Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“You’re staring,” Sabrina says from her chair next to mine.
When I’d invited Ida to stay with me four days ago, I’d forgotten that I’d be hosting my friend’s birthday party here.
Ida offered to leave or simply hide in her room while I entertained my guests, but I wouldn’t have it.
She does that often enough as it is. I’ve had to track her down several times to force a meal on her, as she doesn’t seem to even want to accept my food.
“You’re doing more than enough by housing me,” she’d said the first time I told her there was food waiting in the kitchen. I scoffed and told her she was being ridiculous. Yet she still fights me on it.
“Why are you watching me? Mind your own self, it’s your birthday, after all.”
“Oh, you really like her, don’t you?” Sabrina scoots an inch or two closer, her voice lowering.
“I don’t even know her.”
“And yet she’s living in your house and you’re showing more interest in her since…” She lets the thought drop. We both know what she means. Who she means.
Roseanna.
A subject we don’t discuss. Ever.
There’s no denying my interest in Ida, however.
I am staring. I always stare at her. Study her, try to commit her to memory so when she’s inevitably gone, I won’t forget those hazel eyes.
Or that mouth that draws my attention, makes me want things I shouldn’t want, and makes me smile with the quips it releases.
“I want my breath on her lips,” I think audibly and immediately regret my thoughtlessness.
“I fucking knew it,” she exclaims excitedly. “Sidenote: put that line in your next book.”
“Stop, Sabrina. It’s nothing. It will pass. She’ll leave.”
They always do.
“She may not,” Sabrina says, gently placing her palm over mine. “Not if you don’t push her away.”
“I didn’t push her away,” I protest, spine straightening.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she argues. “It’s been nearly ten years, and you’ve never let anyone else get close.”
Nine years, nine months, twelve days.
I hate myself for knowing.
“Regardless, she’s a nanny. Who knows where she’ll end up. She was in San Francisco until a month ago.”
“Is that what she wants to do? Does she have other aspirations? What if she stays in the New York? In Manhattan?”
What if she does? Could she end up with another family in South Central Park? We could bump into each other at the corner bodega or coffee shop. I could stare more. I could stare at her for an eternity and not get bored, I fear.
“The odds of that are extremely low, I imagine,” I finally say.
“The odds of your mother forcing you on a boat in the park were low, too,” she counters. “What if there is more at play here than odds?”
“You mean fate?” My smirk can’t hide my distaste for the word.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you poo-poo my woo-woo ways,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Sabrina likes to think the moon and stars cause decisions in life.
She also believes she manifests the good things that come to her.
I tend to believe it’s just hard work and she should stop discounting her talents.
“But I know that you believe in things unseen. I’ve read your books, remember. ”
“I’d fucking hope you had since you’re my editor.”
“Changing the subject doesn’t change what I see. You like her. Don’t let her go, Brax,” she says, patting my hand. “You deserve the chance at happiness. Don’t let Roseanna keep taking that away from you.”
My intention wasn’t for the past decade to be this way. After the Roseanna situation, as I’ve come to call it, I figured my life would run the course of others in similar situations. I’d be numb for a period, then angry, then sad, then after some time, I’d move on.
What part of the cycle I’m stuck in is anyone’s guess. I’m certainly not out of it, that’s for certain.
Admittedly, I’ve never seen reason to find my way out of it. My melancholy is wonderful for my writing. No partner means less of a social life, which is also great for my writing. A thriving career is an efficient replacement for so much in life.
Except when I look at Ida, something old and forgotten stirs inside me. It’s worse when she’s near, when I can smell the sweetness of her. Hear the playful, snarky tone hidden under her kind voice. Watch her curves sway as she pads around my house trying to be quiet and unassuming.
She’s naturally captivating. No matter how hard she tries to be an invisible presence in my home, I’m constantly aware of her. I seek her out; I wish she’d interrupt. I wish more than that. I wish for things that are probably far too similar to her last employer.
The only difference is I’m a real man with some morals left hiding within my darkened soul, and he’s nothing but a feelingless ogre.
The things I’d do to her, though. If she wanted them. If she wasn’t as vulnerable as she is. If I wasn’t as cold and broken.
The things I’d let her do to me…
The things I’d let her take…
But that’s what got me here in the first place. Letting a woman have everything I had to give. Roseanna seemed perfect in the onset, as well. I craved her in much the same way I do Ida. Though I can’t remember her calling to me quite similarly.
Something inside me, deep in the bowels of me, pulls me toward her. A magnet of immeasurable strength, shaking uncontrollably in its need to connect. To collide. To be aside. To be two sides of a singular thing.
Ida laughs across the room, finding humor in something Logan says to her. My instinct is to kick him out of my house.
Irrational.
He’s never been straight a day in his life; he isn’t a threat. A threat… fuck, he’s one of my closest friends. I don’t trust even them, though. Not these days. Not anymore.
Throughout the night, I position myself in areas that allow me to eavesdrop on her conversations.
A way of getting to know her without showing my interest. She mingles with ease.
Holding court effortlessly with a crowd of people who aren’t easily impressed.
Yet, they’re all drawn to her like she’s the purest honey.
Is she pure? Is she as sweet in all areas of life as she appears?
Or does she have a darker side? A kink. A secret depravity. A desire that she’s too afraid to share. What does she fantasize when she’s hidden away in my guest room. The room just under my own. If I lie on my rug, my ear to the floorboards, could I hear her dreams?
“I love you, Brax,” Sabrina says later. “I’ve known you for a long time now. You have so much determination in you, maybe it’s time to focus some of that on your personal life. I may start to hate you if you don’t. Because she seems wonderful and you seem obsessed. Don’t let her go so easily.”
Her words replay until my house has emptied of everything but the drained wine glasses and plates of crumbs. Ida buzzes around collecting the debris to deposit in the kitchen. It instantly raises my hackles.
“Stop that.”
“I’m sorry, what?” She pauses from rinsing a glass.
“Stop cleaning up, you aren’t my housekeeper.” Perhaps I could have said that with less ire, maybe then her shoulders wouldn’t be stiff.
“Just helping out, Braxton. I’m living here rent free, after all,” she says with a mix of caution and confusion.
“I don’t want you to help out,” I say before I think better and start again. “I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to. You are not my employee or my subordinate. I hope you don’t feel like you are.”
“That’s not what I feel like,” she says quietly, rinsing the glass and setting it aside. She dries her hands slowly before she turns to face me fully. “Is there something you want to tell me, Braxton? Something you want to know?”
Every. Fucking. Thing.
“Why do you ask?”
She takes a step closer, her feet bare, I’m not sure when she removed her shoes. The simple black flats that match her simple black dress. Without bidding, I step closer, as well.
“I’m not blind. Nor am I na?ve,” she says slowly, gaze direct. “Somewhat inexperienced, maybe, but I know attraction when I see it. And yours is bordering something more.”
Her boldness doesn’t surprise me; my reaction to it does. I shouldn’t find it surprising since she’s met my directness entirely since that time when I nearly overturned her boat. Still, I blink.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” That’s the last thing I want.
“Did I say I was uncomfortable?” Her feet move closer, and I suppress a shiver. That magnetic vibration grows stronger. I shake my head. “Have I told you that my dad was deaf?”
“No,” I say, tilting my head at the subject change.
“He read lips. He taught me to do the same.” Another step, another tremble. My heart pounds wildly, the thrumming of my blood drowning out everything but it and her.
“And?”
“You can have it, Braxton. I don’t know why it scares you, and I’m not asking you to explain,” she says, looking away for a quick second.
A sign that she wants to know, even though she’s not asking.
“This is temporary. As soon as the agency reassigns me, I’ll be gone.
If you want me, for the time being, you can have me.
No strings. You can have your breath on my lips. I want that, too.”
“Was your father always deaf?” I raise my hand to her cheek, brushing curls away from her face. I keep it there and she leans into it.
“Yes. He was born without that sense.”
“How did he die?” Her eyes sadden at my question, but she doesn’t pull away from my touch.
“He fell off our house when he was trying to repair our roof. The fall broke his spine, but it was the torturous days after in the hospital that broke his spirit. He succumbed to the injuries twelve days later.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, unable to imagine any of the pain. His or hers.
“I am, too. He was the sweetest man.” My thumb rests at the corner of her mouth, and she opens, letting it rub along her lip.
Did she do this for her last employer? The question flashes through my mind. Try as I might to dislodge the intrusion, it holds. It grips my heart and squeezes near painful. The dark creeps in, bleeding the light, her light, dry. All I have is this one horrible thought.
“Did you lure him in, too?
“Who?” Confusion drapes over her.
“That Folley guy.”
Instantly, she’s gone. Jerking back a few steps while she gasps with insult and injury. Her eyes flood—a knife to my heart. One I placed there myself. Trust isn’t something I possess anymore.
Wariness. Skepticism. Fear. Those are all things I have in abundance. Faith in others, not so much.
“Good night, Braxton,” she says, swiping at the lone tear that escapes. “I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”