He eases away from me, and we shuffle-drag our clothes back into place and flop side by side, as if we’ve just crossed the marathon finish line. I’m grateful when he reaches into his coat and silently hands me the brandy.
“You’re like a Saint Bernard,” I say, pressing the flask to my lips. “Always rescuing me.”
He frowns and shakes his head, but I see the smile behind his expression and I lean my head on his shoulder and smile too. So much quiet joy in the man. So much love.
28.
TUESDAY MORNING DAWNS BITTER COLD, and I lie in bed remembering the night before. Did I say something about Saint Bernards and a swat team of angels? It’s hazy, but what I’m left with is a glow that has nothing to do with celestial beings and everything to do with what happened on the backseat of the Cadillac. My early romance experiences were not terribly exciting, I was too busy rushing about in steamy kitchens every night to fool around. Last night classed as A-star, top-grade fooling around. It was hands-down the most thrilling sex of my entire life. I don’t think either of us expected to be so deliriously turned on by the whole deserted car lot thing—maybe we’re both overdue a little excitement in our lives.
I pull my phone from beneath my pillow when it buzzes.
I’ve def put my back out.
I pull the quilt over my shoulders and curl on my side, warm and comfortable.
That’s what happens when you seduce girls in the back of cars.
I’m pretty sure it was your idea…
I laugh as I close my eyes and think back. Brandy. Trumpets. Let’s make out in the backseat. Yep, guilty as charged. My phone beeps again before I can formulate a response, and I’m still smiling as I check it. It’s not from Gio.
Oh little mouse, now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings. Maybe I should head on out to see you and smooth things over, deliver your Christmas gift in person. You can show me the sights, make me some of your ice cream. You like the sound of that?
I feel blistered, as if someone tipped a boiling kettle over me. It’s too swift a gear change for my brain to handle, from the heaven of last night to the hell of Adam Bronson. It’s as if he’s reared right up out of my cellphone into the safety and stillness of my bedroom. My phone vibrates again, another new message, and I curl into a tight ball and screw my eyes shut, too frightened to look. It vibrates again and again, until I hurl it at the wall and lurch for the bathroom on shaky legs to retch my guts up.
* * *
—
I STAND UNDER THE hot shower and try to let the water sluice away my panic. I practice the breathing exercises that got me through those early days after I walked out on Adam. He won’t come to New York. He won’t come to New York. He won’t come to New York. I repeat it like a mantra, knowing that it’s most probably true. Adam Bronson is a small-town manipulator, he’s spitting tacks that I’m thriving and he’s trying to exercise power he no longer has. Bobby would tell me all of those things if I showed him the latest text, but I’m not going to because I should never have replied to the first one. I hate this feeling of being sucked into the vortex of Adam’s whirlpool. The water is dark and rancid and filling my mouth. It’s in my hair, coating my skin, hard to scrub off even though I have the shower turned to its hottest setting.
I sit at the kitchen table a little while later, cold even though I’m bundled into my dressing gown with a towel around my hair and coffee in front of me. I put a hand on my left thigh, aware my leg is trembling. It hasn’t done that for a long time, an involuntary reaction I thought was in my past. I don’t know what to do. I’m not going to reply. I know that’s what he wants—to feel sure his message has landed, that I’m cowering. I try to summon my inner superhero from a couple of weeks ago in that alley, but she’s deserted me. I’m anxious and on my own. Perhaps this is how things are always going to be for me. It’s a depressing thought, one I don’t want to give credence to because it’s exactly how Adam kept me small—make her feel powerless and beholden, don’t let her see there are other people and other places. Except I have. I’ve gone the full ten rounds in a boxing ring to get myself here, black and blue with effort. Did I do all of that to allow him to snatch the win, a late knockout from a lucky punch?
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe slowly, to see that boxing ring, to imagine my arm being lifted in the air, victorious, Adam slumping to the canvas in defeat. I hear the crowd roar and I look to my corner and see my people fist-pumping the air. My mother’s cornflower-blue eyes, Sophia’s bouncing curls, Gio’s strong shoulders. I glimpse someone else too, fleetingly. I barely catch her face as she turns to leave but she looked a heck of a lot like me, and I think there might have been a glint of triumph in her small smile. There wasn’t a cape or superhero boots, but it brings me comfort to know she’s close by.
29.
SHEN COMES INTO THE KITCHEN with a stack of dirty plates in her hands. “Hate to say it but that old dude is back again.”
I sigh. Felipe. It’s been three days since Adam’s text arrived and I’ve barely slept or thought of anything else. I think I’ve pulled it together just enough to avoid ringing alarm bells with Gio when we’ve spoken or texted, and Bobby is rushed off his feet with work, but I’m having a silent and painful internal crisis. Shen looks at me and frowns, then puts her hand on my shoulder.
“You okay?”
It’s not the right question to ask someone in my state. I buffer it with a painted-on smile and move away to pull something from the fridge so it doesn’t seem as if I’m shaking her hand off.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Tired, I think, stayed up too late watching a horror movie.”
The lie comes easy and she nods, accepting it.
“Tell him I’ll be out in a sec,” I say, glancing at the clock. It’s just turned eight, I don’t really have time to talk, but I can’t send him away.
He’s hovering near the kitchen door when I flick off the gas burner and step into the restaurant.
“Iris,” he says, taking his hat off and pressing the rim against the breast of his heavy woolen coat. “I won’t keep you long, I can see you’re busy.”
“Can I get you something to eat?”
He shakes his head and lays his other hand over his stomach. “Maria has me well fed. The woman can’t cook for less than a dozen even when there’s only two of us at the table.”
I nod, tuck one foot behind my other ankle and wait.
“I found some things you might like to look over. From back in the day, from when your mother was around.”
He gestures with both hands as he speaks, awkward, and I understand that he’s offering a kindness in recompense for his ultimatum.
“I’d really like that,” I say, and there it is again, that ever-present lump in my throat. I’m not usually someone who wears their emotions so close to the surface, it’s exhausting.
His shoulders drop, relieved. “I have a storage unit a few blocks away.” He hands me a slip of paper with spidery writing across it. “Tomorrow morning?”
“Okay.”
He looks for a second as if he might have something else he wants to say, and then he decides better of it and puts his hat back on to leave.