Chapter 11
11
A fter the chat with my sister, we went downstairs for a coffee to talk things over—not things about us , but everything each of us knew about the case—and I informed David about my mother’s intentions toward him. Marta was right about David still having friends at the Gazette , something that would have never crossed my mind. David made a call to John Diaz, his former editor there , and seemed unfazed at the prospect of his name being in tomorrow’s newspaper not as a byline but as a headline. Perhaps Diaz was a nice guy after all, even if I’d never liked him.
Debrief coffee at ilcaffè morphed into the need for something stronger, and I managed to drag David all the way up Bunker Hill to the Conrad Hotel with the excuse of getting drinks at their rooftop restaurant, Agua Viva.
He grumbled and protested about the bougieness of the place but in the end was content when we were seated at an outdoor table with views of city hall and he tasted his Fernet-Branca cocktail. As for me, I move with ease through luxury hotels (even unshowered), had been a regular at the place since it opened a couple of years before, and had a suspicion that David would love the spot too if he ever gave it a chance.
We were now on our second—or perhaps third, we had shared at least one glass of Albarino—drink, and I was euphorically tipsy. Not even the order of patatas bravas and eggplant toast I had devoured were making me sound any less drunk—or uninhibited. And, to my partial astonishment, David didn’t seem at all preoccupied about the murder case.
“You left my place annoyingly early last night,” I finally told David, downing the last of my aptly called Tornup Tiki Punch and wondering why we didn’t go out more often.
Right, we were no longer a thing.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said with a smile that had me blushing, but I could see he was nonetheless surprised. “Frustration is the least thing I want to elicit in you when we’re together. But I’m happy we’re finally talking about this.”
“This?” I said with a chill.
“You know? Those visits that you’ve been cataloging as oneiric because they always happen at night and where there are two mandatory terms: no words and loud orgasms.”
I ignored his incisiveness. I hate it when he gets me so well. “Why did you leave so early yesterday?”
“Sleepovers have never been on offer,” he said.
“I wasn’t offering you to sleep when you left,” I pressed.
We both knew that, since we’d started hooking up again a few months before, the previous night had been the first time I had indicated I wanted to have sex again. I had sensed he was also eager, but he’d left anyway.
“There was something at work,” he said.
“Ah,” I said, suddenly not wanting to know more.
There was a brief and slightly uncomfortable silence during which I was tempted to order another drink even if more alcohol was far from what my system required. We both avoided each other by looking once again at the beautiful city as sunset had given way to night.
“I saw your neighbor after I left your apartment yesterday,” David finally said.
“Not fucking chatterbox George, please!” If the tenant in 10B had seen David leaving my place at 1 a.m., by now the whole building would know that we were “sleeping” together—and I hate being the object of gossip.
“No, the guy in 10D.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”
“He politely greeted me with a nod. We took the stairs together in silence. I exited the stairs at my floor, and he continued making his way downstairs. He was dressed in medical scrubs, so I assumed he must have been going to work.”
I suddenly realized something that perhaps I should have detected before. You may have been wondering about it for a while. I’ve never been the fastest at this deducing game, so pardon my tardiness.
“Do we know what time the police think Henry was killed?”
“My source at the LAPD said anytime between 10 p.m. and midnight,” David said. He’d been in my apartment since 9:30 p.m.
“And you’re sure you don’t want to tell the cops you were with me?”
“I don’t know what looks worse: not having an alibi or coming up with one after admitting we’ve lied,” he reasoned.
I was going to protest when, even if I was still incredibly inebriated, more stuff started clicking.
“What was Dashing Henry doing at the Eastern Columbia?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “My LAPD source is a bit spooked and has been very tight-lipped. I’m trying to get them to tell me more because I feel the police know more than they are letting on.”
“Of course they do! David, remember that there’s a chance they think you’re the killer. Don’t you think perhaps that’s why your source is a bit shy all of a sudden?”
“We’ve known each other for a long time. I doubt they would believe me capable of murder.”
“I’m so drunk, I don’t think I’d be able to walk home. But even I can realize how na?ve what you just said sounds,” I told him, worried.
“Let’s go. I’ll take you home.” Once again, he was shutting me down. I was so used to it by then that I didn’t even try bringing up the subject again. Plus, it had technically been me who had given him the perfect excuse to change subjects when I mentioned how wasted I was, so I could not complain.
We walked silently for the few blocks between the hotel and our building. My steps were so unbalanced—especially going down the hill—that David got closer and put his arm around my waist to make sure I would not fall. Since I promised you transparency, I’ll go ahead and admit that I may have overplayed the drunk role. I may have even been able to walk in a straight line for at least half a short block. But I was too thrilled at his body being so close to mine.
“Are you wearing my deodorant?” he asked, as the closeness between our bodies allowed him to sense not only my heat but also my fragrance.
“No, but my heater broke and I was trying to get a shower this morning when the alarm went off—and you know the rest,” I explained, not explicit enough to add, So, it’s you that you’re smelling on me because I still haven’t showered since last night .
When we got inside the Eastern Columbia, we saw that the elevators were finally working again. I may not have been as inebriated as I was pretending to be, but I still don’t think I could have climbed ten floors. We both got inside one of the elevators and David pressed the ten but not the two. Lusty, wanton anticipation grew in my body.
“So, we’re working on this together,” I said, trying to keep my mind cool and my thoughts steady. There was a chance I would start undressing him inside the elevator otherwise.
“It looks like we are, yes.”
I wondered if he could see my desire.
“Let’s not do a podcast though,” I said, feeling an urgency to pretend I wasn’t craving him with all my body. “I don’t want to be Only Murders in the Building, LA Edition .”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Of course he didn’t.
The elevator finally made it to the tenth floor and the doors opened. I could feel the impatience between my legs. David walked me to my door.
“Are you coming inside?” I asked, tired of pretending I wasn’t starved for him.
“You’re still very drunk,” he told me, and I suddenly hoped I hadn’t stopped feigning disinterest because I knew that was going to be a no. “I’ve walked you to your door because you literally can’t stand straight, and I wanted to make sure you made it home safely. We both need some quality sleep tonight.”
“I hate it when you sound reasonable.”
And I did.
So I kissed him playfully on the cheek while tugging the waist of his jeans, told him good night, and closed the door of my apartment behind me.
I was still tipsily elated, so I undressed and proceeded to power on one of my favorite sex toys. There would sadly be no unexpected surprises that night.
I couldn’t avoid reminiscing about the previous evening though.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. This is not the chapter where I tell you what happened between David and me on Wednesday night. We’re still barely at the beginning of the second act and we’ve almost already kissed on the page once and have had a handful of mentions about how unbridled our orgasms are. We cannot have a sex scene so early in the story.
Please don’t hold that against me. Writing smut is hard and awkward but I enjoy the process anyway. It’s just that it goes against all the rules of slow-burn narration to have explicit content among the two main cast members so early in the story, and I’m a stickler for procedure and abiding by the genre’s formula.
But don’t be too disappointed. I promise I’ll be persuaded to tell you all about our night together before this manuscript ends. It’s relevant for the story, as a murder was taking place while we were shamelessly frolicking.
What I can tell you now is how incredibly disappointed I felt by that Wednesday night’s end.
David and I had fallen asleep after sex. And so that I’m clear, there was zero frustration to report up until this point. It was the first time that we’d slept together—literal meaning here, not the euphemistic one—since breaking up. He’d been incorrect in his assessment while we were having drinks at Agua Viva: Yes, sleepovers had never been on offer before. But they somehow had been the night of the murder.
We woke up in a jolt to what sounded like fireworks but could have equally been some shots. The noise startled me and then I realized that David was still in my bed. It was reassuring, having him by my side. He’d also woken up. We sought each other’s eyes in the darkness of the room—as if realizing what had happened and searching for certainty that everything was still okay. I took my hand to his jaw, closing in on his lips with mine.
I can’t shake the feeling that had I managed to kiss him then, our situation would be different at present. Perhaps we’d be sharing the same bed now.
Not only did I want to sleep with him on Wednesday, actually sleep, but I was even tempted to break the silence vows I seemed to have made with him and talk about whatever our relationship status was. I knew he’d been wanting to do it for a while now.
But I didn’t get the chance to kiss him. Right when my lips were brushing his and I could sense the notes of spices and honey on his breath, he moved away from me, from my mouth, my body. I keenly felt the absence of his warmth. I didn’t understand what was happening at first and grabbed his forearm, pleading with him to stay. He removed my hand from his arm, looked me in the eyes again, and we said the first words we’d exchanged since the breakup.
“Don’t go yet,” I begged.
“I need to,” he replied.
I guess now you’ll understand a bit better why I was so cross with David the following morning when a fire alarm threw us onto the streets and he started playing the exemplary neighbor.