by Talia Quinn
But she was family. The only one I had. So I added a postscript saying I loved her. Whatever that meant.
Chapter Thirteen
The subway station had a notice outside the turnstile saying the G train wasn’t running overnight. Which meant I was screwed. I could take the L, but the station was a mile away from my apartment, and I was lugging a heavy suitcase while carrying an unwieldy cardboard box.
Or I could spring for a taxi. The cab stand outside Penn Station was swarming with people coming from a concert at Madison Square Garden, so I walked two blocks uptown along Seventh Avenue and hailed cabs until my arm felt like it might fall off.
Finally, one pulled up at the curb. The driver popped the trunk and got out to help me with my bags. Thank God.
“Where are you going?” His Middle East accent was thick with new-to-America uncertainty.
I hesitated. I should go home. It was too late to go anywhere else. And yet… “The Upper West Side.”
As Times Square flashed past, I called Dylan. His phone rang through to voice mail.
It was midnight. What was I doing?
Same thing I’d done the first time I went to see him. I was flying without a net. Stepping outside my own personal rules.
Riding in the backseat of a cab heading up Broadway toward the only person I could imagine giving me comfort tonight.
~*~
He wasn’t home. Or, at least, he wasn’t answering the doorman’s call.
“Can you try again?” I stood in the ornate lobby, clutching my cardboard box stuffed with painful memories, my suitcase leaning against my shin. What now? Find an all-night diner and wait out the subway changeover? Hope for a cabbie willing to take me over the bridge? A car service?
My chest hurt.
The doorman gave me a kindly look. “I’m sorry. Why don’t you sit for a bit?” He gestured toward the leatherette bench against the far wall.
Before I could gather my things and trudge over there, the front door swung open and Dylan walked in with a woman. She was imposingly tall, with her dark hair upswept and her makeup perfectly applied. She was half-turned toward him, and they were both laughing.
Somehow I hadn’t pictured this.
Nothing for it. I smiled. Fake and wide. “There you are.”
Dylan stopped laughing. “Samantha?”
The woman craned her head around, gazing at me with annoyance.
“I thought I’d stop by and say hi. But you’re busy, so I’ll go. No problem. I’ll talk to you soon.” I clutched the box against my chest and felt around for the suitcase handle.
“No. Wait.” He stepped forward and took the box out of my arms. “You should come up and—” Belatedly, he glanced over at his companion. “Can we take a rain check on drinks?” Was it wrong that I was pleased to see how much of an afterthought she was?
“Of course.” Her smile was faker than mine had been. “Family takes precedence.”
“Samantha’s a friend.”
Her smile froze in place. “Even better.” She brushed a kiss on his cheek and gave me a condescending wave, then rushed outside.
“I don’t want to cock-block you. I’ll go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Rochelle is a friend from high school. She’s in town for the week from California.”
And she expected to get in your pants tonight. But I followed him to the elevator shaft, smiling to myself because he didn’t act disappointed in the least.
He pressed the elevator button and turned to me. “Are you okay? I thought you were staying in Pennsylvania until Monday. You said you’d call me, not…”
“Show up on your doorstep like an orphan from a Dickens story?”
The elevator door opened. We stepped on, my wheeled suitcase following us. The doors closed, and we rose up. Those mirrored walls, those mahogany strips along the edges. They kept reflecting intense moments in my life. The first time I came here, wearing a red corset and vibrating with tension and anticipation. The second time, with Dylan after the hospital, steamy and ultimately thwarted. Now? The mirror reflected travel-worn me and scruffy, jeans-clad, so-familiar Dylan.
I met his gaze in the mirror. “I’m sorry to barge in on you.”
“Stop apologizing. I’m glad you’re here.” He sounded sincere, but his breath had a wine taste to it, and the way that woman had been leaning in, well…
I gripped the metal handle of the suitcase. “I was tired, and they’re doing track work on the G, which is the closest to my apartment.” And I wanted to see you. “You’ve never been there, have you?”
“Are you inviting me over?”
I pictured him sitting on the floor, eating pizza and tossing a handful of poker chips on our unconventional coffee table. “Not tonight, but yeah. Why not?”
His smile crinkled his eyes. “I’d like that.”
The elevator door opened, and we walked down the hallway to his apartment, my suitcase trundling behind us like an unusually obedient toddler.
He ushered me inside. “Have you eaten?”
“Hors d’oeuvres at the reception. Lasagna for dinner. Microwaved hot dog on the train.”
“You had an appetite for all that?”
“A few bites of the hot dog. It was pretty bad.” I realized I was gripping the metal handle of the suitcase as if I was planning to leave. So I slid it back into the suitcase frame and went over to the couch. I was here. I might as well be here.
Dylan settled on the couch next to me and set the box on the floor. “What happened, really?”
I hesitated.
He took my hand in both of his. “Samantha.”
I cocked my head, questioning.
He dropped my hand, as if realizing he shouldn’t be so intimate. I could feel the reverberations of that electric warmth like an echo up my arm.
“My aunt gave me this. And I couldn’t stay after that. Here, see.” I knelt by the box, opened it, and pulled out the first thing my fingers touched, which turned out to be a blue ribbon for horsemanship with my mother’s name down the side.
My mother was a horsewoman? I looked at the year and did the math. A horse-mad preteen girl. The ribbon color was faded except for the slice of fabric right along a crease, where it was still vivid aqua.
I put it back in the box and rummaged around again, pulling out a sheaf of photos. I handed them to Dylan. “My grandfather had them in his room in the nursing home. My brusque, dry-as-dust grandfather had a hidden sentimental streak. Go figure.”
He took the pictures and leafed through them. When he was done, he held out his hand for more. I gave him another sheaf, and we looked through them together. They were in poor condition. Many were stained or creased, or their edges were ragged. Had it been my mother’s negligence, or my grandfather’s?
“Your mother laughed a lot, it seems.”
“Until she didn’t.” In the photo, she was standing in a field, her head thrown back, her mouth open. A completely unselfconscious belly laugh. My father looked on from the side of the frame, smiling at her pleasure. They were so young.
Dylan flipped through the stack of pictures and asked questions as he went. I started telling him stories, and all kinds of memories came gushing out. Like water from a faucet I’d kept shut off for a decade—rusty at first but growing stronger and cleaner the more it flowed.
For the first time in a long time, I remembered what was good and fun and happy about my mother. She loved the beach, the woods, the mountains. Reveled in being outdoors.
She loved my father desperately and would make elaborate meals every weekend, whether for the three of us or for a crowd of people. She was lovely and giddy and charming and sweet.
And only had eyes for my father. Every photo of the two of them showed her gazing up at him. Every photo he took showed her looking lovingly into the camera. I commented on this to Dylan, and he nodded. “I noticed that too. It looks like he defined her world.”
Somewhere along the way, Dylan and I both slid down to the f
loor, our backs against the couch. I leaned into his side, and he put his arm around me. It felt so natural, I didn’t question it.
I stared down at a photo of my mother and me together. She was staring off into the distance. I was looking up at her, yearning for something I’d never have.
Dylan contemplated it. “You were a loving kid.”
“A lot of good it did me.”
“It’s not about that, not always. It’s about who you are, deep down.” He pulled out another photo. It depicted me gazing into the camera, dressed up as a pirate, with a smile that lit up my little face. “This is you.”
I traced the white crease that ran through the image, slicing across my childhood likeness’s sun-dappled arm and vest. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For letting me crash in your apartment. For looking at all this with me.” I gestured toward the dusty photos scattered across the rug. “Helping me face the scary monsters.”
“My pleasure.” He brushed a stray hair out of my face. “I mean that, Samantha.”
We sat like that for a long heartbeat, staring at each other. Then I set the photo down on the carpet and leaned forward. Deliberately, giving him time to pull away.
He didn’t pull away.
It was different, this kiss. Softer. Like hello and welcome. It made my body melt, a subtle hunger, yearning for more. Lips and tongues and short sharp breaths. I caressed the back of his neck, running my fingertips across the tiny short hairs, pulling him closer. He moaned deep in his throat—
And pulled away. “We can’t.” He rubbed his cheeks vigorously.
I sat back. “Right. That woman, your high school friend. I shouldn’t have…”
Dylan looked baffled. “Oh, Rochelle? No, that’s—she’s—” He hesitated. “I haven’t, not since you. And I thought I should. But I was already having second thoughts. I’d decided to share a bottle of wine, kiss her on the cheek, and send her on her way.”
“Oh.” The unfamiliar warmth in my chest was relief. “But then why not?”
“Because you’re not ready for a real relationship. And I’m not interested in anything else.” He sagged back against the couch. “And because a friend doesn’t take advantage of another friend’s grief.”
I smoothed his cheek with the back of my hand, relishing the roughness of his stubble against my skin. “What if I want you to take advantage?”
He put his hand over mine, stopping me. “It’s not up to you.” He pulled me against him. “Stop being seductive. It won’t work.” The bulge in his jeans gave the lie to his words, but that wasn’t what he meant.
I pulled away. “I should go.”
“Go where? It’s two a.m. Stay.”
“But…” I gestured between us. My hair fell forward, shielding my face.
He drew it back, tucked it behind my ears, just as he had before. An achingly tender gesture. “I think I can manage to keep my hands off you. Can you promise the same?”
I sucked in my bottom lip. God, he was hot. Disheveled, his dress shirt wrinkled from slouching against the couch, his five o’clock shadow more like a dark scrub across his cheeks and chin, his hair in clumps.
Desire snaked up my spine. I wanted to use his body to help me forget. No, to center me, to connect, to feel alive and whole and…
He was right. This was getting too complicated. Sex wasn’t merely sex anymore. If it ever had been.
I gathered the scattered photos, piled them neatly, and squared off the stack. “Where do I sleep? Here, on the couch?”
“Or you can crash in my bed. It’s king-size, after all. Plenty of room.” He got up and headed into his bedroom without glancing back.
By the time I got to the doorway of his room, Dylan was peeling off his jeans. “I’m assuming you have nightclothes in your luggage, but if not, you can borrow a T-shirt.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“After the day you’ve had, I don’t like the idea of you spending the night alone on the couch. But it’s up to you.” Dylan unbuttoned his shirt and removed it. Now he only wore loose-fitting boxers. I tried not to look at the play of muscles along his back and legs as he folded the edge of the comforter down, revealing deep blue flannel sheets. The sheets had been pale gray the night I’d met him. I remembered straddling him on those sheets. I remembered kisses, caresses, feeling him move inside me, a feeling of completeness…
I fled to the living room.
~*~
The couch was so plush, I sank into it. Like riding the tide in a saltwater pond, I floated, semisubmerged. Dylan had given me a soft blanket, but I kicked it off. It made me feel like I was in a suffocating cocoon.
I stared up at the ceiling. First, I sleepily watched the play of light from outside, then I gradually shifted my attention to the crown molding. It was an unusual pattern: geometric shapes, squares and triangles in repeating patterns. Staring up through the earliest-morning dawn gloom, I could make out the drips and globs of a careless paint job. Too bad. It was probably a good hardwood underneath.
This wasn’t working. It was after six a.m. and I was nowhere near sleep. Too aware of my incongruous presence in Dylan’s silent living room, with its hand-carved chair and elegant side table. Dylan’s handiwork, his presence in absentia. And then there were my grandfather’s photos, stacked neatly next to the cardboard box I’d lugged all the way from Pennsylvania. Two wineglasses rested on the side table, the few drops of wine remaining looking like congealed bloodstains in the dark.
I went down the short hall and peeked into the bedroom. Dylan was fast asleep, sprawled across his enormous bed. He’d put on sweatpants, but he’d thrown the cover off. The sweet curve of his back and ridge of shoulder blades were gently illuminated by the brightening dawn. I could picture going over to the bed, the mattress settling under my weight, and caressing the revealed skin. He’d be half-asleep, with morning wood. He wouldn’t be thinking about shouldn’t and complicated. It would be easy to seduce him.
My body responded instantly to the idea. So easy. Shut off my brain and fuck him senseless.
So easy to sabotage a fragile, precious friendship in a single stupid maneuver.
I retreated to the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of water. Holding the blue-rimmed Mexican tumbler, I walked back out through the dining area to the living room area. There should be an arch separating the two spaces.
Sure enough, when I went to the spot, I saw a patchwork of short floorboards where the half-wall must have been. An arch with built-ins, painted cream with darker colors in the nooks to make a few well-chosen small sculptures stand out. Yes, that would work. I grabbed a pen from the kitchen counter and the only paper I could find—a takeout menu from the local Japanese restaurant—and started sketching. If the arch went here and the wall dividing the crying-out-for-a-remodel kitchen from the dining room were gone, then…
Yes, that could work, and then…
The sky lightened, which was good, because I could see my work better.
The fireplace was a problem. Someone had blocked it up somewhere along the way, though you could see the original ornate woodwork running up the sides. But it had no mantel.
I set my pen down and went over to investigate. It was behind Dylan’s carved wood chair, so I tugged on that to move it out of the way. The chair was heavier than it looked. I had to pick it up to get it past the edge of the carpet. It dropped back down with a loud thunk.
Ah yes. I ran my hand along the fireplace. The mantel had been along the wall here. The current wall would have to be reinforced, but if you used a lighter wood for a new mantel…
“Decided to rearrange my furniture in the middle of the night?” Dylan stood by the couch, blinking sleepily as he rubbed a hand over his stubble.
I hastily pulled my hand away from the plaster, as if I’d been caught caressing his skin. “Thinking about what could be done with this place if you wanted to put in the money.”
“You c
an’t exactly move that wall, you know. It’s an outside wall. Might get chilly. And wet, when it rains.”
I frowned at him. “I was trying to see how hard it would be to add a new mantel. If you want to restore this fireplace, which maybe you don’t.”
“Hmm.” He headed toward the kitchen but paused when he saw the takeout menu with my scribbles all over it. He picked it up. “You’ve been at this awhile. Did you get any sleep?”
I suppressed a yawn. “Some. I think.”
He glanced over at the open cardboard box. “Too many ghosts?”
“Something like that.”
He went into the kitchen and started up the coffeemaker.
I followed him in. “I should get out of your hair. Let you get on with your day.” The coffeemaker gurgled, and the dark, rich scent wafted up. “Is there enough for me to have a cup before I go?”
“Of course.” He picked up the former takeout menu and looked from it to the space around us. “Can you explain this? What does this mean?” He pointed to the lines I’d made sketching in the arch.
So I explained. We sat in the breakfast nook, coffee mugs in hand and toasted bagels slathered with cream cheese on plates in front of us, and I gestured around the room and talked about the history of architecture design on the Upper West Side and what this place must have looked like a hundred years ago. Dylan leaned forward, his coffee forgotten. He asked intelligent questions. I answered as best I could, hoping my memory from grad school classes was accurate, and talked more. I felt dizzy with exhaustion, my eyes sticky from lack of sleep. The room was hazy and soft, but his face was sharply in focus.
At some point, I realized I’d stopped talking and was staring at him. His eyes. So brown. So perceptive. So deep. His eyebrows. So fuzzy. So dark. His refined nose. Aquiline, that was the word. Roman. A strong nose.
“Samantha?”
I startled. I’d been drifting. Half-asleep. Dreaming of Dylan’s nose. “Yes. I’m here.” I rubbed my face vigorously. “I need more coffee.” I took a big gulp of the now-lukewarm liquid.
