Chapter 9 #2
“Wes!” a man behind the counter called, setting his phone down with a grin. He had an infectious smile, and he couldn’t be a day over twenty.
Wes grinned back, gently guiding me forward in a way I was starting to crave. In a way I really shouldn’t have been craving. The burn of his touch was slow to fade.
“Omar, how are you? And how’s your dad?”
“I’m great. And he’s grumpy. Nothing’s changed there,” Omar said. He rolled his eyes with a shrug.
“Sounds about right. Everyone healthy?”
“Yeah, yeah, man. We’re all good. How are you? How’s Brooklyn?”
Wes shrugged. “Less noise, more Doc Martins.”
I looked down at my aching feet and longed for my Doc Martins over the heels I had chosen. But what was womanhood if not becoming blind to one’s own suffering?
Omar laughed. “Totally, man. What can I get for you two?”
“Y’all still do egg creams?” Wes asked, scanning their menu of smoothies and coffee drinks. When Omar nodded enthusiastically, Wes asked for two.
Omar got to work, and a second man appeared to take over the cash register for a woman carrying Oreos and a canned cocktail.
“You were saying?” Wes prompted as we stepped out of the way. “What am I, Nova?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I had absolutely no idea what Wes was.
Maybe it was the writer in me, but I found myself grouping everyone I met into archetypes.
That wasn’t to say everyone wasn’t unique in their own way, but there were still quantifiable patterns.
As far as men went, there were the Burning Man enthusiasts who lived in conscious co-living communities in Bushwick.
The entrepreneur types who talked a lot about biohacking and Robert Greene and always had a new side hustle.
The classic beer-and-sports dudes who had at least one dog, only answered dating app prompts with one-word answers or emojis, and didn’t use punctuation.
There were the straight white men with mustaches who read bell hooks and refused to laugh at any joke that had the word gay in it, even if it was told by a gay person.
The real estate agents with veneers. The Nice Guys in creative fields who smoked a lot of weed and whined about the modern woman’s unrealistic expectations.
The classic perfect boyfriend with outdoorsy hobbies and no hot takes who seamlessly blended into any friend group.
But Wes… what the hell was Wes?
I evaded his teasing question and stalled with one of my own once we’d stepped back outside with our plastic cups of fizzy chocolate milk. “How do you even know bodega guys over here?”
Wes’s eyes sparkled. “I talk to people. Enjoy it, even,” he said. “And I used to live in Manhattan.”
He didn’t specify where, but I assumed it was Chelsea. Unless he was implying he knew bodega guys everywhere, like some omniscient Bodega God.
“Well?” he asked, nodding to my cup.
I took a deep breath and raised the straw to my lips. I took the plunge, letting the fizzy chocolate frothed milk wash over my tongue. “It tastes like sparkling chocolate milk.”
Wes’s smile was infectious. “Not as good as a chocolate milkshake?” he asked, referencing what I’d been drinking at the diner. His diner, he had called it. He took his own generous sip.
“No.”
Wes chuckled. “But does it taste like New York?”
I bit down on a smile. “Yes, Wes, it tastes like the city that never sleeps—the city where dreams are made.” I batted my eyelashes at him.
My teasing masked the fact that I found Wes’s enthusiasm for the city charming. And more than that, it was an enthusiasm we shared. I just wasn’t going to tell him that.
It was easier to lean into irony when so many became more disillusioned the longer they lived here. It made earnestness feel childish and embarrassing.
The warmth beneath Wes’s hard exterior was…
“Unexpected,” I said. My cheeks quickly heated, and I didn’t meet his curious eyes. “You’re very unexpected.”
Wes’s pace was casual, his body moving a step closer to mine. “Thank you, writer. That was exactly the word I was looking for earlier to describe you.”
We walked in silence for a block, neither of us taking another sip of our egg creams.
Then, he asked, “How are your feet?” He frowned, looking apologetically at my poor choice of shoes.
“Oh, uh, they hurt, but it’s fine,” I said.
Wes’s intensity was back, those stormy eyes pinning me with a sudden unquestionable authority. “If you’re hurting, that’s not fine. If I catch you wincing, I’m calling you a car.”
My eyes widened in bewilderment. Several responses popped into my head, but they all dried up on the tip of my tongue.
As much as I wanted to rebel against his dominance, something inside me couldn’t.
The darkest, sickest part of me wanted to provoke it even more—to flirt with the darkness inside of Wes.
The moment I opened my mouth to say that, actually, I was feeling pretty tired and was going to hop on the L at 8th Avenue, Wes halted outside a bustling gallery front.
“Do you know this place?” I asked.
“Nope,” Wes said. “That’s part of the adventure. Let’s check it out.”
“There’s a list,” I hissed, tugging on his jacket sleeve.
Wes looked down at where I’d touched him before following my gaze to the butch woman sitting outside the door with a tablet, clearly only letting approved guests enter.
Wes shrugged. “Walk with authority.”
I was going to wither of embarrassment. I’d decided what Wes was: a psychopath.
A woman approached the bouncer, leaning over the tablet and speaking low in her ear as her cleavage nearly burst from her low-cut dress.
Wes placed my hand in the crook of his arm and dragged me forward before I could protest.
We walked right through the open door, our eveningwear blending seamlessly with the other attendees.
The first room showcased mixed media pieces hanging from the walls and ceiling—tiny lights intertwined with heavy fabrics and metals in a psychedelic display of color.
After we studied the smaller pieces on the walls, I walked to the biggest installation in the center of the room, an impressive spiral of bulging reds and purples that looked like ethereal entrails. Wes followed me, first looking at the sculpture and then my face.
Beside us, two women in bright, eccentric dresses stood with an Australian Shepherd.
“I know. I’m so glad they let her come,” one of the women said in what I could only describe as a West Village influencer accent. She looked down at the dog. “I’m telling you, she literally has superintelligence. The walker says she remembers every doorman in the neighborhood.”
“No way,” the other girl drawled with slight vocal fry.
Wes and I exchanged the same delighted expression, refusing to move an inch as we eavesdropped.
“She has her favorite galleries up and down 10th and 11th, and she loves jazz.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Everything this woman said was comedy gold, and I wanted to memorize every word for a future book.
Emboldened by the spirit of a summer night and Wes’s bad influence, I turned toward the women. “Has she tried those buttons people use to communicate with their pets?” I shifted my voice to use similar dramatic inflections, and I saw Wes smile out of the corner of my eye.
The brunette raised a hand to her overlined pink lips. “Oh my God, no, stop. I know exactly what you’re talking about. She needs those.”
“You have to be careful, though,” I said. “If she has superintelligence, what happened to Bunny could happen to her.”
The woman nodded, matching my seriousness. “You’re so right. She could become self-aware and have to go on Lexapro like Mommy.” She talked in a baby voice, scratching behind the dog’s ear.
“What happened to Bunny?” Wes asked slowly.