Chapter 12 #3
What? Why? Why isn’t he back inside with his beautiful woman?
“How could you possibly know we are going in the same direction? You’ve got no idea where I live.”
He shrugs as if that is answer enough.
Exasperated, I silently push forward in the direction of my bed.
Low streetlights guide the way, and if that wasn’t enough light, some of the buildings around us have people still awake in their units.
If I squint, I can make out silhouettes of people going on about their nights.
Cooking, watching television, dancing. There are stretches where it’s only the two of us, and then other stretches where lubricated, giggling bodies merge in and out of their path.
I’m still annoyed. We walk for a while. No one speaks.
Then he does.
“Are you going to do it?”
“Do what? ”
“Call that number. The stranger, the man at the bar wants you to date.”
We approach a stairway with some uneven steps. He offers his hand, but I ignore it and hop down on my own, accepting the sting in my ankles when my shoes land on concrete. “He’s not a complete stranger. I got details.”
“Like what?”
“He’s a dentist.”
“Excellent. He knows his way around a drill and sleeping gas.”
“Hey!” I attempt a sideway jab he easily avoids. “Don’t put murderery thoughts in my head! I don’t want to be weird on the date.”
“I see. So you are going on it. The date.”
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t—it’s not any of your business!”
This conversation is peak pointless and irritating.
What’s his preoccupation with how I spend my time?
God forbid, a small amount of it is not monopolized by making him cakes or smoothies or whatever other meal prep is scheduled.
It’s not like I’m restraining his movements or wondering what he’s up to when we aren’t together.
But maybe I should, for equality purposes, interrogate too. Not because I’m curious or invested in finding out. “How about you and the woman in the bar?”
“Sophie. And what about her?”
“Why aren’t you walking her home? Or walking her to your home? It feels like a missed opportunity. Not that I understand why, but she was into you.”
“Most women are.”
I decide the best response to this is to double over and laugh. So, I do.
“That’s unnecessarily rude, Rita.”
The plan was to have a bit of a laugh, but it seems I can’t stop now that I’ve started. It’s the release of tension I’ve been needing. Delirious, joyous, and like trapped birds are leaving my chest. Screw good sex. This is loads better.
Luke moves, stalking past me.
There are tears in my eyes, so when I straighten and walk behind him, I don’t see the uneven crack in the pavement.
“Erk.”
My feet stumble, and there is an attempt to regain balance, but it fails. My hair flies back as I trip forward. Arms brace for impact but it’s not the ground they hit.
Hands around my waist secure me back in place.
“Careful,” he reprimands gruffly.
I sniff, using the edge of my palm to wipe away my eyes. “I’m good.”
“Are you? You almost smacked your face.”
“But I didn’t.”
I glare up at his face—which is much closer than it’s ever been before. There are darker gray flecks in his slate-blue eyes and a freckle above the cupid bow of his lips. An innocent embellishment on an otherwise serious and masculine face.
The stare-down goes on and on, and if there is an acceptable time limit for adversaries to maintain prolonged eye contact, I’m afraid we’ve gone past it.
I’m getting sucked into his wonderful orbit, a place I don’t want to be.
Not when the heat and intensity of his touch starts a low-pitched fire frustratingly asking me to feed it with more of him.
Anxiously, I chew the edge of her lip.
Bad call, now that he’s looking at my mouth.
I suck in a breath, wondering crazily if it’s a shape he appreciates.
His fingers jerk against my hips.
It’s like…
Almost if…
We’re breathing in air, but fighting for who gets the most of it between our mouths. Inching closer territorially, not wanting to back down an inch lest the other thinks to gain victory. Noses brush. Eyes close. The faintest whisper of mouth against mouth.
Then somewhere behind us, a man with a booming voice begins to sing a Beatles song.
It’s broken. The trance. We jerk our faces away.
“I-I tripped,” I justify as if an explanation is needed.
“So did I,” he says, matching my fighting words.
“Stop holding me. I’m fine,” I say, rather snappishly, lifting my ankle in the air to roll it as if imminent evidence is needed.
“Can you walk?”
I wave his concern away. “ Yes . I’m an adult. A very buzzed adult, but an adult nonetheless. I won’t expire in the middle of the streets if left alone. You may leave in good conscience and go back to the bar. There is no need to ruin your night.”
“You don’t own outside . Maybe I require air too.”
“Really? I’m surprised the iron heart of yours requires oxygen.”
“Is that the best you got? How lacking, Rita.”
I don’t meet his taunt with anything more than a lazy, “You’re the worst.” Much better to prioritize reaching home so I can sink into my comforter, and forget the details of the night. Not wonder if we—almost—kissed? It can’t be. The last minute was an illusion.
He must agree, because he takes in a deep breath and releases it slowly as if very tired himself.
We continue walking beside each other, noticeably careful in our movements so as not to accidentally come into contact again.
Not that it means I forget Luke is there.
I feel him walking beside me too loudly in the relatively quiet street.
As if our atoms are awake under sulfurous lights, buzzing without words.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asks, eventually breaking our silence. As if needing to orient ourselves back on polite, formal ground.
“No.”
“Good. I didn’t either.”
“Where did you learn how to dance?” I ask after we turn the corner.
“Classes.”
We’re falling back to our old morning Q&A sessions.
“Aren’t you from Ohio?” I ask. “I wasn’t aware the city is known for its dancing.”
“My father took me cabining to hunt deer in dirty clothes one day, and the next, dressed me up in a suit to rip off money from investors. The second required me to know how to dance.”
I’m more than a little sad imagining a little boy tossed between two worlds with no autonomy of his own. What’s his relationship with his father like now? That article I’d read speculated, but the media gets it wrong all the time.
“...Which activity did you prefer?”
“Neither,” he says.
That tells me a lot, but also doesn’t tell me enough. So how does Luke Abbot want to live? What version of reality does he want to exist in? What does he want to do ?
Before I can ask, he looks up at the sky. “It’s starting to rain.”
“Barely.”
“I’m calling you a cab.”
“No. I’m only twenty minutes away. You can go in one if you want.”
“Must you be so damn stubborn?”
“Unlike you, I’m not worried about my perfect hair.”
His smirk is infuriating. “So you think my hair is perfect?”
“What? No. But I know you do.”
“By the way,” says Luke. “Theo likes you. You should expect him to become a pest at your side. He thinks you’re funny. But you don’t ever have to hang out with him again if you don’t want to.”
“Considering all my friends are back in Mumbai, that might be nice.”
“Not all.”
“Excuse me?”
“You said all your friends. Don’t forget I’m on a crusade to become friendly too.”
“For your own gain.” Why did my voice just get smaller? As if, I don’t want this to be the truth. As if I want him to have another motive. I fold my arms together. “Is that why you are walking me home? As a part of your strategy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m always going to get you home.”
Thud, thud, thud. My heart likes his answer too much.
“If you say so,” I say, holding back an exhale. “For the record, these streets are nothing like the ones back home. If you compare the two, I’m much safer right now.”
“Mumbai… Do you miss it?”
It takes a moment for me to answer. Does he really care? “I miss my people, the city, the sky, the smells, the culture. You can’t imagine how overwhelmingly generous everything is until you see it for yourself.”
Luke looks forward as if there is something of great importance in the distance. “How about a partner? Anybody pining away because you’re here and not there.”
To hold up appearances, I should recite the many names of my paramours, telling him I’ve got a long, rather full line of suitors angling to become my boyfriend. “Actually, I got dumped in my last relationship.”
“Why?”
“He liked me only when I made him laugh. ”
“That’s the stupidest thing I think I’ve ever heard.”
It’s the perfect reaction I had no idea I needed to hear. For someone to agree with me. That it is spectacularly hurtful and limiting to only like a person when they are one piece of themselves.
The rain falls quicker, cloudy mist turning into plopping drizzle.
We stop and look up. Luke moves in closer.
There is a stray tendril of hair stuck to my cheek.
He reaches out and tucks it back behind my ear.
I feel as if my breathing is so loud when his thumb sweeps the arch of my cheekbone, going in the direction of my mouth.
For what? I’ll never know when my phone crashes the moment. It’s the ping of an email.
Luke stiffly retreats.
My insides have stirred into a dizzying state, and I’ve got no choice but to check my inbox.
Because composure is needed. Very much needed.
What was in those Manhattans? Why am I finding it so hard to be chill around him?
Why am I reading into every little thing he does as if it’s not a manufactured ploy for friendship but real?
My thumb hovers over the screen of my phone, frozen.
It’s a message from Masala MealKits. I have… made it into the next round of CUM!
“Oh,” I shriek. “My god!”
This can’t be happening! I did it? I did it! Squealing with delight, I go toward Luke with my arms lifted?—
He freezes, his posture sharp and wary. As if afraid of my energy at full throttle, as if he’s deemed it dangerous to his being. Shark eyes hone in on my arms, clearly not trusting them.
That kind of…hurts. Quickly, I lower my stance and stand regularly.
“Good news,” I tell him. “I—got some.”
“That’s…great.”
Is he going to ask about it? Why hasn’t he?
Thunder rumbles in the distance. It’s raining enough now that my hair is going to be soaked if we stand out in the open longer. Deftly, Luke hails down a cab, deciding not to bother asking again. He opens the passenger door for me. “Get home now.”
I put one foot inside. “And you?”
“I have to go back and check on Theo.”
Is that it? Or is Sophie waiting for him back there? Feeling suddenly exhausted, I fall into the backseat.
The door closes behind me, but the front window rolls down. Luke passes the driver money. “Get her where she needs to go safely,” he says, his voice a low warning. The cabbie nods and before I can say anything else to Luke, we are off into the night.
The drive is blessedly short.
And when I am inside my apartment again, a shower does the trick of settling me down, so by the time I’m finally in my bed, the night is less immediately playing on my mind, only impatiently brimming by the edges of my consciousness.
I will not replay the events of the evening.
There will be no imagining of Luke’s reactions around me, the way I felt him staring at times…
the power of his hands around my face…how we tripped forward…
My finger moves over my lip. Did we—had our mouths actually touched ? —
I’m hot all over, but still I yank my blanket over my face. It didn’t happen. I don’t think so. I’m exaggerating it in my head. When I can’t breathe, I come up for air and kick off the bed covers. What I should focus on is how he kept himself apart when I got the good news…
How… infuriating because that’s the proper reaction to land on. It’s not as if I was going to bite him. There was no need to be so damn cautious around my happiness.
Happiness… I passed. MealKits Masala wants me to go on!
My shoulders sink in infinitesimal relief.
Then my phone beeps, a rather annoying thing, calling for my attention. I’m not answering, I decide. My eyes close and I will myself to fantasize about future meal kit challenges. This might have worked if ten minutes later, a follow-up didn’t come through.
I grab it from the side table.
LUKE
Did you get home?
When I don’t respond, there is another message.
LUKE
Answer me.
Huffing, I glare at his bossy demand.
Another message comes in.
Or I’ll have to come and check for myself .
That won’t do! I stab out a response.
ME
Don’t. I’m home and need sleep.
It’s a workday tomorrow, and I’m not allowed to be late.
LUKE
Your employer sounds like an ass.
Too easily I can agree and end the conversation that way. However, my fingers hesitate. Then I type, blaming it on my alcohol lowered inhibitions.
ME
I met one of his friends today.
He was lovely.
The friend that is.
And the company you keep is a reflection of you, or so I’m told.
There must be some redeeming qualities buried very, very, very, very deep.
I’ve done it. I’ve asked him, in the most round-about fashion, where I can still slip it off as a joke, to tell me the truth. Are you good?
Say yes.
LUKE
The number of those ‘verys’ is offensive.
Here, I could stop digging. Or steer myself away from the soft center of the matter. But then, I’ll never know. With my stomach acting up again, I ask him to reassure me without going at it directly.
ME
Yes, well sometimes I wonder if I can trust his intentions.
There. I said it. It is done. I’ve pointed to the laughing elephant between us and what is causing me to worry about spending more and more time together .
Because it’s working.
Luke’s plan.
He said he would win my friendship. That it would be no problem for me to consider him good enough to agree to the conference.
His white whale. The bargain to be at his side, a trophy lending him my warmth and genuineness so he can convince important people that I’m also a reflection of him.
That’s what’s at play in the background.
I can’t let myself forget. All a game, this could be. But is it?
I wait almost twenty minutes for him to give me reassurances, but there is no follow-up. As I finally fall asleep, a very troubling thought enters my mind. Maybe he is answering me by not saying anything, and I have to be smart enough to realize that.
We may joke and get more comfortable around each other, but I shouldn’t lower my guard. Not now. Not ever.
Luke Abbot is more than a man who makes me tea in the mornings.