27. Nicholas #2
They started with sushi. Nicholas ordered too much of it, the way he always did, and spent half the meal thinking about the last time he'd eaten sushi across a table from someone and wishing he were doing it again.
He kept the thought to himself. Vince talked—about family, about work, about the particular excitement of someone new to all of it—and Nicholas listened and was grateful for the noise.
By eleven, they were pulling up to a hot new club in South Beach. The line was a sea of people. Nicholas didn't look at them. They walked to the front, the bouncer unclipped the rope without being asked, and they were inside.
The bass was a physical force. Vince grinned. "I like going out with you, cousin."
Nicholas managed a smile. "Thank your uncles. Stratus Meridian Group owns the building."
Vince laughed. "Good to know."
The VIP section was just as it always was: the people, the noise, and the special energy of a Friday night when everyone is putting on a carefully chosen version of themselves. Nicholas sipped his drink and watched from a distance, like someone watching a movie he'd already seen.
Vince nudged him. "Nicholas. You see what I see."
He looked up. Two women across the bar—elegant, sexy, well-dressed, watching them with the practiced attention of women who knew exactly what they were doing.
"I see," Nicholas said.
He felt nothing. No pull, no spark, no awakening of the instinct that had always been so reliable. Just a quiet, flat absence where the wanting used to live.
"Should we buy them a drink?" Vince asked, his eyes bright.
Nicholas looked at his young, full-of-life cousin, still excited about everything. He felt a mix of tenderness and guilt.
"Sure," he said.
He signaled the bartender.
The women came over—Brenda and Carol. Nicholas became the version of himself who knew how to handle this: charming, making eye contact, acting at ease. He went through the motions while a part of him stood back, unimpressed by his own performance.
The night moved. Vince and Brenda found the dance floor. Carol stayed, her focus entirely on Nicholas, her shoulder against his, her perfume filling the space between them.
"Do you want to join them?" she asked.
"It's been a long week," he said. "I'd rather sit here and enjoy my drink."
"I'll sit with you then." She smiled. "If that's okay."
"Sure."
She was beautiful. He noticed it the way he might notice the weather—just a fact, nothing more.
Each time she leaned closer, he felt a strange, irrational guilt.
He was single. He didn't owe Olivia anything official.
But none of that changed how he felt. He didn't want to be here, didn't want Carol, and just wanted a quiet apartment in Tampa and the sound of a certain woman's breathing beside him in the dark.
Vince and Brenda returned eventually, flushed and unhurried. Vince looked at him with the question clear in his eyes.
"Breakfast with the girls?" Vince leaned in.
Nicholas was already tired in his bones. But he looked at his cousin, and the night was still in his eyes, and felt the older cousin's pull not to be the reason it ended.
"Sure. Sounds great."
They walked—the South Beach air cooling down, neon reflecting off damp pavement, both of them loose enough from the drinks that the fresh air felt good. Vince and Brenda walked ahead, hand in hand, in their own world. Carol slipped her hand into Nicholas's.
The touch sent a jolt through him right away. It felt prickly, uncomfortable, and completely unfamiliar. He had held plenty of women's hands before, but it had never felt like this—like she was asking for something he couldn't give.
He held her hand and kept walking, thinking about Olivia.
The diner was a corner booth, with bad lighting and the kind of late-night menu that only made sense after midnight. Carol pressed close. Her perfume was lovely. He felt nothing but the persistent, low-grade ache of wanting to be somewhere else.
When the women excused themselves to the restroom, Vince leaned across the table.
"Damn, are they hot," he whispered. "Brenda wants some alone time. Are you taking Carol home?"
"No. I'm exhausted."
Vince's jaw dropped. "What? Nicholas. She's gorgeous. I've heard about your reputation with women. Uncle Michael's image and all that."
Nicholas let out a short, dry laugh. "Maybe. But not tonight."
Vince looked around the diner, recalibrating. "I thought maybe we could all go back to your place. You've got the room."
Nicholas looked at his cousin, seeing the hunger, hope, and eagerness of someone who was twenty-two and had every right to feel that way. He felt a quiet nostalgia, like a man looking at a younger version of himself.
He slid his black Amex across the table without ceremony.
"Take her wherever you want tonight. I'm going home alone."
Vince stared at the card. "Really? Nicholas, you don't have to—"
"I had a great night with you. We'll do it again. I just can't end it the way you want to." He nodded at the card. "Bring it Sunday to Grandpa's."
Vince grinned and pocketed it. "Thanks, cousin."
Outside in the pre-dawn light, Carol turned to him with an open warmth that he recognized and couldn't return. She reached for a hug. He let her, angling just enough that her mouth found his cheek instead of his lips.
"You're gorgeous," he said, and meant it. "Another time, maybe. But not tonight. Goodnight, Carol."
She looked surprised, but not wounded. She reached for his phone, typed in her number, and handed it back. "Call me when you're ready."
He nodded. He knew he wouldn't.
He left the Uber for Vince and caught a cab home alone. The silence of the penthouse came down over him like a wave the moment he was through the door. He didn't bother changing. He dropped onto the couch and stared at the dark ceiling.
"What is wrong with me?" he said to no one.
He'd just turned down a sure thing—a beautiful woman who'd made her interest entirely clear—for a woman who was still technically married, living three hundred miles away, navigating a life that was currently in pieces. By every rational measure, none of it made sense.
He blamed the scotch. He called it exhaustion. Even his excuses sounded thin to him.
Saturday morning came gray and quiet. Nicholas reached across the bed without thinking.
Cold sheets. Empty space. Unforgiving and silent.
He lay there with his hand on the cool side of the bed and understood, with a clarity that required no more processing, that he didn't want a beautiful stranger.
He wanted Olivia.
Only Olivia.
And that—finally, irrevocably—was the whole problem.