The Virgin Society Collection

20. The Handle On The Pot

20

THE HANDLE ON THE POT

Nick

So this is friendship with a woman. If so, I don’t know that I want to sign up for another stint of it.

Being with Layla over the last week has been painful and wonderful at the same time.

On Thursday evening, David’s off in Brooklyn with the shelters he coordinates with there, while Layla and I roll through our task list. This time we’re on the couch. She’s on one end. I’m on the other.

This space between us is good. Empirically good. It’ll keep me from being obsessed. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll keep me from thinking of how sturdy this couch is.

Even though I’m distracted by her call.

“Yes, the golf lessons donation is fantastic, Kip,” she says on the phone as I answer an email. “Can you take a picture of the set of clubs you’re including? Yes, I know the clubs are PXG.”

A pause, then she laughs sweetly. “I would, but I’m so busy.”

I’m instantly jealous. Who the fuck is this guy who wants her to come over and take a picture of a couple pricey golf clubs?

“You’re a good photog,” she says, clearly flattering him. “Just take a well-lit wide shot and send it to me.”

Another pause. “Yes. After the auction. See you then.”

She hangs up, then dusts one palm against the other, like she’s relieved to have that call done. “And the golf lessons and the clubs are in. You better bring rich people to bid on them.”

But I’m too irritated to address her demand. “Who’s Kip?”

Her brow knits, like she’s unsure why I’d ask with such vitriol. “He’s donating golf lessons at his family’s country club, and a set of golf clubs. I thought that was clear.”

“It was,” I say, then bite out, “Who is he?”

She quirks her head to the side, puzzled but a little amused too. “Why are you asking it like that?”

“You sounded friendly with him. Is he a friend?”

“Like you and me?”

I growl. “Better not be like you and me.”

She laughs, leaning back into the sofa. “Relax. He went to Carlisle Academy too. A few years ahead of me. His mother is friends with my mom and your…” There’s a pause, like she’s debating whether to say the next words, then she does. “Your ex-wife.”

Which means Kip is close to her age.

Which means Kip can likely date her.

Which means he can…

I need to stop. This is not friendly terrain at all. I have to try to be friends with her. I have to get a handle on these reckless emotions.

Besides, falling harder for this woman would be a repeat of my past. I fell hard for the rich girl more than twenty years ago. Then I knocked her up, pissed off her family, and nearly derailed her life.

I should stay far away from the Park Avenue elite.

Sure, I can compete with all those rich fuckers now in the wallet department, but I’ll always be the guy from the other side of the tracks. Guys who went to community college, then state school, aren’t part of the Carlisle Academy crowd.

But I picture Layla—Lola then—working her ass off in Miami, making contacts, building her app on a new name.

Not a family name.

Goddammit, she’s hardly part of that scene either. Why does she have to be so alluring?

I need a distraction. I glance over at the ticking clock by the kitchen. Cooking always calms me. The rhythm, the focus, the creativity. “Want dinner?”

“Sure,” she says, perhaps as eager for a change of subject and scenery as I am. “I can order from someplace?”

“Or I can cook,” I offer.

That gets her attention. “You can cook?”

I laugh, gesturing to the open-plan kitchen. “Why do you think I have all those pots and pans in the kitchen?”

“For show?” she asks, serious.

I roll my eyes. “For real, beautiful. For real,” I say, before I can catch my mistake. But fuck it, she is beautiful. Maybe I don’t want to correct my error—not with the Kips of the world trying to get the woman I can’t have. “Want a veggie stir-fry?”

Her smile is utterly charmed, and fuck Kip. I put that smile there. I bet Kip can’t cook. “That sounds great,” she says.

A few minutes later, I’m in the kitchen, chopping red and orange peppers on a cutting board while Layla grabs broccoli from the veggie drawer.

“Can you grab the tofu too?” I ask. “Wait. I didn’t ask if you like tofu.”

“I like tofu if it’s cooked well.”

“I can cook it well,” I say, with a confident grin. “Second shelf.”

She finds it and sets it next to me. “Have you always cooked?”

“Always. My dad taught me when I was seven,” I tell her as I cut the orange pepper into thin slices. “He likes to go out once a week to a restaurant, but the rest of the time he makes dinner at home. Finn and I took him when I first came to town. He lives in Queens with my mom.”

“You can see him regularly,” she says, sounding a little wistful. Maybe even amazed. “Is he retired?”

“He was a firefighter for forty years. Retired at sixty-five.”

“Did your mom work?”

“She was in dispatch. That’s how they met. He cooked for their first date. He still likes to cook for her.”

Layla purses her lips as she opens the tofu. “That sounds nice,” she says, but then she stops opening the container, almost like she’s flummoxed by it.

Trying to figure out why she seems off, I ask, “Are you not used to people cooking for you?”

She shakes her head. “My friends and I don’t cook much. And my mom kind of stopped after?—”

When she doesn’t finish, I stop chopping, my spine tingling with concern. “Is your father…not around?”

I put the knife down. It feels wrong to hold it right now.

She draws a deep breath, like she needs fuel. “He,” she begins, then she takes another fueling breath, staring at the tofu, only the tofu. “He was killed six years ago.”

Oh, shit.

My sweet, hurting Layla. Instantly, I close the distance between us, wrap my arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Layla.”

She sniffles against my chest but then just nods. “Thank you.”

I don’t know what she’s thanking me for—the hug, the question, or something else. But I don’t think now’s the time to ask. Not when she wraps her arms around me too, circling them around my waist, squeezing. It’s one of the first times we’ve touched that’s not sexual. That’s just comforting. I’m surprised by the tenderness and her clear need—a need that I can fill.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask gently.

I can feel her swallow against me. She shakes her head. “No. But thanks for asking.”

She lets go. Backs away. Studies me like I’m a curio in a shop. “You didn’t look me up?”

The question comes out with a touch of wonder.

I shake my head. “No. I didn’t want to—” I stop myself before I say become obsessed with you . “Rely on what others say. I’d rather know you from you.”

She gives a faint smile. It seems both sad and happy. Maybe like her thanks. “That means more than you can know, Nick.”

My heart aches for her. Absolutely aches. I’m naturally curious. Anyone would be. And I want to ask what she means by killed—like by a car, a plane, or something more sinister. But I do the math. She takes Krav Maga. She wears all those rings, which could easily be self-defense rings. I don’t think her father was killed in an accident.

But clearly, she values privacy. Now’s not the time or place to ask for details she may not be ready to share, now or ever, especially since she grabs the conversation with her own question, making her needs clear. “Will you tell me more about your mom and dad? All my friends tell me about their parents,” she says, and there she is again.

The Lola I first knew. Playful.

“I can,” I say as I file away all the new details I’ve learned about the other side of Lola—the Layla side.

I can start to see how complex her relationship is with her mother. How much she values friendships. How she uses humor and charm and smarts to dance away from the things she doesn’t want to discuss.

How she’s let me in a little bit more every time I’ve seen her.

And I want to know more of her.

As a friend?

No.

But it’s all we can have.

“I’m just a guy from the other side of the bridge,” I begin as I resume cooking then tell her more about my gruff dad, my no-nonsense mom, the rough-and-tumble public high school I went to, and the two-bedroom apartment we grew up in where I shared a room with my brother.

Soon I serve her dinner at the kitchen island, wishing I were spending the rest of the evening with her.

Especially since she tells me more about her favorite people. “And Ethan’s in a band. Do you want to hear his newest song?”

“I do,” I say.

“Good because I play it for all my friends ,” she says, a grin on her gorgeous face again. “But it’s kind of alt. Can you handle it?”

I roll my eyes. “We are not that far off music wise.”

“You like polka, right?” she teases.

I narrow my eyes. “I’d like to spank you for that.”

Her eyes spark. Maybe she wants a spanking. Maybe I want to give her one. But now’s the time for music rather than kink, and she hits play on the song.

It’s sultry and sexy, full of longing.

I don’t tell her I’m feeling unfriendly as I imagine the song playing in a club, pulling her close, kissing the back of her neck, and whispering sweet, dirty nothings in her ear, then taking her home and letting all those dirty nothings keep us up all night.

When David returns an hour later, I’ve given myself a medal for restraint. Look at me, world. I’m aces at resisting my son’s friend.

Yeah, that’s called basic decency.

The three of us catch up on the auction details, and when we’re done, Layla gathers her canvas bag from the living room. “And I’m going to prep for tomorrow’s video shoots. Winged eyeliners don’t make themselves,” she says.

I look away because some days, it’s damn hard putting on a poker face.

Like when I think about the first time we talked about winged eyeliner…and other first times.

“Did I tell you Cyn loves your videos?” David says as he walks her to the door, while I head to the kitchen to finish cleaning up. “Maybe we can double date with Kip. My mom told me about the date.”

Wait.

What in the ever-loving hell?

“I had no choice. I had to throw her a bone,” Layla says, with a what can you do sigh in her voice.

But what the hell did she do?

“I can’t believe they wanted you to go with him to the auction,” David says as I pick up a pan to clean.

Oh, hell no. She’d better not bring a date there. I scrub the pan harder.

“You can’t believe that ? They tried to set us up again,” Layla says with a laugh.

“Fair point. I shouldn’t put anything past the matchmaker twins,” he says.

Out of the corner of my eye, he hugs her, and a plume of jealousy rages in me. But this fire isn’t over my son.

It’s over this asshole Kip.

“Bye, Nick,” she calls out as she leaves.

“Bye, Layla,” I bite out, and I hope, I really fucking hope, my irritation doesn’t show through.

When David strides into the kitchen, he gives me a look like he can smell my annoyance. “You okay?”

I need to get it together. “Just this damn pot. Needs so much scouring,” I mutter as I attack the clean surface. Then, because I am obsessed, no matter how hard I try to fight it, I give in a little more. “So your mom tries to set up your friends?”

David laughs, like this is nothing to him. “Evidently. Layla’s mom does it to her too. She’s got a date with that guy after the auction.”

I nearly rip the handle off the pot.

I can barely concentrate as I head into the office on Friday. When I reach the corner suite, Kyle springs up from his desk, says hello, and updates me on calls and research reports he’s compiled for me, and I just grunt out a thanks then shut the door to my office. I’m heads-down most of the morning, buried in research, a pen in my hand as I take written notes, but I swear I have read the same sentence twelve million and ten fucking times.

Who the hell is this Kip Jackass?

I won’t google her. I won’t go down that dangerous minefield. I won’t violate her privacy.

But fuck it.

I need to know who the hell she’s dating.

Kip Cranston.

The second his photo appears, I hate him with the rage of a thousand black tar suns. I flip the pen in my hand back and forth as I study this asshole. He’s a frat guy. A fifth generation Yale legacy. Just like Rose. He likes classic sports cars.

Oh, that’s original.

I bet he expects women to bend over backwards for him.

I bet he thinks he’s great in bed because he has family money.

I bet he doesn’t listen to what women want.

I bet…

There’s a cracking noise. What the fuck?

Ink leaks all over my hand. I just broke a pen.

I stare slack-jawed at the black splotch on my hand. “What is wrong with you, man?” I mutter.

I head to the restroom. At the sink, I scrub, and I scrub, and I scrub.

The ink is still there ten minutes later when Finn strides in and glances at my palm. “You broke a pen again.”

“Yes,” I mutter.

“You haven’t broken a pen since Millie wanted to know if you’d join the country club with her. And she flipped a lid when you said no.”

I seethe over the painful memory. “I hate country clubs,” I grumble.

“I know that, buddy,” Finn says, then meets my gaze in the mirror. “Is this about a woman?”

No point lying. He’s been onto me from the start. “Yeah. Someone I can’t have,” I say, then I leave.

Early that evening, Layla arrives at my place right as David’s leaving.

“Always taking off,” she says playfully as he grabs his phone from the table by the door.

“Fingers crossed. I’m checking out a sublet. Then popping over to a shelter in the Bronx and picking up the golf clubs from Kip’s. We can all meet back for food and maybe come up with a plan for picking up the rest of the items?”

“Sounds good,” she says, then he waves goodbye to her and to me before he rushes off.

“He’s less frazzled,” she remarks as she sets down a canvas bag, then follows me to the kitchen.

I gesture to the fridge, trying to focus on something simple and mundane, so I don’t spiral into Kip-fueled frustration. “Want something to drink? Water? Tea? LaCroix? Scotch? Moonshine?” I need a scotch, that’s for sure.

She doesn’t answer or take the bait of the moonshine joke. She points to my hand. “What happened?”

I won’t give in. I can’t give in. I refuse to give in. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Nick,” she says, gentle but clear. She’s refusing to give in too.

I wish her strength weren’t so alluring. “It’s just a pen that broke,” I say as I poke around the fridge.

She sets a hand on my shoulder.

I tense, but it feels so good too.

“Hey. Are you okay?” she asks.

I get what she’s doing. This is the friend routine. But we’re not friends.

I shut the fridge door and turn to face the bold, brilliant blonde beauty I can’t get out of my head.

Screw friendship.

Obsession wins. “I don’t want you to date Kip,” I say. As soon as I do, I want to take it back, but I want to imprint my inappropriate demand on the sky too.

“You don’t?” Her blue eyes flicker with curiosity.

I clench my fists, hiding the stupid ink spot. “I don’t, and I have no right to say that. No right to feel it. And yet I fucking do.”

She inhales, watches me, then nods like she’s gearing up for something. Then, she unfolds a story. “My mother likes to set me up. She has this fantasy that I’ll meet some blue-blood Park Avenue guy from a good family, and then she can leave the company to me, and she won’t have to worry, because she trusts no one because of my father.”

There’s too much to unpack there, and I feel like a jerk. Like a jealous, selfish jackass. She’s got real stuff to worry about. I just carry a chip on my shoulder about where I’m from. I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry, Layla,” I say, heavily. “I shouldn’t care.”

She takes a step toward me. “But you do?”

I take a breath. Try to will away the dragon of jealousy inside me. But it’s billowing great plumes of smoke. The only thing to calm it is the truth. I advance toward her and confess, “I don’t want another man to date you. Or to touch you. Or to kiss you. I have no right to feel this way, and I’m doing a terrible job at being friends with you. Because I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to feel this way about a friend.”

Her lips part. Her tongue flicks across the corner of her mouth. “What way?”

I don’t think. I cup her cheeks and bring my lips dangerously close to hers. “Obsessed.”

She lifts her chin, like a dare. “Show me how much.”