The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1)

by Nicole French

  “A diner?” Eric scoffed. “That’s the best you can do for a date?”

  “I don’t know. We could go to Bistro Le Park, I guess—it’s getting good reviews. But she’s not really the type for fancy things.” I shrugged, annoyed at the insinuation that I didn’t know how to treat a woman. I did. If it’s the right woman, I thought, looking at Nina.

  Jane nudged my shoulder. “You’d be surprised. If she likes you, she’ll be up for just about anything. This one drags me to every fancy restaurant under the sun even though I’d be happy with pizza. I may not know the difference between forks, but the company is all that matters.”

  Eric offered his wife an uncharacteristic smile. “Thanks, pretty girl.”

  Like a flower, she bloomed.

  “The Cloisters,” Nina put in abruptly.

  The three of us looked over at her, Eric and Jane ruffled out of their impromptu love-fest.

  “You should take her to the Cloisters,” Nina said, more quietly this time. “If she’s homesick, it’s the closest thing to Europe she’ll find here.”

  “What are the Cloisters?” asked Jane, who was still somewhat new to the city.

  “It’s a castle,” Eric said.

  “Actually, it’s more like a monastery,” Nina corrected him gently before turning back to Jane. “It’s a museum built in the thirties by J.D. Rockefeller.”

  “Which one?” Eric interrupted.

  “Junior. He had parts of four different French abbeys shipped stone by stone and incorporated into the design.” When she caught me looking at her curiously, she offered an adorable shrug. “Art history major, remember?”

  “Sounds like a rich guy was really bored and needed to spend some of his dough,” Jane remarked dryly.

  “Perhaps,” Nina said. “The art is nice enough—mostly medieval, if you like that sort of thing. The unicorn tapestries are the most famous pieces there, along with J.P. Morgan’s donations. But really, you go for the view, the park, and the architecture. It’s quite lovely on a spring day.” She sighed. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed I’d be married there.”

  “Why weren’t you?” Jane cut in. “It’s a church. I’m surprised Celeste wouldn’t have been all right with it, if it’s such a New York landmark.”

  Nina stiffened at the mention of her grandmother. Or maybe it was her actual wedding. I stared at my hands, trying and failing to forget the story she had told me about why she had married Calvin “dough-faced near-pedophile” Gardner.

  “They eloped, right, cous?” Eric offered.

  “Really?” Jane’s tone was less admiring, more sharp. Clearly she was having as hard a time imagining the two of them in love enough to run away together.

  “I was very young,” Nina replied. “It needed to happen quickly.”

  She stared at her hands. It was her tell, I realized. When she wasn’t actually revealing the whole truth. Maybe I was the only one who noticed that she didn’t use “I” or “we” with that last statement. There was no personalization of that particular desire. Not on her part.

  When she looked up, her mask was laced with pain. Maybe even longing.

  “Haven’t you been?” she wondered.

  I clenched my jaw, then carefully unclenched it once I was sure my expression was under control. “Probably,” I said. “Most likely on a class field trip or something like that.”

  “Take her to the Cloisters, Matthew,” Nina said. “You won’t regret it.”

  We shared a long look across the living room until Jane’s whispered “whoa” to Eric broke the silence.

  “Thanks,” I said with difficulty. “I’ll, um, see you.”

  “Wait,” Nina called.

  I stopped. “What’s up, doll?” I couldn’t help it. It just fuckin’ slipped out.

  Nina turned to Jane and Eric. “I’ll be back on Monday to meet with the designer, Jane. Matthew, I’ll walk out with you.”

  After she said her goodbyes, Nina and I shuffled silently down the big stairs of the apartment until finally emerging outside. The sky had darkened into night, but the scent of flowers was spilling over from Central Park. Or maybe that was just her.

  “Everything…all right?” I asked.

  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she had suddenly wanted to walk me downstairs. Unless. Unless she was like me. And six days after she swore we couldn’t talk, she was equally desperate even to be next to each other. If only for a minute or two.

  “Yes,” she said slowly as she glanced at the big black Escalade I assumed was waiting for her. “And is everything well with you?”

  I nodded. “Sure, sure. Not much new. Work, family, you know, the usu—”

  “And your date.”

  I pulled off my hat and worked it between my hands. “Well. You couldn’t expect me to wait around forever, doll.”

  Nina cringed, like the pet name caused her physical pain. I wanted to wash my mouth out with soap.

  “No. I don’t suppose I could.” Tentatively, she reached out and adjusted my lapel, her fingers lingering along its edge just a few seconds longer than they should. “You look very sharp.” Her voice broke slightly toward the end before she offered a crooked smile. “I’m sure she’ll fall right in love with you.”

  I examined her for a moment more. She was holding back, just like I was. Swallowing back her emotions, like she had done her entire life.

  You don’t have to do that with me, I wanted to tell her. Say something. Anything.

  And for a moment, I thought she would. I really did think she might ask me not to go. Those magic words would emerge from those rose petal lips, and I’d break the date and trade it in for the one I really wanted.

  The one I could never have.

  Her hand dropped. “Good night, Matthew. Have a good time with your girl.”

  I touched the brim of my hat. “Good night, Nina.”

  She didn’t reply, just disappeared into the car. As I watched it drive away, it was everything I could do not to run after her, slap my palm on the window, and beg her to get back out.

  The car turned the corner. Even then I couldn’t stop staring. I gulped and turned in the direction of the subway. Good fuckin’ God. I needed to get a hold of myself.

  But I couldn’t. Not quite.

  Before I dropped into the train entrance on Seventy-Second, I fished my phone out of my pocket and typed a message.

  Me: Still friends?

  Her reply was nearly instantaneous.

  Doll: Even when we don’t talk?

  I didn’t even need to think about it.

  Me: Even then, doll. You need me, I’m here.

  As the train was whistling down the tunnel, my phone vibrated with her final message.

  Doll: Don’t forget to call Annie.

  I pulled at my collar. I really was an asshole. Here was Nina doing her best, just like I was, to leave me alone. Move on with our lives. Here she was, giving me legitimately good ideas for my next date with another woman. If she asked me for dating advice, I’d probably tell her to push Calvin off the Brooklyn Bridge.

  She was too good for me. I should have known that from the start. Well, at least it still made me want to be a better man, even if it was with someone else.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I turned off the engine of my ten-year-old Corolla and rolled up the window. The silence just continued—I hadn’t bothered with music on the drive from the Bronx. But there hadn’t been any conversation either. I just wasn’t feeling all that chatty.

  The sun was shining. The birds were singing. I was at a beautiful park with a beautiful girl. And I’d barely said one word to her since picking her up from Tino’s restaurant.

  I stared at the steering wheel and sighed. I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t at least try to make an effort with Annie. Once Frankie heard me invite the girl out to take advantage of the nice spring weather, she insisted that she and Sofia could make do with the train so I could have the car.

&nb
sp; “Lea and I will pack you a picnic basket at the house!” she promised gleefully as we shuffled out of Mass.

  I had left the basket with Nonna and never mentioned its existence to the pretty young woman next to me. For whatever reason, I wasn’t thinking much beyond a quick walk through the park. Funny, I thought, as the Cloisters tower rose above us. We were going from one church to another, essentially, on a Sunday. Like I was trying to remind myself of the need for chastity.

  “You ready?” I said as we unbuckled our seat belts.

  Annie smiled shyly. Still in her church clothes—a floaty pink thing the color of tulips and practical shoes that did nothing for her legs—she was smitten and not even bothering to hide it. From the second I spotted her with Tino and his wife in the church, I’d caught her looking at me at least five other times through the service. Sneaking peeks when we were mouthing the homily. Brushing shoulders as we filed up to take communion.

  She was clearly interested.

  The problem?

  I distinctly wasn’t.

  But things could change. They had to.

  “Come on, honey.”

  I got out of the car, then walked around to offer my hand. She took it, and I tried to ignore the awkward feel of her almost too small fingers in my palm as she got out of the car.

  We took our time through Fort Tryon Park, which, now that I was here, I definitely did recognize. I could see why Frankie had suggested a picnic. There were plenty of benches looking west toward the New Jersey side of the river. With the sun blinking off the path and flowers abloom through the park, it was pretty fuckin’ perfect for a bit of romance.

  Like a wedding, starring a classic bride with blonde hair and a groom in a tux. Maybe someone with black hair like mine. Maybe he was me.

  What the fuck was wrong with me? I’d never been too interested in marriage before, and here I was having daydreams about it like some chick? I was pretty sure if I turned around in that daydream, the woman in it wouldn’t be the one walking next to me.

  I cleared my throat. “So, this probably isn’t much compared to what you have back home,” I said as Annie and I walked through the museum’s outer gates.

  She gazed up at the brick walls and medieval tower. “It is very nice.”

  Diplomatic, this one. That would serve her well around my sisters.

  Annie looked back at me with brighter eyes. “But I come for the company.”

  Not particularly subtle either.

  I mustered another smile. “Me too, honey. Come on, let’s see what kind of stuff they got in here.”

  We wandered through the museum half-heartedly. I couldn’t have really told you what all we saw. Some nice glass windows that looked exactly like the ones at St. Patrick’s and pretty much every other church I’d seen in Europe. A bunch of statues, chalices, some famous unicorn tapestries that I could not have been less interested in. But I looked because it was better than trying to force a conversation.

  While Annie was feigning interest in the big gardens in the center of the building, I suddenly had the uncanny sense that I was being watched. You know, when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? I tried to shake it off, but I couldn’t ignore it. You don’t do what I do, grow up where I did, and not develop a finely cultivated instinct for when something is up.

  But the arches behind us looking out onto the courtyard were totally empty. No one hiding in the shadows. No one was there at all.

  I turned quickly to the other side. I could have sworn I saw a blonde ponytail disappear into one of the side buildings. But when I peered closer at the people inside, there were only brunettes. A couple of redheads.

  I exhaled while we continued on, Annie blissfully unaware of the paranoia that seemed to be taking me over. Is this what happened when I tried to be a decent human being? I turned into a psycho scared of his own fuckin’ shadow?

  We rounded a corner, and the feeling came back. This time, however, I turned to see a very real familiar face. Only it wasn’t the one I had initially imagined.

  “Nico,” I called out, raising my hand. “Yo! It’s Mattie!” I shouldn’t have been this glad to see a distant cousin in the middle of a date, but I was. I really was.

  Nico turned just before he reentered the museum, but kept his arm securely around the woman next to him, whom I recognized as his wife, Layla. They were an odd pair that somehow fit—he looked like every other guy from the block with a Yankees hat and an arm full of tattoos, while his wife was a more refined type from a much wealthier family on the West Coast. I didn’t know her too well, but their story—particularly the parts about how she had helped keep his mother, a Cuban refugee, in the country—was something of legend on my mother’s side of the family.

  As I watched them holding tight to each other’s hands after so many years together, I was riddled with jealousy. These two were the perfect example of love at its finest. How it was never easy. How it was sometimes the hardest fuckin’ thing in the world. But if you love someone, you never give up on them. Real love means giving everything you are. And if you’re lucky, you get it back.

  Nico’s normally stern face broke into a grin when he caught sight of me and Annie, and he immediately towed Layla across the entire courtyard to greet us.

  “Yo, what’s good, man? How you been?” Nico reached his free hand around my neck for a quick slap on the back, then backed off so I could trade kisses with Layla.

  “Good to see you,” she said sweetly. “It’s been a while. What, three? Four years?”

  “I know,” I said somewhat guiltily. “Sorry, I’ve been stuck in Brooklyn, working on the house. I bought a place in Red Hook a while back, and Frankie and her daughter are living with me right now.”

  It wasn’t a lie, despite the fact that I went up to the Bronx nearly every weekend, and Kate’s shop was maybe ten blocks from Nico and Layla’s place in Riverdale. My issues with my mother’s side of the family had nothing to do with them.

  You see what your grudge is costing you? I could practically see Lea shaking her finger at me.

  “Did I hear you guys had another?” I asked. “What does that make, three now?”

  Nico nodded. “Yeah. Rafael’s our lucky number three.” He gazed at Layla, not even bothering to hide his admiration. “This one’s a warrior, lemme tell you.”

  Layla blushed, a bright pink that reminded me of another woman whose skin reflected her emotions.

  She always was a pretty little thing, short and solid like a lot of girls from the neighborhood, but with a pair of blazing blue eyes that glowed whenever she looked at her husband.

  “Well, you don’t look like you just had a kid, sweetheart,” I told her honestly. “Nico’s a lucky man.”

  “Hey, hey, easy,” Nico joked.

  I rolled my eyes. I forgot how possessive this guy was. Well, I couldn’t blame him. If I ever looked at a woman the way Nico Soltero looked at his wife, I’d probably never let her out of my sight.

  I see the way you’re looking at her.

  This time it was Jamie’s voice reminding me of the truth. I shook his away too.

  Layla shoved Nico playfully, then reached a hand toward Annie. “Hi, I’m Layla.”

  “Sorry,” I said while the girls exchanged kisses. “Shit. Guys, this is Annalisa, a family friend from Naples. Annie, this is Nico, my…what, second? Third cousin? Once or twice removed?”

  Nico shrugged his big shoulders and pulled on the brim of his Yankees cap. “Who the fuck knows, man? Something. Cousins is enough, right?”

  I chuckled. That was how it went sometimes. Big, convoluted families full of aunties and uncles, zios and tías and nonnas and abuelas. It was completely possible that Nico and I weren’t actually related, but since we saw each other growing up at these family events, we were introduced as cousins, and that was that.

  I hadn’t been to one of those things in years. And for the first time, it occurred to me that maybe Lea was right. Maybe I was missing out on a bit more than a rel
ationship with my delinquent mother.

  “Who the fuck knows?” I agreed. “And who cares? What’s going on, man? What else is new?”

  “Not much, not much. Layla’s an immigration lawyer now at the Children’s Advocacy Clinic. I’m at the firehouse in Long Island City. Same old, really.”

  “Stop being so modest,” Layla chided. “He just got promoted to chief!”

  “Battalion chief, sweetie,” Nico corrected her gently, but his pleasure at her obvious pride was pretty obvious. He shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Stop it,” Layla said again with a glowing face. “I’m so freaking proud of you, I can’t stand it.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly having our kids and helping other kids find their families again, like you,” Nico argued back.

  Annie and I watched a bit awkwardly as the two of them bickered over who was prouder of the other.

  “Sounds like you’re doing good,” I said. “Glad to hear it. Time flies. It’s crazy.”

  “Man, don’t get me started. Forty-two. I can’t fuckin’ believe it.” He chuckled. “We actually just celebrated our thirteenth anniversary. This is the first we could get some time away from the baby, so we came here.” He gestured around the courtyard before his gaze landed on Layla again. “It’s one of our spots, right, baby?”

  “Right,” she murmured.

  Nico rubbed his nose to hers before he gave her a kiss just a little too familiar for polite company. Maybe for some guys, being that affectionate with their woman would be embarrassing, but in my family, it wasn’t that unusual. I grew up with grandparents who were unflinching in their devotion. I wasn’t scared of a kiss or two.

  Annie inched closer, and her hand sought out mine. Looking for a mirrored kiss. A sweet growl in the ear. A promise of something better, later.

  And if it had been six months ago, I probably would have given her what she wanted. I had a whole bag of tricks, little gestures just like the one in front of me that I used to rotate with woman after woman. Usually the types looking for a quick escape or someone to remind them they were more than just mothers or wives.