“Shut up,” I say mildly, which only amuses him further. He moves closer, hands slipping inside my towel and coming to rest against the small of my back, warm and instinctive and impossibly familiar. Like it’s something he’s been doing every day for his entire life. Like it’s something he plans to do every day for what’s left of it.
I love this. The way he pulls me into him. The way he grows hard but seems to be content with this not going anywhere. The way his face nuzzles into my throat. I love this. But.
“I just think you might be too tall,” I say into his clavicle. “I foresee neck problems for both of us.”
“Hmm. We’ll probably need surgery a few years down the line.” His smile travels through my skin. “How’s your insurance?”
“Meh.”
“Mine’s good. You should go on it when . . .” He trails off. Picks up again with, “Have lunch with me today.”
“I don’t usually have lunch,” I tell him. “I’m more of a ‘big breakfast, then forty snacks scattered throughout the day’ kind of person.”
“Have a big breakfast and forty snacks with me, then.”
I laugh. Yes. Yes. Yes. “What’s the closest subway stop?”
“I’ll drive you into work.”
“I need to go home first. Feed Ozzy. Remind him of my unyielding love for him.”
“I’ll drive you home, and then I’ll drive you into work. You can introduce me to the hamster.”
“Guinea pig.”
“Pretty sure they’re the same thing.”
I laugh again, exhausted and drowsy and over the moon, and I cannot help but wonder how different this morning would be if Erik hadn’t been the one to buy Faye’s croissant.
I cannot help but wonder if this is the first day of the rest of my life.
Nine
Present
I don’t . . . It’s not that . . . It isn’t even . . . If you . . .” I’m sputtering like an idiot, which . . . great. Fantastic. Empowering. I’m a role model for all jilted women in the world.
Erik is still crouching in front of me, like he’s fully planning to see this conversation through. I sit up, straightening against the wall of the elevator, and take a deep breath. Collect myself.
I’m going to speak my mind. I’m going to tell him exactly how much of a dickhead he is. I’m going to unleash three weeks’ worth of shower-crying on him. I’m going to chew him out for ruining pistachio gelato and orange cats for me. I’m going to annihilate him.
But apparently, only after I ask him the stupidest question in the history of stupid questions. “Did you really think the sex wasn’t good?”
Wow, Sadie. Way to let the point of this entire chat fly over your head.
He snorts. “I obviously didn’t.”
“Then why would you say that—”
“Sadie.” He studies me for a moment. “Are you for real?”
I blush. “You’re the one who brought it up.”
“Seriously? You know what—okay. Right. Well.” His throat works. He looks . . . not quite upset, but definitely the most upset I’ve ever seen him. Danish-upset, maybe. “About three weeks ago I’m having my usual, fairly disgusting breakfast, and I meet this really beautiful, amazing woman. I blow off my morning meetings and ignore my phone—my team is this close to sending out a search party—because all I can think of is how fun it would be to sit with her on a park bench covered in bird shit and talk about . . . I don’t even know. It doesn’t even matter. That’s how good it is with her. And because it’s apparently my lucky day, I manage to convince her to come out to dinner with me, and she’s not only lovely and smart and funny, it also feels like the two of us have more things in common than I thought possible, and . . . well, it’s a first for me. I’m no relationship expert, but I recognize how rare this is. How utterly one of a kind. I want to take it slow because the idea of screwing this up terrifies me, but she asks to come over.” He exhales a single, bitter laugh.
“I should put on the brakes, but I have zero self-control when it comes to her, so I say yes. We spend a night together, and we fuck, a lot, and yes, Sadie, it’s really fucking phenomenal in a life-altering way I never thought I’d need to elaborate on. It’s obvious that she doesn’t do this often, there’s some hiccups, but . . . yeah. You were there. You know.” He presses his lips together and looks away. “She falls asleep and I watch her and think, This is like nothing else. Scary, almost.
“But then it’s morning and she’s still there. And when I say good-bye to her she actually runs after me, and we’re at work, there’s people around—we can’t really kiss or do anything like that, but she reaches out and takes my hand and squeezes it hard. And I think that maybe I don’t need to be scared. It’s going to be all right. She’s not going anywhere.” He turns back to me. His eyes are cold now, dark in the yellow lights. “And then night comes. The following day. The one after. And I don’t hear from her. Never again.”
I stare at Erik for long moments, absorbing every single word, every little pause, every unspoken meaning. Then I lean forward, and through gritted teeth I say:
“I despise you.”
“Why?” He is icily, quietly furious, but I’m not afraid of him. I just want him to hurt. To hurt as much as he hurt me.
“Because you are a liar.”
“Am I?”
“Of the worst kind.”
“Right. Of course.” Our faces are about an inch apart. I can smell his scent, and I hate him even more. “And what did I lie about?”
“Come on, Erik. You know exactly what you did.”
“I thought I did, but apparently I don’t. Why don’t you spell it out for me?”
“Sure.” I abruptly pull away, leaning back against the wall and crossing my arms on my chest. “Fine. Let’s talk about how you used me to steal clients from GreenFrame.”
Ten
Two weeks, six days ago
Did I just see you with Erik Nowak?”
Gianna’s voice startles me out of the semi-comatose state I’ve been in for the past five minutes, which mostly involves staring at the Megan Rapinoe Funko Pop! on my desk and . . . mooning.
I feel drugged in a sweet, delicious way. From lack of sleep, I assume. And the fluffy, syrupy waffle Erik bought me at the diner near my apartment. And the hilarious story he told me while sipping his coffee, of how two weeks ago he fell asleep on his couch and woke up to Cat licking his armpit.
I want to text him. I want to call him. I want to take the elevator and go downstairs to smell him. But I’m not going to. I’m not that weird. Overtly, at least.
“Glad to see you’re back.” I smile up at Gianna, who’s leaning against my desk. She must have come into my office while I was mooning. “How’s Presley?”
“Better. But now Evan and Riley have some kind of bug that involves a superfun amount of diarrhea. But I saw you in the lobby with a tall guy—was he Erik Nowak?”
“Oh. Um . . .” I think maybe I’m flushing. I don’t really have a reason to—Gianna is cool and very much not the judgmental type—but what happened last night feels so . . . private. And fledgling. I haven’t even told Hannah and Mara （if one doesn’t count the eggplant and heart emojis I sent in response to the seventy How did it go? texts I found this morning on my phone）。 It feels weird to talk about it with my boss. Though lying about it would be even weirder, right? “Yes. You know him?”