Chapter 27
Richard takes a long sip of the tea I’d prepared. I wait, with bated breath.
He swallows. Nods once, and sets the teacup back on the small circular table in Nate’s backyard. “Yes,” he says. “Very good.”
I exhale in relief. “I was worried I steeped it too long this time.”
“No, just right,” he says. “Jasmine?”
“Yes, from the shop a few streets down.”
“I like that store.” He leans back in the chair and stretches out his legs with a sigh. The garden is green around us, flowers in full bloom in the beautifully landscaped beds. The space isn’t big, but it’s luscious, with a single oak in the far left corner that reaches high above the wooden privacy fence.
“I can get you some of it,” I say. “Anything you need in the coming weeks, just call and let me know.”
Richard’s left leg is bandaged from the calf to just below the knee. He looks down at Quincy lying on his lap. The distinguished dachshund with some silver along his snout, matching the distinguished gentleman with lots of silver in his hair. Despite the oppressive heatwave that had struck London in this second week of June, our neighbor is in a long-sleeved button-down and trousers, colorful socks and loafers on his feet.
And a small flat cap, ever-present.
“Thank you,” he says and runs an aged hand over Quincy’s silky ear. “And thank you for taking care of the boys. I didn’t know what to do, when the ambulance people came.”
“Anytime.”
He shakes his head a tiny bit. “I appreciate it more than you know. Most people… I’m not certain what I would have done if you couldn’t look after them.”
I reach for my own teacup. “Does your family live nearby?”
“No,” he says. Petting Quincy’s back, matte compared to Stanley’s happy spots. “I have a daughter. She lives in Rome with her family.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“It is,” he says. “But it’s far.”
“Of course. Does she visit?”
“At times, yes. But I can’t say I was the best father while my wife was still alive. I let her… I let her handle most of the social interactions.” He shrugs and gives me a sad smile. “Keeping up with what Helen did. That sort of thing.”
“It’s never too late to learn to do the same,” I say.
He chuckles dryly. “Right. Well… maybe not. I also have a brother. In Brighton.”
“Brighton? That’s much closer,” I say. “Are you two close?”
Richard glances toward the house and the wide-open French doors that lead into the modern kitchen. It’s early evening, and Nate should be back from work soon. He said he wanted to meet Richard, too.
“Sorry, I had to do the maths,” Richard says finally. “We haven’t spoken in almost seventeen years.”
My eyes flare. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“Another victim of time, I’m afraid. One argument got bigger than it needed to, and we’re both stubborn men.” He reaches for his tea and looks away, like he’s said more than he intended to.
I reach down to pat Stanley. “Think it’s something that can be fixed?”
“Maybe. But at this point… I don’t know.” He clears his throat. “How are things with you and the Aston Martin chap?”
A blush creeps over my cheeks. “We’ve gotten closer.”
“Ah. I suspected you would.”
“You did?”
“Of course. From what you told me last time, you two like each other.”
I swallow. The concept feels… scary. And right. “Yes. I think we do. But I’m not sure if it’s quite that simple.”
“It is,” Richard says. His voice is perfectly matter-of-fact. “I know it doesn’t seem simple when you’re in the midst of things. But when you look back at the important times, past them happening… The truth is always painfully clear. Hold on to that.”
I smile at him. “You always know what to say.”
He gives a surprised chuckle. “No, I most certainly do not. My daughter would laugh if she heard you say that.”
“Maybe there’s a chance for?—”
Footsteps sound close by, and then Nate is approaching over the green grass of his small garden. He’s in a suit, no jacket and no tie, and in a pair of sunglasses. Cast against the obvious luxury of his house, he appears like a stranger for a second. Handsome. Wealthy. An image in a glossy newspaper.
But then, he takes off his glasses and looks at me, and he’s Nate again. My Nate.
“You must be Richard,” he says and extends his hand to the sitting gentleman. “No, please don’t get up, don’t trouble yourself. Heard you had quite a tumble.”
“The damn staircase,” Richard says. “Thank you for letting my dogs stay here.”
“No trouble at all. I think Harper would even enjoy one of her own.” Nate takes a seat across from us. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet before.”
Richard shrugs again. “I saw you once in a while, but I don’t think you were home as often. Up until a month ago, that is.”
I look at Nate. But he continues to look at Richard, a smile spreading on his face. “Yes. It wasn’t a very fun place to be before Harper moved in,” he says easily. “I hear you’re a fan of my vintage Aston Martin.”
“Vintage?” Richard says. “The model you have, I recall when it was brand new.”
“Ever had one?”
“Lord, no,” he says. “The prices were outrageous then, now they’re positively criminal. No offense.”
“None taken,” Nate says. “Would you like to take a spin in it? When your leg is all healed.”
For a long second, Richard doesn’t respond at all. Did he hear? Has Nate’s offer offended him somehow? I know his leg must be hurting, and Quincy is a small but significant weight on his lap.
“I would like that very much.” Richard finally says, and his voice trembles just slightly with emotion.
“What’s this?” Nate asks a few hours later, after we’d helped Richard and the dogs home, and I promised to come over tomorrow evening to walk them. Nate is holding up a giant parsnip.
I roll my eyes at him. “God, you’re so uncultured.”
“And you’re a Michelin-star chef.”
“I am not. I just have some very basic but useful skills.”
He eyes the large wok pan I have going on the stove. “That is not basic. It is most definitely useful, though. Can you live here forever?”
I chuckle. “Maybe. If you’re okay with learning some of this.”
“I’ll learn anything you want,” he says.
I hand him a large knife and point to the center island. “Go crazy.”
“All these vegetables?”
“All of them. In tiny cubes.”
He hums but does exactly as I’ve asked. Soon, the steady sound of his chopping fills the room, and I set about measuring out the pasta. I feel too hot, still, even though the sun is mostly gone and the night is quickly approaching. My skin feels sticky to the touch.
“I can’t believe,” he says like he’d read my mind, “that the previous owner didn’t put in AC when they renovated.”
“It’s not a big thing in the UK, as I understand.”
“No. But I should have predicted this.” He looks across at me, a crooked smile on his face. “You can cook in less clothes, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”
I hold up a long piece of dry linguine in his direction. “That would violate all kinds of health and safety regulations.”
“It’s private property. None exist.” His eyes glitter. “Imagine how hot you’d look in nothing but an apron… and how much cooler you’d feel.”
“I think that goes for you, too, buddy,” I say.
Both eyebrows shoot up. “Buddy?”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling now, also. “Got a problem with that? Buddy.”
“Not at all, champ.”
I chuckle. “Okay, that one was awful. Old sport.”
Nate reaches for a zucchini and starts hacking away at it. His smile is lighting up his face, and my chest feels warm, my cheeks are aching. It’s been this way for the past two days, since the movie premiere.
Since the night he slept in my bed… as he did again last night.
But that’s it. Nothing more than sleeping in one bed. Even if the need for more is there, ever-present, like a fire smoldering beneath the surface. It punctuates every one of our interactions. Leaves me giddy and my heart racing.
I know what this is, I know exactly what this emotion is, and I can’t find it in myself to regret it.
“Old sport,” he repeats. “Okay, that was a good one. I’ll raise you… pal.”
I laugh in surprise as I put the pasta into the water. “Pal? I haven’t heard that one in a long time, bro.”
“Bro?” he repeats. “I hate?—”
My phone rings, and the sound cuts through the kitchen. I turn the water for the linguine down and reach for the device lying on the kitchen island. My mom mentioned that she’d call again on her break, which would be my evening.
“One second,” I tell Nate, and hit the answer button before checking who it is.
“Hey, Harper.”
Everything in me freezes at the sound of Dean’s voice on the other end of the line. It feels too close. Like he’s standing right beside me.
“Glad I got a hold of you. Is it evening over there?”
I can’t look at Nate. “Yes. I’m cooking dinner.”
“Whatcha making?”
I swallow. “Linguine. What’s happened?”
“Do I need a reason to call you?” he asks easily. “Don’t answer that, actually. I spoke to the caterers today.”
“You did? I’ve already worked out?—”
“Some kind of payment plan. Yeah, they told me,” he says. “But I don’t want you to worry about it. I took care of it.”
Dread sinks through me like a stone in a pond. “Don’t tell me you paid it in full.”
“I did,” Dean says. “It’s not right to keep them waiting, Harper.”
“I wasn’t going to keep them waiting. I was going to pay it off in four months, with interest, and they said they were fine with?—”
“I’m fine with handling it,” he interrupts. “And who knows, we might even be able to get some kind of future credit if we hire them again. They’re usually fully booked.”
“Dean, I told you I wanted to pay my half. I’ve told you this over and over again.” I run a hand over my face, struggling to keep my voice steady. Across the kitchen island Nate has gone very still.
Damn. He’s hearing all of this. Seeing all of this. Embarrassment mixes with frustration within me.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “I got you, honey. I’ll always have you.”
“No, you won’t. You can’t. That’s the whole point—we’re not together anymore.”
“No, we’re not,” he says. “And that was your decision. A decision I still don’t understand. I thought we had it good. Didn’t I treat you nice?”
“Yes, you… that’s not what this is about. I have tried to explain this to you. I told you that night,” I say, “exactly why I made this decision. And I will pay my half of the wedding expenses.”
“Okay,” Dean says, but it’s his placating voice, the one I hate the most. It sounds like he’s speaking to a child who doesn’t understand any better. “I’m sure you will. In due time. There’s no rush, Harper.”
Only that he’ll continue being wedged in my life until my debt is paid. And now, it’s not the caterer or the venue that are my creditors. He is.
When all I want is to stand on my own two feet.
And Dean knows it, damn it. He knows that I’ll want to pay back what I owe, and to do that, I’ll have to keep in contact with him. Irritation strikes me so hot and fast that it brings tears to my eyes.
“Dean,” I say. “You called my mom a few weeks back. I never want you to do that again.”
His voice takes on a tone of feigned hurt. “We were almost family, Harper. I care about your mother. She and Greg don’t understand what happened, either.”
“Don’t call them again. I mean it.”
“I can’t make that promise.”
Frustration makes me groan into the phone. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just let me go? What’s the point, Dean?”
He’s silent for a long moment.
Like I’ve actually stumped him for once.
“You left me,” he says. “And that was the wrong move.” His voice comes across as confident, but there’s a hint of wobbliness to his words.
“Screw you,” I whisper. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Have a good night in London, Harper,” he says. “Enjoy the food. I sure miss your cooking.”
The line goes silent, and I put the phone down with a trembling hand. The exasperation feels so palpable in me that I need to scream, to cry, to thrash. Something. Anything.
I rub my eye, but tears have already overflowed. They race down my cheek, and I hurry to brush them away.
“Harper,” Nate says. His voice is soft in the otherwise quiet kitchen, punctuated only by the sound of boiling water.
“I hate him,” I say fiercely. More tears make it hard to see, I’m so angry. “I hate him, and I know he’s your be— your best friend, but I hate him so much. Why can’t he just listen to me? Why can’t he leave me alone?”
I can’t really make out Nate’s expression. But his eyes are on mine, that I see, and rapidly approaching.
His hands are on my shoulders the next instant. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m pissed off. I’m crying because I’m angry, not because I’m sad. Okay? Because I’m not sad.”
“Okay,” he repeats. His thumb smoothes over my cheek, brushing away a tear. “What did he say?”
“The usual bullshit. He paid off the entire cancellation fee for the caterer. And that’s on top of the original deposit, the one we can’t get back, that we put down with his money. A few weeks ago, I tried to make a payment for the venue, and I was told that they had already received it!” I shake my head and force my voice under control. It’s trembling, and I hate how shaky everything is coming out, how weak. I’m angry, damn it.
“I see,” Nate says. But he doesn’t sound like he sees at all. “And you want to pay your half?”
“Yes! Because otherwise… otherwise, he is going to hold it over me forever.”
“How can he?”
“Oh, he’s sneaky. He’ll find ways. Like calling my parents or guilting me about his family… He knows that I wanted to pay my portion, to be free of any kind of debt to him. But now, it means I’ll have to pay him every month for the rest of my… well… until I’ve paid it off.” I shake my head. “I’ve tried so hard to get away from him. And here he is! Making it impossible.”
“He wants you back,” Nate says. “And he wants to punish you.”
“Yes.” I reach for the paper towels on the kitchen island and use it to dry my cheeks. A humorless laugh escapes me. “God, I’m so sorry you heard all of that. I never meant to drag you into… that.”
“To open the box,” he says quietly. “You wanted it to remain untouched at the back of some shelf somewhere.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a breath, my tears slowing down. The burst of anger fades as quickly as it had come, simmering down to the low-level annoyance I’ve felt since I left Dean. “I know he means… a lot to you.”
Nate shrugs. “We were college friends.”
“You were going to be his best man. At the wedding.”
“Yes,” he says. But the corners of his mouth tip into a crooked, not entirely happy smile. “I think we both know that Dean is a bit more calculating in his decisions, though.”
I blink at him. I hadn’t known that Nate noticed that.
“I’m not an idiot,” he says. “I know when people want me for me, and when they want what my money or influence can get them.”
“Oh,” I say with a swallow. “He did always seem… jealous of you.”
“More so in the past decade,” Nate says. He runs a hand in his hair and looks away, toward the stove and the water still boiling there. “I don’t think either of us has been a… loyal friend in the last few years.”
I shake my head. “You haven’t done anything.”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he believes me. His gaze turns concerned. “Is this part of the reason you called it off? The wedding?”
I wet my lips. Are we really going there?
But Nate is my friend. And I no longer suspect he’ll go to Dean. “Part of it,” I say. “But there was more…”
Nate nods and takes a few steps back. Toward the built-in wine fridge. “White or red?” he asks.
I smile at him in gratitude. “Yeah, I think I need that. White? It’s too warm for red.”
“You got it.” He chooses a bottle and motions for me to continue. So I do, sinking down at the kitchen table. Watching as he pours us a glass each.
“It didn’t start out that way. I mean, you saw us, right? We had a great time together,” I say.
Nate’s jaw tenses, eyes focused on the wine he’s pouring. “Yeah.”
“But somewhere over the past years, I realized… I had lost myself. And became what he wanted. We spent the summers the way he wanted, visiting people up and down the Eastern Seaboard who he wanted to see. I tried applying to two internships before this one, one in Boston and one in Paris… and he discouraged me from both. Said it would be unwise. And I believed that.”
Dean was never going to let me be myself. And it took me a long time to wake up to that, and also to realize that, somehow, I had accepted it to the point where I no longer knew exactly what or who I was.
What I actually wanted.
“You wanted to get out of your old job for a while?” Nate asks. He’s leaning against one of the French doors, eyes on me.
“I think so. Yes. Even though, at the time, I wasn’t aware of it myself. Dean used to say it wasn’t the right time… that I should be happy to even have a job with something as useless as an art history degree.” I shake my head, and mortification makes it hard to find the words. I’m still embarrassed over what Nate had just witnessed. What he understood. “Dean took care of so many things. It was his nice apartment I moved into. And his money that bought groceries. He loved to… throw that in my face. Sometimes. And I took it.”
Nate’s voice is soft. “He did what?”
I bury my face in my hands. “Oh God. It’s so embarrassing to say it out loud, now that I’m away from it all.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” Nate says. His voice is sharp. “It’s a lot of things, but that word is very far off target.”
“He made me feel like I owed him. All the time,” I say. “Like his word was the final word, like it was either do it his way… or no way. Did you know that his mother picked out my wedding dress?”
Nate’s eyes narrow. “You weren’t allowed to choose your own dress?”
“Oh, I tried to. But in the end, it was heavily encouraged for me to go with a more traditional option.” I laugh weakly. “That’s the one thing I won’t insist on paying half for. It wasn’t my choice.”
Nate crosses his arms over his chest, the wineglass in his left hand. His jaw clenched.
He looks angry.
I hadn’t anticipated that.
“And Dean knew all of that,” he says.
“Yeah. I think it all came from him. The last straw, the thing that told me I couldn’t stay another day was… It’s so awful to say.”
“I’m listening,” he says quietly.
“I overheard him saying something on the phone. He didn’t even try to hide it, to be fair. Somehow that felt terrible? He thought I wouldn’t care when he told someone that my career would be over after the wedding, or at the very least, when we had kids. He called my art degree decorative.”
Nate makes a low, hoarse sound. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“Looking back on it, he’d made that position clear before, but he’d never said it. Not like that. And I realized he didn’t think I was capable of anything, not of my job, or of earning my own money, and definitely didn’t respect me. At all. That word, decorative, really pushed me over the limit, at any rate.”
“Broke the camel”s back,” Nate says. He shakes his head slowly, his jaw tense. “You left that day?”
I nod. “Yes. I wanted out of his cage, and all the strings he attached to everything, every exchange between us. That’s what—shoot!”
The water boils over.
I spring to my feet and race to the stove. Put my glass down. “The pasta won’t be very al dente, I’m afraid!”
“It will be delicious,” Nate says. He’s followed me, his voice closer by. Anger still laced through his tone. But now it has a hesitant note in it. “You know that there aren’t and never will be any strings with me, right?”
I look down at the pasta and feel another kind of blush creeping up my cheeks. With me. We haven’t discussed… what we are. Not yet.
But the way he said it…
“I know,” I say. “Trust me, you’re nothing like Dean.”
He brushes my hair away from the back of my neck, and then there’s a pair of lips against the hot skin at my nape. His hands glide over my hips.
“In one way,” he murmurs, his lips trailing down my bare shoulder, “we are very much alike. He had great taste in women.”
I close my eyes at the sensation. “Is that a compliment, Connovan?”
He pulls my hips against his. “Yes,” he says. “So, you want to go to Paris?”
“One day,” I say. Nate’s nearness is chasing away the hurt from the past, and letting my frustration slowly wash away.
“One day,” he repeats. He rests his head on top of mine, and we both watch as I stir the pasta and sauce together into one delicious, creamy mixture. “How does this Friday sound?”