Maid for Each Other(60)

“Okay,” he said, his jaw flexing and unflexing as he just watched me for a moment. My heart was in my throat until he said, “Well, if at any time you start to change your mind, you let me know.”

“I will,” I said, downing the rest of my wine. It was intoxicating, knowing this beautiful man would be interested in exploring something with me.

That was some heady shit.

Some heady shit I definitely could not handle.

We walked around the city after dinner, Declan totally humoring me and letting me walk for hours. I was obsessed with the way Manhattan really was the city that never sleeps. No matter what time it was, there were people everywhere and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

And instead of being bored, like a local who didn’t understand my obsession, he seemed into it, just like me.

And he opened up like an actual friend, telling ridiculous stories and laughing at mine.

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” he said, outraged for me after I told him a long, rambling tale about the time my mom thought it was a good idea for us to move in with the mother of a guy she was dating when I was twelve. “The old lady was a stranger, right?”

“Yes,” I said, shaking my head. “And she had these birds that terrified me, in addition to making me sneeze twenty-four-seven. I’m fairly certain my teachers thought I had a monthlong cold because of my red nose and swollen eyes.”

“You only stayed there for a month?”

“A month exactly,” I said, shaking my head at the memory. “Thank heaven for those god-awful birds or we might never have left.”

He laughed. “So the allergies worked for good when it came to your mom’s dating life?”

“Sometimes,” I said, but then Doug’s face popped into my head and I grimaced.

“Oh, dear God, what’d I say?” he said, bumping my hip with his and sliding his fingers through mine.

I looked at him, surprised that he was holding my hand, and he gave me the kindest smile. “Why do you look so sad now, Mariano?”

I gave my head a little shake. “No, it’s a pathetic little story.”

“Tell me,” he said softly, looking at me like he really wanted to know. “Unless it’s too much for you and still hurts.”

That made something in my chest swell, or maybe grow, because what hurt a little bit was when he was so careful with me.

“Okay, so my mom dated this guy named Doug, right?” I said, clearing my throat and looking down the block in front of me, not at his face. “He was perfect. Good-looking, but more than that, he had a good job and was so incredibly nice to me. Like, he planted hydrangeas on his patio just because he knew I wasn’t allergic to them. He was that kind of nice, right?”

“Right,” he said, squeezing his fingers tighter between mine.

“He had a really great apartment, and I think my mom was counting the days until we could move in with him. Doug was literally the answer to her prayers.”

I could still picture the clean, bright apartment that always smelled like dryer sheets and sunshine. He used to let me play with the yoga balls in the fitness room when he ran on the treadmill, and sometimes he’d even take me to the apartment pool and let me splash around with him.

I loved Doug.

“Then he did something impulsive and sweet. He bought a puppy—a husky named Gaia. He said he’d always wanted one, and now I could play with her every time I came over.”

“Oh, shit,” Dex said.

“Oh, shit, indeed,” I said, shaking my head. “My mother, being my mother, thought that perhaps since Doug kept his apartment so clean and I’d never been around a husky before, maybe Gaia wouldn’t bother my asthma.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered, sounding incredulous, and it made me smile in spite of the shitty recollection.

“So we’d go over to his place, I’d love all over that gorgeous dog, and we’d have to leave because my eyes would almost swell shut or I’d have to take my inhaler too much. My mom was sure I’d just grow a tolerance to it—she wanted to see Doug but she also couldn’t leave me at home alone. So, rinse and repeat until the time they had to call an ambulance because the inhaler just wouldn’t cut it anymore.”

“Dear God,” he said, stopping me with the jerk of my hand, in the middle of the crowded sidewalk. He looked down at me with sheer outrage on his face. “Obviously you were okay, but holy shit, Abi. It could’ve gone so much worse.”

My throat was tight and my eyes were scratchy as Dex raged for little Abigail. His reaction weakened my knees and made me feel kind of lightheaded, because even though he seemed angry, there was a softness in his eyes that told me he understood it was about so much more than a random allergic reaction.

It soothed something in me, the way he seemed to get it.

“It gets worse,” I said, tugging his hand to start walking again.

“Worse than near-death asthma attacks?”

I nodded and swallowed. “Yep. When I went to sleep at the hospital, Doug was there, holding my hand among the balloons and candy bouquets he’d bought for me in the gift shop, but when I woke up, it was just my mother bawling in the chair by the window.”

He stopped again, but this time he moved me closer to the building we were passing, out of foot traffic. “Why was she crying?”