Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Ben
When we leave the vet’s, we get back into the car and my mind is whirring.
Honestly, I don’t know why I agreed to this situation with Avril.
I’m a successful guy at the top of his game.
Yes, she’s attractive, no, I can’t stop thinking about her, and yes, she can get me to confess things that a priest couldn’t.
But so what? Why am I so drawn to her? If I have to make difficult decisions and disappoint people, I usually find it easy to stand firm and back myself.
I could have said that I wouldn’t help Avril and moved on.
Why didn’t I?
Our first date hasn’t turned out as I’d planned. Not that I’d planned much. Yes, I want to get to know her, understand how she works and what it is about her that has a hold over me. I haven’t done that yet. But I have enjoyed myself. Who knew? Avril’s actually good company.
Of course, I’ve helped plenty of people who consider me their friend, but that’s different.
Because it’s all on my terms. And I’m clear there’s a difference between friends and friendly.
I don’t have many friends, but I’m friendly to anyone I meet.
If someone asks me for a favor, as a friend, I’m happy to help.
Just so long as I’m not actually friends with that person.
Doing business with anyone who’s crossed that line is absolutely off-limits.
It’s what got my dad into trouble, and I vowed not to make the same mistake.
What Avril and I did after Aurora and Deacon’s engagement party was more than just friendly. I still have the nail marks on my back to prove it.
“You think they’ll find the cat a home?” she asks from beside me in the car. Her arms are folded, and she’s staring straight ahead at the back of the driver’s head.
“I’m sure they will.”
“If that were my cat, I would definitely have it microchipped.”
“Maybe it’s an indoor cat. The owner probably thought it wouldn’t ever escape.”
“Well, the owner was wrong,” she snaps. “They should have taken better care of her.”
“They said we can check back to make sure she’s claimed,” I say, trying to be reassuring. I’m learning that when Avril’s upset, it can quickly turn to anger. I’ve stuck that in my growing mental file all about Avril Huntington.
“Maybe I need to work off some frustration. Can I start weight lifting at your gym?” she asks.
“Change of plans,” I say, glancing at my watch. “We’re not going to the gym. If we go now, it will be packed.”
She wrinkles up her nose. “I’m sorry. I got us off track.” She glances over at me, and her gaze sweeps down my body like I’m withering in front of her and by the end of the day, without my Saturday gym attendance, I’ll be a seven-stone weakling. She can’t hide a thing in her expression.
“It’s fine. There’s a gym in my building if I want to go later.
I thought you’d prefer the one I go to with Deacon.
” I try and keep my gaze straight ahead, but every time I glance at her, my stomach lurches.
She just looks so hot in her gym gear. I’ve seen this girl entirely naked, had my hands on every part of her, but now, covered in skintight Lycra, she looks absolutely delectable.
“How come we’re headed uptown?” she asks, without any kind of idea how good she looks. “We’re not going back to your apartment?”
I shake my head. “I’m covered in cat hair. I need a chance to get it off.”
She glances down to my crotch, where the cat was sitting, and then lifts her chin and meets my gaze, her cheeks turning a delicate crimson. “I wasn’t staring at your crotch,” she says.
“Hmm, I think you were.”
“To look for the cat hair,” she explains.
“That old excuse.”
She tamps down a smile and shakes her head.
When we pull up outside Grand Central Station, I pull the paper and pencils out of my gym bag and guide us both out of the car and into the station.
“Are we going on a trip?” she asks.
“I didn’t tell you? We’re going to Toronto.”
Panic sheets her face and she starts to splutter.
“I’m kidding. This is one of my favorite places in New York City. I thought we’d hang out for a bit.”
She purses her lips. “I saw your photographs in the hall.”
I scoop up her hand and pull her inside.
It’s not as busy as it can be on a Saturday morning, and I lead us over to the circular information desk, right in the middle of the main concourse. There’s a small ledge running all the way around, which we can balance our paper on and write.
“Are we waiting for something?” she asks. “A train maybe?”
I pull out the paper and pencil, along with the triangular folded parcels that I’ve already prepared.
“You’re going to write down questions you want to know about me.”
“I am?” she asks.
I nod. “These are mine,” I say, gathering the small triangles of paper.
“Your questions for me?” she asks. “And then what? We swap them?”
“Then we ask each other the questions and we have to answer truthfully.”
She stares at me, and our gazes lock. I can see a million questions running through her head, and I want to hear them all, all at once. “And you’ve brought me to a heavily populated area because…I’m going to get offended and you want witnesses?”
I chuckle. “You’ll see. Trust the process.”
She glances down at the paper and then back at me. “And I can ask anything I want?”
I shrug. “Anything.”
“And you have to answer honestly?”
“Absolutely. And it works the same the other way around.”
She glances around at the passengers coming and going through the terminal. Every section of New York is represented—young, old, gay, straight, rich, poor, men, women, and everything in between. It’s impossible to feel like an outsider here. This is inside New York.
I want to see inside Avril’s brain.
Avril sighs and takes the paper and pencil. “Don’t look.”
She rolls her lips together as she thinks about what she’s going to ask me, and I can’t help but stare at her.
She’s so focused on what she’s doing, so completely into it, and my heart lifts in my chest. I like that she’s participating.
Okay, she’s being a bit of a grouch about it, but at least she’s doing it.
“And I have to fold them into triangles?” she asks, eyeing my handful.
I shake my head. “Nope. I was just president of the origami club at university.”
“Really?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, I might like train stations, but I’m not an origami geek.”
She smiles, and I feel it in the tips of my fingers as they buzz with a need to touch her. But I resist.
Diligently, she notes down various things on the paper, rips them off, and then folds them up, in a higgledy-piggledy way.
“I have six,” she says.
“Me too,” I reply.
She nods. “I know. I counted. That’s why I did six.” She sounds suspicious, like I’m arranging some kind of ambush that she has to be prepared for.
“Great. Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
I don’t answer her, but take her hand again and start walking.
She looks up. “I always forget how pretty it is in here.”
“You know that ceiling is painted backwards, right?” I ask her.
“What do you mean backwards?”
“It’s a star map. Not as you’d see the stars from Earth, but as you’d see them from Heaven.”
“Really?” she asks, slowing down to take in more of the ceiling. “Was it deliberate?”
“No one knows,” I say.
“Huh.”
I like the way that she’s interested. She’s not faking it. She’s not teasing me. She’s just genuinely interested. Warmth floods my veins. I can’t believe I brought her here. It’s my favorite place in New York, but I don’t think anyone in the world knows that.
I’d come in here when I first moved back after university because it felt like the beating heart of New York, and I wanted to feel all that energy.
I wanted all the good of New York to replace the bad memories from being here with my dad.
I was going to do New York differently. It wasn’t going to beat me.
We head to the lower concourse, and I can’t help but smile as soon as I see the Guastavino tile on the domed, vaulted ceilings. It makes this whole underground area feel cozy and grand at the exact same time.
“We’re going to eat oysters?” Avril asks, as we arrive in front of the Oyster Bar, the restaurant under the main concourse.
“Afterwards,” I say.
“After what?”
I hold her by the shoulders and place her in one corner of the arched ceiling, right in front of the restaurant, then I spin her around so she’s facing the wall.
“What’s happening? Do I have to count to ten while you hide? Because FYI, I might not come and find you.” She peers into the Oyster Bar. “They serve champagne in there. I might get distracted for a couple of hours.”
“You’re a New Yorker, right? You’ve heard of the whispering gallery?”
She scrunches up her forehead. “The what?”
“Let me show you. Just stand there.”
I leave her perfectly in place and then race to take my spot in the opposite corner facing away from her, toward the wall.
“Hey,” I whisper.
She gasps, and I grin.
“Hey?” she says in response. Her voice comes through loud and clear as it travels up the wall, across the domed ceiling and back down to me.
“Can you hear that?” she asks so quietly that if it wasn’t for the design of the ceilings, I wouldn’t be able to hear her over the background din of the station—the yelling from staff, the Tannoy announcements about safety, the rumble of footsteps.
“Yes,” I say softly. “Cool, huh?”
“Very cool.”
I grin at her appreciation for this quirk of New York architecture.
“So, I’m going to ask you a question and you have to answer honestly and completely. And you don’t have to be embarrassed because I’m not looking at you.”
Silence follows. And then, “Ben, have you heard of the telephone?”
I chuckle. “This is much more fun.”
“Can I go first?”
I’m glad she’s not trying to resist this. She’s going with it. Despite Avril being combative and feisty, there’s a real warmth, curiosity, and sense of fun in her that I haven’t had to delve too far beneath her surface to find.
“Sure.”
I glance over my shoulder, my eyes falling on her perfect arse, before taking in how she’s sorting through her questions.