The Billionaire's Gamble

Chapter 8

It isn’thard to find what I’m looking for in this neighborhood, and, when I stop before the brightly-lit front windows, I’m rewarded immensely for my effort by the look on Nick’s face.

He’s surprised, a little cautious, but then an expression that looks almost boyish comes across his normally hard features. “An arcade?” he asks.

Distracted by the image of what Nick must have looked like as a boy, I take a moment to respond. “Of course. Patented fun since… Well I’m assuming for at least a hundred years. Hope you like Skee-Ball.”

“Never played it,” Nick admits.

“Oh ho,” I say, dancing away from him and throwing a couple fake jabs. “Well don’t expect me to take it easy on you buddy. Because I’m the Skee-Ball queen.”

“Wouldn’t have expected mercy for a moment,” Nick replies. He takes a step back and with a cheesy flourish, allows me to lead the way. I happily do.

Now this place is much more my scene. The aisles are cramped and crowded with teenagers, college students, and more than a few dates. There are rows upon rows of pinball machines, a pool table near the door, and all manner of traditional arcade games centered around a prize counter with the usual stuffed and plastic fare.

“Oh shit,” I say, my eyes widening as I look up at the offerings. At the center of the mass of hanging stuffed animals is a massive stuffed octopus with rainbow-colored legs and giant dopey eyes. I hang off the counter like a child, looking up at it with wonder and not caring who sees. “I. Am. In. Love.”

When I glance at Nick, he’s staring at me with a funny expression in his eyes.

“Not a fan of calamari?” he teases.

“I can both love the natural grace of the octopus and its succulent flavors,” I say firmly. “And I’m gonna win that baby and his name shall be Cornelius.”

“You know I could just buy it for you, right?”

I put my hands on my hips. “No way. What’s the fun in that? We have to earn the right to take him home. Through — I don’t know — skill and… daring.”

Nick looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “I’ll do whatever I can to aid in that effort with all the skill and daring I possess,” he swears solemnly.

We leave the counter for now and find a coin machine. He brushes away my attempt to put money into it.

“It was my idea,” I remind him.

“I’m a billionaire,” he says back. It’s not a boast, more a stated fact.

“I thought you valued your money,” I remind him.

His deep brown eyes pierce mine. “I can’t think of a single better use for it,” he says.

The conviction in his voice makes my heart beat wildly. He’s such a confusing man. Hot and cold. One minute ready to jump my bones, the next coolly uninterested. Rude and blunt and closed-off, then caring and considerate and holding my hand. What had made him this way? I badly want to ask, but instinctively know that Nick isn’t the kind of man who can be prompted to pour his heart out. He’ll decide if he wants me to know and pressing will only push him away.

Though shouldn’t I be trying to push him away?

All of this zips through my mind in the time it takes Nick to feed a twenty into the coin machine, and by the time he turns back to me, I’ve made my decision: tonight is a freebie. I could spend it overanalyzing everything or I could just stop thinking about tomorrow and have some damn fun.

Whatever this means, whatever happens, it can all stay wrapped up neatly in this one night. At work tomorrow, we can go back to normal and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. Do I really believe it? Not really, but I deserve to take a break from overanalyzing everything. Future Evie can handle that.

And I’m not the only one who deserves a break. I can’t even guess the last time Nick took an evening off.

Predictably, his Skee-Ball is laughably bad. We start our machines at the same time, and while I’m sinking hundreds and fifties, he can’t even get the ball into one of the easier point rings; his first four go straight into the gutter.

“Goddammit,” Nick curses as another one lands with no points. He pauses and watches me shoot one straight into the tiny hole on the upper right corner. “Okay, did I just get hustled?” he asks.

“Is it a hustle if I warned you?” I ask. I put a hand over my eyes and send another one flying. I open them just in time to see it hit the center hole.

“Okay now you’re just showing off,” Nick says. “How many hours have you put into this thing?”

“Too many to count,” I say. “There was one at the bowling alley in my old neighborhood. And let’s just say there wasn’t a lot to do where I grew up.”

“And where was that?”

“A Boston suburb you’ve never heard of,” I say. “One of the more boring ones about an hour outside of the city. On weekends, if the football team wasn’t playing that meant we were at the bowling alley.”

“Sounds very quaint,” he says.

“You don’t know the half of it.” I sink my last ball and turn to his machine with my hands on my hips. “Don’t tell me you’re quitting?”

Nick smiles with half his mouth. “I’ll admit I’m not used to being this bad at anything.”

“Okay,” I say. “Give me one of your balls.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Nick cracks.

My face heats up and I roll my eyes. “Oh come on. You know what I mean.”

Still chuckling like a ten-year-old, Nick puts one of the Skee-Balls in my hand. “Here you go. I give you full consent to have your way with them.”

“Well they’re about to go in some holes so… I guess get ready for that,” I say, fighting and failing to hold back laughter.

“That sounds hard to maneuver,” he replies, his grin utterly shit-eating.

“You’d be surprised,” I say. I lift the ball up and stand in front of the machine. “It’s actually all in the wrist.” I let it fly and it lands in the center. “Smooth and steady.”

Nick picks up one and stands where I was. He pauses, aims, and lets it go in a pendulous motion. It hits the ramp a bit more slowly than mine but actually goes straight for once. It falls into the lowest point ring, the ten, but I whoop like Nick just scored a touchdown.

He does too and turns to me, fists in the air in celebration. We high-five and then, before I know what I’m doing, I hug him. Instantly I’m enveloped in that warm scent of cinnamon and manliness. He’s broad and strong beneath that suit, his muscles tensing at my touch.

I leap back just as quickly as I’d gone in, looking up at him with wide eyes. God, I give myself permission to have fun and look how quickly I forget all boundaries. If Nick is put off by my familiarity, he doesn’t show it. Instead, for an instant, he looks at me the way he did in the club: like he wants to ravish me. My chest tightens at the thought, but then his face relaxes into a smile and he shakes his head.

“That’s unlike me,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I got ten points. The bare minimum isn’t worth getting excited over.”

“All progress should be celebrated,” I say. “Otherwise isn’t life just a grind?”

He nods slowly. “It often is.” Then he chuckles and says, “But though my competitive side wants to sit here until I beat you, I’m not going to put you through that.”

“Not sure there are enough hours in the night for it anyway,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows.

At that, the timer on his game finally runs out, and a single ticket spurts out of the machine. Nick rips it off, looks at it, and then sheepishly hands it to me. “For the octopus effort,” he says.

“Every bit helps,” I say, adding it to the stack I pulled out of mine.

“Okay, I’ve been embarrassed enough for one night,” Nick says. “So how about you let me show you my moves now.”

The way he says it makes me giggle. “Your moves?” I repeat. “Please, please be talking about Dance Dance Revolution. I would literally die to see that.”

“No way,” Nick says. “That one was a little after my time. I was thinking more along the lines of the pool table by the door.”

I playfully roll my eyes. “I should have guessed it was the cool guy game. Tell me, do you ever allow yourself to look like a dork?”

A blinding smile and a shake of his head. “I’m never tested the theory, but I’m not sure that’s physically possible,” he says.

“Ummmm… I don’t know about that,” I say. “We might have to run some tests. Ever use a Shake Weight?”

“Leave me out of your experiments, crazy woman,” he says, backing up and turning, slipping his hands into his suit pockets as he pretends to shield his heart from me. He jerks his head back toward the tables. “Come on. I think I deserve to show off a little.”

“Just to warn you, I’m quite bad at pool,” I say.

“It’s just balls in holes,” he says. That teasing smile that is usually so hard to get out of him is now permanently plastered on his face.

“But balls and holes and sticks,” I clarify. “And I have some problems with the latter.”

“Then it’s my turn to teach you,” he says.

I join him, and we walk together to the front of the arcade where the pool table is. We don’t have to wait for it. A group of guys in athletic wear who had been using the table are finished, their cues stored in the rack. They’re still hanging out at a nearby table, arguing over something to do with football.

Nick puts a few coins into the slots and the balls drop. I lift one of the cues off the rack and test its weight in my hands. It feels awkward already. Brent had never wanted to play with me because I was so bad, and so I never got the chance to practice.

“Want to break?” Nick asks, collecting the balls in the plastic triangle thingy and adjusting them to the correct pattern.

“Are you asking because you want to laugh at me?” I reply suspiciously.

“Not at all!” he says in a tone that says yes, absolutely.

“Okay,” I say, walking up to the end of the table trying to look way more confident than I feel. “Let me show you how it’s done.” I take the cue ball out from beneath the table, place it in position, and try to aim, hoping that I at least hit the ball hard enough to send it down the felt.

But as it turns out, I don’t get the chance to.

A sharp voice suddenly barks over the music. “Hey! What’s the idea?”

I stop and turn to see one of the guys who had been using the table standing there with his hands on his hips. He’s wearing a white running shirt and looks like an asshole. My heart immediately sinks.

Nick is by my side in a flash, standing between me and the Asshole. His posture is ramrod straight, his face utterly devoid of humor. “Do you want something?” he asks calmly, the slightest hint of menace in his voice.

“I should be asking you the same question, champ,” he says. “That’s our table.”

Nick doesn’t blink. “You weren’t using it.”

“Uh, yeah, we were.” The Asshole looks back at his friends and they voice a scattering of agreements. “See?” he says, turning back to us.

I try to exchange a disbelieving look with Nick, but he’s staring at the Asshole like he wants to rip his head off. I’m actually surprised the guy isn’t taking a step back because Nick’s glare is terrifying. But even if the Asshole realizes he’s trying to mess with the wrong people, it’s clear he feels safe with his side’s superior numbers. There are four of them — all fit guys in their mid-twenties — though none are as tall as Nick.

“Well we already put money in the table,” I say. “So you’re just going to have to wait your turn.”

The Asshole scoffs but barely looks at me, focusing instead on Nick. “Got your girl talking for you now?”

“She’s not wrong,” Nick replies. “We already paid.”

There’s a strange lilt to Nick’s voice, one that makes me glance at him again in surprise. His expression only confuses me more. Where just moments ago he’d looked homicidal, now Nick sounds put out. Maybe even a little nervous?

The Asshole sees the change too and, sensing weakness, his demeanor becomes even more aggressive. He pretends to consider and then says, “All right. We’ll play you for it.”

I start to speak but Nick does at the exact same time. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Again that weird tone. It’s not commanding or assertive at all. I can hardly believe it. I’ve never seen this side of him before.

The Asshole raises his eyebrows. “Why? You scared we’re gonna kick your ass?”

“No!” Nick insists, and even I don’t believe him. “I just don’t see why I should play you when I could just as easily play my friend here and enjoy it a hell of a lot more.”

“Hear that guys?” the Asshole says. “Dude knows he’s screwed. He’s gotta play his girl in order to feel good about himself.”

What had started as confusing and quickly grown frustrating is now a full declaration of war. I don’t know what Nick’s angle is here and why he’s acting so weird, but I’m not going to let this douchebag push us around.

“You know what?” I say. “He will play you and you won’t be talking so tough when he wipes the board with you.”

“Evie…” Nick starts.

“Yeah Evie,” the Asshole says mockingly. “Don’t get your boyfriend into trouble he can’t get out of.” He smirks. “Now what are the stakes?”

“We don’t have to play for anything,” Nick says quickly.

“No, no,” the Asshole says. “We gotta have stakes. Otherwise what’s the point?”

It fully clicks with me now. We’re getting hustled. These guys probably sit around all night waiting to challenge people over the table and then goad them into putting money on the line. Nick knew what they were doing and tried to back out of it, but I fell right into their trap.

Nick still looks like he wants to leave, but, after glancing longingly at the door, he relents.

“Fine,” he says. He rolls his cue idly on the table, watching it move and not looking at the Asshole. “How about ten bucks?”

“Ten? What kind of money is ten?” a guy from the table jeers.

“Fine. Twenty,” Nick says.

“Man, with that watch on I know you’ve got a lot more than twenty in you,” the Asshole says. “Let’s make it interesting. Say a thousand.”

A thousand? The money is nothing to Nick, but still I’m shocked by the balls on these guys.

Nick frowns. “I don’t carry that kind of cash,” he says.

“There’s an ATM in the corner.”

Finally Nick looks at the guy. I hope he’s calculating something behind those mysterious brown eyes. But he just says, “It doesn’t make much of a difference to me. But I’d feel bad taking your rent for the month.”

There’sa bit of the Nick I know.

But the Asshole just smirks. “I’m willing to risk it,” he says.

“Or,” Nick says, as if working around to an idea, “we could play for something a little more abstract.”

“What are you thinking?”

“If you win,” Nick says slowly, “I’ll give you my watch. Believe me, it’s worth a lot more than a grand.”

The Asshole’s eyes bug out of his head at the offer. Nick lifts his wrist and tantalizingly waves it. I don’t know much about watches, but it’s clearly the kind of luxury brand that makes Rolex look like something you’d get out of a gumball machine. The Asshole’s eyes follow it like a cat’s.

“And if you win?” the Asshole asks, almost as an afterthought. His eyes are still glued to the watch.

“Well,” Nick says casually, “if I win then I get to punch you in the face as hard as I can.”

That tears the Asshole’s attention back to Nick. He furrows his brow and sizes up Nick, taking in his height and thick arms and big hands. But on one of those hands is that gorgeous, shiny watch, and Nick is still playing around with the cue, still not meeting his eye.

The Asshole smirks back at his friends. “All right. Bet,” he says. Nick reaches out a hand and they shake on it.

As the Asshole goes back to the table to shed his coat and talk shit to his friends, I turn to Nick.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to get you tangled up in this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, but he doesn’t look at me.

“Will you be able to beat him?” I ask, worried and still thrown by how Nick’s acting. For once all of his body language doesn’t exude confidence. Maybe he’d exaggerated his ability before. Actually, he probably did after I wiped the floor with him at the Skee-Ball machines. And now I’ve set him up to get hustled and embarrassed by a guy who probably plays pool all day long. And on top of that lose him his watch!

Nick just shrugs.

My stomach is in a knot that would challenge Maniac McGee as the guys chalk up their cues.

“I’ll be nice and let you break,” the Asshole says to Nick.

“How kind of you,” he says flatly. But he goes up to the head of the table and adjusts where I placed the cue ball.

I don’t want to look, but I also can’t tear my eyes away. All of my prayers rest on this opening shot, the test of just how badly this is going to go.

Nick looks at the balls for a moment, taking his time.

And then it happens.

Nick’s face flickers. It’s almost imperceptible; I can’t even really say what changed. All I know is that suddenly there’s the guy I’ve known for the past month. The man who intimidates his enemies and friends alike. The one who constantly keeps me guessing. And I realize in the split second before Nick shoots that we aren’t the ones getting hustled. They are.

Nick falls into position and rockets the ball across the felt with the force of a low-grade nuke. It smashes into the triangle of balls and they go flying up and down the length of the green felt. It’s the break of a professional. The Asshole’s jaw slackens. I barely suppress a whoop of glee.

The game goes quickly from there. Nick walks calmly around the table, not looking at anyone, only focusing on each solid-colored ball and sending it into a pocket with robotic consistency. He’s eviscerating his opponent, and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s on his way to landing every shot in one uninterrupted turn.

Is Nick normally able to run a perfect game or is his anger propelling him to new heights? As I watch him land shot after shot I can see the same drive that has made him one of the most successful businessmen in the city. Deep inside, there must be a pulsing anger that propels him just as strongly in his work.

I save the realization for later though, to unpack in the quiet of my apartment. For now, I obnoxiously hoot and clap with every ball that lands until it’s just Nick, the black eight ball, and a whole lot of striped ones.

The Asshole’s cocky expression has faded with every successful shot and, when Nick calls the pocket and sends the eight careening into the back corner, he looks rather ill.

Nick leans his cue against the table, turns to look the guy dead in the eye, and says without missing a beat, “Now I believe we had a bet.”

The Asshole wisely takes two steps back. “Hey, man,” he says. “That wasn’t a serious bet. I thought you knew that.”

“Not a serious bet?” Nick asks. He takes two steps closer. “Where I come from only shit-stains and pussies punk out on bets. So which fuckin’ one are you?”

I furrow my brow. Not so much at Nick’s words, but at the way he says them. For a second I think I detect a Jersey accent.

Unfortunately I can’t dwell on it long because the Asshole’s buddies have now all stood from the table.

But Nick is standing his ground, staring down the four of them like he’s ready to kick all of their asses, and I don’t doubt that he’d try. Personally though, I’d rather not leave this arcade in a cop car. Brent was always getting into stupid fights with guys at bars and I’ve never found it attractive.

I go over to Nick quickly and put a hand on his arm.

“Let’s just go,” I say. Nick’s proved his ability. None of this is worth getting hurt over.

Nick hesitates at my words, turns to me, frowning slightly. I see in his eyes that he’s going to listen to me, or at least I hope that’s what I see. But, once again, I never get to find out because I suddenly see a fist flying at the side of his turned head.

“Nick!” I shout, but Nick has already reacted, leaning his head back and letting the punch whiff by him.

The fist belongs to the Asshole. He tries to retreat into the pack now that his sucker punch failed, but he doesn’t get the chance.

Nick grabs him by the front of his white athletic shirt and slams his fist into the guy’s nose. It makes a sickening crack and blood spurts from both his nostrils. The room erupts into gasps from the people around us, finally noticing that something is going down.

The Asshole’s buddies rush forward, but Nick is still holding onto the guy’s shirt and he uses it to throw the bleeding man backward into his friends like a bowling ball. The ensuing scramble gives Nick just enough time to grab my hand and say, “We should go.”

I don’t argue.

We dash away, hand in hand. I don’t even risk a look behind me, but from the sounds of things, the hustled hustlers are beginning to give chase.

Unfortunately for them, it’s 11 o’clock now and that seems to be peak hour on St. Mark’s. The street is crammed with people, mostly drunk, enjoying their nights. It’s not hard for Nick and me to get lost in the crowd, but still we don’t slow down until we’ve left the street far behind.

Only then do we slow to a walk. We’re both panting, but now I can fully laugh, wheezing out, “Oh man, you even had me going back there.”

Nick’s eyes twinkle and he looks pleased, proud. “There’s a group of guys like that around practically every crummy pool table in this city,” he says. “They’re all the same. Lotta talk and bluster. Sure they have some skill on the table, but usually they get off on picking on people who barely play.”

“And that definitely isn’t you,” I say, remembering the skill with which he’d dominated the table. “When do you find time to play so much pool?” I ask.

“I don’t,” Nick admits. “Not anymore. But while you had Skee-Ball growing up, I had a pool table. And schoolbooks to buy.”

He’s still holding my hand as we walk. It’s warm and protective and I get a thrill just from touching him. The hard man I’ve worked with over the past weeks is finally letting his walls come down. I need to enjoy it while it lasts, before he clams up again. And so therefore I don’t ask further, even though I desperately want to know about his pool-hustling past.

Nick seems to have a destination in mind, and we cross a busy avenue, nearly getting run over by one of Mickey’s nemeses behind the wheel of a cab. It’s warm, the first time I’ve been out at night in the city where a spring chill hasn’t been in the air. It’s a beautiful evening, and despite those jerks (or maybe even because of them) it’s going better than I’d ever suspected it would when I left the club with Nick earlier.

The location on Nick’s mind is a park. At the center is a fountain by which a girl plays guitar and sings softly and sweetly into a microphone. Apart from her there are only a few people walking their dogs, and some couples relaxing against each other in the shadows of the tall trees, listening to the music.

Nick chooses a bench that’s mostly private and we sit together.

“It’s a beautiful park,” I say, looking around. “I’m surprised by how many there are here.”

Nick nods. “New York has the reputation of a concrete jungle, but it’s gotten a lot more green since I was a kid.”

“So you did grow up here,” I say and instantly wince. God, what happened to not asking?! I apparently can’t keep my mouth in check.

Fortunately, Nick doesn’t get mad. He’s still riding the high of our escape too, though his eyes do darken a bit. He sighs and then says, “Not exactly. I’m from across the river, Hoboken.”

“I knew I recognized an accent earlier,” I say, recalling suddenly my thought from the arcade.

Nick cringes but laughs. “It’s been a lifelong mission to shed it,” he says. “But it still comes out when I’m threatening people. Force of habit.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry but I have to ask. What’s the story here? You’ve been pretty adamant that you weren’t a spoiled rich kid, and now I’m hearing your part-time job as a teenager was hustling pool. Will you tell me about it? I would never share it around the office.”

His mouth deepens into a frown. He looks at his hands instead of at me, untangling his fingers from mine. At first I think I’ve gone too far, but then he relents.

“It’s only fair, I guess,” he says. “Since you told me about your breakup.”

He runs a finger over the knuckles on his right hand which must be stinging from the punch.

“My dad raised me,” he finally says. “He owned a bar and dabbled in sports betting and backroom card games his whole life. We were only ever halfway legit, and maybe not even that much. He was in trouble with the law a lot.”

I’m silent, letting him talk. Afraid that if I do, I’ll break the spell Nick seems to be under.

“Yeah, it wasn’t the worst childhood. Coulda been better, coulda been a lot worse. But I knew since I was six that things were weird. That a bar like that wasn’t the place to grow up right. All the scumbags my pops had hanging out around there… Half of ‘em are dead or in jail now. Fuck, my old man’s in jail now. They finally caught up to his ass last year. Now he’s doing ten years for tax shit and I’ve got a little brother to take care of who’s way too much like our dad for my taste.”

Nick chews on his lip. “I’m probably too hard on him, but I can’t relate to that kid at all. I was a piece of shit at his age too but at least I used it to better myself. He doesn’t seem to have any desires other than fucking around. I spent my whole childhood wanting to be better than my loser dad, and he wears it like a badge of honor.” He shakes his head. “Kids. I don’t get ‘em. Never wanted ‘em. And now I’m stuck with one that I have only the barest semblance of control over.”

The silence stretches. He worries at a piece of loose skin on his knuckle. He sounded tired, like the weight of all these worries had finally come crashing down after a long time.

“And this cruise ship. God, what a stupid idea. But you know what? Last year I looked out my window and realized I could see my old neighborhood from my office. It just hammered home that I never really got that far from it all. I’m still just over the river. Everything I own might as well be in my old backyard. So I drew up the plans and made something that I could send out into the world, far away from this city.”

He chuckles ruefully. “That’s what I get for being sentimental. Another headache. And god knows if she’ll ever even leave the wharf.”

Now this is something I feel qualified to lend my opinion on. “Are you kidding?” I say. “With me on the case?” I nudge him with my shoulder. “Trust me. If this cruise ship isn’t the most successful thing you’ve ever launched, then I’ll… I’ll… I’ll give up Skee-Ball for good!”

“We can’t have that,” Nick says with a rumbling laugh. Then he suddenly smacks his forehead. “Oh shit! Your octopus!”

“Noooo, Cornelius!” I say, groaning. “I left him behind!”

“We could go back,” he says, turning to me for the first time since he started talking.

My eyes trace the contours of his handsome face, the strong determined chin, the eyes so deep that I feel adrift at sea every time I look into them. Sometimes they’re stormy and wild, dangerous, other times, like now, they rock me softly and peacefully, an ebb and flow of continuous waves on a warm sunny day. But no matter what they always give me a thrill, excitement and anticipation tensing my body.

“I think we need to let him take one for the team,” I say softly. “Normally I’d leave no man behind, but those guys looked about ready to kill you.”

“I could have taken them,” Nick says. “But I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

On most men that would sound like an empty boast, but with Nick I absolutely believe him. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The way Nick carries himself, the way he walks through life, now reads so plainly that he’d spent a scrappy childhood in a seedy dive.

The connection suddenly occurs to me. “Is that why you took me to that bar?” I ask. “It was a test.”

But Nick is already shaking his head. “It wasn’t a test. I promise. Or, I suppose it wasn’t any more of one than I’ve already said. No, I really just feel more comfortable in places like that. Don’t get me wrong, I like the finer things as much as the next guy, but at heart I don’t have much patience for snobby places and the jerks they cater to.”

“You sure looked comfortable in that first class train bar,” I say with a sly smile. “You should have come back to the coach snack car. It was probably way more your speed.”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “I do have my limits.” Those eyes turn on me again. “And what about you, Ms. Davis? What did a night out for you look like in Boston?”

I make a face. “Never as fun as this,” I say. “We always hung out with Brent’s friends who were the usual Harvard douchebag guys. Can’t say I miss any of them. Brent’s a sports agent so we either would go to games or sports bars. And I’m not that into sports or drinking.”

“So you guys never did anything you enjoyed?” Nick asks.

“No, we did,” I say.

“Like what?”

When called out, I struggle to come up with something. Finally I shake my head. “You know what? I can’t even remember. For my birthday last year all I wanted were Taylor Swift tickets.”

“Big fan?”

“Huge. I still remember the first time I heard Love Story as a kid, and I’ve been obsessed ever since.”

“It is a classic.”

“Well Brent called it ‘chick music’. So even though I wanted to go, I was still surprised when he started dropping hints that he’d gotten tickets for something really special around my birthday.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t Taylor Swift.”

I shake my head. “Bingo. It was Iron Maiden. Which is one of Brent’s favorite bands. And the worst part was I’d assumed he’d gotten Taylor Swift tickets so I didn’t buy any myself before they sold out!”

Nick groans. “That’s terrible.”

“That was Brent in a nutshell. But enough about me. What about you? Do you go to concerts?”

“I don’t get a lot of chances to do things like that,” he says. “It’s a distraction from my job.”

“Maybe you’d get more done if you enjoyed some of your evenings,” I counter. “I know I’m always at my most creative when I’ve turned off my phone and haven’t thought about work for a couple days.”

“I don’t think that’s even possible for my job,” Nick replies. “The company needs me. There’s always a dozen or more fires to be put out at any given time.”

“Tonight was okay,” I say with a small smile.

He returns it. “It was,” he admits.

We stare at each other and the silence is filled by the distant hum of traffic and the sad tune of the busker’s guitar. Something pulses between us, something that we haven’t given voice to, not since Nick told me he wanted to fuck me all the way back in the club. Is he thinking the same thing that I am? Or is he weighing whether this night was worth the trouble he’ll have to clean up tomorrow? Indecision is in his eyes, and before he can say anything, I make the choice for him.

“I should probably be heading back,” I say. It’s incredibly difficult to say, but it feels right, or, at the very least, responsible.

Nick looks surprised, disappointed, and maybe a little relieved. All the emotions conflict on his face.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he says finally.

I’m surprised he even voices it, thought that our obvious mutual attraction would keep being beaten around the bush. But, as with everything he does, Nick is diving head in.

“It’s not,” he says again more forcefully at my skeptical look. “It’s my job. It’s…” His face looks strained for a moment. Then he turns away. “This just isn’t who I am. Running through the street. Talking about my childhood on park benches. It’s… This is a bad idea. I’m sorry.”

My heart crumples like a tin can in my chest, but I manage to keep my voice even, almost breezy. “Look, I was the one who said we should call it a night.”

“But…”

“No,” I say over him. “I agree. It’s a bad idea. I had a lot of fun tonight, but trust me when I say I’m never going to compete for a man’s affections again. Especially if that other thing is an inanimate company.” The words sound a little bitter and I try to soften my tone. “It’s okay. I’m not eager to rush into anything this soon after my breakup anyway. Maybe we can—” I stop myself from saying “stay friends” and switch to, “—just be more friendly at work. Let’s stop running out of the room when the other enters. Okay?”

He nods. “It’s only for a couple more months anyway,” he says. “Then you can get back to your real life.”

I nod. Little does he know that he’s not the only one whose job is their life. With Brent leaving so too did my social life, my friend group, my distractions, bad though they were. But I don’t want to bring the mood down any more. So instead I start to stand. But then suddenly, before I do, I impulsively lean forward and kiss him on the cheek.

Nick blinks at me, surprised. “What was that for?” he asks.

“Thank you,” I say, standing at last. “For saving me from that club. For listening. And for letting me get to know you a little better.” I point a finger at him. “Try not to be too concerned about the Seafarer. Remember my Skee-Ball career rests on its success, and I take that very seriously.”

His eyes smile back at me but he doesn’t say another word. I turn on my heel and walk toward the street, feeling his gaze on me and letting the singer’s lonesome words carry me home.