotten that Del had called me a few days ago and told me he was coming home early!
“I’m still at the office. Had a last minute issue. I’m leaving right now!”
“No-no-no. You stay. It’ll take too long for you to get through traffic right now. I’ll catch a cab to my apartment. Meet me there so we can go over tomorrow’s soft opening. Forward the display map and the events calendar.”
Shit. I’d forgotten about the soft opening, too.
“Okay. Anything else?”
“No. No, wait. Yes. Stop off at the liquor store at the corner near my apartment and pick up three bottles of Prosecco, the usual one. Use the credit card in my desk behind the picture of DeiDei.”
I smiled at his instructions and then hung up. After forwarding all the emails he’d requested and then emailing my team to let them know that I’m on my way to meet Del, I shut down my computer and turned off the light before closing its door and heading to Del’s office three doors away. It smelled like him, that strange mixture of aftershave and menthol from the cream he slathered on his wrists. I inhaled deeply, the scent comforting. Without dawdling, I opened the top right drawer of his desk and found the credit card beneath the picture of his youngest son, Delmonico the third, or DeiDei, as he was affectionately called. Del hadn’t seen him in over ten years, the picture of DeiDei one taken when he was only a baby. Del refused to put the photo on his desk and I never thought to ask why.
Maybe it’s time you did. Maybe it’s time you started reaching out.
Shaking my head at the thought, I left his office and hurried upstairs, heading down a back hallway to the employee entrance which led to the parking lot. I quickly got into my car and drove to the liquor store near Del’s apartment. The owner, a nice Korean man who recognized me from previous purchases there for Olana and Del, started speaking to me in a mixture of English and Korean. I smiled, answered, and then thanked him when he handed me the three wine bags full of Del’s favorite Prosecco.
My phone buzzed in my purse and as I closed the trunk lid to Clam II, I saw another message from Michael. Ignoring it, I shoved it back into my purse and climbed back into my car. My hand lifted to rub my neck, a breath of cool air wafting over it and making me shiver.
I parked in the underground garage of Del’s posh apartment complex, the entire building looking like a boutique hotel to keep from breaking up the symmetry of older brownstones that served as homes and businesses up and down the street. Del’s apartment was the newest thing here and had cost at least eight vital organs and a virgin sacrifice. At least, that’s what he’d said.
He lived closer to the city than I ever wanted, which meant more traffic and more people. Thankfully it was still midday and most people were still at work. The streets still had a few cars parking along the sidewalks, though, and there were people walking to and fro as I exited the garage elevator into the apartment’s glass-enclosed lobby.
Punching the elevator button, I waited until one of the two cars appeared, a pleasant voice calling out over the speaker “Ground floor. Lobby.”
Placing the bags of Prosecco on the ground, I pressed the third-floor button and then entered into an adjacent keypad the code that allowed the car to actually move. Security in his building was intense, and I’d had to memorize three different codes—the garage code, the elevator code, and the door code—four times just to get to his apartment, the previous codes all having to be changed because he’d pissed off a girlfriend…or three.
As the car jerked into motion I sighed and waited until the doors reopened and I could exit the elevator and onto the third floor. There were only five apartments on each of the first three residential floors, with two on each floor thereafter. The top floor, on the seventh, was a single unit, though don’t ever call it a penthouse, I’d been warned, because the owner insisted that nothing so close to the ground could ever be called that.
As I walked to Del’s apartment, a prickling feeling that I was being watched came over me and, again, my hand moved to my neck. I turned around cautiously and then laughed because there was no way anyone could have been following me. Grinning at my unfounded paranoia, I stopped in front of Del’s door and then entered in his code, the sound of the tumbler turning automatically. Pushing on the door latch, I stepped into the beautifully furnished apartment and kicked the door shut.
The apartment was stuffy and I quickly got to work at airing it out. I’d been to Del’s place more times than I could count, and he prided himself on the airiness and clean, open space of it. He would not be happy to come home and find it smelling of dust and whatever cleanser he’d last used. I opened the curtains and unlocked the sliding floor-to-ceiling windows that led out to his long, but narrow balcony that overlooked a small park built specifically for the apartment.
With sunlight pouring in, I could easily see what needed a quick dusting and what could wait until Del called his cleaning lady in. Once I was happy with the immediate cleaning, I went into Del’s office and turned on his computer. I printed out the attachments I’d forwarded to him and laid them out on the dining table before remembering to put the Prosecco into the wine chiller.
The apartment’s phone started ringing and I voiced a command to answer it, remembering how everything electronic in the place was controlled by voice.
“Hello,” I said to the sound of traffic.
“Ri! Listen, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. I’m starving. Want me to pick up something? Chinese?”
I turned in his kitchen and then padded to his freezer, pulling it open and then grinning. “Nah. You’ve got pizza in your freezer. How’s about I just heat up one of these? They’re your favorite: goat cheese and spinach.”
“Sounds good. Did you get the Prosecco?”
“Yes.”
“Did you put it in the—”
“Wine chiller, yes. Jeez, Del. Do you think I’m new?”
He chuckled. “No. You are not new. You are the best. I’ll see you soon.”
The line clicked dead and then I proceeded to prepare the wall oven, sliding in the pizza stone Del kept prominently on his counter. I took a quick look at the layout of the exhibit, noting one last issue before a beep notifying me that the oven was preheated sounded. I placed the frozen pizza on the stone, closed the door, set the timer, and then pulled out a pen from my purse to notate a glaring error I should have caught earlier regarding the placement of one of the paintings near the exhibit’s entrance.
A sharp trill of the apartment phone sounded and again I shouted to answer it.
“If you’re asking what else you should pick up for dinner, grab some salad at Ivan’s; you know what I like. I’m not even going to check the fridge for things; you’ve been gone for three weeks,” I said to Del, my teeth worrying away at the top of my pen as I double checked my notes.
There was no answer, and I frowned.
“Del?”
The line went dead just as the oven timer went off and the apartment door opened, Del walking in wearing an “I heart Montreal” shirt and tugging his suitcase behind him.
Del showered and changed into a pair of loose-fitting pants before joining me at the counter for a slice of pizza and a glass of wine for him. I had water.
“Have you spoken with Analese about the stage set-up for the gala speeches?” He was going over the layout of the ballroom where the gala’s dinner would be held and saw that the stage that had originally been planned for the east side of the ballroom had become smaller, while the number of tables had increased.
My head bounced once, and then pulled out my phone to show him updated images she’d sent to me on Monday. “Lara worked with her on it so that it could be rolled into place in pieces and locked into place once it was completed so if it needs to be adjusted even more because of last-minute attendees it can. It’s already been drilled into my head that we do not want a repeat of last year’s Dali debacle.”
Del scowled at the mention of the biggest embarrassment the art department had ever had, when a small traveling collection of Dali’s lesser known work had attracted so many
people to our exhibit’s opening gala that some people were forced to stand while others sat uncomfortably at their tables, the glares of much more prominent contributors beating down on them. We’d expected and prepared for just under two hundred guests. That night we’d received over three and turned away at least two dozen. Those lost guests amounted to over a million dollars in lost donations, resulting in Del agreeing to take on more private restoration contracts to make up for it.
“What’s our buffer?” he asked as he took a sip of wine and stalked toward the balcony, his wine glass in his hand.
I glanced at the seating charts and ran some numbers in my head quickly before grabbing my glass of water and following him. He was leaning against the wrought iron railing, his gaze directed at the dimly lit park below. I stood beside him, keeping a safe distance between us. “As it stands right now, we have one-hundred and twelve responses to the RSVP giving us two-hundred and nine guests. We can cover the dance floor to accommodate one-hundred and ten more without breaking down the stage. One-hundred and twenty-two if we split the stage as Lara’s constructed and we use pub tables.”
Pleased with that solution, he bobbed his head in approval. “Sounds good.”
I watched him, his face split between the shadow of the darkening sky and the glare of light streaming in from the living room. He’d been quiet for most of the dinner, nodding and grunting whenever I needed vocal acknowledgment, but not saying much else. “Need anything else before I go?”
“No. Thank you for coming over, Ri. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Del.” I make to leave and then turned to face him. It was awkward and hesitant, but I hugged him. I put my arms around his shoulders and hugged him. He didn’t move to hug me back, content to play along with the idea that I’m too strong for him to do so, which was fine by me. With a deep breath, I pressed a kiss to his cheek and then whispered, “I missed you.”
When I pulled away, I couldn’t miss the gloss in his eyes or the broad smile on his face. “I missed you, too, kiddo.”
