Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jackson
Both the barber dude and Phoenix seem pretty happy with the way my haircut turned out. They kept nattering on about bone structure and cheekbones and face framing and some other sort of gibberish that I kind of tuned out after a while. I’m not quite as certain—he cut the sides and back the shortest I’ve ever had them. The top, he left moderately long, and he put some gunk in it to make it sort of lazily tumble forward and over my forehead. But I suppose I’ll take their word on the matter.
Not that I really care if the barber is satisfied with the results. Although, I suppose with as much as Phoenix probably paid him and, what with this being his profession and all, he probably wouldn’t leave me with a head looking like it’d lost a battle in the war on good taste.
Nah, what really had me feeling all puffed up and about ten feet tall, is the way Phoenix is having trouble not casting hot and dirty looks my way every five seconds or so.
The temperature outside is already a few dozen degrees south of comfortable, in my opinion, at least, and the strong breeze blowing in from the Atlantic is certainly doing nothing to defrost my poor Southern-bred body. Parts of me are decently insulated by the heavy winter coat the Wildings gave me, but my jeans feel like a solid layer of denim ice against my legs and, now that I’m missing a whole slew of inches of hair from my head, I’m really wishing I’d thought to ask if there was a hat I could borrow.
I’m tempted to at least pop my hands over my ears before those things freeze and fall off, but if I had, I would’ve missed Phoenix’s slowly drawn out “Sooo…I know I said we’d go see my house after we got haircuts, but…”
Yes. Yes, he, indeed, had promised such a thing. He had promised that, hadn’t he?
“But…what?” I can’t, and don’t bother to, stem the irritation twining with the suspicion in my question. When Phoenix had set us off strolling down this oceanside path, I’d meekly followed along without a peep, despite my reluctance to spend even five seconds out in this wintery hellscape he called home, assuming he lived near the salon and that it’d be easier for us to walk there than it’d be to bother his driver with taking us there. If it turns out I’ve been freezing my ass off for no fucking reason whatsoever…
“But I was thinking that maybe we could grab some lunch first,” Phoenix replies.
That smile. Ugh, that smile. That you-know-you-want-to-give-me-anything-in-the-world smile… Fine. I may not like the cold. I may even hate the cold—this fucking New England-in-late-February cold—but I think we all know I’ll put up with it for him. Anything, and everything, if it’s what Phoenix wants.
“There’s a little place, up ahead,” he tells me. “They have some of the best seafood in the state. Super fresh. Prepared expertly by a master chef. And if you’re not in the mood for seafood… I’m sure there are some people who would, literally, willingly sell an organ for one of their steaks.”
A restaurant that has a master chef? That boasts of food so excellent that you’d turn to doing illegal shit?
I glance down at what I’m wearing. Some of it’s the new stuff the Wildings bought me—my underwear, the t-shirt I have layered under a thick sweater, the winter coat. But the rest of it is stuff I borrowed from the random stuff Phoenix left at his parents’ house. None if it’s fancy; I could’ve borrowed some of the fancy shit, he had some hanging in the ridiculously large closet. Seriously, that thing is about the size as most people’s bedrooms would be. But I didn’t want to wear any of Phoenix’s fancy, rich-boy clothes. I already felt like a fraud, like a nobody pretending to belong somewhere he doesn’t, I didn’t want to dress like one, too.
“I’m doubting that I’m dressed for some place like that,” I say, an apology in my voice for even hinting that I don’t like Phoenix’s suggestion. And for, well, for being me.
“Nonsense,” he replies, without even sparing a second to consider my concerns. “Look, it’s right up ahead.” I glance in the direction he’s pointing and, sure enough, only a few doors down from where we are, is what looks like the entrance to a restaurant. “Take a look and you’ll see that you’re dressed just fine. You look nice.” A sweeping leer at me, from head to toe, and Phoenix adds, “Mmm. You look hot.”
I’m pretty sure he’s biased about my appearance. But I go ahead and take a longer look at the restaurant Phoenix wants us to have lunch at and… All I can see is that there’s a doorman, waiting to let people in, who’s dressed in nicer clothes than I am. And the other people entering the restaurant…they’re all wearing much nicer clothes than I am. Elegantly tailored suits underneath fitted overcoats. Not bulky winter coats, like the kind I’m huddled in, but wool and suede and…and…whatever other sort of pricey fabric those things are made of. And dresses. Not that I’d be going out in a dress, but the women going inside that restaurant… If they aren’t also wearing perfectly tailored suits, they’re in dresses—figure-hugging, tastefully sexy, sophisticated, and clearly, designer dresses.
“I look poor.” My voice is flat and blunt, even as I amend my statement with, “Well, not poor poor. Even though that’s actually what I am. Poor. No, these aren’t really a poor person’s clothes. More…middle class-ish? But the point stands that what I’m wearing is not fancy enough for me to be walkin’ into that kind of restaurant. Not even close.”
We’re already walking pretty slowly, and we slowed up even more as we approached the restaurant. But now, Phoenix stops altogether.
I don’t think he cares that we’re right in front of the restaurant. I don’t think he cares that we’re blocking the way for other people to get in. I don’t think he cares that we’re practically standing on top of the doorman. That guy looks unhappy about it, but I doubt Phoenix even realizes where he stopped or that it might be inconvenient for anyone else.
Grabbing hold of the slippery fabric of my bulky winter coat, Phoenix pulls at me until I’m facing him. His hands are cold as they reach up and trace feather-light arcs over my cheeks.
“Sweetheart, I promise that what you’re wearing is fine. You look fine. Perfect, you look perfect. Just as you are. But...” The sweetly gentle crooning drops from his voice. “...even if you didn’t...” His smile turns smug. No, arrogant. His smile is arrogant as he tells me, “It doesn’t matter what the fuck clothing you have on. You’re with me. You could waltz right into that fucking restaurant in your goddamn birthday suit...and they would say absolutely nothing about it. Because you’re with me. Because I could fucking buy this restaurant, and everyone in it, if I wanted to. And they all know it. So, really. Believe me when I say that, what you have on right now, is perfectly and completely fine.”
I’m positive that I’m gaping at him. Not because I don’t believe him, because I do. He is Phoenix Oliver Wilding. I don’t doubt that he does indeed have the sort of money that could do exactly what he says he could. So, I definitely believe him. It’s just…
“Would you like me to prove it?” he asks, reading something in my dumbfounded face. “Here. I’ll prove it.”
Shrugging out of his body-skimming, knee-length, camel-colored, woolen trench-coat, Phoenix turns and shoves it at the doorman to hold. His hands next drop to the waist of his charcoal-colored slacks; my eyes widen as he pops the button and slides the zipper down. My own toes curl in sympathy when Phoenix slides his feet out of his ankle-high boots, and a shiver shudders through me as Phoenix drops his pants.
Standing on a cement sidewalk, in the middle of wealthy Westerly, Rhode Island, with snowflakes drifting along the breeze, blown loose from the plowed and shoveled mounds of snow on top of the grass, Phoenix Wilding poses proudly in nothing but a snug, black, cashmere sweater, a pair of socks, and a miniscule set of vibrant-amethyst hued briefs.
I am, by far, not the only one gawking. Although, I’m possibly the only one who realizes that it’s only the cold that’s keeping that underwear from being truly obscene and showing a lot more than they already are.
It’s clear that the poor shocked doorman has absolutely no idea what to do with the spectacle that is my Phoenix. I don’t blame him at all for merely stumbling aside when Phoenix slips his boots back on and says, “Excuse us. My boyfriend and I would like to enter so that we can get some lunch.”
My mind catches on the word he just bestowed upon me, and it takes me a moment to realize that Phoenix, not waiting for the doorman, opened the restaurant’s door for himself and calmly strolled inside, cool as a cucumber, in nothing but a sweater and his underwear.
“Oh, and grab my pants, would you? One of us will collect them from you when we’re done with our lunch.”
But it only takes a moment. And then something, some part of a picture that had been fuzzy, unclear, indeterminate, snaps completely into focus.
And I, too, walk into the restaurant. Following my Phoenix.