Chapter 25
“I talked too much,” I say when we’re in the town car.
“You didn’t,” he says.
“The whole parking arbitrage thing was absurd.” I’m looking out the window.
“Kind of brilliant, actually.”
I smile at the window. “I know, it gives me so much joy. Your dad was kind of tough.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was expecting a little pushback but not a total takedown of the project. You got him with the ice cream thing. So well played.”
“Well, it’s the truth. A guy who’s got a town named after him should have a little respect for the past. So what happens next?”
“Kramer’s ready to move forward, so we will,” he says. “I have an avalanche of work coming my way. Then there are details for the lawyers to iron out, but we’re good. And—”
“What?” I say. I turn to him and he’s looking at me.
“Thank you. For tonight.” He looks down at his hands and then back up at me. “You just have this way of making everything easier. Like I think I might be easier when you’re around.”
I open my mouth to joke about him not being easy at all when the car stops in front of his house. It’s a three-story brick mansion with six steps up to a black door under a white portico. The brass doorknob, I can tell from the curb, is an acorn.
I stop at the bottom of the steps. “Do you live here alone?” I ask. I could fit everyone I know in this house.
“Yes,” he says. “I grew up two blocks from here. My parents are still in that house, and Oscar and Busy are their neighbors. I’m the only one on this block.
Big act of rebellion.” I look both ways down the tree-lined street.
I imagine beautifully dressed little kids running down the sidewalks.
It feels impossible that a child could get sick in a place like this.
Billy, the driver, follows us up the steps with our bags and leaves them in the dark foyer.
Stewart flicks on a light and a wide staircase appears, carpeted in a navy-and-white geometric pattern.
Beneath it is a round table, ebony, with a huge vase of lilies on it.
Someone knew we were coming. The floors are light hardwood, wide planks and likely original to the house, but polished to a high shine.
A living room is darkened to the left and to the right is a den, lined in bookcases.
“Can I?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. He turns on the light, and it’s nothing like Eight Oaks or the traditional exterior of his house.
Everything is casual, from the beige jute rug to the low, deep black sofa, perfect for lying down and watching a game.
An antique wooden coffee table is the most formal thing in the room, but it’s covered in books and crossword puzzles torn recklessly from The Boston Globe.
A pair of reading glasses sits next to a ChapStick.
“It’s a little messy,” I say. Above a stone fireplace is an oil painting of a city block, blurred as if it’s melting into the pavement below. I walk toward it so that I can see the brushstrokes. Something about it makes it seem like it’s alive.
“Helena cleans in here, but I ask her to leave my stuff. This is kind of where I unwind.”
“To the extent you ever unwind,” I say, eyes still on the painting.
He comes up behind me. “Have you been sucked in?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s beautiful. But also so weird. It gives off a feeling like it’s…”
“Breathing,” he says. “I know. I bought it because I loved it, but also I had this feeling it was important for me to have. It makes me think of how the things we build belong to their surroundings and they matter. They interact with us.”
I nod at the painting. “I bet Grant hates it,” I say.
He laughs. “He does. Good guess.”
We are standing too close. I am fighting the urge to lean back into him.
What heaven it would be to be in Stewart’s arms, looking up at this masterpiece.
I think of Naomi and remember why I can’t take the Mona Lisa home to my bathroom, so I step away to admire his books.
Classics and contemporary fiction. Business books, three about Warren Buffett.
There’s a framed family photo and another of him in a tuxedo with a chestnut-haired woman.
“Audrey?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“I guess Helena doesn’t read the Post either,” I say. In the photo he has a wineglass in one hand and his other in a pocket. He’s not touching her anywhere.
There’s a black-and-white photo of a couple on a sailboat. He has Stewart’s profile and the same intense gaze. She’s leaning in to him like she’s dying for a kiss. “That’s my grandfather Oliver,” he says. “And my grandmother, Lucinda.”
I take the photo and run my finger over the glass. “What a photo,” I say.
“Yeah, they were truly in love. So good for each other, from what everyone says. She always had his back, and I think it helped him do everything he did. He died the week after she did.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But also kind of nice.”
We’re standing there looking at each other, and the air gets heavy between us. I want to kiss him as much as Lucinda wanted to kiss Oliver. I want to snatch him up and keep him like a diamond among all my common things.
“Can I have a glass of water?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. He starts to say something else but doesn’t, and I follow him into the foyer, past the stairs, down a long hallway, to a wide-open kitchen that must run the entirety of the back of the house.
It’s sleek and modern but with copper where you’d expect stainless steel and cream-colored cabinetry where you’d expect white.
I have never dreamed of a kitchen, but for the rest of my life I will dream of this one.
He pours water from a jug in the fridge and asks, “Can I get you anything else? Tea?” He’s opening and closing cupboards, looking for where Helena keeps his tea.
I’m watching him do it, looking behind things and then crossing the room to look somewhere else.
And my heart is doing something it’s never done before.
This objectively handsome and good guy is going to break his own brain to get me a cup of tea, and I am falling for him.
I am going to cross this room and wind my arms around his neck and pull him toward me.
And it’s going to end really, really badly.
“I don’t actually need tea, but thank you,” I say.
My voice has gone an octave higher and I’m talking too fast. I need to get out of here.
“I forgot I promised Gus I’d stop by my place and pick up his Red Sox sweatshirt while I was here.
So I’m just going to Uber there. And then I can meet you in the morning?
” I make a circle in the air with my finger to suggest a helicopter.
He closes a cabinet and turns to me. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just need to go by my apartment, and I might as well stay there.” I pull out my phone and open the Uber app, and damn if it isn’t $87 to get to my place right now. I look up to find him watching me.
“Did I do something?”
“Of course not.” Nothing besides opening six different cupboards to find me some tea. Honestly, how dare you. “I just need to,” and I gesture to the front door with my head.
“Fine, but I’ll take you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
“You’d rather pay a hundred bucks than get in my car?”
“No, but,” I start. He’s already grabbed his keys.
I follow him into the two-car garage that’s just off the kitchen.
Inside is only one car, a Jaguar. I don’t say anything about renting out the extra spot.
Everything about that luxury car and the extra luxury of that empty parking space reminds me of how futile my crush on Stewart Whitfield is. Our lives are just too different.
The Jaguar is a 1961, he tells me, as we pull out onto the road. “It’s an E-Type, best one they ever made. Want me to tell you about it until you want to poke your eyes out with a fork?”
I give him a tight smile and turn back toward the window.
I don’t want to joke around. I want to get home and away from the pull of him.
The physical need to touch him and the emotional need to tell him how moved I am by his desire to make me tea.
His passion for permanence, his fear of chaos.
I’m moved by every single thing about this man, and I need to stop it.
I feel tears prick the back of my eyes for something I cannot have.
“It’s a beautiful car,” I say to the window.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Just tired,” I lie.
We are silent for the twenty-minute drive to Brighton. I think back to how easy it was in the limo in Providence, practicing holding hands like it was nothing. Everything’s changed now. I feel like any touching at all in private would lead to my dress puddled around my ankles.
We stop in front of my place, and I turn to him. “Well, thank you. And for tonight. Text me in the morning and let me know when to meet you.”
“I really want to come in,” he says, looking straight ahead.
My stomach drops. I really want him to come in. And not because I think he’ll be impressed with the original avocado tiles in my little kitchen, but because I want to show him this part of myself. The life I’ve built.
“Why?” I ask.
“I’d love to see it, where you and Gus live. Your real life.”
“But why?” I ask again. I mean it in the smallest sense, as in why does he care what my home looks like, and also the biggest possible sense—why is he spending so much time with me outside of our arrangement? Why is he infiltrating my heart in this terrifying way?
“Because you’re important to me,” he says.
“Because I know how to pull you out of a panic attack?” I ask.
“That’s only part of it.” He turns to me, and he looks like he has a lot to say about the rest of it.
And I want to hear every word, every single detail of why I’m important to him.
I’d ask for a stenographer to sit in the backseat to record it all, but if I stay in this car for one more minute, I’m going to kiss him.
Equally likely—if I bring him into my house, I’m going to kiss him.