6. Janet
JANET
Sunlight cuts through a gap in the curtains, and for a second I don't know where I am.
I feel the arm around my waist.
Mike's. Last night comes back in pieces — the booth, the blueprints, his hand on my thigh, his mouth on mine. I lie still and listen to him breathe behind me, slow and even.
My eyes move over the lean muscle of his body, and my own body remembers what it did to me before I can pretend it doesn't.
I ease his arm off my waist, careful, one inch at a time. He shifts but doesn't wake. I slide to the edge of the bed and find my skirt on the floor, my heels by the door. My bra is somewhere I don't have time to look for.
I'm halfway into the skirt when his voice stops me.
"Good morning."
I turn around. He's propped on one elbow, watching me with the kind of smile that says he's been awake longer than I thought.
"I have things to do," I say.
"It's Saturday."
"I need coffee," I say instead.
"My kitchen makes excellent coffee." He sits up, and the sheet slides to his waist. "Stay. I'll prove it."
I finish stepping into the dress with him watching me. "What are you doing?"
"I like looking at you."
I don't have a closing argument to prep, a case file open on my desk. I don't have anywhere to be.
"Three minutes to coffee," I say. "Promise."
The kitchen is better than the apartment has any right to be — exposed brick, a window looking out over the rooftops, morning light pooling across the counter like spilled cream. He cracks eggs one-handed, the muscles in his back shifting under his t-shirt.
I sit on a stool and watch him work.
"So what is it you have to do today?"
"I promised myself I would clean my apartment this morning. And looking at this place makes me feel bad that I haven't done it."
"You were leaving for that? I thought last night was pretty good."
I laugh. "I'm type A."
He glances over his shoulder like that amuses him. “I can tell.”
“Really, how?”
“That’s a sexual reference.”
“Oh…” I look away.
He sets coffee in front of me. Cream. Sugar. A spoon laid neatly on a napkin. Not showy. Thoughtful in a way that sneaks up on me.
He turns back to the stove and makes breakfast. Eggs. Toast. The kind of easy competence that should not be attractive and absolutely is.
I get up because sitting still makes me feel too watched, even when he isn't watching me. I walk around, looking at his things. His records. The books on the shelf. A half-empty bottle of scotch. A life arranged carefully, but not coldly.
"You're one of those people who went old school with the record player."
"I didn't go old school. I never switched."
I smile despite myself.
On the shelf is a framed picture of him in his Marine uniform, standing with two other soldiers. He's younger in it. Harder around the eyes. Body was ripped then too.
When I turn, he's sliding a plate in front of my stool. Eggs, toast, fruit cut into pieces too neat for someone who claims not to cook. I take a bite. It's good, and I hate that I'm surprised.
"I'm staying for breakfast, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," I say. "You know how to make breakfast."
For a while we don't talk.
He leans against the counter across from me, eating standing up. He's comfortable in his own skin. The silence isn't the kind I brace for. It doesn't ask anything from me. It sits there between us, warm and strange, like we've done this before.
I look down at my plate so he won't see whatever my face is doing.
"Okay, you asked me? My turn. Why don't you have a wife or girlfriend? Oh — or do you?"
He laughs.
"A little late for the question. And I don't."
I look around. "Why? Women in New York would kill themselves to move into this apartment. Aside from the other benefits."
He points to himself.
I nod.
"I don't have an answer for that."
"I don't buy that. There were a lot of attractive women downstairs last night. I saw them."
He lifts one shoulder, too casual to be innocent.
"That's my story, I'm sticking to it."
"Huh."
He smiles into his coffee.
We finish eating, but neither of us moves right away.
He walks me to the door when I finally pull myself away, my dress wrinkled, my hair undone in a way no amount of fixing in the elevator mirror will solve. He looks at me, like he's deciding something.
He gives me his number. "I want you to call me. I want to see you again."
I don't answer.
The elevator door is closing and he stops it.
He kisses me. I can't help but be pulled into it.
"Call me."
"I'll call you."
His smile is the last thing I see before the elevator doors close.
The cab ride home should feel like a retreat. Instead, I catch myself smiling at nothing. At the window. At the city moving past in its usual Saturday morning quiet.
I call Rosemary before I'm even out of the cab.
"Hey," she says.
"What's up?"
“Are you alone?”
“I am. Why?”
"I just left Mike's place."
"Shut up, you did not."
"I did,” I lower my voice so the driver doesn’t hear. “A few times."
"Oh my God."
I give in and tell her about the blueprints, the dancing, the way he didn't try to kiss me again this morning, like he already knew not to push. I tell her about breakfast. The eggs. The coffee.
"He made you breakfast," Rosemary says, like that detail outweighs the rest.
"He made me breakfast."
"That was better than the birthday present I gave you."
"It was."
"Okay, what you do now is go home and take a bubble bath and think about it over and over."
I get home and don't clean a thing.
I run a bubble bath instead, sink into it, and relive the whole night.
I text Mike.
I had a wonderful time last night. Thank you.
A few minutes later, my phone lights up.
Can't stop thinking about you.