Chapter 43 Conrad
Conrad
Instead of heading to my place in New Harbor, I instructed the driver to take me to Manhattan.
La Fleur’s panoramic rooftop was constructed entirely out of glass, the ceilings and walls retracting in the summer, and it boasted an almost unbelievable view of midtown. It was the perfect place to escape the heaviness of the last few hours.
“Lucy said you were here.” James sat down beside me.
I didn’t know what time it was now, but it’d been close to one a.m. when I found myself at the bar ordering four fingers of whiskey neat.
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be alone, I just wanted to get out of my head.
And since Lucy’s family owned this place, I was sure it wouldn’t be long before the rest of my motley crew filed in.
“You need anything?” he asked.
The music blared, but along the private lounges that lined the wall, it was a little quieter. Not “have a conversation” quiet, which was perfect. I was here because I couldn’t go back to my place. Not when my clothes, my sheets, my everything smelled like her.
“Another drink.” I downed what was left of mine, and James’s general look of concern sharpened, but he motioned for the hostess regardless.
All I’d been able to think about was how I spent so long trying to avoid being like my dad.
In some bizarre twist of fate, I wasn’t him nor my mom in this situation.
I wasn’t the philandering partner or the scorned one.
I was the dirty little secret. The number on the clandestine phone. I was the person who flew under the radar. And after a lifetime of being just that in my own family, I hadn’t expected it to hurt like it did.
A bottle of Macallan was delivered to the table, and I sat back in the booth, feeling like it was nowhere near enough.
“All right, you’re going to tell me what happened.” James raised his voice over the music, pouring two shots. “School, family, Malena, crew…?”
My mind flipped back and forth between that day in Newport and the present. Every memory with Malena was suddenly under review as I tried to weed out all the things I must have missed.
I took both shots. “I’m good.”
He said something, but it got lost under the bass line that ricocheted off the solarium-like walls.
Over the next hour, the process repeated with Felix, then Lucy, then James again. Surprisingly, the only one who hadn’t intervened was Ishani. She watched from a distance. Occasionally, someone would sidle up to her on the dance floor and try to flirt, but she kept a keen eye on me.
The more I drank though, the less I cared that all my friends were treating me like something breakable. I was here to forget, to clear my head of all things Mal.
It wasn’t until a cute blond in a miniskirt and very little else took a seat next to me that Isha intervened. We were halfway through some inane conversation about the weather when she ran a hand up my thigh.
At that moment, Ishani Gabriella Roy made her presence known.
“Absolutely not.” She wedged herself between me and the girl, sloshing her drink a bit but apparently not caring about civility.
“Isha, go away,” I grumbled as the girl scampered off, huffing under her breath.
“I’ve let you sulk through entirely too much alcohol. But that?”
“We were just talking.”
“Fine. Talk to me.” Ishani plastered on a fake smile, her voice becoming prickly. “Go on then, speak.”
“I’m fine. I’m having a good time.”
“Are you?” She grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “Or were you hoping to forget what’s bothering you between that girl’s legs when you have a girlfriend.” She released her hold with a disgusted sneer. “Honestly, I’d—”
“We broke up,” I snapped, the implication slicing into my chest. “I don’t cheat.”
Malena had bent over backward to keep me from being part of her life in the ways that counted. How could I explain that to my friends? That I’d been drinking in order to stop myself from wondering what was real and what was fake.
“Oh.” She lowered her shoulders and the corners of her eyes softened. She looked around the bar and winced. “Then we need to be anywhere else.”
“I want to be here.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” She pulled at my arms, looking at James expectantly to do her bidding when she made no progress. I raised my hands in defeat and followed her, stumbling a bit.
She was quiet until we got out to the street, stopping in front of the car she’d called. The sounds of the city—still buzzing despite it being the early hours of the morning—pierced through the muffled state I was in.
Ishani looked at me pointedly. “We need to talk about it.”
“It was never serious or real, so it’s not a big deal.”
“Not real?”
Not to Mal anyway, but now was not the time to get into the double phone situation.
“We were working together, things happened, now it’s over,” I droned blankly.
“It seemed real,” Ishani offered quietly.
“Yeah.” My breathing faltered. “It did.”
My dad taught me early on that people always found ways to disappoint you, no matter how hard you tried to keep it from happening. Conclusions were usually foregone.
This was just another example.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, I know.” I swallowed all the hurt.
“Would you like to wallow in alcohol a bit longer?” She smiled, trying and failing to keep the pity out of her expression.
“No.” I looked up at the building next to us. What I wanted more than anything was to go back a week, when everything was perfect.
“All right, then let’s go,” she barked, rallying like nothing was wrong.
“I am standing on a public curb like some commuter.” Her lip curled up before it morphed into a smile.
“Come on, back to the Roy townhouse. We can channel all of this”—she waved her palm in front of my face—“into something productive, or maybe cathartic. We’ll watch a movie and you can cry all about it. ”
“I’m not going to cry,” I grumbled.
“Of course you won’t…” She looped her arm in mine and sent a text. I could hardly read it, but it was to Felix. “I’m certainly not going to play the opening scene of Up.”
A real, genuine laugh made its way up my chest. For a second, everything hurt a little less. “You’re mean.”
“And you’ll be just fine.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “Come on, spend the weekend being a little unhinged and then we’ll regroup.”