Chapter 33
It didn’t feel like the middle of the night, but what could I have expected from the city that never slept?
The lights in Wall Street’s towers were still burning brightly. Restaurants and bars were still serving customers, and Midtown’s skyscrapers illuminated the night sky more than the stars ever could.
Still, it felt like we were the only two people walking through SoHo on a Monday night, if you ignored the couple ten feet ahead of us doing the same thing.
Only that they were holding hands, laughing, and talking, while the only thing we’d said to each other so far was Elliot asking “You hungry?” and my timid response of “Sure.”
We were both stuck in our own heads. Mine was a battlefield: work versus Elliot. I held my sketchbook tighter against my chest as he opened the door to a diner for us with the words “Don’t ever tell anyone I come here.”
And finally, the air between us lightened. “Because it’s not a Michelin-star restaurant?”
“Precisely.”
I didn’t expect the middle-aged waitress with dyed-red hair to greet him by name, very nearly pinch his cheeks in excitement, and ask, “The usual?”
“Thank you, Mary. Yes, and a menu.”
Mary’s eyes wandered over, not so subtly scanning me from head to toe before her brows rose. I couldn’t identify what it meant. Was she impressed? Disappointed? Embarrassed for me because he brought girls here all the time?
I wondered how often Allegra had sat at the exact table she was leading us to, then hated that I was thinking of her in the first place.
Mary gestured to a booth in the far corner, its red leather worn and faded, and I slid into it opposite of Elliot. My sketchbook landed on the wooden table between us, right next to my menu. “Quite a leap from the places you usually frequent,” I noted, looking around.
Red-and-white checkered floor, long bar in the middle, booths and tables winding around the U-shaped counter. Ancient-looking lights hung from the ceiling, dipping the diner and its few occupants in a yellow glow.
“It’s certainly no Ashwood Hotel bar,” Elliot agreed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him watching me curiously as I studied the menu.
“Sometimes, when I don’t want to feel like Elliot Ashwood, I come here.
Mary either hasn’t caught on or just couldn’t give less of a shit who she serves her awful coffee and greasy pancakes to.
It feels nice, you know? To be yelled at for not finishing my plate and argue over whether or not she’s going to accept the 50 percent tip. ”
By now, my eyes had moved off the menu and back onto him.
I’d never considered the fact that Elliot might not want to feel like the First (or Fourth?) Son of New York City sometimes.
He didn’t like the constant paparazzi attacks and headlines, sure.
But I’d been convinced he liked everything else that came with his celebrity status.
“So you come here to . . .” I tried to find the right words. “Feel normal?”
“I guess.” Elliot shrugged, played with my sketchbook still lying between us.
“It’s just a lot, sometimes. Knowing that we have all the money in the world at our fingertips, and we’re not really .
. . doing anything with it. But the second I start lobbying for climate reform and forming the foundation, it’s this ridiculous notion to the rest of my family.
Stupid, little Elli. Just let him have this so he doesn’t bother the grown-ups.
” He huffed. “I feel like they don’t get it.
And I’m scared that if I just keep going to fancy bars, expensive restaurants, and networking dinners with kings of foreign countries, I won’t get it anymore either. ”
“So, you come here to remember what you don’t want to forget,” I figured, kind of hating that there was more to the sustainability idea.
Elliot nodded, had already opened his mouth to say something when Mary appeared at the edge of our booth again. “Found something, darling?”
“I’ll have the maple pancakes, please. With bananas, if possible.”
Mary nodded, like she’d heard it a million times. “Elli’s usual, got it.”
Oh. So maybe she had.
From the other side of the booth, Elliot smiled. With me? At me? I wasn’t sure.
“Anyway.” I shook my head, reminding myself that we were here to work, and the reason why we’d left our apartment was to clear our heads.
Not to get him stuck in there again. I flipped through the sketches until I got to our most recent one, tapping it.
“If we add a second layer to this, I might like it.”
By the look on his face, Elliot knew exactly what this was. A desperate attempt to distract me from how I’d love to lean across the booth and kiss him right now. He still had enough decency to ask, “A second layer?”
“I don’t know.” It was a stupid idea. Or not. His proximity was clearly throwing me off my game. “Something that makes it more. Better.”
“The layers of this one, maybe?” He pointed at an airy dress, where flowers and butterflies of the same fabric made up a second layer.
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “Maybe.”
Probably not. Still, I drew an arrow that connected the two sketches. For his sake. “We haven’t thought about Ryan at all in this,” I noted, eyes flicking across the pages for the hundredth time.
“Objectively speaking, Daphne will be the star of the show. Of their show, at least. We’ll be able to do much more with her look.”
I frowned. “I don’t want him in a black suit, though.”
“Neither do I.” A sigh later, he added, “Ryan should match Daphne, not the other way around. Once we’re set on a direction for her, I can start thinking about his outfit. That was the plan, right? Daphne’s your client. Ryan’s mine.”
Yes. “But—”
“We can have weekly check-ins on progress, so we’re not working in opposite directions.” In what seemed like an absentminded gesture, his finger brushed mine in the middle of the table. “And I’m not just suggesting that to see your name in my calendar more often.”
I smiled. “No?”
“Just an added bonus.”
The same way those flutters in my stomach were an added bonus.