Elizabeth.
He flicked on the bedside lamp and saw the apartment through her eyes. It wouldn’t be good, her reaction to these tiny rooms. Birdie, who loved color and texture and art, would label this place boring. She’d immediately begin a frenzied search for “the” place to call home. The thought of it exhausted him.
He loved her, but lately, it was easier to be apart. It made him feel like a real shit, that admission, but there was no reason to lie. Not here, sitting on this bed that was big enough for two but had been damned comfortable for one.
Here he was at last, poised on the ledge of everything he’d ever wanted. The city, the money, the fame.
But his dream wouldn’t match hers. Whatever it was that she longed for—the “turn” she whined about (and he had no idea what that was)—she wouldn’t find it in a one-bedroom apartment with a bathroom too small for a towel rack. Her window box would have to be the size of a TV dinner, and she’d rather look down on a toxic waste site than a busy street.
She’d want to live in an established suburban neighborhood, maybe in Connecticut or Westchester County, in a traditional house with a yard big enough to hold her precious roses and a living room capable of displaying all her carefully chosen furniture.
But he’d done it her way.
He’d spent two years in that godforsaken soggy rain forest, miles away from anyone who mattered. He’d done it because it was her “turn” to have the house of her dreams, but had she really thought they’d live there forever? Hell, the only place in the United States with worse year-round weather was Barrow, Alaska.
When he’d lost football and kicked the drug habit, he’d tried to settle onto the responsible adult track. He’d lived in respectable houses in good school districts in towns so far from the limelight they were pitch dark by eight o’clock at night. No more.
Now it was his turn.
His stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Without bothering to check the fridge, he grabbed his coat.
Outside, the streets were busy. He ducked into one of his favorite new haunts, a bar-and-grill that boasted a big-screen television and all-you-could-eat buffalo wings on game nights.
He waved at the bartender and settled into a booth in the back. When the waitress came to his table, he ordered a beer and a cheeseburger. Within minutes, she was back with his beer.
He was reaching for a napkin when a woman scooted into the seat opposite him.
“Can I sit with you a second?”
He was so surprised he couldn’t do anything but nod.
She looked incredibly out of place in the bar. She was wearing a flesh-colored floor-length strapless gown that tucked in at her tiny waist. A huge white silk flower was pinned between her breasts. She looked like an extra on Sex and the City.
She gave him a tired smile and raised her hand. When the bartender saw her, she yelled out, “Double tequila straight shot with a Budweiser back. Patron tequila, please.” She grinned at him. “Thank Jesus there was a bar nearby.”
She was beautiful, and young. Maybe late twenties.
“I’m Jack,” he said.
She plopped a glittery designer handbag on the table and scouted through it, finally finding her cigarettes. When she lit up, he smelled cloves. “I’m Amanda.” She looked at him, exhaled. “I know you. You’re the new guy over at Fox Sports, right? They’re spending a buttload to promote you and Warren. I work at BBDO, by the way. Sports ads are my life.”
“Really?”
“You’re better looking in person. I guess you hear that all the time.”
He tried not to be pleased, but the compliment poured through him like a restorative.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m wearing this ridiculous dress. My sister just got married. I was in the wedding.”
The bartender came over and set her drinks on the scarred table between them. He looked at Jack. “You want another one?”
Jack noticed that he’d drained his glass already. When had he done that? “Sure.”
“You got it.”
Amanda picked up the first shot glass and drank the tequila in one head-thrown-back swallow. Then she drank the second one, slammed her flat palm on the table and giggled. “Yee-ha. I needed that.” She looked at him, smiling brightly. “I’m not an alcoholic, not even of the Bridget Jones variety, but this wedding has been a nightmare. My sister, who is all of twenty-four, by the way, has snagged herself one of those Ferrari-drivin’, TriBeCa-livin’ dot.com boys. And I have to show up at the wedding without a date. You’d think with eight months’ notice, I could at least find one man worth spending the evening with but noooo. I have to show up alone and hear every white-haired lady in the place say, ‘So, Amanda, when will we be coming to your wedding?’ Christ.” She looked at him. “You’d certainly shut the old biddies up.”