by Julie Kriss
“Hey,” she said, coming into the room and pushing her sunglasses up on her head. Scout jumped off the sofa, wagging her whole body at Evie in greeting, and then jumped back up, adoring Nick again. Evie’s smile faltered a little when she caught the vibe between Nick and me.
“Um,” she said, “are you guys done?”
“We’re done,” Nick said, picking up his notebook and pencil and putting them in his bag. His tone was calm.
“Sure,” I said. “We’re done.”
“Okay. This was on your porch.” Evie scooped up Scout and held out a piece of paper to me. I took it. It was a flyer advertising the neighborhood barbecue on Saturday. “Games for the kids!” it said, in Comic Sans font, the paper printed at the local Kinko’s. “Burgers! Dogs! Come have fun and meet your neighbors!”
I tossed the flyer aside. Nick and Evie left, and I wheeled to the kitchen to get myself a sandwich. It was physiotherapy day, and my head hurt like hell.
Twenty-Three
Tessa
* * *
I had been to dozens of casting calls in my career. I’d made sacrifices. I’d stood in many studios just like this one, smiling for the camera. Modeling was my dream and my career.
Today I didn’t want to do any of it.
I was standing in my underwear, doing the easiest job in the world, and I didn’t really want to be here. It was cold, and I was hungry because I’d skipped breakfast for black coffee in order to look thin. But aside from that, there was something just… off. I didn’t feel the happiness I usually felt doing this.
Honestly, I wanted to be wearing sweats and a stretched-out T-shirt, lounging on Andrew Mason’s sofa, listening to him shoot barbs at me. Eating his pickles. I itched to text him every time we had a pause, but I refrained. It would seem clingy, like I was feeling sappy about him. He’d probably hate it.
Besides, I wasn’t feeling sappy about him. At all.
Last night was good. Really, really good. But I didn’t do relationships, and neither did he. We had a thing. It was a good thing, but it was just a thing. Not a sappy, messy commitment.
We were on the final few products for the catalog, which included a strapless bra and one with criss-crossed straps. When we finally took a break, I sipped my lemon water and stared at my phone, pondering for the thousandth time whether I should text Andrew. As I was moping over it, the phone rang in my hand.
It was my mother. I did a quick calculation: It was around noon in Colorado. What the hell was she calling me for?
“Hey Mom,” I said when I answered, trying not to sound put out.
“I can’t believe you,” my mother said.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The money.” My mother usually had a chill hippie attitude, but she could get petty and angry. Right now she was both. “You’re just going to keep it, aren’t you? You’re not going to share any of it with me.”
“What money?”
She made a disbelieving sound. “You’re going to pretend you don’t know about the money? I talked to the lawyer, Tessa. He said he sent you a letter about it.”
The lawyer had sent me a letter? If it had come to my grandmother’s house, I hadn’t seen it. But then again, I hadn’t been home yesterday. I’d worked all day and all night, then I’d stayed the night at Andrew’s. “Wait a minute,” I said to Mom. “You’re saying that aside from the house, Grandma left me money?”
“All of her money,” Mom said. “Including the money left to her when my father died and she got a life insurance payout. She left you everything, and she didn’t leave any of it to her own daughter.”
I blinked in shock. I realized I was standing in the dressing room in my underwear, and I grabbed a robe and pulled it on, wrapping it around me. “I didn’t know about the money, Mom,” I said. “I swear I didn’t.”
“Well,” she said, only half believing me, “I’m a little short right now, and I need funds. If you could send some, it would be great. Considering it’s really both of our inheritance.”
I opened my mouth, and the words that were going to come out were the ones without thinking: Yes Mom, sure, of course you’re right. The words were right there on my tongue. And then I stopped myself.
I hadn’t known my grandmother. I’d never talked to her. I didn’t know her before she died. Whose fault was that? My mother’s, for sure. Maybe my grandmother’s, too. Maybe all three of us took some of the blame.
The point was, I didn’t have the chance to ask what my grandmother was thinking. But instead of that, her will left a pretty clear message.
“Grandma didn’t want you to have her money,” I told Mom. “She wanted me to have it.”
“Don’t be silly, Tessa. Of course my mother wanted me to have some of that money.”
“Then why didn’t she leave it to you in the will?”
“We were having a bit of an argument, that’s all. We weren’t getting along.”
“Mom, you weren’t getting along with Grandma for twenty-seven years.”
“She had a closed mind,” Mom said. “She didn’t understand your father and me.”
I thought about my grandmother in that house, watching her pregnant nineteen-year-old daughter drive away with her boyfriend forever, telling her to fuck off as she went. “Maybe she didn’t understand, but probably because she was worried about you. She didn’t want you to make a mistake.”
“So you’re taking sides, then?”
Again, the words tried to come out: No, of course not, I’ll do what you want, sorry. But I could feel a current of something stubborn and resistant in my blood. Maybe it was anger; maybe it was the spirit of my grandma, telling me what her wishes were. “So you left your mom, you cut her out of your life, you kept her granddaughter away from her, and now you think she owes you her money?” I said. “I think maybe she’d disagree.”
Mom was starting to get angry now. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You don’t understand anything.”
“How many times did she call you, Mom?” I said. “How many times did she beg to have a relationship with you again over the last twenty-seven years? And a relationship with me?”
Mom was silent, which answered my question.
“A dozen?” I asked her. “A hundred? You were her only child, and I was her only grandchild, and you made the decision to cut us off. You did that. You didn’t even go to the funeral when your dad died. Grandma lived the rest of her life a lonely old lady, and she died alone. And now you think you should get her money.”
“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” Mom said. “I didn’t raise you to be disrespectful.”
“You didn’t raise me at all.” The crew at the other end of the studio could probably hear me; they were glancing at me uneasily. I didn’t care. The words came out hot and unstoppable, like lava. “You left me to fend for myself while creeps leered at me as soon as I turned thirteen. You never came to a single school event or parent-teacher meeting. I was barely even supervised most of the time—I just ran around free. Anything could have happened to me. And when I was suicidal at seventeen, I went to the hospital and asked for help alone. You weren’t even in the country.”
“So that’s it,” Mom said. “You’re going to blame me for all of your problems.”
Something shot through my blood like fire, and I realized it was anger. Pure rage. When I’d left the hospital after three weeks of treatment, no longer a danger to myself, Mom had argued against me getting therapy or medication. She’d said they “weren’t natural,” and that I just needed to “work through” my problems. As if I’d imagined it all. As if none of those feelings were real.
So I’d left home. I’d headed for L.A. to try for an acting and modeling career. And I had gotten therapy, when I could afford it—which was rarely. I’d built my life, built myself, all alone, out of nothing. No wonder the person I’d built was a fucking mess.
“I’m taking Grandma’s money,” I told Mom. “I’m going to go t
o nursing school. I’m going to build a life for myself. I think that’s what she wanted.”
“Oh, Tessa.” Mom sounded exasperated. “For God’s sake, you can’t be a nurse.”
“Why not?”
“It just isn’t you.”
They were motioning for me to come back to the set, wind up the shoot. The break was over. “You mean I’m not smart enough,” I said. “You don’t think I can do it.”
“It isn’t fair,” Mom said. “You’re going to waste that money.”
I felt like she’d slapped me. Even after all of the years, with how well I knew my mother, it still hurt, how selfish she was. How blind she was to the pain she caused everyone. “Then I guess I’ll waste the money,” I said. “Bye, Mom.”
I hung up. I turned off my phone.
Then I dropped my robe and said, “Let’s go.”
Twenty-Four
Andrew
* * *
I was lying on my sofa, reading comics. Okay, to be honest, I was drifting off—getting laid for the first time in seven years last night had been pretty eventful, and Jon had practically tortured me in my physio session today, making me work the functioning muscles in my legs until they screamed. “Someday they’re going to have a way for you to walk again, man,” he’d said with perfect confidence. “Science is moving fast. Your legs have to be ready.”
So I was dozing, imagining I could actually feel some of the pain below my knees, when my phone rang. I knocked the comic off my chest and saw that it was Tessa. “What’s up?” I asked when I answered.
“Were you asleep?” she asked. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I looked at the time: six o’clock. She should be working her shift at Miller’s right now. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Maybe? Yes. I think? I’m coming over.”
“What?” I sat up and checked the security feed. Sure enough, Tessa was coming out of her front door across the street, holding the phone to her ear, instead of pouring drinks at Miller’s. “Why aren’t you at work?” I asked her, running a hand through my hair.
“It’s a long story.” I watched her lock her door and start across the street. She was wearing a long sundress that went all the way down to her ankles, but I could still see how her body moved under the loose fabric. She had a bag over her shoulder. “I kind of don’t work at Miller’s anymore.”
“Kind of?”
“Okay, I completely don’t work there anymore. I got fired. It’s been kind of a crazy day.”
“All right,” I said. “Come in.”
I buzzed her in and moved my feet to the floor so I wasn’t hogging the sofa. Tessa came in, bringing the smell of sweet summer air with her. She’d had a shower and scrubbed her makeup off, and her hair was damp. Her eyes were a little wild. She was frazzled.
She dropped down onto the sofa next to me and smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said. “You don’t look upset that you got fired.”
“I’m not, really.” She bit her lip. “Actually, my boss asked me out again, and when I said no, he fired me. I told him he was an asshole, and I left.”
I stared at her. “Your boss fired you because you wouldn’t date him?”
“Pretty much. He also called me a cunt while I walked out the door.”
I felt my hands curl into the fabric of the sofa. “He called you what? I’ll go punch his fucking teeth in.” I didn’t know how I would do that, of course. I’d have to get over there first. Maybe I’d call a cab, or an Uber. I was willing to brave a car if it meant I could smash this guy’s face.
Tessa smiled at me, a dreamy sort of smile. “You’re awesome when you’re angry, but he isn’t worth the assault charge.”
“He can’t just do that,” I ground out.
“He already did, but forget it. I’m not upset, I promise. I didn’t want to work there anyway.”
I remembered that today was the last day of the photo shoot, so she didn’t have any more money coming in. “Are you going to get another job?”
“That’s just the thing,” Tessa said, opening her bag and pulling out papers. “I don’t have to rush to get another job. Because I got these today.”
She handed them to me, and I read them over. It was from Mrs. Welland’s estate lawyer, informing Tessa that she had inherited funds from her grandmother. I looked at the number and blinked. “Holy shit, Tessa. Even after the taxes and the rest of it, this is a pretty good amount of money.”
“I know. It won’t set me up for life, but I can get by for a little while, don’t you think?”
“Sure you can.” I looked up at her, then remembered it was dinner time. She never ate at photo shoots. “Are you hungry? I’ll get you a sandwich.”
She watched me lever myself off the couch and into my chair with widened eyes. “Andrew, no. I can get it myself.”
“Relax, I’ll get it.”
“Andrew.”
I held up a hand. “Bea Arthur. Remember? You’re being an ass. I can make sandwiches, despite the fact that I’m catastrophically infirm.”
She slumped a little. “Sorry. And I love it when you use big words. Which reminds me, I actually came over here to have sex.”
“I know, but now you have to wait for it.” I wheeled to the kitchen. “Keep talking.”
She kept talking as I made her sandwich, ugly mustard and all. She told me about the phone call from her mother, the argument over the money. Then, after getting fired from Miller’s, she’d gone home and found the letter from the lawyer in the mailbox. She’d just gotten off the phone with him.
“So, that’s it,” she said as I put her sandwich, pickle, and ginger ale down in front of her. “My bills are paid for a while. Which is weird, because right before it happened I was thinking I’d like to do a job with my clothes on for a change.”
I watched her inhale the sandwich—she was freaking starving—and said, “Nurses keep their clothes on. At least, the ones I know always do. You could use that money to go to nursing school.”
She swallowed her last bite, looking troubled. “My mother says I’ll fail and waste the money.”
“Your mother sounds like she doesn’t do much mothering, to be honest. I know the type well.”
Tessa poked at the crumbs on her plate. “Andrew, I’m an underwear model and bartender. Do you think I’m smart enough to go to nursing school?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. “I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, and I’ve met a lot of nurses. They’re great people. Hardworking, dedicated, smart people. You’re just as smart as any of them.”
“Ugh.” She let out a stressed-out sigh. “I’ve always wanted to do it, but now that it’s actually possible, I’m pretty much terrified.”
“You’ll do great,” I said.
She would. She’d work hard, and she’d be a great nurse. And then she’d meet a great guy, and I’d be left in the dust. But I wasn’t going to think about that now.
Tessa leaned back on the sofa and looked at me, sweeping her gaze up and down. “So you feed me and pay me compliments. That’s your plan to get me into bed?”
I steepled my fingers beneath my chin. “Mustard is part of my plan for seduction.”
“And ginger ale.”
“You’ve been ensnared in my web from the beginning. Admit it.”
She smiled, a sexy smile, a little mysterious. “Or maybe it’s you who has been ensnared in my web.”
Was she kidding? Tessa could snap her fingers and I’d do anything she wanted. Literally anything. It was all I could do to keep up the pretense, not to let on.
“Enough about my problems,” she said. She leaned forward on the sofa and put her elbows on the arms of my chair, looking up at me. “What do we do now?”
Our eyes locked, hers a shade of blue that made me think of the hot summer sky before a storm blew in. I felt a long, slow beat of fear, my old friend. This is going to hurt.
I pushed it away. I had a beautiful woman sitting right here, and she wanted
to sleep with me. We both wanted it, and there was no reason to say no. What would the old Andrew Mason do?
I knew the answer to that. So I said, “Now you take your dress off and go to the bedroom, and I’ll follow you.”
She blinked once. Those perfect long lashes sweeping down, then up. This was the moment when she could say she couldn’t do it, that she’d changed her mind, that she’d made a mistake.
But this wasn’t just any woman. This was Tessa.
She smiled at me.
“Okay,” she said.
Twenty-Five
Tessa
* * *
Andrew had said, this morning, that he thought he could make it good. He was right.
He kissed me for a long time first. A long time. Even though I was impatient, those kisses were like a drug, a balm. As he lay next to me, braced over me as he’d been last night, his mouth trailing warmly along my neck and up behind my ear, how did he know that was what I wanted? Someone to touch me like I mattered. I didn’t matter to anyone in my life: not my mother, not the shallow people at the modeling gig, not my boss who saw me as a piece of ass he could fire. To Andrew, I fucking mattered. How had I been without him for this long?
He ran his hands—his big, warm, wonderful hands—over me, and I closed my eyes. Everything disappeared. There was just the two of us, in this room, right now. I was hot and giddy at the same time. I get Andrew all to myself! Just me! Part of me couldn’t quite believe it was happening.
His hand slipped down between my legs, and I tangled my fingers in his hair. It was soft and clean and awesome. “I want to do this all night,” I said as he kissed my jaw.
“That doesn’t give me anxiety or anything,” Andrew growled against my skin.
I reached down between us and rubbed my palm on his cock, smooth and hot in my hand. “No anxiety needed,” I said.
His body tensed as I rubbed him. “Just let me get through one time, first, and then I’ll see what I can do.”
