The Hardest Fall (Roadmap to Your Heart Book 3)

by Christina Lee

  “It might not be worth it to repair cracked leather or worn in soles because of the cost. But it’s totally up to you,” Annie was saying as I fished my phone out of my pocket and punched in the number to text Tate.

  The customer seemed disappointed by the information Annie had given her, so she collected her pair of black bowtie heels and headed toward the door. It was our policy to be upfront with our patrons rather than charge them an exorbitant amount when something simple broke weeks later. Vintage shoes were sort of like antique cars. It took several costly steps to keep them in working condition.

  “Tate seems like a cool guy,” Annie said as she tipped her head toward my phone, which now seemed heavy in my hand. I ignored the gleam in her eye along with the clenched muscles in my stomach. What in the hell was she thinking?

  “He is, I guess,” I said, clearing my throat. “I don’t know him that well.”

  “We were thinking of heading up to Ruby Redd’s to see his show,” she said. “Do you know what nights he performs?”

  My answer would implicate me either way. “I think he said Fridays and Saturdays. You could probably find it on the website.”

  I looked down at my phone and typed.

  Sebastian here. Your shoes are all set.

  My palms grew sweaty as I waited for his response and I could feel Annie watching me as I grabbed the next pink ticket and searched for the tall brown boots along the wall that needed a new zipper.

  “How was your anniversary night, by the way?” I asked in an effort to keep the scrutiny away from me. But also because I told myself I would try to get to know Annie better.

  Her head snapped up, as if stunned. I was such a dick. I could talk to homeless people until I was blue in the face, but I couldn’t even make a connection with my own employee. My father used to say it was because I had to be guarded as a kid living on the streets, and then again in foster care. I didn’t know whom to trust. He was right in a way, but that had been years ago. I should have gotten better at it by now.

  “It was great,” she said with a genuine smile, as if fondly remembering the evening. “We ate steaks off the grill on our back patio with an expensive bottle of wine.”

  I was sincerely glad that Annie was so happy in her relationship. She had been such a loyal and trusted friend to my dad and though I didn’t know her in the same way, it was obvious that she was good people. “Perfect. You don’t hear that very much in the city.”

  It was rare to have any kind of outdoor space around here. Annie lived in a first floor apartment on St. Marks in the East Village, which happened to boast a courtyard out her back door.

  She smiled as my phone buzzed in my hand. I handed the boots to Annie and paced back to my office as nonchalantly as I could so she wouldn’t see how eager I was over a message from Tate.

  Tate: Cool. I can’t swing by right now. I’m in the middle of filming a video.

  What the what?

  A video? Like a porno? Sorry couldn’t resist.

  Tate: Wouldn’t you like to know? LOL. No, a makeup tutorial on YouTube, something my roommate, Tori, talked me into.

  I tried to thrust the idea of Tate filming porn out of my head. So he had a roommate. I wondered if she was a longtime friend. Did she know about Alan? More pieces of Tate’s life that I was curious about.

  Not a bad idea. Bet you’ll get a ton of followers.

  Tate: Now you sound like Tori. ;-) Thanks! I guess we’ll see.

  Walking to the front of the store, I reached for the next pink-ticket order. A leather bag that needed a handle repair. Easy enough. Annie was already at the sewing machine working on the boot zipper. I sat down at the empty workspace across the room and got started on the bag. I smoothed it out on the table and looked down at my phone again, an idea taking center stage. I typed the message before I chickened out.

  Listen, how about I just drop the shoes off at your place after closing? I’ll be volunteering at Safe Harbor again tonight.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my trousers.

  Tate: Is that an every night thing?

  Nah, two times a week unless I’m swamped at the shop.

  Tate: Okay, sounds good. The address is 34 Carmine. Buzz number 6. See you later.

  My pulse skyrocketed at the idea of seeing Tate again. I should bring the envelope with me. I could tell him everything and then walk away. It would be best to do it at his apartment—a place he felt safe. The idea sat like a heavy stone in my gut the rest of the afternoon.

  At the end of my very distractible day, I begin packing up when I noticed Annie doing the same. We had an established routine where I took care of the clean-up at the back of the store and she tidied up the front. Tickets stayed with orders in a pile on the middle table and one of us swept the floor of loose thread, rivets, and leather cuttings that got lost in the process.

  “I haven’t seen your friend come in for his shoes,” she said, storing away the large button and rivet bins. “Were you able to contact him?”

  I felt my face heat up. “I’m uh, actually going to drop them off at his apartment on my way to Safe Harbor.”

  Annie’s mouth dropped open but she recovered quickly as she studied me, possibly hoping for me to elaborate, especially since I had said earlier that I didn’t know him very well. “Well, that’s nice of you.”

  I swallowed roughly as I silently swept the floor pondering how I never talked much about anybody, outside of the people I had come to admire at Safe Harbor. Annie had briefly met the women I’d dated over the years, but outside of my volunteer work I was a pretty simple man who enjoyed the creature comforts of home.

  Annie had known Alan from my childhood. As we continued our friendship through adulthood, I could tell she didn’t like him much, though I could never figure out why. Not that I asked. But maybe she saw something in him that I had been ignoring all those years. Besides, he was obviously unfaithful to his wife.

  As we walked onto the street together, I turned in the opposite direction as Annie. She grinned sneakily. “Have a good night.”

  12

  Sebastian

  I’d been buzzed up to the third floor in a pretty decent building despite the worn carpet. Affordable real estate was hard to find in Manhattan, so I was lucky to have inherited my dad’s first floor walk down unit on a nice street in the city. He’d bought it in the 90s prior to the housing boom and it was still in decent shape, though it had needed updating.

  A pretty girl with brown hair swept back in a trendy pompadour answered the door. Her attractiveness barely registered however, because my pulse was thrumming in my ears about seeing Tate again. Damn, this felt so backwards and upside down. I wondered what it was about him that triggered this in me, or opened me up to feelings in myself that had been hidden.

  “You here for Tate?” the girl asked with a dazzling smile. “I’m Tori.”

  “Sebastian,” I said as she moved aside to let me in. “Nice to meet you.”

  I took in the small apartment as I stepped through the door. The tiny kitchen was to the right, the living room to the left, and on opposite sides of the unit were two doors to what I assumed were bedrooms.

  “Tate’s in the bathroom, washing off his makeup,” Tori said, and then I heard a muffled noise from behind the closed door. “He says he’ll be out in a minute.”

  I stood awkwardly holding a plastic bag that contained the box with Tate’s shoes until she pointed to them. “So you were able to stretch the Louboutins for him?”

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty simple process if you have the right tools.” I set the bag down on the table and pulled out the slim box. “Did these once to belong to you?”

  “I got them from a style shoot.” She motioned down to her feet. “We don’t wear the same size so when I saw an eleven, I grabbed them.”

  The size difference between men and women wasn’t something that I had ever considered before in this context. Sure, I was aware of such things during intimate moments, but women came in diff
erent shapes and measurements and some did not appreciate being handled with kid gloves or being viewed as delicate, which was fine by me. I respected women who were fierce and feminine. Sort of like Annie. And maybe even my mom.

  “Bet he’s sorry he can’t borrow your clothes,” I said because she was pretty petite and Tate was tall with some lean muscle mass. We were about the same height but I was thicker than him, just from genetics alone. Christ, listen to me.

  “Thank God,” she said, laughing. “He’d be stealing my stuff left and right.”

  “Hey, I heard that,” Tate said emerging from the bathroom. The man was breathtaking with his face mostly scrubbed of makeup except for a smudge of mascara and black eyeliner left beneath his lashes. His lips were shiny pink as if he’d used lip-gloss just to torture me and I could barely draw my eyes away.

  After a long moment of staring, I sprang my ass into motion, lifting the stilettos from the box. “You should try them on in case Annie needs to stretch them more.”

  Tori made herself comfortable on the couch as Tate drew the first heel out of the case and bent over to place it on his foot.

  “How did the video making go?” I asked.

  Tori held up her tablet from where it had been resting on her knees. “We’ve got a few dozen hits already.”

  Tate paused with the second pump in his hand to look at her. “Seriously?”

  “Told you so,” she said and then winked at me. “He’s going to go viral soon.”

  “Well of course,” Tate said now standing full height with both stilettos on his feet and his hip cocked to the side. “I’m that awesome.”

  Tori laughed and then rolled her eyes as she smirked in my direction. All it took was a pair of heels to get Tate back in character.

  “Is that what you want, Tate?” I asked, amused at his display.

  He looked at me curiously while chewing his bottom lip. “I’m not entirely sure. But it was a blast to do.”

  “Well, that’s important,” I said, thinking about our earlier conversation about finding a job.

  Our eyes held for probably entirely too long and I head Tori clear her throat. “So how do the shoes feel?”

  Tate snapped out of it and began prancing around the house in his tight jeans, T-shirt and pumps, while Tori clapped and laughed.

  He was a natural in those heels. The shirt he wore today had a simple rainbow painted in a faint wash across the front, so he must’ve had quite a collection. I was curious about his designs so I made a mental note to check out his website next time I was in front of my laptop.

  “They feel great,” he said as he neared the kitchen table. “How much do I owe you?’

  I held up my hands to brush him off. “First time is on us.”

  “No way, that’s your livelihood,” he scoffed. “I want to pay.”

  “A shoe stretch is nothing.” I shrugged, making sure not to mention the other small details Annie had decided to add. “It’s like a shoe shine.”

  “Pay him back with a specially designed shirt,” Tori said with a gleam in her eye.

  I couldn’t imagine which saying Tate would possibly select for me.

  “Where exactly do you create your shirts?” I asked looking around the small space. I tried to envision where he’d do the work in this apartment.

  “It only takes a few supplies.” He motioned to what looked like a crate tucked beneath the end table near the couch. “I use the kitchen table a couple of times a week. If I was still creating screen-print designs, it would be way messier.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s a neat freak so I’d hardly even notice,” Tori said, twirling her finger. As a matter of fact, I did detect how clean the space was when I first walked inside.

  “I can’t say the same about my roommate,” Tate replied as she retreated to her room, giving him the one finger salute over her shoulder.

  “Got stuff to do,” Tori said. “Nice meeting you.”

  She closed her bedroom door, leaving us standing alone.

  Tate leaned against the wall, looking completely comfortable in his own skin. “You want me to design something for you, Sebastian?”

  I took the opportunity to check him out more thoroughly as I pretended to think about his question. His shoulders filled out the shirt he had on the same way his thighs filled out his jeans. “They’re really cool. What would mine say?”

  “I’ll think of something good,” he said, with a sexy smirk on his perfectly proportioned face. Christ, why did his low voice make my palms all sweaty? This had never happened to me before—especially not with a guy who was wearing pumps and a trace of eyeliner, living with a perfectly gorgeous woman. But it was as if Tori hadn’t even been in the room as the air between us grew thick and heated.

  “Well,” I said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and confused over all the staring we’d been doing. I certainly did not want to send the wrong message, even though that sounded like a cop out. My head was a jumbled mess. “I better get going.”

  “You heading to Safe Harbor again?” Tate asked as he tugged the heels from his feet.

  I smiled that he remembered the name. “I am. Don’t want to miss serving dinner.”

  Turning toward the door, I heard the uncertainty in his voice. “Hey um…could you use an extra set of hands tonight?”

  My stomach tightened but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. “Always.”

  13

  Tate

  I told Sebastian that I’d meet him downstairs in five minutes. He said he’d grab us coffees across the street and I wanted the opportunity to change and wipe the rest of the makeup from my face. It was also me needing an additional breather after having inviting myself to volunteer with him. Plus, having him in my personal space had left me feeling unsettled.

  “Tori, I’m on my way out,” I said, standing at the threshold of her room.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. She knew something was strange, or off about me the past few days. The only other time I had acted this distracted was when I was hiding a relationship and that had fucked up my brain. I did not want to do that again.

  When Tori had called me at NC State last year to tell me she read in the business section of the Times that Alan died, it had wrecked me.

  I knew we could never be together again, but to think that a person I once loved was gone from this earth had left me bereft for several long days. Even my friends at the university didn’t know what to do with me. Dean had already moved to Florida and he was the only person I felt would understand at the time. I had always been the jokester of the group, the life of the party, so they were confused by the sudden change.

  But his death had also left the door open for me to return to the city when Tori’s roommate moved out and she offered her apartment for rent. It had been time to stop hiding and take back my life.

  “I’m going to hang out with Sebastian.” I tried to sound nonchalant. “He uh, volunteers at a soup kitchen.”

  Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t ask, Tori,” I said, edging away from the door. “I’ll talk about it later.”

  “That man is into you,” she said pointing her finger at me.

  “He’s straight,” I said, though I couldn’t deny that he must’ve found me either attractive or interesting because there was plenty of staring and something like electricity between us. But the man thought he was hetero so who was I to mess with that logic?

  “He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you,” she hissed as if I was to blame.

  “Well, I am hot,” I placed my hands on my waist and jutted out my hip.

  “Don’t joke, Tate,” she said, like a disgruntled sibling. “It was mutual, don’t deny it. Maybe this is just what you need.”

  “To get involved with another supposed straight guy who wants to remain in the closet?” I bit out. I had every right to be cautious. I hadn’t been serious about any man since Alan. No way I’d let myself be sucked into someth
ing unhealthy again.

  “Of course not,” she said. “But you haven’t allowed yourself to enjoy somebody in a long time.”

  “I’ve enjoyed plenty,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.

  “For more than a one-time fuck,” she said, and then threw herself dramatically against her pillow. “You go ahead and keep wearing that invisible armor around yourself.”

  I leaned against the door jam. “Can you blame me?”

  “No, sweetie,” she sighed. “It’s just been far too long.”

  “Maybe.” I looked down at my fingernails, which were overdue for a manicure. “Maybe not.”

  Before I could make myself scarce, she held up her laptop. “Some of your new fans are leaving comments. You should keep talking. They liked the funny stories you shared in your introductory video.”

  “My specialty.” I waved as I went out the door. I could entertain the masses and gab about everything under the sun, except all the important stuff. Like loneliness and pain and always playing second fiddle to important people in my life.

  Sebastian was leaning against the brick wall sipping his coffee when I stepped onto the pavement. He looked so serene, so part of this city. So sexy.

  “Sugar, no cream,” he said, thrusting the other cup in my direction. “I needed a java fix. The coffee at the shelter is kind of weak.”

  When I fished the paper container out of his hand our fingers brushed and I noticed how his cheeks tinged pink.

  “I see you changed out of your shirt.” I liked that he noticed.

  After washing my face a second time, I had thrown on a plain white tee. “I didn’t want to…I wanted to be presentable.”

  “Nah, you should always just be yourself.” That comment lit a flame in my stomach. “These folks will never judge you. You’ll see.”

  And see I did. I immediately felt meek as soon as I walked inside the large brick building with the double glass doors. The structure itself was nondescript, and the inside looked pretty dull and shabby, which probably meant they could use all the donations they could get. But at least it was clean and it smelled good, like somebody had sprayed a floral scent or had lit candles.