Chapter 13 #2
“If I could figure out how to do it without seven roommates and a Top Ramen food allowance,” I decide.
“You remember me talking about my friend Liv? She’s in Tribeca.
We used to always talk about me taking her roommate’s spot after graduation, but I get the feeling she might be doing her own thing now.
And I don’t know if I wanna be this far from Zola and the baby anyway. ”
“You’d be an hour away,” he says, but he corrects himself when I raise my brows. “Fine, but two max. And it’s New York. You gotta try it once. What’s that thing they say about living here? Come before you get too soft, leave before you get too hard.”
He nudges my hip with his own as he says it. It’s gentle, playful, but at the vaguely sexual nature of his words, I go a little wobbly, like it’s my first time on legs.
I steal a glance at Ro as I regain my balance, and though his eyes are straight ahead, they’re sparkling again. Mischievous, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Like he’s doing it on purpose.
Ro slows at a building with a highly Instagrammable floral facade. “This is it,” he says, as the cute hostess emerges.
The eagerness of her friendly greeting shifts the air between Ro and me, and whatever challenge had been in his eyes a moment ago is gone with the breeze.
We’re led to what’s arguably the best table in the patio’s corner, and my touristy INY glow returns. I could melt into the warmth of this afternoon in this city. But when my rose-colored gaze finally lands on the menu before me, I pale a little.
“The Raw Bar,” I read in horror. “Okay, there’s a chance I overstated just how adventurous I am with my food.”
“Aw, come on. My boy Paul says this place is the new Catch. I bet they’ll even throw something on the grill for ya. If you ask nice.”
Ro wastes no time selecting a tray of assorted local oysters and has the audacity to boo when I order a fully cooked shrimp linguine.
“What about you?” I ask, once we’re alone with our cocktails and each other. “What’s stopping you from moving out here?”
He brings his margarita to his lips, licking the salt from its rim. “I actually have a spot uptown,” he says way too casually. “I’m subletting it right now.”
“How did I not know that?”
He winks and manages, somehow, to not look like a pervert. “I’m full of surprises, E.”
“Is this when we finally talk about you having a secret company?”
I hadn’t meant for it to come out like an accusation, but here we are.
He narrows his eyes at me. “A secret company?”
“Okay, not secret. But the one you failed to mention.”
Ro’s face is unreadable as he studies mine. I’d wanted to bring this up a million times but hoped it would happen naturally. Casually. But there’s nothing casual about my tone. Ro’s not alone in trying to figure out why that is.
“It just hadn’t come up yet. I didn’t realize you’d look me up so quick.”
“Technically Zola looked you up.”
Ro’s eyebrow quirks at something he hears in my tone. “You said you were cool with me helping her out. Is it weird that I’m working with your sister?”
Yes, I think. But admitting that out loud would make me the worst sister ever—and helping Zola set up her future should be my focus. Not staking a claim on a guy I have no rights to. A guy I have no intention of fucking things up with by…well, fucking him.
“Of course not,” I promise instead. “I was just surprised. We’d talked about your art—”
Ro shakes his head. “This isn’t art. It’s business. And it’s not even one I spend much of my time on lately.”
My silence invites him to say more, the way his so often has for me.
“My dad had some health stuff come up outta nowhere a while back.”
My cocktail goes bitter on my tongue. Sharp and biting with worry. “Is he okay?”
Ro smiles, but the warmth of it doesn’t reach me the way it usually does.
“Yeah, he’s doing all right. But some of the words doctors threw around back then—”
Ro’s eyelids close so briefly that if I hadn’t learned their cadence, I might’ve mistaken it for a blink, but it’s something else involuntary. It’s his body remembering. Reliving it, and grieving, even now.
“Everything they were saying felt like a death sentence. And ultimately, I guess it is, just not in the way I’d thought.
Pops is doing good right now, he is. And I’m grateful for it.
But finding out he was sick, realizing that any of us can get sick, at any time, made me grow up real quick.
Before that, my life had always been good, but only ’cause I’d been lucky. And luck ain’t a guarantee.”
Ro’s lean fingers circle the rim of his glass as he speaks. The movement as hypnotic as his voice, his words, his story.
“Art had been my life forever, but it wasn’t safe. And back then that’s what I needed. For everything and everyone to be safe. Since I couldn’t control that, the best I could get was security. Stability. So that’s what I started chasing.”
I want to ask Ro to hurry toward the part where he promises his dad’s going to be okay. That he’s okay too. I want to pull his fingers from the cool sweat of his glass and warm them in mine, until the heat of our touch warms his smile again.
But I don’t do any of that. And as Ro continues, his honeyed tone, thick with emotion, slows my thoughts and movements until everything goes still. I’m transfixed again, and I tell myself it’s for the best.
“That’s why I started the design firm. I had the degree, so it felt like a natural step.
I’d never wanted to run a company, but all of a sudden just getting it off the ground became the only thing that mattered to me.
I let myself be consumed by the idea of it.
And it took off a little, but I couldn’t crave it the way I craved the canvas.
I never loved it like that. Then my dad’s stuff leveled out for a while, and I just got tired of running from shit.
Which is all the company had ever been—a place to hide.
I’m not meant to be the suit-and-tie guy setting meetings.
So, in the end, the firm turned out to be the hobby I needed to put away so I could focus on my art. Not the other way around.”
Ro ducks his head like his brief and completely understandable confusion had been something silly. I’m relieved to find humor in his eyes again, but I refuse to let him feel like a punch line.
“I get it,” I say, plainly. “Even separate from everything your dad was going through, it makes sense. Sometimes people have to leave the thing they love for a minute, so when they come back to it, they know they’re actually choosing it.”
Ro’s mouth curls in anticipation. “If only my ex had been as understanding,” he says, sipping his now watered-down margarita to his lips. “My focus shifted to my dad and the company. Hers shifted to my roommate’s bed.”
“NO!”
I’m practically doubled over the table in horror, but Ro doesn’t look bothered in the least. In fact, he looks more pleased by his story’s shocking finale than he has since we started talking.
He shoos away the memory of her along with my outrage. “It’s all good. She fit me about as well as that suit and tie.”
“Fuck” is all I get out before the waitress returns with our food, but Ro nods like I’ve said everything.
When our waitress turns her back to go, I scrunch my nose at Ro’s plate like the child that I am. “I hope you’re not expecting me to help with those.”
“You’re not gonna try one?” he says, holding an oyster out to me in equal parts offering and challenge.
“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes. “One. You’re on your own for the rest.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Why do people keep telling me that? I never claimed to be.”
Ro squeezes a little lemon and hot sauce on his, so I follow his lead, resisting the urge to plug my nose.
“Bottoms up,” he says, jiggling his half shell in the air. But the moment that oyster slides onto his tongue, Ro’s smug grin disappears.
“What the fuck was that?” he says, coughing. “Is that what it’s supposed to taste like? Why the fuck do people eat these things?”
Nobody in life has ever chugged a glass of water quicker. And I cannot stop laughing.
“It’s not funny!” he shouts.
“It is though.” I swipe at my tears. “Oh my god, you should see your face.”
“You’re cold, E,” Ro says, still looking like he might be sick.
“And you’re dramatic. It wasn’t that bad. I actually kind of liked it.”
Of course, I’m lying. If I wanted a mouth full of dirty seawater, I’d jump in the East River.
His dimple digs into his cheek even before his smile appears, and he gestures toward the tray. “Have at it then.”
“Hell no. But I will share some of my pasta with you. That’s just the kind of girl I am.”
“Gee, thanks,” Ro says unamused.
But he pushes the extra plate over to my side of the table just the same.
“So, if things are going better, why haven’t you moved back here yet?” I ask, after a surprisingly comfortable silence. “Did you start getting too hard?”
It was meant to be a casual continuation of Ro’s earlier idiom, but I’m not surprised it leaves him choking on a crustacean. It’s a saying that requires a little context. And ample warning.
He switches to water once he’s recovered.
“We still need help at the shop till we can set up something long term,” he says as if every son would uproot their life like he has.
“I grew up at that garage, so it’s easier for me to slide back in than train somebody new right now.
I can paint from anywhere. And take dope design gigs that pop up unexpectedly. ”
“Zo’s plans are dope enough to get you out of retirement?”
“She has some cool ideas. And I never officially retired, I just recommitted elsewhere.”
“I like that framing,” I admit.
“That’s all life is.”
And I wonder if those four simple words might just be the key to it all. If anyone can teach me something about the art of reframing, it’s this artist quietly watching me from behind his glass.
“What?” I ask, touching my mouth to feel for any errant Tajín.
His eyes heat slightly as he follows the movement. I pretend not to notice.
“You,” he says, lifting his hand toward the city at my back. “Here. It makes sense. I’m trying to imagine you in Kansas. I can’t see it.”
“It’s just a place,” I tell him, but since it’s Ro, I already know I’ll say the thing I usually don’t. “My dad’s from out there. Kansas. It’s where he went to school—also for education, actually.”
“Ah,” he says, decided. “So you were following your dad.”
My lips purse at the oversimplification, but I can’t fault him for it. I lived it and still don’t really understand.
“No?” I say, like it’s a guess. Because it kind of is. “I didn’t even tell him when I applied. I didn’t tell anyone. I knew it didn’t make sense so I didn’t wanna have to defend it. I mean, I hated this man, and here I was walking in his footsteps.”
No wonder I’m so fucking lost. I followed a ghost expecting to end up found.
“I grew up watching basketball with him,” I say, smiling at a memory of Dad for the first time in a long time.
“He’d buy me these Chalk ’Em Kansas shirts, and I’d wear them around all proud, knowing nobody out here knew what it meant.
It was like a language only the two of us could speak.
Our little secret.” I sigh at how silly it sounds now that I’m supposedly all grown up.
“Things were hard here by the time I applied to schools. Zola was already living with her ex, and my mom was in a deeply toxic cycle with husband number two. I needed to not be here, but I didn’t know where to go.
When it was finally time to decide, the only other place that came to mind was Kansas. So—”
“So you left.”
I nod my confirmation.
“I knew it was a mistake almost immediately,” I say aloud for the first time. “But I was too proud to admit I had no clue what I was doing. I kinda hoped even the wrong decision would buy me enough time to figure it out, but admittedly there were some holes in the plan.”
I hope my laugh doesn’t sound as forced as it feels.
“Because now I’m back here with a degree that feels like a lie and connections that don’t matter.”
“Did you at least hit your dad up while you were out there?”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished asking the question.
“Being there didn’t change anything for me,” I say, realizing how true the words are as I say them. “I didn’t want to talk to him. Let alone see him.”
“But there had to be a part of you that wanted something from him.”
“I think there’s always gonna be a part of me that wants something from him. But I’ve gotta be okay even if I never get it.”
I smile too brightly and raise my glass in a weak attempt to end on a lighter note. “A toast to daddy issues?”
Ro’s drink remains planted on the table. “I’m not toasting that.”
“Fiiine.” I roll my eyes, but there’s no heat in the expression. “You pick something.”
Ro swirls his glass, eyes trained on his clinking ice cubes.
The patio around us is alive with the sounds of forks scraping flatware, laughter mounting with each next sip of a summer cocktail, and speakers blasting a soundtrack better suited for a Meatpacking nightclub.
But when Ro’s eyes meet mine again, everything quiets, like the world is holding its breath.
Or maybe that’s just me.
“To reframing,” he says, finally. “To being back in the right place, at the right time.”
My face falls before I can catch it, but I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly fitting and fine toast. Even if, maybe, I’d been hoping for more.
I shift my glass toward his, but Ro’s not finished. And the familiar glint in his eyes is replaced by something I can’t quite place as he finishes.
“And to doing it with the right person.”
When our drinks connect, the world exhales and the noise returns. It’s not a moment too soon, either, because even the city at full volume is only just enough to drown out the pounding in my chest.