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He studies me several beats, then releases my hand. “I’ll be armed with coffee in the kitchen.” I shut the journal, and Nick glances at it. “You’re a journal writer?”
“No,” I say. “I paint. I don’t write. It’s actually my father’s.”
He tilts his head. “Did you read it?”
The question cuts right along with the answer. “Every page many times over, and I understand him less now than I ever thought possible.” I stand and shove it back on the shelf, thinking of the words inside with biting clarity. “He loved her so damn unconditionally.” I look at Nick, who remains on the stool. “And affection to me is, as you said, with tears. It has to be earned.”
“As it should be,” he says, and this leaves me curious about him, but I tell myself it’s time to just stay curious about Nick. To stop talking.
I walk toward the door, but that curiosity wins. I pause before exiting. “Has anyone earned that from you, Nick?” I ask, turning to find him standing by the stool now, facing me.
“There were a few swipes I tried to turn into something right, but they were always wrong.”
“Why?”
“The only answer I have is that I don’t believe in happily ever after,” he says. “That doesn’t sit well with most women.”
And just like that, he validates an acceptable reason for me to continue to bypass my hard limit of one night. “Since I don’t, either,” I say, “we really are the perfect distraction for each other, now aren’t we? It’s really kind of liberating. I don’t have to worry about you falling in love with me, and you don’t have to worry about me falling in love with you.”
I don’t wait for a reply. I exit the library.
Chapter Nineteen
Faith
No love.
No happily ever after.
In these things, Nick and I are kindred souls, but that begs the question: can one soul know another before the two people realize that to be true?
This is what is on my mind as I shower, then dress in faded jeans and a T-shirt, concluding that with Nick and me this must be the case. It’s the only explanation for the right and the wrong of us together. We aren’t so much about dark lust as I’d started out thinking, as we’re damage attracting damage. He’s damaged. I’m damaged. We see each other. We know each other. The understanding between us exists beyond the short time we’ve known each other. But do damaged people cut each other deeper? Or do they heal each other when no one else can? I don’t know this answer, but I do know that in a short time, Nick has changed me. Or maybe just opened my eyes.
As if it’s not enough to feel this, I am staring at the logo on my T-shirt that reads: Los Angeles Art Museum. My ex-employer, where by day I embraced art, and then by night I went home and embraced it again with a brush in my hand. I’ve let the past invade the present. No. I’ve let me be me. I’d say that is a good thing, but it exposes things I can’t afford to expose. I think it’s bad, like Nick—but, also like Nick, it feels good. But bad is bad. Why can’t I remember that with this man?
This thought lingers in my mind as I finish flat-ironing my hair and apply light makeup, a brush of pink here and there, and no more. Satisfied that I no longer resemble a chick from a horror flick, I walk to the closet, stick my feet into black UGG sneakers, and then head toward the bedroom, only to stop dead in my tracks. On the white tiled ledge that frames my equally white tub is Nick’s bag. I just didn’t look for it. Maybe I didn’t want to see it. Maybe I just wanted him to be the asshole I’ve called him because that would be simple. But he’s not simple, and I don’t feel likewe’resimple together at all. I like simple. It’s easy to explain and control, and yet, I find myself walking toward the living room, seeking Nick out, with simple feeling overrated for the first time in my life.
I know he will make demands. I know he will want too much. I know everything for me should be too much right now. And I don’t care. I just want to find him again and inhale that scent of his, which is positively drugging in all the ways Nick is right and wrong. God, I love it.
As I exit the bedroom, I’m drawn toward the kitchen by the low rumble of Nick’s confident voice. Rounding the corner, I find him sitting at the island in profile to me, his hair now tied at his nape, his orange-and-black tiger tattoo displayed as he holds the phone to his ear. The art is detailed—exquisite, really, but somehow simplistic and fierce. While the man, too, is fierce, there is nothing simple about Nick Rogers or what he makes me feel.
“Damn it, North,” he growls into the phone, glancing in my direction, his eyes warming as they find me, and when I might expect him to somehow make this moment sexual, he does not. He lifts his cup to offer me his coffee, an intimate gesture that does funny things to my belly. I start in his direction, and he scowls at something North has said. “Think like the enemy,” he scolds the other man. “I would have prepped my client for every question you gave me for this witness.”
I reach the island and pick up Nick’s cup, my eyes meeting his as I place my lips where his lips may well have been moments before, but the instant the hot beverage touches my lips, the harsh taste of plain black coffee has me scowling. Nick laughs, and apparently North is confused, because Nick says, “No. That wasn’t funny, and you will get your ass handed to you by opposing counsel and then by me.”
Yikes. North is in hot water, and I decide to let Nick focus. I set his cup back down, and I walk to the coffee pot and get another cup brewing for me, listening as he goes back and forth with North for the next couple of minutes. My coffee has brewed and I’m just pouring white chocolate creamer in my steaming cup when Nick says, “Just meet me at my place at five. We’re going to be ready in the morning if we’re up all night.” He ends the call.
And I feel the end of the weekend like a punch in the chest.
I stand at the counter, my back to him, not about to turn until I figure out what the heck this reaction is that I’m having. What I’mfeeling, which I guess is another curse and gift Nick has given me. I am feeling things again because of him, but he’s about to leave. And of course he is. It’s Sunday. And, rental property or not, he lives and works in another city, and I’d planned on telling him to leave anyway. Hadn’t I? No. I hadn’t. I’m just trying to make myself feel simple and in control. And I am those things. This is a fling. This is aweekendfling. It was supposed to be one night. It’s just a—
Nick steps behind me, his hands at my waist, his touch radiating through me with more impact than any man should ever have over me, especially since this is the last time I might ever touch him. And itfeelsmuch worse in practice than I’d imagined.
He leans in and nuzzles my hair, inhaling like he is breathing me in. And God, I really love when he does that. “Come to the city with me,” he says.
Shock rolls through me, and I face him, my hands landing hard on his chest. “What?”
“Come with me, Faith. I have to go back to San Francisco. If you’re with me, then we can deal with the bank together. And you need a break from all of this. We’ll come back here for the weekend.”
