“You’re just a bunch of . . . of . . .” Reggie turns and slams his fist into a wall, then curses in pain. “Remember—when you’re jobless and living with a bum—you could’ve had it all, Amelia. If you’d chosen me.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of a response. He’s half out of his mind anyway. Andrew and I wait, still and silent, until he’s out the door. We don’t even move until we hear the ding of the elevator.
I exhale a sigh of relief. Andrew comes around to face me. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re not.” He gently pinches my chin to lift it, inspecting my jaw. “He put his hands on you?”
“I’m okay,” I say and look up at him from under my lashes. As the threat of danger recedes, understanding takes it’s place. Andrew’s here. “You came. You came for the bath, for the whisky—”
“I came for you.” Just when I think he’s going to kiss me, he stops himself. “And I’m not going anywhere from now on.”
My heart swells. But there are bigger things on my mind than romance. “How’d you know I was in trouble?”
“I would never believe you’d go back to him unless he was forcing you to. And on my ride into the city just now, I came to some realizations.”
“About us?” I ask hopefully.
“No. I’d already decided about us.”
I open my mouth to ask what he decided, but he cuts me off.
“I started putting things together—like how he found us at the flea market and then knew where I worked. When he came to the garage, he made a strange comment about what you do behind closed doors, but I didn’t catch it because I was worried about Bell. It just kind of clicked that he was probably keeping tabs on us. Makes sense considering his fascination with control.”
I shake my head. “You were right. Except it was more than keeping tabs.”
“I had no idea it was this bad, but now that I do—I think he’s the one who stole your underwear.”
My gut pangs. As soon as Andrew says it, I know it’s true. Reggie was in my home when I wasn’t. He went through my things. He filmed me in my most intimate moments. I cover my mouth. “What are we going to do?”
He takes me in his arms, and once I’m pressed against his chest, I realize I’ve been waiting for him to do that since he walked in the door. Finally, some of my tension eases. “We’ll be getting a restraining order first thing Monday,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I can’t have some disgruntled ex-husband taking my girlfriend’s most intimate things.”
My anger drains as I look up. Andrew’s eyes say it all—he believes in us. He came for me. He thinks we can do this. “Girlfriend?”
“You got scared. Then I got scared,” he says. “We want to believe we don’t need each other.”
“But you think we do?”
He closes his mouth, letting my question hang. I wait, anticipating his answer until I realize I’m not going to get one. He’s wants me to provide it. Do we need each other? It’s a strong word. Family needs family. Husbands need wives. Little girls need their mothers. “You need someone for yourself? Or for Bell?”
“No, I can do it on my own. In fact, it’d be easier.” He glances at the ceiling. “If I bring anyone into our lives, she has to be so many things, Amelia. Solid, smart, loving. A good example to Bell. Not a woman who just wants the role of mom and wife because it’s available.”
“But there are plenty of women who do,” I point out.
“Yeah. But none of them are right, they never were. Not even Shana.” He rubs my back. “I want to be honest with you. Earlier tonight, I wasn’t going to come. I went to a bar instead. I thought it was best for us both if we ended this. Then, Shana showed up.”
I freeze, inhaling a short breath at the name. As if I wasn’t already struggling hard enough for Andrew. Now, I’ll have to go up against the mother of his child? A woman who’s clearly cast some kind of spell on him? “She’s back?”
“That was why I wanted to talk to you last week. She randomly showed up at Bell’s gymnastics practice.”
My heart drops. The day Bell had gymnastics was the same day I left Andrew at the flea market. I’d thought he was calling to talk about how abruptly I’d run off, and I’d had no excuse, so I hadn’t answered. But it was to tell me about Shana. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says. “I am too.” He checks his watch. “We’ll talk more at the house. I really need to get home to Bell.”
“The house . . .?”
“I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”
“Oh.” I pull back a little. “You don’t have to do that. Reggie won’t be back. I’ve wounded his pride in more ways than one, and from now on, I have a feeling his lawyers will be the ones trying to corner me.”
“You’re coming to my place,” Andrew says, ignoring me. “Tomorrow, I can bring you back here, or . . .” He tucks some of my hair behind my ear and smiles a little—I’m sure he’s thinking about messing up my hair to boost his ego. “Or you can stay.”
I blink up at him. “What about Bell?”
“Her birthday party’s tomorrow, and the house will be crazy, chaos really—there’ll be kids and horny moms and toys everywhere, but . . .”
“But?” I ask, not hiding the hopefulness in my tone.
“I’d like you there in the middle of it.”
I have to keep from screaming “Yes!” My life has changed drastically in the last hour, and what Andrew’s offering feels . . . safe. Stable. But it isn’t my home. “I can’t just show up and stay the night,” I say. “It’ll confuse Bell.”
“I have a guest room. She should be in bed by now, but she won’t be, and she loves company—especially women. If she has questions, we’ll answer them.” He nods toward my bedroom. “Go get some things. I mean it. I’m not leaving without you.”
I open my mouth to protest, but I don’t know what to say. The truth is, I want to go. I’d like to watch Bell turn seven, and maybe some wholesome chaos would even be good for me. It’ll distract me from the reality that I’ve just given up the one thing that has consumed my life for the last few years.
The only thing I gave any real value.
Avec might be gone.
For good.
THIRTY-TWO
As if I haven’t endured enough shock tonight, when I follow Andrew out of my apartment building, he leads me directly to a motorcycle.
“Um.” I make a face. “Andrew?”
He turns back to me. “Yeah, babe?”
“You didn’t mention this . . .”
“Oh. This is Pico’s. Believe me, mine’s a thousand fucking times better than this hunk of scrap metal. But I was in a hurry to get to you. No time for traffic.”
“That’s sweet,” I say. “But it’s a motorcycle.”
“And?”
I think of my poor, fine hair, which was not made for hats, a shame because I’ve been coveting one from the Marc Jacobs fall line. If I’m not willing to give up a good hairdo for Marc, I’m certainly not going to do it for this. I show him my duffel. “I’ve got my overnight bag, so maybe I should get a cab—”
“To Jersey?” He comes over and chucks me under the chin. “Aw. Don’t be nervous. I got this. You don’t have to do anything.”
He thinks I’m afraid. I play along. “What if I fall off?”
“I take that back. You do have to do one thing: hold on.”
He climbs on the massive thing, handling it like it isn’t hundreds of pounds of metal and leather. Once his helmet’s in place, he starts the bike, his biceps stretching his t-shirt as he grips the handles. With each rumble, the sidewalk trembles, vibrating up between my legs.
My stomach drops. He says something about my bag, but I’m not listening. I get a glimpse of the kind of teenager he must’ve been—reckless, sexy, brooding. I’ve never been much for bikers, what with their grizzly beards, greasy hands, and head-to-toe leather. But with Andrew’s bad boy showing, I’m swooning. I
wonder if he’s ever had sex on the bike. If it’s even possible.
He holds out a helmet. “You coming?”
I bite my bottom lip. “Nearly.”
He arches a quizzical eyebrow at me. Is it possible he rides a bike because he loves it, and not because he knows how sexy it makes him? I take the helmet, all notions of wrecked hair vanishing, and cross the duffel over one shoulder. I stick it behind us, get on, and scoot as close as I can get. His six-pack middle is hard under my arms.
“Sure you got a good enough grip?” he asks and laughs, his stomach tightening underneath me.
“Oh.” I ease up. “Am I hurting you?”
“Just the opposite, babe.” He checks for traffic before pulling away from the curb. I squeeze him again, this time out of fear of being flung off the side. He whips down the center divider line, weaving between cars. I’ve never moved this quickly through the city, even in the absence of traffic. I get a thrill from the way the skyscrapers blur together, from the wind whipping around us, from the edge of danger he rides along.
“You good?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Great,” I say into his ear, slipping my hands under his shirt. His stomach is warm. It’s hard to tell with the bike vibrating underneath us, but I think he shudders.
We pass through Lincoln Tunnel and shoot back into the night. An ache forms in my ass, but it’s nothing compared to enduring twenty minutes of stimulation while curled around a sexy man. But once we’re out of the city, and then the outskirts, traffic falls away. Aside from the growl of the bike, we make our way down the freeway in silence. The ride is no less exciting, but somehow peaceful.
Andrew exits the freeway toward Elizabeth, and eventually we enter a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. He stops at a colonial-style white house with a lawn so well kept, it’s richly green, even in the dark. There’s a mailbox and a blue front door—nothing out of the ordinary, but surprisingly traditional. And nothing like I’d imagined.
I climb off, stretching the stiffness from my legs. “This is your place?” I ask.
“This is it.” He nods me toward him, unclips the helmet strap from under my chin, and eases it off my head.
“Is it a mess?” I ask when he smooths his hand over my hair.
“Yes. Just how I love it.” He leans in and surprises me with a kiss. “Is that okay?” he asks.
I nod. “It’s good.”
“Just good?” he asks. “Is good great? Is it unsure? Can you be more specific?”
I’m not sure I can describe how it feels to kiss Andrew again when I didn’t think I’d get another chance. “You know when you’ve been searching for years for a pair of leather boots in a very specific color, like Merlot red or Chestnut brown, and finally, Louboutin comes out with a pair that exceeds your wildest dreams? And you go to the store and ask for your size, and they actually have them, and you slip one on . . .” I sigh.
Andrew rolls his lips together. “You lost me at that L-word.”
I scrunch my nose. “What, Louboutin?”
We stare at each other. “Okay,” I say, trying again. “Let’s say the boots are a pair of jeans and the brand is Levi’s.”
He slow-blinks at me. “You think I’ve ever gone into a store and asked for a specific pair of hard-to-find jeans and then been elated that they had them . . .?”
I roll my eyes. “Okay. Then how about the feeling when you buy a car part and it clicks perfectly.”
“Ah.” He nods. “Sure. I get it.”
He may be indulging me. “That feeling. It’s just . . . right, you know?”
“Right,” he repeats, slipping his hand under my hair, around my neck. “Well, that’s better than good by a mile.”
I grin. “Yes, it is.”
“How are you doing? Earlier—that was a lot to handle.”
“It was, but—”
“But nothing,” he interrupts. “It was a lot, Amelia. You must’ve been scared.”
I relax my shoulders a little as he begins to knead my neck. I have to stop my eyes from rolling back into my head, and as my muscles loosen, my resistance follows suit. “It was unnerving. I expected you, so when he walked in the door so nonchalantly—”
“You thought it was me? Holy shit. I didn’t even think of that.”
“At first. It’s supposed to be a safe space, a home, but it wasn’t in that moment.”
“And it won’t be ever again,” he points out. “Not after this. We’ll find a new place next week. You can stay with me until then. You won’t have to spend another night there if I have my way.”
My instinct is to protest, to say I’m fine. Fear is weakness, and I’ve always tried to beat it into submission. But it seems Andrew and I have both learned a lot about fear these past few weeks. I nod. “I would like that.”
“I’ve been in your position,” he says. “When Shana left, I was scared she’d come back. I was scared she wouldn’t. I thought that being afraid meant I was a pussy, but looking back, I’m just human. There’s bravery in facing fear when it’s easier to bury it.”
Andrew is one of the most intelligent, empathetic people I’ve known, and I never would’ve guessed just meeting him like I did. “I was terrified,” I admit. “He held me in place and wouldn’t let go. I panicked.”
Andrew’s nostrils flare with an inhale. “Fuck, Amelia. He restrained you? Thank God I showed up when I did.”
“But I remembered when you and I worked through that fear,” I tell him, “and the thing is . . . I was able to calm down. I think that confused him. He thought I’d be more afraid.”
A spark flashes in his eyes, as if he’s trying not to react. He studies me until his breathing evens out. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If anything, you saved me before you even showed up.”
He pulls me to him by my neck and kisses my cheek. He smells like a blend of light sweat and soap, as if he were mid-shower when he’d suddenly decided to hurry to my apartment. “Let’s go inside,” he says. “I could stay here and kiss you until the sun comes up, but . . .” He glances toward the house. “If Bell heard the bike, she might come to the window thinking I’m home. And I don’t want her to see us like this. Not until I have a chance to talk to her about it.”
I step back quickly. “Of course. I should’ve thought of that.”
“It’s fine,” he says, holding out his hand for mine. “I’m going to talk to her. I want her to understand.”
I let him lead me up the sidewalk. “I’d just like to point out that we have her permission,” I tease. “She sang us the k-i-s-s-i-n-g song, after all.”
He smirks. “She doesn’t have a clue what she means. She kept talking about kissing, and it was pissing me off.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because she’s too young for that.”
I twist my lips. I’m not so old that I can’t remember being a young girl, curious about sex. I don’t remember thinking about it at her age, but Bell has been through a lot for her seven years. Not having a mother around might be confusing for her, especially if she’s picked up on the other moms or teachers trying to get to Andrew through her. “Maybe she’s just confused, Andrew. I don’t think punishing her would help.”
“It doesn’t. And you’re right, she’s confused as hell. It’s been a weird week of trying to work through it.” He glances back. “Look at you with your maternal instincts.”
To my surprise, I blush a little. I don’t admit to being insecure about much, but motherhood is intimidating to say the least. The fact that I’m open to even wanting it speaks volumes.
“I had to have a talk with her the other night,” he says, releasing my hand to unlock the door. “We got into stuff I’d been avoiding. It was beginning to feel—well, unavoidable.”
“Like what?” I ask as he leads me inside.
“Her mom.”
Instinctively, my heart clenches. I know how hard it is for Andrew to talk about Shana with adults—but Bell? At the same time, I can�
�t fathom what Bell must be thinking. “How did it go?” I ask hesitantly, unsure if he’s open to discussing it.
“It wasn’t easy. But nothing ever is where Shana’s concerned.”
“How’d Bell react?”
He pauses in the entryway and glances down at me, as if he’s debating how to respond. Or if he should. I realize with a painful pang that he doesn’t want to tell me, even after all this. I’ve tried to pry him open before, but I only get so deep before he closes back up. Either he doesn’t trust me, or he’s still trying to preserve some part of himself.
Before either of us can speak, an elderly woman comes out of the kitchen. “Andrew, honey,” she says, “I was worried when I got Pico’s call to bring Bell here. Is everything all right?” Her gaze stops on me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I had a hell of a night, and I had to run into the city to get Amelia.”
“Ohh,” she says, nodding. She offers her hand with a knowing smile. “The city. Then I guess that would make you the city girl.”
“The city girl . . .?” I take her hand as a slow, uncertain smile spreads across my face. I hope she hasn’t just embarrassed him by mentioning some girl from his past. I am a city girl, but Andrew hasn’t even opened up to Sadie about us. “Um, I’m not—I don’t think he’s talking about—”
“She is,” Andrew says, seemingly amused by my mumbling. “This is her. Amelia, meet Flora. How’d Bell do tonight?”
“Fine, fine.” Flora doesn’t spare Andrew a glance as she puts her other hand over mine. “It is so, so lovely to meet you. We all adore Andrew and want to see him happy.”
Andrew glares at her. “Flora. Maybe you’re jumping the gun a bit?”
She releases me and picks up a sweater off the back of the couch. She places it over her shoulders. “I hope not, dear. I really hope not.”
“I’m staying in the guest room,” I blurt. They both look at me, and my cheeks burn. “It’s just—” I start. “I don’t want you to think . . . with Bell, I’m not trying to—”
Flora chuckles. “Stay wherever you like,” she says. “Personally, I think it’s a waste to dirty two sets of sheets.” She leans in toward me. “If you only knew what I’d give up to spend a night next to a man like this.”
The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue Book 2) Page 33
