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“I just don’t want this to be awkward. If we’re not doing it, let’s go to sleep.” She rolled over onto her side, toward me.
I rolled over toward her, too.
Eight hours later, I woke up holding her hand.
Audrey
James was gone when I woke up the next morning. Sleeping next to him had been nice and horrible all at the same time. I loved being with him, but I’d wanted to be closer. In other words, I’d wanted him on top of me and inside me and behind me and all sorts of other places. I’d had to push those images, appealing as they were, and the heat I’d felt between us away last night. Just so I could get some sleep.
Still, we were making progress. I had no idea what that meant except that it thrilled me. It thrilled me, and I was fucked. Our contract was up at the end of two weeks, and I would be left with only the memory of him. The memory of him putting his arm around my shoulder at Fenway Park, which was now in my top-five favorite guy memories of all time.
I didn’t have the other four. Not yet.
I could still feel his touch on me now, and I imagined that I would feel it forever, even after he was long gone. The ghost of him, the memory, would be a blessing and a curse, I knew.
I waited for my common sense to wake back up and start choking my dreams again, but it still hadn’t happened, even after I had my coffee. So I let myself be in a good mood, a state which was very foreign to me, and got dressed to go see my brother.
Kai drove me. I signed in at the front desk and gave a check to the clerk to pay for the next two months. After some begging, Elena had given me an advance against my latest assignment. I wanted to make sure all of it went toward my brother’s expenses.
I found Tommy sitting in the common room, wearing an Angry Birds T-shirt and eating crackers, working intently on a 3-D puzzle. His brown hair was its usual spiky mess.
“Hi,” I said as I went up to him, and his face opened up into such a wide grin that it warmed my heart. It had only been a couple of days, but I’d missed him so much. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close. Even though he was my older brother, I’d always taken care of him. I had a protective feeling for him and loved him fiercely, like I imagined a mother loved her child.
A normal mother. Not my mother.
“You haven’t been to see me in three days,” he complained.
“I’ve been working,” I said, sitting down next to him. “But it’s been good. I’m going to make a lot of money over the next two weeks. Then we’re going to be in good shape, okay?” I squeezed his arm. “Has Mom been here?” I asked.
“No,” Tommy said. “It’s been longer than you.”
“Well, she’ll show up eventually. She always does. And when she’s here, just make sure you don’t mention anything about the money,” I said.
Tommy nodded at me solemnly. We’d both learned the hard way.
* * *
James was still gone when I got back to the apartment, and I rattled around for a minute, missing him. Then I went to my bedroom, nervously scouring through my clothes for something to wear to the ladies’ tea. There was something about the event that scared the bejeezus out of me. First of all, I’d never been to a tea. I didn’t think people in the United States even did that.
Second, I knew the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork, but that was about it. If there were etiquette rules to observe at high tea, I was not aware of them. I hoped that Evie and Mrs. Preston would overlook that, but they probably wouldn’t.
Third, James wouldn’t be there.
Fourth, he wasn’t here right now, and that was a problem, too.
I sighed, wishing that I could see inside his head. If he felt what I was feeling between us, why hadn’t he tried to claim me last night?
At the same time, I was relieved that we hadn’t done it. If sex was added into the mix of whatever it was that was going on between us, it would get complicated, fast. Or maybe the opposite would be true, and he would suddenly seem like every other John. Honestly, I didn’t know which one I was more afraid of.
I couldn’t decide what to wear, so I started looking at the tags on the clothes. I would wear whatever was most appropriate and most expensive. That sounded about right for high tea.
* * *
James still hadn’t come back by the time I was ready to go. I checked my phone for what was probably the hundredth time, but there were no messages.
I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing a short, full floral skirt and two white shirts layered together. I’d put on several delicate gold necklaces that Elena had insisted were very stylish right now. I wore nude lace-up wedge sandals that probably cost more than my grocery bill for five months. I grabbed an enormous designer bucket bag and some aviator sunglasses to complete my look.
Damn, I thought when I looked in the mirror, no wonder rich people always looked good. It was pretty easy when your outfit cost as much as a large mortgage payment.
