Chapter 21
One cocktail turns into three, or possibly more. I couldn’t exactly say how many because the one thing I know for sure is that I stop logging any of them on my Drinkaware app. Instead, I sit, watching the light in Zach Russo’s eyes as he laughs, and concluding decisively that he might one of the most handsome men I’ve ever encountered. The longer I talk to him, the more details of his face I notice. The way the hairs on one eyebrow go in crazy directions. The slight asymmetry of his cupid’s bow. The tiny lines that fan from his eyes when he smiles. Individually, they amount to nothing more than quirks; together, they make a masterpiece.
Over the course of the evening the bar has become slightly busier. It’s full and a little noisy and, when two guys arrived earlier, Zach had to shift his stool towards mine. Now, he’s close enough that I can see the pattern of veins on the inside of his forearms. That when he reached for a napkin, his hand accidentally brushed mine, causing a ripple of pleasure to sweep up my skin. That every so often I get a warm waft of his aftershave and have to fight the urge to close my eyes and just inhale.
‘So, what’s your story, Russo?’ I find myself asking, as I slowly stir the ice in my glass, then lift it out to suck the straw. His gaze drops to my mouth every time I do this, and the subsequent prickle at the base of my spine gives me no incentive to stop.
‘My story? You’ll have to be more specific.’
‘Well, how long were you married?’
‘Oh. That’s what we’re doing now, is it? Delving into our sordid pasts?’
‘Yours is sordid then?’
‘Actually, it’s kind of uninteresting,’ he sighs. I doubt it somehow, but either way, there’s a long enough pause for me to regret my question.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You didn’t,’ he says, taking another sip of his drink, before lowering it onto a coaster with a ponderous look on his face. ‘Sara is a very nice, smart, likeable woman – and a wonderful mom. But we’re very different people in lots of ways. The ways that count.’
‘So, you’re not very nice, smart and likeable?’
He laughs. ‘I’m baring my soul to you here, Darling.’
‘Sorry,’ I say sheepishly, though in truth making him laugh feels just too nice to stop.
He tells me that he and Sara had been casually dating for less than a year when she fell pregnant. It was a huge shock to both of them. But he’d always wanted kids and to be a husband. ‘So . . . in all honesty, I was over the moon. She’s from a kind of conservative, traditional background – her mom is a devout Catholic. My folks are nothing like that, but I did grow up in a very loving family environment. I felt as if my child deserved that privilege too. Does that make sense?’
‘Of course.’
‘So I asked her to marry me. I thought it was the right thing to do, even though I always knew I wasn’t the love of her life. And she wasn’t the love of mine. We were more like good friends who happened to share a baby and a house together, which we hoped might be enough.’ He looks up from underneath his eyelashes. ‘It wasn’t.’
‘No?’
He shakes his head. ‘Turns out love, passion, desire . . . they’re kind of important.’
I’m not sure what he sees in my expression that makes him narrows his eyes. ‘You don’t think so?’
‘Well, yes, I mean . . . of course they’re all great,’ I shrug. ‘But I don’t think being in the throes of lust is the be-all and end-all. Certainly, when you’ve been married for a long time.’
‘That’s very practical of you, Darling.’
I laugh. ‘Sorry if that’s disappointing.’
‘Actually, I agree with you, in the main. But I still think that if you’re planning a whole lifetime together, then at the start, a little passion is the minimum requirement.’
There’s a short, loaded pause in which I realise that my palms are slick.
‘Anyway,’ he says, concentrating on his coaster. ‘She had an affair, which was about as shitty a discovery as you might imagine.’ He mumbles the words, like it’s a throwaway line.
‘Oh,’ I hear myself say. ‘I’m sorry, Russo. That sucks.’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t be. It’s in the past. We did our fighting in the aftermath, there were plenty of pyrotechnics, and I got to take the moral high ground . . . though that was way less enjoyable than you’d think,’ he says with a flat smile. ‘Truth is, she did us both a favour. Hey, how the hell did you get me spilling my story of woe?’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a Debbie Downer.’
‘Your turn now.’
‘Mine?’ I take a sip of my cocktail, then another, blatantly stalling for time. ‘Oh, I’m a disaster area.’
He tuts. ‘I find that hard to believe. I know you’ve had a divorce, but it’s hardly the end of the world.’
I look up. ‘ Divorces . Plural.’
Some small, inscrutable reaction filters in behind his expression. ‘Huh. So exactly how many . . . divorces plural are we talking about? Do I call you Joan Collins from now on?’
‘I prefer “Darling”. The answer is twice . I’ve been married and divorced . . . twice. ’ I repeat it just to make sure he’s got the message. It doesn’t matter how many times I say this, though, I still feel as exposed as if I was declaring: ‘My name is Lisa Darling and I’m an alcoholic.’
I find myself watching him, working out exactly what thoughts are shuffling in behind his eyes. Believe me, I’ve seen them all over the years. Pity. Intrigue. That peculiarly smug kind of satisfaction when you know someone is congratulating themselves for not being feckless enough to lose not one but two husbands.
Zach, however, is impossible to read. ‘Could be worse,’ he says eventually.
‘I know. Still, it’s not ideal.’
‘Nor are most things in life. You must have worked that out by now?’
I smile, feeling oddly grateful for this reaction. ‘So what do you think of the UK? Do you like living here?’
‘Hmm . . . it has its pros and cons,’ he says.
‘Go on?’
‘Well. Things I love: universal healthcare, hardly any gun crime, the fact that everyone is funny. Some of them even intentionally.’
‘Ha! And what don’t you like?’
‘Being away from my family. Not being able to buy ranch dressing. Oh, and obviously . . . the weather.’
‘Oh, don’t be a wuss. It’s not that bad.’
‘It’s terrible .’
‘We’ve had a chilly spell lately, that’s all. Anyway, the sun was shining when we walked over here. I’m surprised you didn’t get a tan.’
‘I’d be more likely to get one of those from a 40-watt lightbulb,’ he says.
I’m not sure what it is that makes me finally look at my phone and realise that we seem to have lost hours here.
‘Urgh. I really need to get going,’ I sigh, failing to muster any enthusiasm.
‘Are you kidding me? You have no kids tonight. By rights you should be going dancing, or to a strip club, or an all-night poker game.’
‘Maybe some other time,’ I smile sleepily.
I gather my belongings and slide off my stool as he stands and helps me shrug on my jacket. It’s a strangely old-fashioned gesture and I like it more than it probably deserves. We step outside into a dark, dank night and I lead the way through the amber glow of cobbled backstreets, the sound of distant revellers and music echoing through the city sky.
‘There’s a taxi rank this way,’ I tell him. ‘It’ll be cheaper than an Uber on a Friday night.’
We’ve barely walked twenty feet when I feel spots of rain. I try to pretend it isn’t happening at first, but it gets very heavy, very quickly. I’m getting rapidly soaked until he removes his coat and drapes it over me, so it’s covering my hair. The lining is warm, dry and smells deliciously of him. As our steps quicken, he turns to me, blinking rain out of his eyes.
‘What was it you were saying about the weather?’
I turn to him, peering out from under his coat. ‘Like I said . . . not that bad .’
I’m silenced by a groan of thunder and within moments, the only way to describe the conditions is torrential . One of those nights when every attempt to avoid a puddle only results in stepping in a bigger one until, eventually, you’re soaked through.
‘Exactly how far away is the taxi rank?’ he yells.
‘About five minutes. Maybe a little more if we’re—’
Before I’ve finished my sentence, he has me by the elbow and is guiding me in the direction of a covered doorway. It’s a small space – not very deep and no more than five feet wide – but enough to provide temporary shelter and give us a moment to catch our breath. I look up, meeting his gaze at the precise moment when it seems to occur to both of us exactly how close we are.
‘You’re still getting wet,’ he says, as he places a hand on my lower back to shuffle me around, shielding me from the rain. His touch is momentary, but I feel his imprint tingling through my clothes even after he’s removed it. Drenched and illuminated by the street lights, he is so damn gorgeous that it makes my chest constrict. The soaked, translucent fabric of his shirt clings to his muscular shoulders. Trails of water snake down the skin on his neck, disappearing into his collar. I feel a sudden urge to trace them with my fingertips, to follow them all the way down.
Instead, I wipe water from my lashes, checking the edge of my hand for mascara.
‘Have I got panda eyes?’
‘No,’ he says gently. Then, in a different, lower voice: ‘Actually, you have beautiful eyes.’
It occurs to me that I should feel cold. My teeth ought to be chattering and goosepimples should be prickling up my back. But none of those are the case. Quite the opposite. I am soaked through – yet I am on fire.
‘You’re getting very wet. Here, step in,’ I whisper, briefly taking him by the wrists and gently pulling him towards me. It’s only then – when he’s as close as he could be without us touching and I’m facing his chest – that I get a full sense of the size of him. The ripples on those forearms, the sheen on his biceps. When I look up, his eyes are unmistakably heavy with desire. He seems to contemplate me for a moment, before he slides both hands around my waist and draws me into him. I tilt my face towards his as some deep, hidden part of me ignites.
The first touch of his lips is whisper soft. I press myself into him, a heartbeat pulsing in my ears, as I submit to the feel of his mouth and the way it moves with mine. The warm wetness of his tongue creates an agonising kind of bliss somewhere in my core, which spreads through my limbs and all the way to my toes. The kiss deepens as my nails dig gently into the flesh on his lower back and I become intensely aware of the sensitive swell of my breasts against his damp shirt.
He moves his lips to my temple, where he kisses me tenderly, then on my forehead, my jaw, that soft dip behind my ear. When our mouths meet again, the kiss becomes urgent. I feel out of control. I slide my palm over the skin at the bottom of his spine, as he releases a soft breath from the back of his throat. Then his hand moves down until he’s squeezing my backside as if it’s the delicious flesh of a ripe peach.
We are fully clothed, we are in public, we are doing little more than kissing. But I feel as if I could explode with desire. And then . . .
I don’t know what it is exactly that causes my rush of clarity. The sobering quality of the rain. The beep of a distant taxi. The sheer, fucking insanity of this situation – being here, drunk and snogging in a doorway on the edge of town like I’m 18 years old and have stumbled out of a club.
He senses my hesitation and gently pulls back an inch, searching my eyes.
‘Y’okay?’ he says softly.
I nod, but struggle to look at him as I clear my throat and step back to create more distance between us. He still has hold of my hand, as if he doesn’t want to let me go and is slowly rubbing the wrinkled pad of my thumb in circles. Still undoing me.
I take a deep breath, pull away my hand and force a smile. ‘I’m fine. Definitely need to go and get that taxi though.’
He smiles and gives a curt nod. The inch between us now feels like a mile. ‘Sure. Let’s go find one.’