Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
NOW
When I was with Henry, I stopped thinking. I stopped wondering where next and how to get there. When to get there. I stopped worrying, generally. I’d always been able to rely on him for our plans.
Until now, I’d never seen a downside to it.
But standing back in our shared room after an entire day of lawyers, paperwork and three different offices spread across Jersey and Manhattan, Henry asked what I’d be wearing tonight, and I had no idea what he was referring to.
Suddenly I felt like I should’ve inquired about our weekend plans beforehand.
“For the gala,” he explained. “The MSL pre-season fundraiser?”
And I blinked up at him like it was a bad joke and he’d soon reveal it as that. But he just stared back at me, not a glimmer of humor in his green eyes. “Paula,” he repeated. I suspected I’d gone into some kind of shock, frozen in the middle of the room because…
A gala. The MSL pre-season fundraiser, apparently. With other teams, other players, important managers, and more people with a lot of money. The press, probably. Paparazzi and photographers, and Eddie had thrown me into the shark tank without a word of warning. And without a bathing suit.
To answer Henry’s question: I had nothing to wear. I’d prepared for office runs and stadium tours by packing my favorite pair of jeans and three different tops. A jacket in case it got cold.
Not a fancy dress or heels or Mom’s beautiful gold jewelry, that she’d heavy-heartedly parted with when I’d left.
“I don’t—” I couldn’t even say the words. “Eddie didn’t—”
Watching the realization settle on Henry’s face, that I hadn’t just forgotten a shirt to sleep in but apparently a dress and appropriate footwear, made color rise to my cheeks. They were probably a blotched red that I couldn’t do anything about.
My head shook. “I don’t have to go.” The suggestion shot out of me as the only viable option I saw. It was five now. When did galas usually start? Seven? Eight? Not enough time to fix this mess any other way.
Henry’s throat worked, and by the look on his face, so was the upstairs department. He paced up and down in front of the large windows overlooking Midtown. Just once.
“Not an option,” he supplied curtly. When his gaze met mine, he’d come to a conclusion. I could tell that, too. “Give me a second.”
And by the time I wanted to ask for a reason (around three seconds later), his phone was already by his ear, and he began pacing again. Until the muted beeping from the other end stopped, and a female voice drawled through it. What she said, I couldn’t hear.
“I need you,” Henry replied in that no-nonsense way of his. “You remember the dress I made you run across half of SoHo for last year, right? The dark—Yeah, the dark green one.” Henry’s gaze found mine again, and he started like he’d almost forgotten about my presence.
Or maybe at the way I was staring at him. Bewilderment growing in my features, confusion spreading through them. My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Give me a second, Céline,” he said into the phone, then, on his way to the door mouthed a Be right back in my direction and escaped through it.
Céline.
The name seemed familiar. Like maybe he’d mentioned it before or I’d found it analyzing every single one of the profiles he followed on Instagram—one of the lower points in my life, but, in my opinion, an inevitable stage of grief after any relationship.
I said what I said.
So perhaps Céline was an old fling I’d found stalking, or a newer one he’d met after me.
The thought shouldn’t have stung but it did, terribly. In a way that made me want to topple over, crawl under the covers of the heavenly bed and never get out again.
Who else would he call about a dress? He’d probably wanted her to wear it so badly, he’d made her run across half of SoHo to get it. And now he wanted to do what? Make me wear it afterward?
The thought felt objectively wrong. And no matter how much I’d wanted to mingle with journalists and press-people who might know about job openings that no one else did, I wasn’t sure if I could wear one of his other girls’ dresses for it.
The door beeped, Henry was back, and I don’t think I’d moved an inch in the time he was gone. I wasn’t even sure if it had been one minute or five or ten.
“Sorry,” he said, hand washing over his face when he leaned against the closed door. “It’s all sorted. Just start getting ready, Céline will bring the—”
Céline.
I shook my head again. Quickly. “I don’t need to go. Really,” I stressed, because I didn’t want to explain how the only problem I had with a borrowed dress, was who had worn it before. That he might’ve seen someone else in it, that it had probably fit them better and he’d taken it off them by the end of the night. That I wanted to throw up at the thought. “I don’t even know if Céline and I are the same size.”
Henry’s brow furrowed in confusion. His jaw ticked and his eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry,” he said again, like he wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for. “I assumed you’d want to go. With the press there you can network a little. It’s the only reason I RSVP’d after I knew you were coming. And—”
He pushed off the door toward me, paused a few feet away. I tried not to notice that I had hoped he’d come closer. “And I don’t think I can do tonight without you.”
The confession hung in the air, and I could imagine his reasons. “They’ll all want to talk about your parents, won’t they?”
Henry huffed, and I knew I’d guessed correctly. “I’ll be surprised if they find anything else to talk about.”
That look on his face was the reason I hadn’t brought them up in any of our interviews yet. I didn’t want him to think about me the way he thought about any other reporter, who had crossed that boundary in his teens—I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him once their names slipped from my lips on the record.
I don’t think I can do tonight without you.
My next breath stuttered in my throat, but I nodded. “Alright,” I agreed, and I could hear him exhale in relief. Like he’d been holding his breath. “What about the size issue, though?”
“What size issue?”
“How do you know Céline’s dress will fit?”
“Céline’s—?” Henry’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said, like he finally understood my apprehension. “Oh no. I got that dress for you, Paula. Last year. When I decided to get over myself and invite you to that New Year’s Eve party.”
I blinked at him.
I was under the impression Athalia had invited me. And only because her best friend was dating one of mine.
“Clearly I couldn’t get over myself enough to actually give it to you. So, it’s just been collecting dust here. Don’t worry. I know you, and I know it fits.”
An off-shoulder neckline. A subtle mermaid cut. Tight around the top and fitting like I might’ve been in the store to get it tailored. A beautiful shade of emerald green that seemed almost black in low light. A gold necklace rested in the plunge of the dress’ neckline.
And Céline was Henry’s PA who’d delivered it all here. Dress. Jewelry. Matching heels.
My curls sat freshly washed and diffused in an updo on top of my head, front pieces framing my face. My eyes flicked to Henry’s in the mirror we were both standing in front of. Neither of us had said a word since I’d gotten out of the bathroom fully dressed. His suit had clearly been tailored, and I tried not to wonder whether his tie had dark green accents to match his eyes or my dress.
“What?” I asked, when his mouth still hadn’t moved and his eyes hadn’t shifted either. “Are you going to tell me you forgot how pretty I am when I try?” I joked.
“I didn’t.” Henry’s gaze fell down my reflection again, slowly, deliberately taking in every curve and dip of my body in his dress. The one he’d picked out way after we’d broken up. “I couldn’t. And I don’t think you ever had to try to be pretty.”
I finally turned to face him, and I wished the way his gaze lingered on my neckline wouldn’t send heat straight up my neck. I wished it would feel insulting instead of flattering. But I’d always liked the way he’d looked at me. Love, adoration, lust in his gaze. It was no different now.
“You need to stop flattering me, Henry,” I said honestly. I wasn’t sure if the missing filter was thanks to the dress’s built-in confidence or my nerves. Perhaps both.
“Why?”
Because you’re my ex-boyfriend. Because we agreed to be friends and this conversation isn’t friendly in the same sense. Because it makes me blush and my heart stutter and I’m not sure how much of that I can take.
“Because.” I wasn’t planning on finishing the sentence, and Henry knew that.
He laughed, low and hushed, then held out his arm for me to take. “If you can’t give me a reason to stop, I won’t see the need to. Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” he said sheepishly. “Let’s go, beautiful.”
He’d briefly let go of me once we’d gotten in Andy’s SUV, but by the time we’d made it to the venue, my arm had interlocked with his again, and we’d ascended the stairs together, steps matching unintentionally.
Henry hadn’t let me move away since. Like I was the lifeline he kept clutching tighter whenever someone mentioned his father.
Five times, so far.
My hand still rested on his arm when he was drawn away from one group into another, and perhaps at that point I was using him as lifeline instead. If only not to get lost in the bustle that was New York City’s soccer scene.
I tried to remember as much about the evening as I could. The stuccoed ceiling, the massive half-pillars in the walls. The flower arrangements. The chandelier above us, and the people below it. Soccer legends left and right, players and managers I’d never thought I’d meet.
The way Henry spoke to them now, like he belonged.
“It’s so dark, I can’t see if there’s a ring. Are you two married already?” An older man asked now, his gray hair thinning on top of his head and the bow tie around his neck a little outdated. His tone was friendly, though. Unassuming and innocent.
His question was not.
“Oh God,” I winced, shaking my head adamantly. “No. God no. We’re not—” I didn’t know how to even begin explaining. Why, if weren’t together, my arm had been in Henry’s for an hour now. Why, if he was my ex-boyfriend and I was his ex-girlfriend, we were even here together at all.
My eyes flickered to Henry’s for help, but he seemed, for once, without answers. Which left the man to make assumptions. One that would follow us for the rest of the evening.
Humored, his gaze flew back and forth between us before he patted Henry on the back. “Get on that soon, son. You’ll be gone so much during the season; a ring will make sure she won’t forget you.” He winked and left.
Left me mortified and Henry speechless.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper-yelled right away. “I should’ve said—I don’t know why I didn’t say anything.”
I did know. But I had no idea how to explain that to him either.
Henry cleared his throat, eyes dancing across the room in thought. “Maybe it’s easier this way?”
I turned toward him so fast, I almost lost my footing. My eyes widened a little because he wasn’t really insinuating—“What way?”
“You know.” He cleared his throat. Finally looked at me. “If we wouldn’t have to explain you’re my ex-girlfriend every time someone asks who you are. Or that you’re writing a profile on me and the only reason you’re here is to meet other journalists.”
I blinked up at him. “You want me to—”
“Pretend you’re my girlfriend tonight.” But he corrected himself quickly. “Honestly, just don’t deny it when someone assumes as much. They all are, anyway. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Holding your arm?”
“Yes. Or my hand.”
I don’t know why my heart skipped a beat at the thought. “What else?” I asked. “Have I been doing for them to assume you’re my boyfriend?”
Henry’s lip twitched, and he leaned against one of the stone pillars behind him. My hand was in his now, had slipped from his biceps into his palm. “You do that thing. Where you look at me and drift off, and I can’t focus on the conversation I’m holding because I’m so busy trying to figure out what you’re thinking. If you’re thinking about me at all.”
“I—” Didn’t know what to say, cut myself off instead. Thanked God for the low light in the building because the blush on my cheeks was devilish.
“You move closer when someone you don’t know joins the conversation. I don’t think you notice, but I do. Your hip brushes mine or your chest presses into my arm, and I—” His eyes closed, like he was remembering exactly what that had felt like. The hand in mine twitched, pulled me closer, just enough for a single finger to trace along my waist, down to my hip. Where he lingered. “And I can’t think of anything but the way you used to feel underneath me.”
“ Henry, ” I gasped. The room was spinning, and it was the only thing I was still sure of.
“You also blush a lot. Whenever I squeeze your hand or look at you a little longer.”
Or when he told me, in a room full of important business partners and future colleagues, that he was thinking about the way he’d fucked me. And when I inevitably thought of the same thing now.
“So just keep doing more of that, and no one will even ask if we’re together.”
And I thought it would be harder. But once I’d focused on acting like a girlfriend, I realized I already laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories intently, squeezed his hand when someone mentioned Felix Pressley.
I didn’t know if I’d ever really stopped acting like his girlfriend around him.
I knew that I did not want to.
He introduced me to a journalist he knew, then a photographer from a renowned sports journal who was responsible for the pictures in their soccer column. Between his third and fourth glass of wine, he let slip the fact that their columnist might not make it another year.
Those were the only two conversations in which my hand had not been in Henry’s.
When we got back to the hotel it must’ve been past midnight. Henry hadn’t let go of me in the backseat of the car or when we’d walked through the sparsely staffed lobby to the elevators. His hand was firmly in mine, like he knew the spell of the night was about to wear off.
Like he might not want it to.
I nudged him into the elevator as soon as it opened with a smile, half a laugh. The way I would after we’d gotten home from one of his games or he’d picked me up from a shift at Daisy’s, and I couldn’t wait another second to be alone with him.
Only that we shouldn’t be tearing our clothes off each other, once the door slid close behind us now.
Henry looked at me like his thoughts had taken the same turn. Like he remembered the way my legs would wrap around his waist and his head would dip between my breasts, too.
Never mind that a hotel elevator wasn’t really all that private to begin with.
I shook my head to snap out of it, let myself fall against one of the mirrored walls with a relieved sigh. My eyes closed, but I knew Henry had followed. I could smell the pinewood cologne. His citrus shampoo. The bad ideas always lingering in his vicinity.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and it was almost a rasp. “I’m going to have to compliment you again.”
I knew I’d told him to stop earlier in the evening. But the high of a great night hadn’t worn off yet, and it was making me reckless.
Eyes opening, I wasn’t surprised to see him in front of me. His throat worked, his gaze fell down my frame again. He seemed more unapologetic when it lingered on my cleavage.
I was so distracted, I didn’t even know whether we’d already pressed the button for our floor. I couldn’t tell whether we were moving or if the elevator still stood in the lobby, only a closed door separating us from the staff.
“When I got this for you last year,” Henry began, and his finger gently trailed along the neckline, careful not to touch skin. “I wanted to see you on New Year’s so badly, I thought if I took the burden of an outfit decision off you, you might come.”
My lips tipped up teasingly, and I didn’t know what compelled me to grab his tie. “You didn’t even say hi to me that evening,” I reminded him, playing with the fabric, loosening it around his neck. He did not object. “You’re telling me you had an entire outfit bought but couldn’t say hello?”
Henry nodded. A man usually the epitome of control and confidence blushed, then let me pull him closer by his tie. One slow step after the other. “Yes,” he admitted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you make me nervous, Paula.”
“Do I?”
“Sometimes. When you look at me a little longer. When you accidentally touch me. More so when you deliberately touch me.” His gaze trailed to his tie, my hand wrapped around it. “On New Year’s Eve, I was nervous. And you looked so happy, I didn’t want to ruin that.”
Henry looked at me, with his perfectly parted hair, and those green eyes I’d recognize among a thousand other pairs, and I almost gave in. Almost forgot that he wasn’t my boyfriend, and that I shouldn’t pull him even closer.
“Maybe it would’ve made me happier,” I whispered. My eyes flicked to his lips, then back. “Maybe I was secretly waiting all night.”
“Were you?” Without taking his eyes off me, he finally pressed the button for the sixteenth floor.
I nodded faintly, and Henry slipped one of the loose curls back behind my ear. His hand lingered on my skin like it had last night. And despite the fact that we had been in the same bed, lights off, limbs almost touching then, this felt more intimate. The way his throat bobbed, the way his breath stuttered against my nose.
I could write an entire article on the way his finger curled around my chin, tilted it toward his own. Analyzing the barely noticeable tremble of his hand, his touch so delicate you’d think he was scared of breaking me.
But I wasn’t , I remembered. Writing an article about how badly I wanted Henry Parker Pressley to kiss me. It was the exact opposite of my actual assignment.
Write a profile about him. Play the role of ex-girlfriend who didn’t at all still care and actually kind of despised him.
Only that somewhere along the way I’d forgotten. Started caring and stopped despising. “We shouldn’t—” The words were barely a breath against his lips, no conviction behind them.
“I know.” Henry nodded, pressed his forehead against mine. His hand slipped behind my neck, holding me like he was afraid I might run.
He didn’t know I could barely move.
“I’m trying to be reasonable.” He went on, took a deep breath. “I thought I could handle it, but clearly—” He snickered, probably at the fact that this wasn’t reasonable at all. The way we stood so close when he was supposed to mean nothing to me, and I nothing to him.
Friends. Interview partners. Journalist and subject.
“We can try, though,” I suggested halfheartedly, hands still clinging to his tie between us. The urge to place them elsewhere was so strong, I had to physically restrain myself from it. Perhaps that’s why my nails were digging into the fabric now. “To be reasonable, I mean. We can try, right?”
We had to.
For the sake of this profile. For the sake of my ability to write about him without thinking about the way he kissed or touched me. It would be hard enough now, when it had been almost a year since.
“We can try,” Henry agreed right as the elevator doors opened with a sharp ding .