Chapter Twenty-Six Silas
Chapter Twenty-Six
Silas
I can’t stop replaying Saturday night in my head. Every little thing stays with me, from the feel of Jo’s nails raking my back, to the unbelievable softness of her lips against my own, to the trepidation in her eyes when we talked outside of the bar.
I have to tell her. I have to make this right.
There’s a formative memory from my college years weighing down on me: St. Patrick’s Day, my junior year, freshly twenty-one on the streets of Southie with a big group. My then-girlfriend, Brianna, on my arm, as we traipsed from bar to bar. She’d always been loose-lipped when she drank—the girl could not keep a secret to save her life—but I could tell something was off when she pulled me out of Murphy’s Law, the four-leaf clover on her cheek already smearing.
In a cloud of other people’s cigarette smoke, she looked me in the eyes and said, “I cheated on you.” In the middle of the sidewalk. In front of everyone.
Sure, I’d been hurt by her betrayal, but I hadn’t expected the relationship to last longer than a few months at best. What infuriated me most was when and how she told me—within earshot of strangers, who were already three sheets to the wind and now bearing witness to a terrible moment in my life.
I left Brianna there with the others while she cried. On the walk back to my apartment, alone, I made the decision to never do that to someone. First, to never cheat, and second, to never have what should be a private conversation in a public place. People deserve to have personal conversations in private, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to tell Jo the truth last night.
“Silas? Earth to Silas?”
Colin’s voice snaps me out of my wandering thoughts. “Yeah, sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked when you’re submitting your final copy for the Haven piece,” he says, one eyebrow raised over the black rim of his glasses. “And if you have any ideas to pitch for fall and winter features.”
It’s our monthly pitch meeting, and we key culture writers are gathered around the glass conference room table again. We have a new addition this time, the newly promoted Mark, so I can feel the weight of four people’s expectant gazes as I stare down at my notebook.
I have nothing to pitch. Nothing at all.
“Haven copy will be ready next week,” I reply. “Still cooking up some ideas for the end of year issues. I’ll email you my top three next week.”
That’s what I should have been doing the last few days—putting the final touches on her profile while brainstorming my next big articles. Instead I was feeling Jo up in a crowded bar and devising a strategy that would allow me to keep her in my life while also telling her that our entire first meeting was built on a lie. During the quiet, in-between hours of late in the night and early morning, I decided that I will simply sit her down, calmly tell her that I knew she and Derek had been friends for a while, and that I’d only wanted to save time by meeting her through him instead of going through Haven’s normal press channels.
All of this will be said before telling her that I like her, that I can see myself falling wildly in love with her. Before I lose control of the ship and my own self-control. She’s a rational person; she’ll understand.
Colin gives me a stoic nod, his lips pursed together, and I know that he’s refraining from scolding me. “Good. Design needs your copy by Wednesday at the latest. Layout needs to be finalized, like, yesterday.”
“Yeah. Got it. Great.”
I do not got it.
Mia, Helen, and Mark are all vastly more prepared than I am, so they put forth their ideas while I struggle to pay attention. There are mentions of a post-holiday staycation feature, the usual back-and-forth on gift guides, and an earnest pitch from Mark that chronicles a young chef’s meteoric rise to fame. Mia gets immediate approval on her story about a young climate change activist fighting the good fight across the country. If it hadn’t been for those three, this meeting would have been a bust.
I can’t stop thinking about the way Jo looked at me when I kissed her good night. Like she was really, truly happy.
We’re finally released, and I’m ambling down the glass-lined walls of the office, staring at the lack of notifications on my phone, when Colin catches up to me. I brace myself while he adjusts his glasses and falls into step beside me.
“I don’t mean to be a micromanager here,” he says. “But Gary is on my ass about this Haven article. Our advertisers are banking on us delivering a knockout story on this one.”
This is the first time Colin’s ever had to manage me this much in all the time we’ve worked together. Normally I pride myself on my self-reliance; I am not the type of employee who needs a significant amount of guidance. “I know,” I grind out.
“Everything okay?” he asks as we round the corner to my desk space. “You seem… off.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. This piece is just taking a lot out of me.” This is more or less true. Colin is well aware of my personal pitfalls with this story, even if I haven’t been entirely honest with him.
I don’t have to meet his gaze to know he’s sizing me up when I sit down at my desk. “All right. I really do need your final copy sooner rather than later.”
“I know, Colin,” I say. The words come out in an exasperated rush.
There’s a beat of silence, and then: “What are your plans for the Fourth? Are you going to Sophia’s party?”
The change of topic disorients me, so I turn in my chair to face him. With everything occupying my mind lately, I’d forgotten about the holiday festivities hosted by Colin’s R&R editor friend, a fashion tastemaker known for her lavish parties. I’ve met Sophia enough times over the years through our professional circles that she now invites me to most of her big social gatherings. “It’s this Sunday, right? Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“You should come,” he says, and I can tell he means it. “It looks like you could use an afternoon of mindless day drinking.”
“This coming from my boss after hounding me about my deadline.”
Colin snorts. “I trust you, Silas. You know that.”
My heart thumps wildly against my chest, and not in a good way. The guilt of lying to almost everyone in my life is threatening to sweep me under in a current of self-loathing and fear. Not for the first time recently, I remind myself that this part—my job, my writing—will be okay, because this is what I do.
The article will be good once it’s finished. Maybe even great. I know why it’s taking me so long, even if I can only admit it to myself. I’m pouring my heart into this piece because somewhere along the way, I gave pieces of it away to the only woman who has the ability to break me.
“Thanks, man,” I manage to say. “I’ll let you know about Sophia’s party.”
Colin leaves me alone with my thoughts of Jo and our impending one-on-one hangout. Neither of us has texted the other since Saturday night, but I know I can’t put this off any longer. My phone is in my hand before my brain even registers the action. My thumb hovers over the screen as I stare at my last text conversation with Jo.
I type, delete, type, delete, then try again. This cycles on and on until I finally settle on a message that seems both genuine and conversational:
Hey, had a great time this weekend. Hope you did too. Have any plans for the 4th?
The response bubbles appear immediately, and my stomach somersaults. Her response reads:
Had a great time too. No plans for the 4th. You?
No plans? How’s that possible?
A day full of surprise explosions and drunk people handling fire is not for me.
Ah, that makes sense. An idea takes root in me, one that I can’t ignore, so I reply.
Want to make our own 4th celebration? Indoor only. No fireworks.
I’m listening…
You, me, my air-conditioned apartment, and takeout. Loud action movies to drown out the fireworks.
We talk, followed by a Mission: Impossible marathon?
I smile as I fire back,
We wouldn’t be doing our patriotic duty if we didn’t invite Ethan Hunt.
So it’s not just the two of us.
Our banter re-ignites that kernel of hope.
Tom Cruise is a part of all of us.
Creepy but somehow true. I’m in. I teach in the mornings this weekend but could come over Sunday afternoon?
It’s a date.
I send her my address and settle more comfortably into my chair.
And now I’ve finally found some semblance of peace. At least, my mind is quiet enough to resume the work that’s been piling up, so I flip open my laptop. My original draft of the Haven article greets me. This time, I can feel the ghost of my first impression mocking me.
In a hilarious twist of fate, the Fourth of July is a rainy, wet mess.
By the time I buzz Jo into my building on Sunday afternoon, the streets are practically rivers and the alley behind my apartment is filled with standing water. The rain started on Saturday, slow at first, but it’s built up to a steady downpour that refuses to relent. If nothing else, the weather was a great excuse to bow out of Sophia’s party without Colin suspecting anything weird on my part. Fireworks and rooftop terraces are impossible in this weather. The gray, overcast light filtering into my apartment makes it the perfect day for movies—if we make it that far.
I open my door before Jo even makes it to the landing. Clad in a red raincoat that skims her bare thighs and black rubber Wellington boots that stop just below her knees, she looks like some kind of seafarer’s fantasy. Her long hair is so wet it nearly looks black, inky ribbons of it trailing down her shoulders and back. There doesn’t seem to be a single inch of her that isn’t soaked.
Desperately, I cling to the rational thoughts that are doing their best to evacuate my brain.
She wipes her wet face with an even wetter hand, smearing water across her brow, before shaking out her umbrella and tossing it onto the landing. “Jesus, did you swim here?” I ask when she steps across the threshold.
She drops a giant tote bag onto the floor before toeing off her boots. With her legs and feet bare, I can see the goose bumps rising on her skin in the chilly air of my apartment. “I kayaked, actually,” she replies.
I snatch a fresh towel out of the bathroom while she slips out of her raincoat. We swap items—me taking a minute to hang her soaked jacket in the shower while she towels her hair—and I linger close, watching her. Even flustered and chilled, she’s beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than the day she broke my brain in that Tom Ford dress.
And then I notice her nipples are hard beneath her gray T-shirt, the textured lace of her bra visible beneath the damp fabric. Her shorts—another pair of tiny denim cutoffs that must have been put on this earth to be my personal undoing—are also drenched. My blood heats. I try to think of something nonsexual, anything to keep myself from voicing just how much I want to see and feel what’s underneath those saturated layers…
“We should get you out of those wet clothes,” I blurt out.
Well, that was a failure. I didn’t mean for it to come across so horny, but maybe that’s how Jo hears it, because her lips curve into a sinful smile as she locks eyes with me. Hunger simmers in her gaze.
“Hold on, that came out wrong.” The words tumble out as the rational parts of my brain scrabble for purchase. She’s barely stepped foot in my apartment and I’m already losing control of the ship. “I just meant that you’re all wet—”
Her eyebrows rise at the word “wet,” and my ability to use the English language ceases. At my silence, she steps around me, my old hardwood floors creaking under her bare feet as she takes her first look at my home.
It hits me, then, just how nervous I am. Not only for what I have to do, but because I care about what she thinks of me and my place. I run my hands over the front of my jeans to burn off some of the panic and fear coursing through me while she surveys my space.
She doesn’t miss a thing. She lingers at the queen-size bed tucked in a corner next to a desk with a rolling stool tucked underneath. Her fingers graze over the surface of my desk littered with knickknacks: a small stuffed llama, a cup full of my favorite pens, a little trophy with a wooden base, a small succulent plant in a white pot that I’ve kept alive for three years. She wanders over to the wall where I’ve managed to fit a chest of drawers on which a TV rests, then past two green dining chairs, and a cleverly designed table suspended along the same wall.
She turns to point at the door I just came out of. “Bathroom?”
I nod. “The other door is a closet.”
“Cute kitchen,” she says as she peers into my tiny kitchenette that was certainly not built for cooking.
“It works for me,” I reply with a shrug. “Most of my meals come from the restaurant around the corner.”
“Is that home?” She gestures to a framed photograph of cornstalks against a brilliant blue sky.
“Yeah. My youngest brother took that shot.”
She smiles. “And the llama?”
I pick up the small stuffed toy from where it usually sits on my desk. “A gift from my niece. It’s great for carrying all my emotional baggage.”
Her gaze rakes over me, stopping at the skittish way I keep running my hands down the front of my jeans. “Everything okay?” she asks.
I realize I must look like a deer in the headlights, so I force myself to nod. “Yeah. Everything’s good. Great.”
Changing tactics, I run my hands through my hair once before letting them fall to my sides. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone in my apartment. Well, not that long. Hold on. That’s not what I meant.” I shake my head and close my eyes briefly, trying to gather the necessary strength to say what I need to. “I just—I care what you think. About me. About my place.”
She makes a show of spinning in a circle, her arms outstretched at her thighs, her damp shorts hanging onto her hips for dear life. “Well, there’s no Scarface or Fight Club posters on your wall,” she says with a studious air. “No permanent smell of pizza, no décor made of empty liquor bottles. You have more than one sad pillow on your bed, and it looks like you might actually use a top sheet. So long as you don’t have a dead body in your closet, I’d say you pass the Grown Man Test with flying colors.”
“The body went out with the trash on Tuesday.”
“See?” She waves her hands and gives me her biggest, brightest grin. “You aced the exam.”
I can’t help but laugh, only it’s the nervous kind. She closes the space between us, running her hands up my arms.
“Listen, Jo,” I say, my voice already choked with emotion. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Hold on,” she says. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Each pass of her fingers on my skin chips away at my resolve. By the time they reach my hair, my knees are trembling, my breathing shaky. Jo loops her arms around my neck as she pulls me in closer.
“Oh?” I rasp.
“I’ve been thinking about this, about us,” she says, and her face is so close that her words seem to vibrate through me. “I was scared before. I was afraid of a lot of things actually, but I’m fucking sick of it. I was afraid of this interview, afraid to go on record, afraid to quit—” She pauses, her breath warm against my cheek. “I was afraid to make a move with you because… well, because of a lot of stupid things, but I don’t want to be. So I’m choosing not to be.”
The air in the apartment abruptly heats as her words hang between us. Then she’s closer, or maybe I’m closer, but all I know is that I can feel her wet clothes pressing against me, and my face is lowering toward hers, and her head is tilting, her eyes closing…
You have to tell her you have to tell her you have to tell her—
It’s when she says, “I want you, Silas,” so soft and low I can barely hear it over the rain against my windows, that I completely lose the battle and let go.