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6
Nina nursedher third drink and hung around the restaurant long enough for the buzz to wear off. Karen had offered to let Nina stay at her apartment if she didn’t want to go back to Brooklyn — the offer making it sound like Nina was traveling to the ninth circle of hell instead of just across the river — but Nina wanted to get up early for her Ikeatrip.
Karen was talking to a good-looking man at least ten years her junior — his suit reeking of money, his expression making no secret of his appreciation for Karen’s many assets — when Nina said goodbye. Karen gave her a quick hug and told her to text when she got home, as if she were some kind of den mother instead of a woman on a mission to get Junior into herbed.
Nina made her way through the thinning crowd to the coat check and handed over her ticket. She was shrugging on her coat when she glanced out the restaurant window and realized it wasraining.
Or was itsnow?
She couldn’t quite tell from inside, but something wet was falling from the sky, the pavement glistening with either ice orwater.
Fuck.
She hadn’t thought to check the weather before going out. In her old neighborhood, rain and snow was only an impediment when she rushed from home to car and car to grocery store. Now she had to make her way to the nearest subway station and hope she didn’t get lost while gettingsoaked.
She sighed, pulling up the directions to the subway on her phone. She tucked her tiny purse under her arms and buttoned her coat, then steppedoutside.
The first thing she realized was that she’d been wrong: it was neither raining nor snowing. A wet, icy mix of the two slanted down from the sky and clinked against theconcrete.
Sleet then.Wonderful.
She was already wet, the cold hitting her body like a freight train after the heated restaurant. She took a step and felt herself slip, then reached out for the restaurant’s brick exterior to get herbalance.
She glanced through the window. Maybe she should take Karen up on her offer after all. They would undoubtedly take a cab — Karen only used the subway when she came to Brooklyn, the rest of the time she got a cab or arranged for a car — and Nina could wait in the cozy restaurant until Karen was ready togo.
But when she looked inside, Karen and Junior had moved to the bar, sitting close enough that their thighstouched.
Nina chewed her lip. This was her life. No one was coming to her rescue. She had to figure itout.
She pulled out her phone as she took another step forward, rain leaking down her temple as she glanced at the screen to make sure she was headed in the rightdirection.
She had a split second to feel victorious — she was going the right way, the subway station on the next block — before her feet went out from underher.
She grabbed for the side of the building, hoping it would be her savior for the second time that night, but she went down hard, the concrete jolting her hard enough to rattle herteeth.
“Fuck!” sheshouted.
She’d just done the full-body scan that was a recent by-product of her middle age — she could feel all her limbs, could move everything, nothing felt broken — when a strong hand clamped around her upperarm.
“Are you all right?” She looked up into a pair of warm brown eyes flecked with amber, an expression of concern on the refined, clean-shaven face of an older man. “My god, you went downfast.”
“I… I think I’m okay,” Ninasaid.
She didn’t even have a chance to be embarrassed. She was still reeling from the rudeness of the fall, the swiftness with which the pavement had risen to meet herass.
“Let me help you up,” hesaid.
He reached around her waist and hauled her to her feet. They stood there for a long moment, Nina locked in his steely embrace, afraid to letgo.
It wasn’t just his grip that was like iron. There was something powerful in the way he handled her, something that said he had a lot of experience handling women. His overcoat was thick wool, probably custom-made. A crisp white shirt and bow tie peeked from above the topbutton.
He was older than her, but there was nothing old about this man. Nothinginfirm.
She felt herself pulled into the vortex of an authority she didn’t understand. Everything in her body screamed danger, and all those same things screamed formore.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to put some distance between them. “I appreciate thehelp.”
The corners of the man’s mouth turned upward, his smile sly and knowing, like he was privy to the workings of her body, the difficulty with which she was breathing, the sweat blooming on her skin under hercoat.
