Chapter 59
59
William
“I’ll flag down a cab,” I say to Opal as she locks the door to her bar. “Or I can order a rideshare.”
Shaking her head, she drops her keys into the tote bag slung over her shoulder. “I’d like to walk for a bit first.”
I have no problem with that because I’ll give her anything she wants. “Of course.”
She instinctively sets off in the direction of Tribeca. It would be quite a hike if we did it all on foot, but I’m game. Something tells me she wants a quick out if our conversation goes sideways. I can’t blame her for that. I have a lot to atone for.
“Who does the Brooklyn apartment belong to?” she asks as we round the corner.
“It’s mine,” I tell her. “I bought it years ago. It was the first property I ever purchased.”
Glancing at me, her eyes narrow. “You own it and an apartment in Tribeca?”
Technically, I own a penthouse in Tribeca, but that’s semantics and a detail that isn’t relevant right now. What is relevant is the whole truth, so I give her that, “I also own properties in California, Boston, Nantucket, Vermont, and Paris. Also, I have a yacht.”
I added on the yacht because it was willed to me by a former client. It came as a surprise, and although it’s currently anchored in Nantucket Harbor, I’m rarely there. Selling it is an option and something I’ll likely do one day, but for now, I’m holding onto it because I remember how much the man who left it to me loved the sea.
“You have a yacht?” She smiles for the first time since we left her bar. “Why?”
“That’s a long story,” I say. “I’ll explain it all.”
“Right.” She nods before her gaze shifts back to the sidewalk. “Why did we go to Brooklyn and not Tribeca?”
“Fear,” I answer honestly.
Her steps slow. “Fear?”
I stop in place to give my answer the attention it deserves. I look into her eyes. I want to grab hold of her hands to feel a connection to her as I crack open my heart and let her in, but she’s got both of them tucked into the front pockets of her jeans.
“What do you mean by that, William?” she presses. “I don’t understand.”
I’m not sure I do either, but I try to explain, “I’ve never been in a relationship, Opal. I’ve always engaged in one-night stands. Anything beyond that felt complicated.”
“You thought I’d be a one-night stand,” she says without a hint of bitterness in her tone. “I thought you’d be a one-night stand, too.”
That admission takes me by surprise. “You did?”
“I told you I wanted things to be casual,” she reminds me as the wind whips a few strands of her hair across her cheek. “I needed things to be.”
I’d ask why, but I’m using my sixty minutes to plead my case, not to interrogate her.
“When I did hook up with a woman, it was usually at her place.” I close my eyes briefly. “Sometimes a hotel, or occasionally the apartment in Brooklyn.”
“Never in Tribeca?” she asks as she starts walking again.
I do, too, matching the stride of each of my steps to hers. “No. I’ve never taken a woman there.”
“You’re taking me there now.”
I glance at her to find her eyes set on me. “I want you to see it. I want to see you in my home.”
The corners of her lips curve up, but that stops before a smile appears. “You were fearful of letting a woman into your life, weren’t you?”
“I never thought I’d want to.”
“That’s changed?” Her brows lift.
“You changed it, Opal.” I take a breath. “As soon as you arrived at my apartment in Brooklyn, I felt this need to tell you I didn’t live there anymore, but I didn’t want to lose you. I wanted you to stay and eat pizza with me and…”
“Make love,” she whispers, but I still hear it over the rush of traffic and the voices of the people passing us by.
“Yes.” I nod faintly. “It was wrong. I was wrong. Then you said you weren’t looking for anything serious.”
“So, you invited me back there. I get it.”
“For the record, I agreed to the casual thing so I could be with you whenever you’d let me.” I chuckle. “I craved you, Opal. I crave you. I’d sit next to you for hours just watching you read a book.”
She laughs. “That would be boring.”
I stop her with a light touch to her elbow. “It would be a gift to me. Every single second I can look at your face, or listen to you breathe, or hear you laugh is a goddamn gift.”
She stares at my face. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“I do,” I admit. “You’re the most remarkable person who ever graced this earth. I’m so fucking lucky I met you.”
Her bottom lip trembles. “William, I…”
“William!” A loud male voice breaks through the moment and the sounds of Manhattan. “Jesus, man. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”
I know exactly who just called out to me. I shake my head slightly. “He speaks the truth. As soon as he’s close enough, he’ll grab hold of me. This guy is a hugger.”
Opal laughs.
I flash her a smile just as I feel a hand tapping my shoulder. I turn abruptly to greet the man I knew was on the approach. “Tony! It’s good to see you.”
Normally, that would be the truth, but I’m running out of time with Opal. The clock is ticking away on those precious sixty minutes she gave me.
He flings his arms around me to give me a full-on hug. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
I step back and pat his chest. “I’m here now. How’s Ramona?”
“Good doctors, great care, prayer,” he recites the three things he’s been leaning on since his wife was hospitalized. “She’s coming home in a few days.”
Opal steps into my view, so I gesture toward her. “Tony Gallanto, this is Opal Waverly.”
Tony nods at me as he taps his finger to his bottom lip as though he knows he needs to keep a secret. Tony is a former client, so he knows how closely I guard the details of what I do for a living. “Hey, Opal. It’s good to meet you.”
Opal smiles at him. “You too. I overheard something about someone named Ramona.”
“My wife.” Tony proudly pushes his shoulders back. “Greatest woman in this city. She took a tumble on her bike a couple of weeks back. Broke her hip in two places.”
“Oh no.” Opal’s hand leaps to her mouth. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He adjusts the collar of the button-down shirt he’s wearing. “She’s good. She’ll be good. Ramona is a fighter. She’s tough. She has to be to put up with me, right, William?”
I pat his cheek. “You’re getting her through this, Tony.”
“With your help,” he reminds me. “You’re the one who talked to Dr. Northrup.
He only agreed to do the surgery because he’s a friend of yours.”
I almost wince at the emphasis he puts on the word friend. I didn’t outright tell Tony that the best orthopedic surgeon in the state was a former client, but it doesn’t take a genius to connect those dots.
Tony doesn’t have a lot of friends in this city, so when he reached out after Ramona’s accident, I recommended Larry Northrup. Tony tried to get the details worked out, but it took a call from me to the good doctor to get all of the pieces to fall into place.
Opal studies my face. “That was kind of you.”
“This is the kindest guy you’ll ever meet.” Tony slaps the center of my back. “He’ll go out of his way to make your life better. He did that for me. I can never repay him.”
He paid me very well to help shore up his life, so Ramona would take notice of him. They had crossed paths a few times at parent-teacher conferences, and when they divorced their respective partners, Tony came to me with a plea to help make him the man she deserved.
I didn’t need to acquaint myself with Ramona to make that love connection happen. All I had to do was work with Tony to peel back the layers and uncover the man he was always meant to be.
Tony’s phone chimes in the front pocket of his pants. He tugs it out, his gaze skimming over the screen. “My love needs me. I gotta run.”
“I’ll be in touch,” I promise. “Soon.”
“You better.” He gives me a parting hug before he turns his attention to Opal. “It was nice meeting you, Opal. You take care.”