“I can think of a place.”
He chuckled in my ear. “That is definitely not cold.”
“What’s it like?”
“Imagine the warmest, silkiest, tightest place you can be. It is, without a doubt, the best spot in the world.”
I held in a giggle. Warm and silky sounded nice, but I wasn’t sure about tight. Must’ve been a guy thing.
“Lake?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s that noise?”
I listened. Through the thin walls, my neighbors watched TV. Downstairs, city dwellers headed to and from dinner. There was the occasional siren. And then I heard it, the tiny and unfortunately familiar squeaking coming from inside the apartment. I shivered. “A mouse.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He sighed, and now what I focused on was the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. “Guess I’ll have to add that to my to-do list.”
“There’s nothing you can do. We get them now and then. Val and I just try to be vigilant about leaving out food and keeping the lid on the trash.”
“I’ll pick up some mousetraps.”
“To kill them?” I sat up, leaning my elbow on his chest. “I don’t want that.”
“These aren’t strays we’re talking about.” He yawned. “You got off easy with the scar that feral kitten gave you. Mice carry disease.”
“Do you know what happens if you trap them? They starve to death—they’re poisoned. Sometimes they chew off their own legs to get free.”
“Then I’ll get a top-of-the-line trap,” he said. “Death,” he sliced his hand across his throat, “in a snap.”
“That’s murder,” I screamed.
He laughed. “Murder? I love that you’re sensitive and humane, but it’s a fucking rodent, Lake. Where there’s one, there’re others.”
I stuck out my bottom lip. “But—”
“Gotta wipe ’em out, Birdy.”
I exhaled, tracing a circle over his chest with my fingertip. “If you do, I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to see or hear about it. I’ll cry, I really will.”
“Say no more.” He moved some of my hair behind my ear. “What time did you say it was?”
“Late. We slept all day.” I checked the nightstand. “After seven.”
“I missed a meeting.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll have to reschedule it for tomorrow.”
My spirits fell a little. Nothing sounded more perfect than spending every minute of Manning’s trip right here in my bed, basking in six years’ worth of afterglow. I was supposed to work at the diner tomorrow afternoon, but it was a short shift. I put my face back in the crook of his neck. “Do you have to?”
“I’d skip it, but if I’m leaving my job soon, I need to make as much commission as possible before I go.”
Sleepy Manning had turned into Serious Manning, the version of him I was probably most familiar with. I caught the tension in his voice and wondered if money worried him. It didn’t need to. I had two jobs and had been taking care of myself for a while, and by the looks of his suit and cell phone and long-distance taxi rides, he did all right for himself.
“But after my meetings, I thought you could show me your New York. Give me something to look forward to. I’m moving from the glorious beach after all.”
All my warm and fuzzies returned. I tried to wiggle even closer, but every inch of me was already pressed to him. “My New York?” I asked.
“All I’m getting is that there’s a lot of garbage and pushy people. Questionable smells. But if you tell me it’s great, then I want to see it through your eyes. Can you show me tomorrow?”
I tried to think of what Manning might like about the city, but I came up short. There were buildings he’d surely appreciate with his eye for structure and carpentry, but was that enough? I loved the energy that coursed through the streets, especially around the theater district and Times Square, but I had to admit I wasn’t sure he’d feel the same.
“Lake?” he asked when I didn’t answer.
Was it fair to ask him to move here, a place that surely didn’t fit him? Wasn’t that what was bothering me about his suit and tie, his golf game, the cell phone … the fact that Tiffany and my dad were trying to force him in a box? I angled my face from his neck to look up at him, and instantly my skin cooled.
“Nose,” I said.
He stopped massaging my back and put his hand over my nose, but his palm was so big that it engulfed my entire face.
I laughed. “I can’t see.”
“Tell me what’s the matter.”
“How can I ask you to move? I can’t picture you here, but I don’t know what the answer is. I want to do stage acting, and Broadway is here, so I need to be.” I blinked a few times, and my lashes fluttered against his fingers. “If I hadn’t just spent four years taking out loans and working overtime trying to graduate, maybe we could talk about somewhere else, but not right now.”
He spread his fingers, creating slats so we could see each other. “None of that matters. Isn’t that what you tried to tell me that night on the beach?”
I flashed back to standing in front of Manning, pouring my heart out while my friends partied around the bonfire yards away. “They’re just dumb details,” I’d told him, to which he’d responded, “They’re life, Lake. Relationships, marriage, they don’t run on love alone.”
I hadn’t understood back then—I hadn’t wanted to. That was because I’d never had the real, pressing worry I’d be unable to pay a bill. I’d never sustained myself on dollar noodles four nights in a row or reused takeout cartons as dishes to save money or spent an entire winter day outside waiting for a five-minute audition. After a while of living without familial or financial support, I understood that those details didn’t just take care of themselves.
“I don’t want to send you back to her,” I said, “but I wouldn’t feel right making you come here. What if you get home, and …” It was too painful to form the words. Even thinking Tiffany’s name made my gut smart—both because of all the things he’d shared with her, but also because of how I was about to ruin her life, probably beyond repair. I pushed her out of my thoughts. “Never mind.”
He ran his hand down my face to pinch my chin, keeping my eyes tilted to him. “And what?”
“We’re having an affair, Manning.”
“I’m aware of that,” he said, “but I’m a little worried you aren’t.”
“I am.” I looked at his chest. “It’s just too hard to think about.”
“Do you think I’ll get home and want to stay? That I won’t come back? Because once I get on that plane Friday, I’ll be facing a shitstorm, and so will you. I need to know you trust me.”
I trusted him—didn’t I? I had the first day I’d met him, when I’d turned around and found my gold bracelet pooled in his palm. I’d given and given to him, even when he’d turned me away. Pushed me away. Forced me away. I supposed, though, my trust in him wasn’t complete. Not after what we’d been through.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
Manning had to be able to trust me, too, which was why I couldn’t tell him what he needed to hear, even though I wanted to. I would once I was certain beyond any doubt that he would come back to me. “I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” he said. “But there are two things you can trust me on, so can we start there?”
I raised my eyes back to his. “What are they?”
“I’m moving to New York. Don’t worry about how I’ll do it or whether I’ll like it. You’re going to show me around, and I’ll love it because—here’s the other thing you have to trust—I love you. Nothing matters more to me now than being where you are. I realize I’ve fucked up huge. I know I made mistakes. If you can tell me you believe that I love you, and if you can understand that nothing will keep me from coming to New York or wherever you are, then I’ll work my ass off to earn your trust back. And to be worthy of you, support you, make you happy. I can’t expect any of that without work
ing for it, I just need you to understand those two things.”
“That you love me, and that you’re moving here.”
“Yes.”
For what felt like the hundredth time in days, I wanted to cry, but I sucked in a breath and focused on his words. Manning loved me. It wasn’t a shock to hear it, because I’d known it for so long. Maybe over the years I had doubted it or tried to convince myself otherwise, but I had always known. Certainly he’d known it, too, that he’d loved me, and me him, for a while.
I ignored the feeling that this, being in his arms and hearing these things, was too good to be true. We’d weathered the worst of the storm—now we got to live in the sun. There were hard times ahead, but it wasn’t too good to be true because we’d worked for it. We’d suffered and struggled and tried to stay away from each other and if none of that could keep us apart, then nothing ahead of us could, either.
“I understand,” I said. “I can’t just forgive it all because you’re finally here, but …”
He slipped his hand under my hair, warming the top of my spine. “I would never ask you to. If the roles were reversed, I don’t think I’d ever get over it. Not ever.”
If I thought too hard about it, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over it, either. Would that mean I could never forgive him? If the answer was no, would I get out of this bed right now? That was one answer I did know. Wild horses couldn’t tear me away from him tonight. These few days were about us and it was time we deserved. If I went too far down the path of our past, I’d risk ruining something I had begged, fought, and sweat for, so I pivoted in the opposite direction.
“What will you do when you get here?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. The good thing about construction is you can do it anywhere.”
“You won’t stay in sales?”
He blew out a sigh. “Depends. I will if it’s the first job I find. New York is expensive, and if I’m going to support us—”
“I’ve supported myself for this long,” I pointed out.
“There’s no scenario I can dream up in which I’m not working as hard as I can to keep you comfortable. It’s what I need as a man, no argument. I know you can support yourself. It makes me proud that you do. It’s important to me, though.”
“Is that why you do sales?” I asked. “Because of the money?”
He seemed to think. In the corner of my eye, the digital clock by the bed changed to eight on the dot. “In jail, and after I got out, I was helpless. I worried my future was nothing more than hard labor. I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”
“Will it be hard to find work as a felon?”
“Of course, but this job I have now, it’ll help. I can show them my salary, my capabilities, and hopefully that’ll be enough.”
“But in sales, you never create anything. You sell other people’s ideas and things.” My leg began to sweat between his, but I kept it there. “Don’t you still want to help people like you used to?”
“You know I can’t.”
“I don’t mean as a cop. You can help in other ways, like building homes. Homes are important. You spend most of your life in one. I’d trust you to build my home.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and pinched my bottom. “Well, that’s not all that flattering. After this apartment, a clown car would be a step up.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “You’ll be surprised how quickly you get used to it.”
“Yeah? I thought maybe we’d get our own place when I come.”
I shook my head. “I like it here. You can do what you want with your money, but I’ll pay my share of the rent, and this is what I can afford.”
“Well, then … a few repairs are in order. You won’t begrudge me that, will you?” As if Manning had planned it himself, my faulty radiator groaned in the next room. “Tiffany and I are remodeling, and I’ve hardly touched a tool. I’m too busy sitting in an office earning the money to pay for all the nice things we can’t seem to live without.”
“Manning.” I couldn’t bear it. I tried to separate his old life from this one, but I couldn’t. I hated that it meant I didn’t get to know about who he’d become over the past few years, but it was too much. “I don’t want that office job for you. I don’t care about money. I’ve lived the past few years without it. Do something you love.”
“I love work that gives me the means to make you happy.”
“And what would make me happy is to see you building homes or making furniture or whatever it is that satisfies you.”
He lifted his head to see me better. “Furniture?”
“You made that coffee table with Gary. The one I saw in the back of your truck? Remember, it was my eighteenth birthday?”
“Your eighteenth birthday,” he repeated, laughter in his voice. “Did you throw that in for good measure or what?”
I also smiled. Since the moment I’d met Manning until June ninth 1995, turning eighteen had been front and center of my world. “It was a big day,” I said.
“Yeah it was. I’ll make something small now and then, but mostly I’m too busy for furniture. Gary, he’s doing the same old thing he always was. Except that he got married. Did you know?”
Aside from Henry, Manning’s father figure, I guessed Gary was probably Manning’s closest friend. As proud as I was that I’d introduced them at that first camp meeting, I couldn’t help the way my heart pinched remembering that other life. “I haven’t seen Gary since the last day I saw you. The wedding.”
Manning put his big, bear hand over my hair and his lips to the top of my head. I let him kiss away the memory because tonight, in his arms, was possibly the best moment of my life and I didn’t want to ruin it.
“I did get to make a couple pieces for the house,” Manning said, “and I try to refurbish things on weekends, but it can be tough.”
“Then you can do it all here. Make furniture or build homes or fix my apartment, whatever,” I said. “It’ll be a fresh start.”
He grunted, thumbing the corner of my lips. “That’s my girl. Keep living in the clouds, and I’ll take care of the rest. What’s cold?”
I was all warmed up, but I wasn’t about to pass up an invitation to be touched. “My butt.”
He grinned, then took a handful of my backside. “Do you miss the warmth? The beach?”
I tried not to show that I did. I didn’t want Manning to think I regretted my decision to leave. I didn’t—it was what I’d needed to do at the time. Watching him marry Tiffany, going through the motions of giving a maid of honor speech, receiving congratulations, watching them dance at the reception—it’d been clear there’d been no other choice.
But at times, I did miss Orange County, more than I wanted to admit. My family, my past, my youth, were all there. I couldn’t bring myself to admit it, though. “No. I’ve had an amazing time here, and now that I’ve graduated, I’ll get to devote all my free time to finding work.”
“Tell me about the acting. Is it everything you wanted it to be? Do you love it?”
“It’s …” I chose my words carefully. Again, I didn’t want him to think I’d made any mistakes, but if I expected him to be honest about his work, I had to be as well. “I want to be able to tell you, Manning, but you can’t get upset or overprotective about it like you did with my job.”
He took a deep enough breath that I felt it through my whole body. “That means it’s bad.”
“No, not bad. It’s just so different from what I was used to. From what I thought it would be. It’s competitive and you have to have thick skin. Sometimes I’m outside in the cold waiting in line for hours or I’m running on nothing but coffee all day or I’m up until four in the morning memorizing lines. That’s just the start since I haven’t even been auditioning long.” The sad thing was, I enjoyed it. I was living a fantasy I’d started to develop my first year in college, when actors would come to our classes and talk about the struggle of their early days. And since I’d suffered for my craft with others
who were in the same boat, I’d become close to my classmates fast. It wasn’t like the high school friends I’d had in Orange County. I hadn’t spoken to Mona or Vickie in a couple years. These were real friendships, like what I had with Val and Corbin, only my classmates and I shared the same weird, deep desires I did. I wasn’t going to feel bad about my career choice just because it worried Manning. “If you come here,” I said to him, “you have to be able to let me do my thing without getting upset.”
I felt his silence more than anything. When I checked his expression, he was looking at the ceiling. “The graveyard shift really bothers me, Lake. I don’t like the idea of you walking home in this city at that time. The rest of it, I don’t know, we can work it out. I can bring you food and blankets while you’re waiting. I can run your lines with you.”
“You won’t always be able to, Manning. Sometimes you’ll have to work or sleep or I’ll need to run to an audition right when I hear about it, even if we’re in the middle of something.”
He nodded a little. “I hear you. I’ll work on it. If your skin is thicker, I guess mine will have to be as well.”
“The city will do it for you.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “Is that what it’s done to you?”
There were plenty of memories to choose from, but there was no failure like the first. I’d moved here heartbroken, penniless, and lost—I must’ve ridden the subway to every borough at least once by accident—but the icing on the cake came right before my first semester. “You already know I’d been accepted to NYU. I deferred a semester. But I also had to apply for the drama school and undergo an artistic review. I was denied.” In high school, I’d always been so focused on the core classes like science, math, and English. Dad had never allowed me to consider my drama elective as anything more than a hobby. “I took general education courses my first semester and at night, I attended these acting classes in some basement. It was enough to get me in the following semester, but not enough to turn me into an actress.”
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
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