“You can stick around for the weekend and I could meet you there? I’ll check my schedule and talk to Brian and let you know.”
“It would be good to see you.” During my trip to LA, things had solidified between us and we had transitioned from a summer affair to a relationship where we spoke every day and tried to see each other as often as we could. But he wanted more—for us to go public. I understood and I knew I wanted to be with him. I just didn’t know how it would work. I hoped he’d give me the time I needed to figure it out.
“I want to be there,” he said.
“Seeing you would be a good incentive to visit the city again,” I said.
“More so than a jewelry line at Barneys?”
I laughed. “Maybe the same.” The business opportunity seemed too good to be true. Just a few years ago it would have been more than my wildest dreams. I’d thought I’d been forced to leave the dream behind, but it had been reignited in me.
“Okay, I’ll talk to Brian about it and see if I can make it happen. I miss you. I don’t want to go more than two weeks without seeing you.”
“Is that a rule now?” I asked.
“Not a rule, just—if this is going to work, then we need to minimize our time apart.”
There hadn’t been a day since he’d left Maine that we hadn’t spoken to each other, but neither of us had mentioned the idea of going public again. He’d promised not to push me and he’d been true to his word. In fact, he’d said that while he was in Europe he was going to meet with Kristin Cooper, an actress Sinclair thought might make a good girlfriend.
His split with Audrey was over a month old. I guess he had to make a decision. Was he waiting for me to bring it up? I could talk to him about it again in New York. See how his meeting had gone.
“Okay. Were there a lot of Audrey questions today?”
“Yeah, at least one in each interview. But it must be so dull listening to us. We have our script down on this one. ‘We’re still such great friends, distance and work schedules, blah, blah, blah.’”
“Distance and schedules, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s like a resigning politician saying he wants to spend more time with his family.”
Distance and work schedules. They were so plausible that it made sense that they were well-worn excuses. “If you can’t make it to New York, I can always fly from there to LA.” I didn’t want distance to be the thing that proved to be our undoing.
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll make New York work.”
I sighed. “You will?”
“I will, I promise. I can’t expect you to always fit around my schedule. Your work is important, too.” He had all the right words, all the time.
“Are you sure you’re not a figment of my imagination?” I asked, taking a seat on the bench.
“Maybe I am. But just go with it,” he said, and I laughed. “So what are you doing tonight?”
“I’m just going to sit out here on the porch and wait for the storm to roll in.” It would be a good way to relax.
“I wish I were there. We could watch it side by side, then get naked and fuck all night.” He growled into the phone.
Even though we’d spent more nights apart than together since he left Maine, I still missed his body every morning when I woke up. “You’ll have to save it until New York.”
“I’m not sure I can wait that long,” he said.
“Keep telling yourself how I’m worth it. You’ll start to believe it’s true.”
The man a million women wanted only wanted me.
Twenty-One
Lana
“You don’t think it’s weird to be drinking in a place this dark?” I asked. The lighting was so dim in the uber-cool cocktail bar buried deep in the East Village that I could barely see Ruby, even though she was close enough I could reach out and touch her.
“Not everything is ocean air and clapboard siding, Lana. You’ve been in Maine too long. New Yorkers like the dark.” There was some dim, amber lighting at the bar and a tea light on each table, but nothing else. It looked like the owners were trying to save on their energy bill.
“You remember you grew up in Worthington, right?” I asked her. I’d known Ruby for a long time, so even in the dark I could sense her eye roll and shrug. At least the music wasn’t too loud and we could actually talk.
“I can’t believe you’re here. How does it feel?”
I’d gone straight from the airport to the hotel last night and hadn’t stepped foot outside until the meeting with Barneys this afternoon. “Better than I thought. It helps not being near the campus, obviously.”
“There’s no way anyone would remember anything, you know. It was ages ago in college time.”
“I know.” Someone remembering wasn’t the problem. It was how tarnished the city had become for me. When I’d arrived for college, New York had been a symbol of my future, of my dreams and aspirations, but it had morphed into a representation of bad decisions and poor judgement. As much as I hated my ex for posting those photos, I should never have let him take them. I’d never make that mistake again.
“Tell me about the meeting.” Ruby took a sip of her cocktail.
I blew out a puff of air. “I just don’t know what to say. They want to stock the Bastet collection. I told them how expensive it will be, and that it will all be made to order, but apparently they don’t care.” The meeting had gone far better than I had expected. They had opened with a very generous offer, which I’d have been happy to accept, but after talking to them about the quality of the materials and time it took, they’d increased their offer and made it impossible for me to say no.
“Will you still be able to keep the shop?” she asked.
I released the black straw I’d been toying with and swallowed. “Yeah. Although, I’ll have to get additional help and spend more time actually making stuff if there are orders.”
“Of course there will be orders.”
“I don’t know. The pieces are really expensive.”
“But they’re beautiful. People pay a lot more for a lot less.”
I wasn’t sure if it would matter if I didn’t sell any at all. Just the experience of being stocked at one of the most exclusive stores in Manhattan was recognition of what I’d been working toward.
“Let’s toast to you being in Barneys,” Ruby said, raising her glass. “I can’t believe it.” She laughed. “That’s not true. I can totally believe it. You deserve it.”
We clinked glasses and I drained the rest of my drink.
“You think you’ll end up moving back here? I’d so love to have you back in the city like we’d always planned. We could get a place together.”
I shook my head and reached for the cocktail menu in front of me. I used my cell phone light to read it. “I doubt it. There’s no need for me to move.” If I thought too far into the future, then I’d have to think about Matt, and what was going to happen between us. And all that was in a box marked complicated that I wasn’t about to open.
“But if you’re going to be in Barneys you’ll visit more often, right? I can’t believe you wouldn’t stay with me, even if you are being put up in some fancy hotel.”
“I’m sorry. It was closer to the store and I was getting in so late.”