Sophia
I do my very best to not be upset with James leaving. I understand why he must. I was a little nervous that he may have been letting work slide while spending the week with me.
He was still working. I’d wake in the middle of the night to find his side of the bed cold.
The one time I went looking for him, I saw him hunched over his computer with a glass of scotch in one hand.
But I figure he wasn’t working to the extent one needs to as the CEO of a billion-dollar company. Now it seems like he realized he’s been sinking and is going to have to go into overdrive to keep things afloat.
I turn the music up to try to minimize the void of his absence, but I end up with a headache and just sit in silence and drink my red wine like a lonely housewife.
This is no life for me, either. If James is working, I need to be, too. But the gallery is shut down for months. First there’s the investigation. Then the entire front needs remodeling after being driven through. James could expedite it with money, but it’s not a priority.
I finish my one glass and pour the rest of the bottle down the drain to make a point.
I’ll do something ambitious in the morning. Like going on a hike by myself, at first light. But for now, I shower and go to bed early.
I don’t sleep well when James isn’t here. Suffice to say I don’t reach my ambitions.
I sleep in. I do end up hiking. But it’s ten in the morning before I’m in the woods, and something about it feels off.
It’s a weekday, and the trail is empty except for me. This should feel like a luxury, but instead I feel like I’ve skipped class one too many days in a row. I feel like a bum.
Like someone who’s not contributing to society, because that’s exactly what I’m doing.
It’s been a week. I don’t need any more time to recover from the heist. I’ve been a little jumpier than usual, but so far, no nightmares.
My bruises have faded, and it’s time I find out what my job looks like. I’m done at the gallery when it’s reopened.
James agreed—if we’re dating, we need to sever all professional ties. I was already unemployed, but that fact hasn’t really hit until today.
When I get home, I try not to watch TV. I read instead but find myself checking my phone. I know it’s coming, but my shoulders still sink when I get the text.
James: Work is a little crazy. I don’t think I can make it back Upstate for a while. Best if you come back to the city. I talked to building management, and we can both use the service door until the paparazzi are gone.
I don’t respond immediately. It’s right that I get back to the city, but it also feels like I’m being violently shaken back into reality.
I can hear the car horns and sirens already. New York. Where our relationship will actually be tested as we adjust to busy schedules. I know it will be fine, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve been at practice and the actual game is about to start.
It will be the same. Same great sex. Same banter. Same growing love.
Nothing, whatsoever, to worry about.
I fly commercial back to New York. Taking a private plane for forty-five minutes feels ridiculous. Plus, that’s the kind of rich person behavior I make fun of. And while I’m sure I’m destined to become somewhat of a hypocrite if I join the one percent, I don’t plan to start so early.
I’m 5’5”. I fit fine in coach anyway.
I can see why all 6’4” of James would rather never step foot on a passenger jet again. If we have to answer for these things at the pearly gates, I think he’d have an easier time explaining his carbon footprint to St. Peter than I would.
There’s a black Cadillac waiting to pick me up at JFK. We take the Midtown tunnel to Manhattan, and as we exit, I can’t help but look at this city a little differently.
Five days is as long as I’ve ever spent away from civilization with the nearest store a fifteen-minute drive away.
I missed the bustle, but I hope I don’t end up missing the intimacy the isolation granted to James and me.
The Cadillac pulls into the alley of my building. I get out, and building management is there ready to let me in through the back door. It feels strange stepping into the elevator. Stranger still walking to my apartment door. But there is a lightness and speed in my step.
Steve was brought back down to my apartment, and I need to see him first.
I go into the living room without taking my coat and shoes off and smile wide as I see Steve lounging lazily on the top of the couch. He closes his eyes a little, and his tail flickers up and down.
“Did you miss me, mister?”
I spread my arms wide. Steve looks bored. Like my presence is more of a disruption to his nap, but I can tell he’s just being a cat and playing it cool by how loudly he purrs when I go over and scratch his ears.
“Yeah, you’re a good actor. But I know you love me.”
I sit next to him and just spend a good twenty minutes soaking up being home. What do I do after this? Do I go up to James’s apartment or wait for an invitation?
We were eating dinner together there but didn’t discuss the rules. Is it presumptuous of me to think I’ll sleep there?
I don’t want to move too fast and practically move in together. We should have our own space. But it’s not like we can’t do that in his massive penthouse alone.
He has the room in New York to not feel suffocated. To not feel like you’re moving too fast by spending every waking second together. My phone dings, and I look at the incoming text.
James: I heard you’ve arrived.
Me: Yep! Safe and sound. Currently in my apt.
James: You should come up. And stay up . There’s plenty of room for two up here.
I pause. So, he does want me to quasi move in with him. I want it, too. Badly.
I can’t get enough of him. I tell myself we have options if we see each other too much, like I can spend more time down in my apartment. But with how much James works, that’s probably not even a concern to begin with.
Me: That means Steve’s moving up in the world too.
James: That’s fine. I told you. I already have a cat.
Me: You pay rent for a cat.
James: Isn’t that what owning a cat is?
Me: Hmm. Fair point. Give me an hour or two to shower my mom is from the UK. They had me during an affair in New York. It ruined their marriages, but they never even dated each other after. They just raised me like two friends with a baby. I was born here, and I lived here, most of the time. Not long after I turned eighteen, they both moved back to their respective countries.”
“That can’t be easy.”
“Yeah. It felt like once the job was complete, they were gone. But they’re not bad people.”
James’s face is a mask of amusement. “It’s an interesting story.”
“Are you surprised?”
“A little.”
“I don’t like to talk about it that much. I’m part Chilean but don’t speak a lick of Spanish. It’s sort of embarrassing.”
“Do you like your parents?”
The bluntness of the question gives me pause. I suppose it’s a fair question to ask. I might harbor a lot of resentment from not being born into a happy family. “I do like them. They’re both very flawed, but they know it.”
“Hmm. Life is funny, isn’t it?”
“How so?”
“That the flaws of two people created the most beautiful thing in my life.”
I want to tease him for being sappy, but there is something about his tone, the way he spoke lightly with the rasp of a whisper, that melts my heart.
This.
This could be the rest of my life, I think.
James pushes me into the cushions and plants a deep kiss on my lips. That would be more than okay. My thoughts begin to dissolve as his fingers find the heat between my legs.
I close my eyes, and the insides of my eyelids sparkle with little flurries of light.
Yellow and purple and white. Fireworks, I think, as the shells detonate down in my stomach. Fooling around with James is like fireworks.
You know that moment you look for? The one that you hope will feel like the beginning of the rest of your life? I always thought it would come on a bed of rose petals. Or on a sailboat. Enjoying champagne and a sunset.
But it’s here on James’s couch in the dark of early March that the feeling hits me. And despite my decades of girlish expectations, it feels perfect.