Summer Fridays

Chapter 9

Taking a walk turned out to be a terrible idea.

The mosquitoes were out, and the air was like soup, having already acquired that chokingly humid, pre-thunderstorm heaviness, with absolutely no hint of the cool relief that would come later.

Then, about ten minutes after Nick and Sawyer left the Watering Hole, the first raindrops began to fall—big, splotchy drops that made the sidewalks steam and filled the streets with a swampy, metallic scent tinged with diesel.

“Should we make a run for it back to the bar?” Sawyer said, laughing and holding her bag over her head as a makeshift umbrella, as the drops began to patter faster and faster.

Nick pointed to a gaggle of tourists clustered together in front of what looked to be an old brick walk-up. “What’s that?” he said.

They got closer and discovered that it was a tour being conducted by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The tour guide, a slender mouse of a man in a beret, was ushering people through a door. He blinked into the rain and hurriedly gave Nick and Sawyer the OK to join the tour and pay afterward. Thanking him, they joined the ten or so bodies shuffling into the building.

Once inside, the tour guide began to tell the group about the history of the building. Sawyer was instantly fascinated. The structure was a time capsule of sorts…used as a tenement from the 1860s until 1935, when the then-owner simply evicted the tenants and boarded it up, leaving it sealed like a tomb until it was discovered by the present owners, who bought it and turned it into a museum dedicated to remembering how people used to live in New York’s earlier days.

Sawyer and Nick followed the tour group up the rickety wooden stairs, to the apartments above, winding under the stamped-tin ceilings and along the narrow, smoke-stained halls, past a small closet containing a toilet—Plumbing wasn’t installed until 1901, at which point residents shared two toilets per floor, the guide announced, to much chuckling and cringing from the group.

The guide led them into one of the tiny apartments, and began to describe who might have lived there, and what life was like back then. He demonstrated the use of cast-iron stoves, washboards, antique iceboxes. There wasn’t much space in the claustrophobic apartments, three little rooms, including the kitchen; in some rooms it was possible to hold out your arms and touch the walls on opposite sides at the same time. It wasn’t uncommon to raise six kids in an apartment like this, the guide said. It was mind-boggling to fathom.

“See?” Nick confided in a low voice to Sawyer. “Aren’t you glad you came out? We’re doing something cultural.”

Sawyer smirked at him. “All right, this is pretty cool,” she admitted. “And I’m a sucker for history.”

“Shocker,” Nick joked sarcastically, but not unkindly.

There was an intimate, cozy feeling to the tour that was heightened by the weather. Each time the group stopped and gathered around the guide, Sawyer could feel Nick standing behind her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and a curious shiver despite the heat. Outside, as the storm ramped up, lightning flashed in the window, thunder rattled the panes, and the rain began to pour. People instinctively moved closer together in the already cramped space. The other tourists’ eyes were bright and restless, like children trapped indoors during recess on a rainy day. There was a kind of alertness in the air, like the mishmash of people on the tour had just tumbled out of the dryer, all of them faintly crackling with static electricity.

Forty-five minutes later, the guide showed them the way out through a back alley that led past the former outhouses, which—according to the guide—served this whole block of tenements before indoor plumbing was added. More chuckles and groans. A few of the tourists rummaged in their pockets to tip the guide, thank-yous were murmured and acknowledged, and then everyone was released back into the streets of Manhattan. Nick and Sawyer paid for having joined the tour belatedly, as promised, and Nick added a bit extra, along with their thanks.

It was still raining.

“Hungry?” Nick asked.

“Starving,” Sawyer replied.

They made a mad dash for it. Nick led the way.

“Look!” he shouted, pointing as they neared Katz’s Delicatessen. “There’s no line!”

They ducked inside.

Minutes later they sat down with two Reubens with extra pickles.

“Have you been here before?” Nick asked.

“No, but I’ve heard about this place,” Sawyer answered.

“?‘Heard about it’?” Nick teased. “You mean you watched When Harry Met Sally.”

“Fine. Maybe.”

She took a huge bite out of her sandwich and chewed with dramatic, barbaric relish, then licked at a drip of pale orange Thousand Island at the corner of her mouth. Nick raised an eyebrow. Sawyer laughed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll refrain from reenacting that scene,” she said.

“No. Please—by all means. Go for it.”

Sawyer laughed. “That’s right—you’re the type who probably can’t be embarrassed by anything.”

“That’s me,” Nick announced with mock pride. “Utterly indecorous and completely lacking any sense of shame.” He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

Sawyer laughed and covered her mouth with a napkin. The pastrami was good. They chomped away casually, their elbows on the table, their fingers and lips shiny with grease under the fluorescent lights.

The rain continued to patter the street outside. The cabs and buses going by sprayed up water as they passed, making WISHHH WISHHH sounds.

“Had you ever been to that tenement museum before?” Sawyer asked.

Nick shook his head. “No. I wish I’d known it existed.”

“I loved it,” Sawyer admitted. “It stirred something up for me. Something about all those different lives, different stories…”

“Spoken like a writer,” Nick commented.

Recalling how much she’d shared online, Sawyer felt a telltale warmth creep into her face. Her palms grew sweaty.

“Or just someone who works in publishing,” she said.

“Or both,” Nick insisted. “No need to deflect.”

Sawyer squirmed a little.

“Well, anyway,” she said. “Just thinking about all the stories of the people who must have lived in that building piqued my curiosity about the world again…I appreciate when that happens.”

She paused and mused for a moment.

“Imagine, too…the bravery it took to come to America as an immigrant, starting your life over again,” she murmured. “Feeling homesick and excited at the same time.”

Nick snorted. “I don’t have to imagine.”

“Oh—that’s right,” Sawyer remembered. “Your mom?”

“Yeah,” Nick replied.

“Thinking you can’t ever go back must be extra tough. Does she still get homesick?”

He shrugged. “Probably. She’d never let on, though, not in front of me. But where my mom lives in Brighton Beach is a little like what the Lower East Side must have been, eighty years ago,” he said. “If you’re homesick and strategic enough, you can spend your whole life there, never hearing or speaking anything but Russian or Ukrainian.”

Sawyer listened and smiled, watching Nick’s face carefully. Just as it had been the last time his mother had come up, she detected a slight hint that he was reticent to talk about her. She wondered if she’d made a misstep. With Nick, everything felt oddly familiar, yet the simplest of questions sometimes felt too personal, and they suddenly transformed back into two strangers.

“Hey,” he said, abruptly looking at his watch and changing the subject. “It’s after six. I told my friend Ryan I would go hear his band play. The club does a lottery for time slots, and unfortunately for him, his band drew the opening slot. They’re on at seven, and he’s worried no one will turn up that early. Want to come? It’s not far from here.”

Sawyer hesitated, chewing her lip and thinking.

Nick frowned.

“Time to go back to the hot apartment and read? Sounds boring. And sweaty.”

“How do you know I don’t have air-conditioning?” she challenged.

“Because I know,” Nick insisted. “You don’t have air-conditioning.”

She sucked in a breath and pictured her stuffy apartment…and imagined herself there, watching the clock and waiting for Charles to come home.

“C’mon,” Nick cajoled. “Sea Breezes on me.”

He winked.

Sawyer attempted to suppress a grin, but lost.

The rain stopped, the temperature dropped ten degrees, and the city suddenly felt fresh and clean.

It was a short walk to the spot where Nick’s friend’s band was scheduled to play. The space itself was small; a long, narrow room with a bar at one end and a stage at the other. It appeared devoid of patrons but full of activity. A twenty-something bartender with the looks of a male model (or, at least, a male model with a wicked hangover) was busy inventorying and stocking the bar. A group of guys on the stage were diligently plugging in amps and testing the sound. They looked up as Nick and Sawyer crossed the room.

“Nick!”

“Hey, man—thanks for coming!”

“Yo, you playing tonight?”

“Nah, just here to listen tonight,” Nick said to the guys, smiling. “Well, listen and drink.”

“?’Preciate it, man.”

It seemed Nick knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He introduced Sawyer around. It was, of course, too many names for her to keep straight. But she smiled and nodded. They were friendly; it was clear that Nick was well-liked. He took her over to the bar and made yet another quick, jokey introduction (Sawyer tried to keep up, but between the barrage of names and the deafening blare of all the sound checks going on, it was tricky; the bartender’s name was definitely either Jake or Blake). Nick ordered two Sea Breezes, heavy ice, no maraschinos.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Jake or Blake said, rolling his eyes. “Sea Breezes?”

“Yup,” Nick confirmed. “And keep ’em coming.”

Jake or Blake laughed, clearly too fond of Nick to be convincingly annoyed. He reached under the bar and produced two pint glasses meant for beer, then proceeded to make two enormous Sea Breezes.

“You’re lucky I have grapefruit tonight; not always the case,” he said gruffly, but with a smile.

Nick pocketed some bar napkins, lifted the two pint glasses, and gestured at Sawyer. She followed him through the narrow club, past the stage to the far end of the room, and through a little door marked “DO NOT OPEN—ALARM WILL SOUND.” Despite the warning on the door, no emergency alarm sounded. Instead, it let out onto a tiny outdoor space.

It was probably just a place for band members to hang out and smoke before and after going onstage, but it had the ramshackle charm of a slightly derelict, overgrown backyard. Uneven, broken bricks covered in moss paved the ground, which in itself was uneven and dipped down to a drainage grate in the middle. Snarls of overgrown ivy climbed every vertical surface—over the fence, up the wrought iron fire escapes, all the way up to the ancient power lines strung between buildings like Christmas lights. A jumble of milk crates and plastic patio furniture was pushed off to one side, along with an assortment of clutter: long-forgotten ashtrays and empty beer bottles swimming with rainwater and cigarette butts.

Nick handed the pint glasses brimming with pink-and-yellow Sea Breezes to Sawyer to hold, then righted a plastic table and two plastic chairs. He wiped them down with the bar napkins and finished with an invitational flourish.

Sawyer sat. Now that the rain had stopped, the evening had turned pleasant. The storm was pushing off to the east, and the sunset was creeping in under the cloud cover in the west. It flooded into the sky like light coming through a crack in a door, bouncing between the city and the cloud canopy, bathing everything in a radiant reddish-gold glow.

They sipped their Sea Breezes.

“So, that’s why you were reading Rolling Stone,” Sawyer said. “You’re a musician.”

“You make it sound so serious,” Nick said. “I’m just a guy who works at an ad agency.” He paused, and added, “Who sometimes checks out the album reviews in Rolling Stone.”

“And plays in a band,” Sawyer pointed out.

Nick gave her a look, and she knew the answer was: yes.

“Why aren’t you playing tonight?” she asked.

Nick stiffened. “I’m kind of taking a break,” he said noncommittally.

“A break?”

“From one of the guys.”

“Why?” Sawyer asked, interested.

Nick narrowed his eyes. “Do you always interrogate people being nice to you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Sawyer grinned.

Nick cocked his head, considering. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Dan’s just been fixated on us spending a bunch of cash on this studio.”

“To record?” Sawyer pressed.

Nick shrugged.

“Why don’t you want to do it?”

“It seems like a cliché waste of money.” He paused, and added, “I just don’t see the problem with being in the here and the now. Playing live. That’s what music is supposed to be—right?”

“Playing live?”

“Yeah. And community, I guess. To be honest, part of the reason a lot of these guys here seem happy to see me is because I’ve helped run things over the years—get people stage time, get people booked, recommend musicians when someone’s short a drummer, that kind of stuff.”

Sawyer’s lips twisted into a satisfied smile.

“So, this is your thing,” she asserted.

“Yeah. I guess you could say it’s something I care about,” Nick acknowledged.

“Aha! You do have passions.”

“I do.”

“You’re human after all.”

“An argument could be made to that effect.”

Sawyer continued to smile in triumph. They locked eyes for a long moment, until Sawyer felt that unfamiliar flutter of intimidation again. She looked away, pretending to observe the garden.

“I read your poem,” Nick said.

Sawyer’s eyes flicked back to his face and went wide. Her brain silently traced how it must have happened—the link she sent during that oddly unguarded moment during their online chat. But there was more than that—there was Nick returning to it later, Nick clicking on her poem, Nick reading.

Her stomach did a somersault.

“It’s good,” Nick said, his voice low, somber…and earnest. “You’re a good writer,” he continued. “And I can see why that’s your thing.”

She tried to reply, but felt herself choking on each sentence that came to mind.

“Look, Sawyer,” he said, seeing her struggle. “It’s good to be good at something. You shouldn’t be embarrassed or try to hide it.”

“It’s just that…” Sawyer struggled. “I mean, I’ve never…”

Each time she found a sentence it slipped away from her, like a wet bar of soap. Nick continued to wait patiently.

“You’re the only one who’s read it,” Sawyer blurted out, finally.

He looked surprised.

“I mean…like, strangers have probably read it. It’s a public website, after all,” Sawyer said, finding herself babbling. “But you’re the only one who’s read it…who I know.” She paused, then babbled to add, “Personally.”

Sawyer willed herself to stop talking.

Nick was quiet a moment, thinking.

“I’m glad you told me about it,” he said finally. “I’m glad I got to read it.”

The blood rushed to her face. Her tongue felt thick again.

“Thank you,” she managed to force out.

She coughed, and gathered herself.

“And…thank you for today, I guess.”

“What do you mean, you ‘guess’?” Nick teased.

Sawyer blushed again and laughed. “To be honest, I had a bad morning, and I came down here thinking we’d probably resume our debate, and I’d stick it to you. You know? Really tell you off.”

“I see.” Nick laughed. “Therapy by way of human punching bag. I’ve been told I bring that out in people.”

“But…” Sawyer continued cautiously. “I have to admit: I’m having a good time. This afternoon took my mind off everything. I probably would have sat in my apartment stewing about it otherwise.”

“What’s been bugging you?” Nick asked.

Sawyer glanced at him. He sounded genuinely interested.

“Besides, you know…” he added.

“Oh, besides that?” she half joked, attempting to act blasé but feeling a pang at the unspoken mention of Charles and Kendra.

“Yeah, besides that.”

“Well…this morning, I was feeling discouraged about work stuff.”

“What happened at work?” Nick asked.

Sawyer sighed. “You remember me telling you about that unsolicited manuscript I pulled from the slush pile?” she asked.

She went on to tell him about Johanna’s lack of acknowledgment, and about Preeti coming into the office and not having the faintest clue who she was.

“I can tell you what I think if you want,” Nick said, once she’d finished her story.

“OK,” Sawyer agreed with a hint of apprehension.

“I think it’s up to you to ask for what you want,” he said.

Sawyer wasn’t offended, exactly, but she was surprised.

“Think about it,” Nick insisted. “How many editorial assistants do you think Johanna has had over the years? Countless people in publishing wash out at the assistant level. They realize it’s a lot of work. Maybe they don’t have a knack for it, or worse, they don’t have the passion. Or they simply move into a career field that pays more. It won’t occur to her that you’re in it for the long haul…unless you make it occur to her.”

Sawyer mulled this over.

“Don’t sit around waiting to be singled out for acknowledgment,” Nick concluded. “Ask for what you want.”

“You might be right…” Sawyer murmured.

“What? Could you say that again, a little louder?” Nick cupped his ear.

“You might be right,” Sawyer repeated, rolling her eyes.

“Hmm, ‘might be,’?” Nick echoed. “I guess I’ll have to settle for that.”

“As good as it gets right now,” Sawyer confirmed.

“Hey,” Nick said. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s really cool that you pulled that manuscript out of the slush. And it’s cool that you care about your job. Most people don’t put themselves out there to do what they love; they settle for mediocrity and a paycheck.”

“It’s funny,” Sawyer remarked. “I love my job so much I would work for free—”

“You work in entry-level publishing; we’ve already established that you do work for free,” Nick interjected.

“Ha ha.” Sawyer warned dryly, “That joke’s getting old already.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“But you’re right; I need to remind people to take me seriously because I love my job—not in spite of it.” She paused, then added, “Even in the bigger picture, too. Sometimes people act like working in publishing is a fun little hobby…compared to, say, working at Wexler Gibbons.”

Nick nodded and rolled his eyes. “I get it. But it’s not like Charles and Kendra are curing cancer. They’re underlings, baby sharks, proofreading the paperwork for a merger between two huge companies who—let’s face it—are probably just trying to get around violating antitrust monopoly laws.”

Sawyer was surprised by Nick’s nakedly open disdain. She shifted in her chair. It felt unfair to Charles to agree.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about them,” she reminded Nick now.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “Scratch that last part.”

The thump of drums began to pulse inside the club, and soon, the wail of a guitar began to spill into the little courtyard.

“It sounds like they’ve started,” Nick said. “Ready to go back in?”

Sawyer nodded.

They stayed and watched Nick’s friend’s band. And then another band after that. And then another.

It was interesting, Sawyer thought. Bands starting out were like writers just starting out. The more novice they were, the more you could tell who their influences were, who they were trying to imitate. Pearl Jam. Nirvana. Stone Temple Pilots. Some that played that night were good, and others…not so much (for the bands that were bad, imitation only invited a painful comparison). Nick, who was usually full of opinions, listened without giving any. But Sawyer became convinced that she could make out subtle changes in Nick’s expressions—tiny crinkles at the outside corners of his eyes when a talented group jammed in perfect time. A tightness near his mouth when a subpar lead guitarist launched into a melodramatic solo.

She was staring too much. A couple of times, much to Sawyer’s embarrassment, Nick caught her studying these expressions. She retrained her focus on the stage.

People steadily drifted in. The club began to feel like a club, thrumming with bodies standing close together. Sawyer and Nick were eventually pressed close, just by virtue of the crowd’s density and the room’s small space. But it was different from the cozy intimacy Sawyer had felt at the Tenement Museum. All around them, people were dancing with abandon, spilling beer, and making out while trying not to lock piercings. When she and Nick touched it was an awkward, accidental jostling together. Sawyer was very aware of her legs, her hips, her arms, her elbows.

She couldn’t help but notice, too, other girls in the crowd eyeing Nick. They gazed at him admiringly, occasionally pausing to glance at Sawyer. She knew they were trying to guess who she was—his date? His coworker? Hopefully someone completely platonic, like a cousin? One of the girls moved closer in the crowd, and managed to catch his gaze. A blond girl like Kendra, only with black roots and a nose piercing. She nodded in Nick’s direction as if to say hello. Sawyer felt a surprising flicker of something inside her chest she didn’t quite understand, something that felt vaguely territorial, which made no sense at all. She watched Nick’s face closely for his reaction.

He nodded and gave a small smile in the girl’s direction, but Sawyer thought she glimpsed the tightness around his mouth she’d seen earlier. He made no move to approach the girl, and Sawyer relaxed.

The band onstage wrapped their set. They took a bow, and another band quickly rearranged the stage to take over, plugging in different things, adjusting mic heights. Nick turned to look at her and grinned.

“Refill?” he asked, pointing at her empty pint glass.

She nodded, despite the fact that her head was already spinning.

He took her glass and headed to the bar. Sawyer watched him move through the crowd, shouldering his way near the blond girl, who was also watching Nick, with laser focus. When Nick passed without stopping, the blond girl turned to glare at Sawyer. She had the wrong idea, of course, but Sawyer couldn’t suppress a tiny smile.

Another Sea Breeze and an hour or so later, a ska band clearly hoping to become the next Sublime had taken the stage. They weren’t particularly good, but it didn’t matter; the crowd had begun to hop along to the brassy, jazzy beats. Sawyer felt herself joining in like a fool, grinning from ear to ear, thoroughly tipsy.

By then it was packed, and she and Nick stood shoulder-to-shoulder. She could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye as she did a silly little wiggle to the music. He shook his head, amused.

Sawyer was shocked when she noticed the time. In astonishingly quick succession, the afternoon had turned into evening, and evening into night. She felt a mild tingle of panic wondering if Charles had beaten her home for a change, and what he would think to find her not there.

They left the club. Nick walked her to Astor Place, where they stood beside a sculpture of a giant cube perched upright on one pointy corner, like a diamond.

Nick was quiet. He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, seeming reluctant to call it a night.

“Thanks for coming out,” he said.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed. “I hope I didn’t cramp your style.”

“?‘Cramp my style’?”

Sawyer laughed. “I saw the girls in there, tossing their hair every time you crossed the room to the bar.”

“I was crossing the room to the bar to get a drink for you.”

“And I could feel them all looking at me, trying to guess who the hell I was to you.”

“If they only knew,” Nick joked.

Sawyer relented. “I guess that is a pretty weird story,” she agreed. “Anyway. I just hope I wasn’t a drag to have along.”

Nick gave her a funny look.

“I asked you to come out, remember?” He paused, giving her a serious look. “I’m really happy that you did.”

Her face felt warm, probably from the numerous sugary, vodka-laden Sea Breezes, she figured.

“And besides,” Nick continued. “It’s not like I’m really…looking…you know?”

Sawyer frowned for a moment, relaxed and tipsy enough to be confused. Then a light bulb clicked on.

“Oh! Right—of course,” she agreed.

The indirect mention of Kendra hovered around them for a moment. Sawyer stared down at her feet. An awkward silence settled.

“Did you know this thing turns?” Nick asked Sawyer, breaking the silence. He gestured to the giant metal cube.

“It does not.” Sawyer laughed.

“It does,” Nick insisted. “It’s a feature of the sculpture. I swear. If you push hard enough, it rotates. Look—you push on that side and I’ll push on this side.”

Sawyer wasn’t sure she believed him. It seemed like a possible trick to show how gullible she was. But she moved to the far side of the cube and reached up to get a hold of one of the corners.

“OK, on the count of three,” Nick said. “One…two…three!”

The cube didn’t budge.

It felt like she was the only one pushing, but Nick was making straining noises.

Theatricalstraining noises.

She stopped. “All right. I get it.”

“I’m just kidding around,” Nick admitted, laughing. “But I’ll push for real now. I swear it turns!”

Sawyer glared at him as he laughed.

“C’mon—please. I promise.”

“Fine.” Sawyer pushed.

To Sawyer’s utter surprise, the cube gave a soft metallic moan, and began to turn on its base. It was, indeed, turning—very slowly, but turning nonetheless.

A group of passing NYU students spotted Nick and Sawyer. They ran over and joined in, helping to push. The sculpture began to turn faster and faster. The NYU students—clearly also tipsy—hooted and hollered with laughter as the entire group of them ran in mad circles, turning the cube. Sawyer giggled, giddy. They were like children on a playground merry-go-round, all of them nearly tripping over their feet to keep up.

“WOOO-HOOOO!!!”

Finally, after a minute or two of furious spinning, the students splintered off.

“Peace out!” one of them called.

“See ya!” another shouted.

Sawyer and Nick slowed down, and gradually let the sculpture grind to a stop. They were panting, laughing.

“Told you it turned,” Nick jeered.

“You might be right,” Sawyer joked.

“Hmm, ‘might be,’?” Nick echoed for the second time that night. “I guess I’ll have to settle for that.”

“As good as it gets,” Sawyer confirmed.

They had a regular comedy bit now.

He smiled, and walked her to the subway entrance.

Charles was on the sofa, watching the eleven-o’clock news when Sawyer arrived home.

In the scheme of things, this was not so late—not for two people still in their twenties living in Manhattan. But seeing Sawyer come in, Charles lifted the remote and muted the TV, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should have called and left a message on the machine or something; I didn’t picture you getting home first. You’ve been getting home so late, and I thought I was only going out for one drink.”

Charles’s brow furrowed.

“Who’d you go out to meet?”

Sawyer tensed, mute, thinking of what she could say. Uttering the name “Nick” seemed out of the question; the details that made up the truth were far too unwieldy.

(So, I started meeting up with your coworker’s boyfriend because we wanted to compare notes as to whether or not you and your coworker are having an affair…)

“Oh…um, Kaylee wanted to vent about some work stuff,” she said instead.

“Did you two have fun?”

“We did,” Sawyer said, thinking back over the surprisingly good time she’d had hanging out with Nick. When she remembered she’d just told him “Kaylee,” a new thought occurred to her: It had been a summer Friday. She’d had the afternoon off—that was an awfully long time to hang out for some after-work drinks. It seemed inevitable that Charles would ask about that.

But in the next breath, he switched off the TV, rose from the sofa, and stretched.

“Well, that’s good,” he replied, patting Sawyer on the shoulder. “It’s good that you’re starting to bond with some work friends.”

Sawyer frowned. He sounded distracted and vague, like he’d already left the conversation behind him. He stretched again and let out a sigh.

“I’m beat, and I have to get up early and go in for a few hours tomorrow, after the gym.”

“Again?” Sawyer asked. “You’ve had to work the last three weekends in a row.”

“It won’t always be like this,” Charles said. “I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s true. It’s this case—if we get recognized for doing a good job, it will lead to bigger and better things.”

There it was again: we.

Charles and Kendra.

Sawyer bristled. But Charles didn’t notice. He leaned toward Sawyer and tenderly gave her a gentle peck on the cheek.

“Seriously—I’m so tired I’m gonna drop dead if I don’t go to bed right now. Can you get the lights out here?”

Dressed in his boxers and undershirt, he sauntered off in the direction of their bedroom. Sawyer heard him flop onto the bed, not bothering to get under the sheets in the summer heat. A click sounded and the bedroom went dark.

She was reminded of her own exhaustion. One by one, Sawyer switched off the living room lamps. Then, instead of heading to the bedroom, she sank into the corner seat of the L-shaped sofa and sat there for several minutes. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim blue light of the streetlamps outside, still buzzing from the whirlwind afternoon she’d had with Nick, and unsure what to think about anything anymore.

When she closed her eyes, she was suddenly turning that sculpture of a cube again in Astor Place, pushing with all her might and laughing, and spinning, spinning, spinning.