Two nights later, I walked up the stairs to my apartment to find James waiting outside my door.
“Hey,” I said. We hadn’t made plans, but somehow I wasn’t surprised to see him here, looking like a runway model for some designer’s summer collection in an unbuttoned gray vest and a turquoise shirt tucked into trousers.
“You always look so put together,” I said, unlocking the door.
James followed me into my apartment. “Yeah, the company pays for a stylist.” He fingered the vest. “This is all her.”
I gave him my back. I had already taken off my fake eyelashes and makeup downstairs, but I was still in my evening gown and needed him to unzip me.
“Really? I thought only celebrities had stylists.”
I could feel his thumb on my bare back as he pulled down the zipper on my dress. “Those are their high-profile clients. A lot of people who are seen a lot hire them, too, on the DL.”
“Now I know.”
He turned me around and kissed me. “Now you know.”
I moved away from him to step out of the gown. “So what are you doing here?”
“I was at the ArcLight for the premiere of this movie that has Farrell Cosmetics product placement in it. Thought I’d stop by, since I was in the neighborhood.”
His voice was casual, but his eyes tracked me as I hung my evening gown up in the closet.
And when I turned back around to face him he was holding a small jewelry box.
“What’s that?”
“Open it.”
I stayed right where I was.
“C’mon,” James said. He came closer and opened the box for me. There was a pair of large sapphire studs inside. “I was thinking these would look good with your Strokes T-shirt. Try them on.”
I looked up at him. “Remember what I told you yesterday about not getting used to your lifestyle?”
“C’mon, they’re a gift. You can’t accept a gift?”
“No, I can’t accept a gift. No presents. No fancy dinners. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. Especially from you.”
James snapped the box close. “You’re making me feel sleazy for trying to do something nice. That’s a real problem.”
“Oh, please stop whining. If that’s your worst problem, then you’ve got it pretty good, rich boy.”
My words hit the air between us with such force that even I was taken aback. And James now had such a dark look on his face that I opened my mouth to say, “Sorry” for saying out loud what I had only meant to think to myself.
But before I could cobble together an apology, he picked me up and tossed me onto my bed. I soon discovered that what had looked like anger on his face was actually unadulterated lust.
Afterward, I got out of bed and put on my robe. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked him. “I’ve got cheap wine.”
“Sure,” he said.
In the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and some crackers.
But when I came back out to the main room, James was in his black boxer briefs looking around confused.
“Where’s the TV?” he asked.
I pulled a square blanket off my desk chair and spread it out on the floor. “I broke it about five years ago.” I didn’t add the part about throwing it out the window because I had found Nicky cheating. It was a little early in the relationship for all that.
His eyes went to the stacks of books lined up against my wall in horizontal columns. “So you just read? That’s how you spend all your nights?”
I poured out the wine into two juice glasses. “No, I’ve got Netflix. Sometimes I watch stuff on my laptop.”
While touring James’s house a few days ago, I had seen that he had large flat-screen TVs in all the guest bedrooms and tiny ones in all the bathrooms. He even had a small twenty-seat theater, so I wasn’t surprised by the look of horror on his face. “Come sit down. Have some wine.”
He sat down across from me on the blanket, but he was still shaking his head. “You’ve got to let me buy you a television.”
“No, James.”