Chapter 18
And then we’reat the airport, waiting to go home.
There is only one afternoon plane off the island, so not only do I sit surrounded by hungover strangers but also Brent and Cheryl. They sit on opposite sides of the room, glaring daggers at each other and at me. They’ve apparently broken up. A month ago I would have been over the moon. Now I can barely bring myself to care.
My thoughts are consumed by Nick. He’s gone. He’d said he’d go get coffees an hour ago and hasn’t been back since. I think he’s avoiding me. Should I be happy? Would that make our coming separation easier? It’s no use. I can’t logic my way out of this one. Nothing about this is going to be easy.
Paris had been illuminating, exciting, magical. The perfect fairy tale romance in the city of love.
Then Ibiza had taken those beautiful pages and ripped them to shreds. They’d fallen around my feet, words and phrases without context or closure.
My speech to Nick on the plane was supposed to make this part easier. A clean break, back to business as usual. Easy, right? Impossible.
It doesn’t help that Nick is acting like nothing has changed, or I suppose like nothing is going to change. He’d held me against his chest for most of the party last night. I’d fallen asleep in his arms.
I can’t stand sitting here a moment longer, stuck between Brent and Cheryl’s fury and Nick’s continued absence. I walk down the terminal to a gate that’s empty and sit with my back to the window.
It had been too hard to charter a private plane last minute to New York. Instead we’re taking the next flight to London and… Well I suppose I’ll continue back in commercial myself. Or maybe it’d be weirder if we didn’t. After all this is a business trip. If I were just some guy, Nick and I would fly together without thinking twice about it. So is that the better way to act? Like nothing’s happened, business as usual? Or do I give him space?
Needing answers and a sympathetic voice, I give Mickey a call. It’s 7:30 in New York and she’s awake. She picks up pretty quickly with a cheerful, “What’s up, gorge?” In the background I can hear the sounds of Manhattan traffic and pedestrians, all starting the work day.
“I’m coming home,” I say. I try to be cheerful but even to my own ears I sound like death.
“What happened?” she asks, instantly serious.
I hesitate. What had happened? Too much, or maybe too little. But Mickey is waiting, so I give it a shot. “Cheryl apologized to me for screwing me over and then turned around and fucked Kara’s boyfriend and tried to blame it on me and I almost lost the deal and Nick and I are breaking up, but I don’t know if I can say that because were we even together?” I projectile vomit my issues all over Mickey in a putrid wave.
Thankfully, Mickey is the kind of friend who isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves and hold her bestie’s hair.
“Okay, slow down. One thing at a time,” Mickey says. “First, did you lose the deal?”
I twirl a strand of hair tightly around one of my fingers until the circulation starts to get cut off. “No,” I admit. “But it was close. Nick had to come behind me and sweep everything up.”
“Well that’s why he makes so much damn money,” Mickey says. “And besides, he would have screwed the deal if you hadn’t convinced him to go to Europe in the first place.”
“You’re right,” I admit.
“Okay so now on to Cheryl. What?”
“I’m still asking myself the same thing,” I groan. “It felt like we’d kinda reached a… Well I wouldn’t go so far as to say we mended things, but we weren’t on such horrible terms. Now things are just as shitty as they were before.”
Mickey sighs. It’s not exasperated, more like she just wants to figure out the best way to say something that I’m not going to like to hear.
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Just get it out.”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive,” she says. “But shouldn’t you be a little past caring about your relationship with Cheryl?”
Logic screams yes! Unfortunately logic doesn’t rule my life. “It’s more complicated than that,” I say. “We had a lot of good times together. She was my friend for years.”
“She stole your — albeit shitty — man and went on your honeymoon. That’s not something a friend does. No, Evie, you two merely existed together for a lot of years. Don’t mistake nostalgia for happiness.”
As usual, Mickey’s right. I am upset about Cheryl, but that’s not the root of the problem. “Am I just an absolutely terrible judge of character?” I ask weakly.
Mickey snorts. “Well considering the fact that we get along famously, I want to say no.”
“But I was so ready to forgive Cheryl, and was somehow just as blindsided when she betrayed my trust again. How could I be so stupid?”
“Listen to me, Evie. You’re not stupid. You’re kind and forgiving. You’re willing to take a chance on people. I don’t think that’s stupid. I think it’s incredibly brave.”
“I don’t feel brave. I feel like shit.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what being brave feels like. That’s why it’s so commendable.”
I chuckle slightly, the first time all day. “You should embroider that on a pillow.”
She laughs too. “Look, can I go out on a limb and say this sounds like it’s more about Nick than Cheryl?”
Any lightness plummets at the sound of his name. “No,” I insist. “They’re completely different issues.”
“Are they?” she asks. “Or are you wondering that if you put your heart out there it’ll just get broken again, and this time by someone you like a hell of a lot more than Brent?”
I open my mouth to refute her and then can’t. “Have you considered being a therapist? You’re a little too good at this.”
“The product of many years of comforting in drunk girl bathrooms,” she says. “But I’ll take the compliment and redirect you to my question that you’re not going to avoid answering.”
I sigh. “First, a bit of history,” I start. Then I fill her in on the mistaken mention of “love” a couple days ago. Not one to save my feelings, Mickey hisses when I reach the climax. Other than that, she’s silent through my description of Ibiza, and how we’ve gone from having sex every day to only kissing while we’ve been here.
“And now he’s been gone for like, an hour. He said he’d be right back, but I’m starting to think he decided that he’d rather rent a rowboat than sit next to me on flights for the next ten hours.”
“Okay, it’s not that,” Mickey says. “Maybe you’re overthinking things.”
“Then what could it be?!”
“Maybe he ate a bad omelet and is blowing up the bathroom.”
“Gross,” I say, wincing.
“Hey, food poisoning is a part of life,” Mickey says. “But my point is, it could be anything. It could be a work call. He could be helping an old lady cross the tarmac. Don’t read too much into something that could be nothing.”
“But it’s not just that,” I say. “It’s everything else. It’s ditching me in Ibiza, showing up late to Kara’s set. How cagey he’s been.”
“He told you that everything was going to be okay,” she reminds me.
“But that could mean anything!” I say. “It could mean ‘don’t worry, everything’s going to go back to business as usual’ or ‘don’t worry, later I’m going to eat your pussy like an apple pie’!” I freeze when I realize that I said that last part way too loud. An older couple walking by gives me a weird look and picks up the pace. I sink lower in my chair, blushing.
Mickey though is laughing on the other end of the phone. “Man, let’s hope it’s the latter,” she says.
“I just want to know I didn’t screw anything up.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Mickey asks, adopting the serious tone of a professional shrink.
“I mean…” I trail off. What did I mean by that?
“Do you want to still be with Nick? Or do you just want things to not be awkward around the office?”
“I want to be with him,” I say. “I know it’s crazy. I know it’s too soon but…” God, the thought of going back to business-as-usual Nick makes me want to cry. Never coaxing that booming laugh out of him. Never catching warm brown eyes trained on me. Never feeling him inside me as I cling to his muscular chest, riding him to the peak of pleasure. We have a connection, one I’ve never felt with another person before. And I can’t help but doubt that I’ll ever feel it again. We just fit.
“It’s okay,” Mickey says. “Don’t apologize. But you want to know why you’re feeling so bad?”
“Absolutely.”
“Because you lied to him. You weren’t honest on the plane. You need to tell him how you really feel, not what you think he wants to hear.”
The thought is terrifying. “But what if everything falls apart?” I ask.
“Then it was going to anyway,” she says. “And at least you can say you tried.”
After saying goodbye to Mickey,I return to my gate. Nick is back, and his eyes brighten at the sight of me. He gives an excuse, explaining why he was gone for so long (and no, it wasn’t food poisoning). I tell him Mickey says hi, excuse my own absence.
We wait.
The silence is comfortable, inside I’m anything but. My heart is racing, palms tingling with the beginnings of sweat. Will I tell him how I feel? Can I be brave one more time?
The question torments me for the rest of our long journey back to New York. On the commercial flight to London, on the private jet back to the States, I’m torn between two images, one of Nick taking me in his arms and kissing me with relief, the other of him coldly turning away, furious that I would even suggest breaking our agreement.
We land in New York around 8 p.m. Despite the time change and the long journey, I’m not tired. In fact, as the plane touches down, I feel rejuvenated.
Because I’ve finally made a decision.
I’ve spent too long letting life’s currents guide me. I’ve been passive, and almost allowed them to sweep me right over a cliff with a marriage to Brent. Now I’m choosing action over inaction. Certainty over doubt. Love over fear. Will it work out? I have no clue. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to look back on this day and wonder what might have been.
I plan on inviting him up to my apartment when he drops me off, but upon getting into his waiting car, Nick directs his driver to take us to his penthouse first.
I frown. His apartment is closer to the airport than mine, but I’d assumed that he would take me home. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
Thankfully, Nick seems to sense my confusion. He turns his steely, unreadable gaze on me. “My place is closer than the office. I have some schematics to show you. We missed a ton of work in Ibiza.”
Oh, of course. We’re in work mode now. My resolve wavers. Nick truly hasn’t wasted a moment getting back to business. And why shouldn’t he? He’s always been upfront about the kind of man he is. Am I a fool for thinking he could be more? That he’d want to be more?
“It’ll only take a minute,” he says, misreading the look on my face.
The last thing I want to do right now is be alone in his apartment with him. To stand close to him, breathe him in and out, and not be able to touch him.
“Can’t you just show me on your phone?” I ask.
He raises it, shows a black screen. “Forgot to charge it on the plane.”
I nod reluctantly. “Okay, but briefly,” I say. “I need to sleep and we’ll both be at the office tomorrow, right?”
Nick nods. “Of course.”
Of course.
Landing in New York has put a magnetic field between us. Up in the air, we were still holding hands, still leaning against each other. Now we sit on opposite sides of the car. Even the thought of reaching for his hand seems inappropriate.
I watch him discreetly as he stares out the window at the evening Manhattan traffic. He never looks my way.
We arrive at his penthouse. My stomach is in my throat. I was so sure on the plane that I was going to risk it all, but in the face of his overwhelming apathy, I don’t think I have the nerve. After Nick talks me through blueprints and asks for mock-ups, will I be able to say, look, I think we have something here? Just the thought of his expression after I say those fateful words turns my blood to rivers of ice.
Then Nick looks at me for the first time since the airport. “Ready?” he asks.
No. But I get out anyway.
The lobby of Nick’s apartment is just as beautiful as the outside. The concierge greets Nick by name and then comes out from behind the desk.
“Sir,” he says. “There are some people?—”
Nick raises a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“But—”
“Robert,” Nick says emphatically. I look between them confused. Nick is staring daggers at the man. Robert looks torn, but then he relents and steps aside.
Nick leads me to a gleaming private elevator. As he presses the button to the penthouse, he starts to speak.
“Evie,” he says as the doors close. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said on the plane.”
On the plane? We’ve barely spoken all day.
He reads my confusion and clarifies. “On the plane from Paris.”
Oh.
Oh.
“I never thought I was one for a relationship. Never saw the use of it, never got the big deal.” He pauses.
He sounds apprehensive, a word I’d never use to describe Nick. But now he’s not meeting my eye, searching for the right words. He’s about to confess something. And from the lead-up, I think know exactly what that something is.
The emotional whiplash combines with the altitude change to make me dizzy. The adrenaline borne on excitement and relief that floods through my body is barely enough to keep me upright.
Holy shit. He feels the same way.
And then Nick finds his words and confirms it all: “But then I went to Paris with you, Evie.” He turns to me, takes my limp hands in his. They’re strong and warm, and it gives me strength just staring into his kind, determined eyes. “And it was the best?—”
He pauses, a puzzled look flashes across his face but I barely comprehend it.
“And it was the best—” He stops, frowns, tries to continue. “The best?—”
Now he looks upward, confused, and suddenly, through my euphoria, I hear it too. The thud of blasting bass, like the sounds of a very noisy dance club, is echoing down the elevator shaft. Nick’s brow furrows. I start to ask what that is, but then I don’t have to.
Because we’ve reached the top, and the elevator doors have opened, and it’s quite apparent what it is.
Nick’s penthouse has been converted into the first circle of hell.
Every square foot of the apartment is packed with people. Lights are flashing a rainbow of colors over the scene as people dance to music erupting out of a set of obnoxiously large speakers attached to a turntable that’s helmed by a DJ with a lime green mohawk.
Ironically, the song that’s blasting is the latest hit single by the newly-international superstar DJ Kara Kon.
In my complete shock, for a split second, I think Kara set this up as a misguided surprise. But then reality hits. No one who’s spent more than a minute with Nick would think that he’d be happy about this.
No, whoever did this hated Nick. Whoever did this wanted to trample through Nick’s private kingdom and piss on the roses.
And whoever did this is going to die.
I’m almost afraid to look at Nick, who’s standing stock-still beside me. But I have to, just to gauge how bad his reaction is.
My eyes flick up to his face and I wince. It’s both as bad as I expected and yet somehow still horrible to behold. That face I care so deeply for is twisted in rage. Every tendon in his neck is straining. His eyes are black.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I put a hand on his arm. “Nick,” I say. It’s like petting a tiger, but I know instinctively that no matter how mad Nick is, he’d never bite me.
In fact, beyond all reason, my touch seems to help. It takes a moment but finally he looks down at me, and his eyes soften immediately.
“Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?” I make a weak attempt at a joke.
“I’m going to kill him,” Nick replies. He’s not joking. He’s still furious, but that awful intensity has dissipated.
And that might have been enough to fix things. But then something happens that somehow makes the entire situation even worse.
The music screeches to a halt and the green-haired DJ speaks into a microphone, his voice echoing over the revelry.
“All right, all right. Is everyone having a good fuckin’ time?”
The answering scream shakes the foundations of the skyscraper.
“Well we got a long night ahead of us, so let’s take a quick breather and put those hands together for a special surprise we have here tonight.”
Then the DJ says the last thing I expect: “Is there a Nick Madison in the house?”
Wait, had this been planned? What’s going on?
The crowd seems to be wondering the same thing. Everyone’s looking around, heads peering in from bedrooms and more people crowding into the large space from other corners of the house.
“Come on, Nicky,” the DJ shouts. “Don’t be shy.”
Shy is another adjective that has never applied to Nick Madison, but caught between the impossible decision of extending this painful moment or answering to “Nicky”, he chooses the latter. Nick raises one hand.
“Ah there he is!” the DJ announces. “My man in the back. Nice suit.”
The crowd parts down the middle as people turn to stare at us.
I look around nervously. The energy in the room is shifting, rolling backward like a wave across the faces as people catch a glimpse of Nick and realize that not only is he not happy, he’s also the only one in the room who looks like they could own a home like this.
But then I forget everything. Who cares about the people staring at us? Fuck the mess and the noise.
Because the crowd has finally parted all the way up to the windows, and I see exactly what surprise the DJ was talking about.
Gathered in an archway of bushels are about a thousand roses. Beneath the archway is a string quartet dressed in tuxedos and made up of four very distinguished-looking silver-haired men. They’re professional enough to not look unnerved by the scene around them, and when the DJ yells, “Hit it!”, they begin to play.
I recognize the opening chords immediately. They’re playing a string rendition of Taylor Swift’s Love Story.
I can’t help it. Even with the hundreds of onlookers, the opening strings bring tears to my eyes. I clasp my hands to my mouth.
But I can’t enjoy it for long.
The song plays to a dead-silent room. Everyone in the room stares at Nick, waiting for his reaction.
I look up at this wonderful man who’d planned such a beautiful surprise for me and see something even worse than fury on his face. The back of his neck is flushed. He’s embarrassed.
He shouldn’t be. The party is a fluke, sure. But there’s no part of me that cares. They’ll leave eventually, and then it will just be the two of us. Not looking over schematics but falling into bed together, waking up together, being together.
This was what Nick had meant when he said that everything was going to be okay. He’d made up his mind in Ibiza. He’d just wanted to make it special.
“Nick…” I start to say, my heart swelling with emotion.
But then that fucking DJ makes a fatal mistake. Feeling the tension, he tries to encourage Nick by saying, “Come on, buddy. Don’t be scared. Tell her how you feel!”
And that is the final straw.
Without a word, Nick charges down the aisle like a bull. People shrink away as he passes. Already some are edging toward the elevator, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves.
But Nick’s focus is on the DJ, honing in on that green hair like it’s a toxic bullseye. The man jumps back, pressing himself against the window in terror as Nick descends on him, and for a horrible moment I think he’s about to punch him. But instead Nick rips the microphone out of the guy’s hand and says into it, “Anyone still in my home in five minutes is going to get shot.”
Everyone believes him.
Pandemonium breaks out. I fling myself against the wall as the crowd charges the elevator. It’s obviously not large enough to take all of them down and there’s almost a panic. But then someone finds the penthouse’s private stairwell and the party drains like a bath.
All the while the strings play on like it’s the sinking of the Titanic.
And then, suddenly, it’s only Nick and me, the quartet, and the DJ who’s trying to pack up his stuff. Nick advances on him.
“Leave it,” he growls.
“But—” He takes a look at Nick’s face, thinks twice, and runs.
Now it’s just us and the quartet, as it was meant to be, but it’s instantly clear that Nick isn’t getting over this so quickly. His eyes trace his ruined apartment, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides.
At first I think he’s just upset about the destruction, but when I try to draw his sight, he looks away. He won’t meet my eyes. He’s humiliated.
I have no clue what to say.
Then Nick rounds on the quartet. “STOP THAT FUCKING NOISE!” he roars. They stop instantly, just as Romeo is about to propose.
Nick composes himself, barely, and asks the men, “Why. Why would you not inform me of this?”
“We tried,” one of the players says. “We couldn’t get ahold of you. So we just assumed this was part of it.”
Nick and I cringe at the same time. His phone had been off, the pretense to get me up here. Nick presses his eyes closed and says, softly, “Just get out.”
The players don’t need to be told twice. They don’t even put their instruments away, just grabbing their cases and running to the elevator.
And then there were two.
I look around at the trashed apartment. Bottles, cans, and solo cups are scattered everywhere. What was once stylish steel masculine decor looks like a frat house threw up all over it.
“Nick…” I say softly. I’m about to tell him that it’s okay. That the sentiment remains even if the execution hadn’t worked out.
But then his head whips up to look at me, and in his eyes is more than anger. There’s hatred. It’s the fury of an angry god and my stomach drops in its spotlight.
But then I realize he’s not looking at me. He’s looking over my shoulder.
I turn slowly and see Jack, Nick’s younger brother, standing in a doorway. His expression is a mix of belligerence and sheepishness.
“You came home early,” he says.
Nick inhales sharply. “This is what you’ve been doing to my home while I’ve been gone.” Deadly quiet. Menacing. Terrifying. Jack wilts under the weight of it.
“I was going to clean it up,” he starts.
“Get out.”
“I’m sorry. It?—”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment,” Nick says, advancing on him.
“But—”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment. Get the fuck out of my life. Everything you touch turns to shit. Just like Dad.”
The words hit Jack like a punch. He physically slumps backward. For a moment, all I can see is pain on the boy’s face. Then it hardens into a staggeringly similar imitation of Nick’s.
Jack approaches Nick with deliberate steps until they’re face to face. Then he says, “At least you’re finally being honest.”
Nick just says, again, “Get out.”
Jack goes to the elevator, gets in, but before the doors can shut, he holds them and shouts, “And it’s fucking hilarious that you think Dad and I are the only ones who manage to turn everything to shit.”
Then he lets the doors close on his furious, devastated face.