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Which meant I was on the lookout for someone else. How would he dress? How would he look? Would he be rich or poor? I already felt the excitement starting between my legs, beneath my thin cotton panties. I’d considered leaving them off, but decided that Rachel the art student would never go to a gallery showing without panties.
There was something to be said for staying in character.
I looked at my bed, where the ticket Aidan had left me was sitting. Last chance to back out, Samantha. Sit on the couch and watch Netflix, just like he said.
It was probably the wisest course of action, but there was no chance.
I took the ticket, put it in my purse, and left for SoHo.
By eleven thirty, I had been through the entire exhibit and looked at all of the art. I had eaten a couple of the appetizers and drunk two glasses of champagne. Even though this was an exclusive exhibit, I didn’t look out of place here in my Target dress. The art lovers here were all types—eccentric artists, hipster critics, queer and gender-fluid people, a woman with a long black cigarette holder, a man wearing a rainbow cloak and a cloud-of-weed smell. It was pure New York. The art was interesting, the people even more so, and I enjoyed myself.
The problem was that Aidan wasn’t here.
There was no way I had misunderstood—he had definitely left me that ticket on the counter in his penthouse. And he had grilled me thoroughly on Friday, trying to dig out of me whether I was coming or not. I had played it cagey, but now I started to wonder if I had done it too well. Had I convinced Aidan that I wasn’t coming?
The thought was so disappointing it was hard to face. The game Aidan and I played had gone flawlessly so far; we had followed it perfectly without having to discuss it after that first time. It was like we were reading each other’s minds. I’d thought he’d understood on Friday that I was playing the opening round of the game by keeping him guessing. I hadn’t thought he would take it as a serious rejection.
Maybe he wasn’t sure I’d enjoyed the first round, I thought as I put down my empty glass and wound my cardigan around my shoulders, giving up at last. It was hard to fathom, because when a woman leaves her panties on a man’s pillow, she’s giving him a pretty clear message about what she wants. Which left the option that maybe he hadn’t enjoyed himself as much as I thought he did. Maybe it was Aidan who was having second thoughts.
But if he wasn’t enjoying the game, then why had he left me the ticket?
My thoughts went round and round, and I was so caught up in them that the rain took me by surprise. When I stepped out of the gallery it was pouring as if the skies had opened. And damn it, I needed a cab.
I pulled up the collar of my cardigan and stepped onto the sidewalk. Immediately my feet were soaked in their sandals, the water squishing unpleasantly beneath my feet. I darted to the curb and looked hopelessly into traffic, putting my arm up in case some cab I couldn’t see would take pity on me. Meanwhile the rain got my cardigan wet and pelted down the front of my dress.
One cab passed me, and then another. The third added insult to injury by splashing a wave of dirty street water over the front of my dress. In the meantime I stood there getting wetter and wetter, my hair soaked to my head, my cardigan getting heavy with water.
This night just kept getting better.
I lowered my arm long enough to grab the hem of my cardigan and use it to mop my face. It was a useless effort, but I did my best. When I dropped the wet wool I realized it wasn’t raining on me anymore. Someone was standing over me with an umbrella.
“You look like you need help,” a familiar voice said.
I turned to look at him. He was wearing black pants, a dark gray dress shirt open at the throat. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow and he wore no jacket. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and his jaw was shadowed with just the perfect shade of dark stubble. His hair was mussed and damp with rain, his dark eyes fixed on me. The entire effect was so gorgeous, and he was so close, that my knees went weak.
I took a deep breath, inhaled him. Then I remembered I was angry.
He’d stood me up and left me to hail a cab in the rain. Who the hell did he think he was?
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said coldly.
He looked down pointedly at my soaked sweater and dress. My nipples were poking at the dress, and I wrapped the cardigan over them. “You don’t look fine,” he said, raising his gaze to my soaked hair. “You look like you’re having trouble getting a cab.”
Through my anger, it took a second to catch on, but that was when I realized: this was the game.
I was a broke art student, trying to catch a taxi in the pouring rain. He was… whoever he was. I could stay mad, or I could get back into character and play.
It took only a second for me to think it through, a second that no onlooker would notice. But Aidan was so close, watching me so carefully, I knew he saw.
I bit my lip and watched his gaze fix on where my teeth bit my skin. “Okay, maybe I’m having a little trouble,” I admitted. “I appreciate the umbrella. I’m getting really wet.”
It was a classic double entendre, cheesy even. It worked. I could tell from the twitch in his jaw.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Just to the subway,” I replied. “I’m going home to the Bronx.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’re a Bronx girl?”
