Love Interest(56)

“Still,” I grumbled, and Jerry laughed. “And the lyrics! How do you decide what’s good enough? How can you know if people will like what you made?”

“You prefer a sure thing,” he said.

“Maybe,” I answered, wrapping myself in my own arms. Pirate whined forlornly.

“Come here,” Jerry said. I hopped up and went over to his work section, and Jerry handed me a spade and a pansy out of a plant tray. “There’s very little guesswork when it comes to making flowers grow,” he told me. “They need soil, sunlight, water, and air. Every day, again and again. It’s as sure a thing as any.”

And in that moment, while I speared the earth and carefully loosened the root bulb, Jerry became a second father to me. I’d spent a lot of my childhood feeling unsteady—the passing of Mom, shyness around strangers, trouble speaking, and frankly, a little bit of confusion over Jerry not being a woman—but in the span of a single conversation, he identified something about me I’d never been able to name, and offered a solution: When you’re feeling lost, do what makes you calm, and sure-footed. I’ve been beholden to him ever since.

It’s pitch-black, I note vaguely as I stand. I should really head home. We’re approaching sleep time, which, last I checked, was not included on most fuckbuddy agendas.

Alex is blocking the doorway, all broad chested and rumpled hair and expressive eyes. He’s looking at me like he’s searching for something, worry lines between his brows, and I try to smile, but I’m sure it must come across the same way I feel inside: tired.

“Shoo.” I flick my fingers at him. “I must be going.”

He stiffens but steps aside to let me through. I find my workbag, yanked from my arms and thrown onto the countertop as I came through the door earlier.

“Thanks for … for…” I can’t meet his eyes.

“The sex?”

I wince. “Yep. The sex.”

Loosely, he grabs my elbow. “Casey. About before. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings again.”

“That sounds like an apology that’s lost its efficacy,” I try to joke. “But lucky for you, you didn’t hurt anything.”

He tilts my chin up with his finger, forcing me to look at him, burnt-sugar eyes swallowing me. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I do,” I insist.

“Okay,” he says again.

I head for the door, but there’s a yank on my wrist, and then we’re lip-locked.

It’s wildly different from our first kiss at Sleight of Hand, twice as intense as the one in the restaurant. This one’s hungry, an act of pure relish. Alex’s teeth scrape against my bottom lip as I wrap my hands behind his neck. One of his arms brackets my hips, pulling me up, up, up off the floor, and my toes settle on top of his. He wraps his free hand around my hair and lets the kisses get softer, tugging on my bottom lip, tugging on my hair. I steal gulps of breath in between each one, flushed and undone.

His touches reignite something I could’ve sworn was supposed to be dimmer now, less mystical. But it isn’t. If anything, every press of his lips to mine leaves me just slightly more addicted to the sensation than the last.

Eventually, he lifts me off him and presses one more kiss to my jaw. I stumble back, lashes batting so ferociously they could induce a small tornado. When my eyes refocus, Alex is watching me with his hands loosely fisted at his hips, biting the inside of his cheek. His boxers are decorated with corgis in Christmas sweaters, and yet he still manages to look like sex got dressed up for a night of revelry.

“Goodbye.” His voice is so scratchy, I want to ask if he needs a cough drop.

I jerk out two nods like a marionette. “Goodbye,” I repeat.

The door shuts between us, and at eight thirty on a Tuesday evening, I do my first ever hangover-free walk of shame.





CHAPTER TWENTY


A week passes in a haze of pumpkin spice lattes, Oktoberfest beers, and a pumpkin-carving contest that leaves me with a bandaged thumb. I find out over the stretch of it that Alex has an absurdly busy social calendar, made even more so thanks to (a) his three-year absence from the US and (b) his personality getting him an automatic yes whenever people are curating guest lists. It’s disgusting and obnoxious, and honestly, extroverts should be studied in a lab.

The weekend after our hookup, he flies to California, where a friend from college is launching a start-up and hosting an extravagant party to celebrate. (But of course.) The Tuesday after that, he attends a notable alumni dinner at the Harvard Club in midtown (Dougie apparently declined the invitation, but only after inquiring who’d be in attendance). Alex tells me he’s positive he’s never done anything notable besides existing as the whispered-about bastard child of fabled businessman Robert Harrison—neither hidden away and kept secret nor bandied about like Robert’s pride and joy. Alex is just sort of there, always has been, and people know who he is, but nobody talks about it much to his face.

The day after the Harvard dinner, Alex recaps it for me in a slew of texts we exchange between meetings.

Casey: I have to agree I can’t fathom a single notable thing about you

Alex: In between blood rituals, we went around the circle and bragged about our most notable contribution to high society. The best I could come up with was “ability to infuriate”