Chapter Thirty-Nine
Josh’s building was a narrow brownstone with a stained-wood front door about five steps up from the pavement. The sun had fully set?—she hated these short days?—and a very tall man walking a dachshund passed her as she stood there, pretending to look at something on her phone.
What’s the worst that can happen? She walked up the steps and found the button labeled Abrams , expecting no answer. But then came Josh’s disembodied voice. “Yes?”
For a second, she forgot how to speak. “It’s Eliza.”
“Come on up. Second floor.” The front door buzzed as it unlocked.
She went inside and climbed the stairs. There were two doors on the landing. One was open, and Josh stood there, wearing a button-down shirt open at the collar, khaki pants, and socks. “This is a surprise,” he said.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
He raised his eyebrows and stepped back to allow her into his railroad-style apartment. A small kitchen was to the left, and straight ahead was a living room, where a midcentury-modern sofa faced a TV mounted on the exposed brick wall. Beyond that, she could see the bedroom through French doors, obviously installed so the windowless living room would get some light.
Josh scooped up the newspapers scattered on his coffee table and an empty mug. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“No, it’s fine. Obviously. I was down this way to deliver some silent-auction items to the winning bidder. I don’t know if your colleague bid on the hockey stick, but he didn’t win. You wouldn’t believe what one of our board members paid for it.” She was babbling.
Turning from the sink, where he’d deposited the mug, Josh opened the fridge. “You want anything?” He lifted a bottle of Blue Moon and waggled it at her.
“Sure.”
He grabbed a second one, along with the opener from a drawer, and deftly popped the two tops. “Glasses?”
“Bottle is fine.”
He handed one to her and clinked the necks together. “Cheers. Come sit.”
With him at one end of the sofa and her at the other, they each took long swallows of beer. Josh put his bottle down on the coffee table. “So. Did you see Ross?”
She picked at the label on her bottle with her thumbnail. “Yeah. That’s the other reason I was down this way.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She sighed. “He says he wants us to get to know each other.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “And how do you feel about that?”
She laughed ruefully. “Isn’t that the million-dollar question? I mean, I thought that’s what I wanted. You know?—insta-dad! But now, I’m not sure.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Another excellent question. I guess... I had a dad. I mean, I knew that, but I think I was using Ross to avoid focusing on my dad dying. That’s what Mo and my aunt said?—and I think they were right.”
He nodded. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t see if there’s a relationship worth building with Ross.”
“Maybe.” She took another long swallow of beer and went back to picking at the label, this time with her index finger.
“Eliza.”
She looked up. He didn’t usually use her full name.
“Why are you really here?”
She felt her heart stutter. “What do you mean?”
He shifted closer and reached for the bottle, taking it out of her hands and placing it on the table next to his. His knees were near hers, his eyes steady on her face.
“Um. I don’t know. I...” Her voice trailed off.
He waited. There was a tiny freckle next to his left eye. Had it always been there? She’d noticed it last night, too. Last night ...
She began again. “Last night, I thought...”
“You thought...?” he asked gently, but she’d lost her words somewhere in the pools of his eyes. He lifted his hand to her face, brushing back the strands that had come loose from her braid. Her eyes closed as he moved toward her, and she felt his lips on hers. How many years had she been waiting for this? And it was perfect. Firm but gentle, his hand sliding down to her neck to pull her closer and deepen the kiss.
He drew back. “Is that what you thought?”
She nodded dumbly.
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, too. For a very, very long time.”
And then she was kissing him again, their mouths parting, his tongue finding hers. Why had they waited so long to do this? He tasted of beer and himself as he experimented with lighter and deeper kisses, his tongue making her shiver as it ran across her bottom lip. When she felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore and her skin was burning up, she drew back to pull her sweater over her head.
His eyes dropped from her face to her chest, and he ran his finger along the edge of her tank top, across the swells of her breasts. Then he reached for her braid. “May I?” he asked, showing her the elastic band at the end of it.
She nodded again, and he pulled it off, pushing his hands through her hair, loosening it so it cascaded around her. “Even silkier than I thought it would be,” he whispered wonderingly before his mouth returned to hers, his hands still tangling in her hair.
Eliza moved closer, climbing into his lap, and he groaned as she settled into the hardness in his khakis. She broke their kiss to start to unbutton his shirt, but then his hands came up to hers, stilling them. She looked at him questioningly.
“I want you to understand something,” he said hoarsely, shifting beneath her.
The blood roared in her ears as she waited for him to continue.
“This isn’t just about this.” He gestured between them. “This isn’t what I want from you.”
She raised her eyebrows, and he smiled. “Well, of course I want this,” he clarified. “But I want a lot more. I want to make you eggs for breakfast. I want to keep you company when you can’t sleep. I want you to take me book shopping. I want you to be my plus-one at parties.”
What he was saying should have terrified her. But somehow, it didn’t. She grinned. “You want to hold my hair back when I’m throwing up?”
“Definitely. That would be my favorite thing.” His fingertips returned to the tops of her breasts, and his eyes grew hazy again. “As long as we’re clear.”
“Clear,” she said, and then carefully she lifted herself off him, though she really didn’t want to break contact. He watched her with a puzzled look on his face, but then she took his hand and led him into the bedroom.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that his bed was made, a navy-and-dark-green-plaid comforter neatly pulled up to the pillows, which wore navy pillowcases. Impressive. She climbed onto the bed and knelt in the center before pulling off her tank top.
“Jesus,” Josh whispered as he joined her on the bed, his lips on her neck and then moving downward as he pushed down the cups of her bra. She heard herself gasp as he figured out exactly how to touch her. And then the rest of their clothes were coming off, and his hands and lips?—and hers?—were everywhere.
She could barely breathe as he fumbled in his bedside-table drawer for a condom that he quickly sheathed himself in. And then he was inside her.
“Oh my God, Eliza. You feel so good.” His voice was husky and she couldn’t articulate anything in return as he began to move, and she shifted her hips in rhythm with him. He bent to kiss her again and then rolled onto his back, pulling her with him.
She moaned as she resettled herself, and he looked up at her. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, his hands on her hips.
She’d barely begun to move again before the pleasure became almost unbearable. “I’m close,” she breathed.
“Then come,” he said, and she did, with him following immediately after.
Eliza collapsed on top of him, and he brought his arms around her, rolling them back over again. Then he lifted his head to look at her and bent to kiss her eyelids, her nose, her lips. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him walk away to dispose of the condom, unable to avoid admiring his ass, before closing her eyes and letting her arm fall across her face. Her skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, and her heart was just beginning to slow. He returned a moment later and curled himself around her, pulling the covers up over them.
“That was worth waiting for,” he whispered into her ear.
“Have you been waiting long?”
He lifted his head and looked at her. “You know I have.”
“Actually, I didn’t. I didn’t know until the night of the Friendsgiving that Scott had told you to leave me alone.”
He clapped his hand onto his forehead. “I never should have listened to him.”
“It’s okay.” But she felt the familiar sensation of hot tears in her eyes.
“Oh, E.” Josh wiped at the tears that leaked out with his thumbs. “I’m sorry you got hurt. That I hurt you. It kills me that I just... disappeared... on you the way I did.”
She took a shuddery breath. “We were kids. And if we’d gotten together then?—it never would have worked. I was a mess.” She sighed. “I’ve been a mess for a long time.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been human. You’ve been in pain. And I wanted to be sure I wasn’t taking advantage of that.”
Her mouth curved into a wry smile. “No chance of that. I’ve become really good at running away.”
He smoothed her hair away from her face. “Are you ready to stop running now?”
“Yeah. I am.” And she meant it.