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“I live on this block, so we can eat at my place. But I understand,” she says, “if you want to go home. You just got back from an overseas trip after all.”
So I did, and just in time. Perhaps that’s why I have no resolve. The last of it slips away, not even leaving rings on the water in its wake. “I’ll come with you.”
We end up in the short line for ramen. She looks at me over her shoulder once, and then again, longer this time.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says with a smile. “It’s just… you’re here. It feels like I’m living in a parallel universe. You, in casual clothing, here at my ramen place.”
“Well, I don’t always wear a suit.”
“You know, somehow Iknewthat was true intellectually, but I didn’t really believe it until today.”
That makes me smile. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, I’m not disappointed,” she says. We’re close, standing in line like this, and my eyes flick to her lips. I know exactly how they feel against mine.
“The miso ramen is the best one,” she murmurs. “It’s not made by a Michelin-star chef, of course, but it’s… good.”
I fight the urge to brush a tendril of hair back from her forehead. “I trust you.”
We order, pay, and head to her apartment. The building is anonymous and simple, but it looks new and recently renovated, complete with a double-code system for entry.
“My place is pretty bare,” she says apologetically. “And I hope you’re not allergic to cats.”
“I’m not,” I say,and I wouldn’t turn around now, even if I was.
As if I even could at this point.
Her apartment is bright and neutral. It’s neat, but not clinically so, and little parts of her are sprinkled across the surfaces. It’s there in the sweater hung over the back of a kitchen chair, or in the book tossed on the sofa with a bookmark sprouting from its pages.
She sets the takeout down on the kitchen counter. “It’s a bit messy, I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s not. You have a lovely place.”
She reaches up to tighten her ponytail, and her skirt rides up another inch. “Thanks. I figured Milo would come and say hello, but he’s probably hiding. I haven’t had a lot of visitors since I got him, you know. He’s not used to company.”
“Makes sense,” I say. But all I hear is the implication that she isn’t seeing anyone, not even casually.
This feels like the evening we spent in the penthouse suite, when I sat opposite her, with her wet hair and bright eyes, sharing a drink and making conversation. Behind a closed door the veil of professionalism melts away and it’s just the two of us. It makes it too easy to forget myself.
Only this is worse than the hotel, because there are no reminders of work here. She’s everywhere in this apartment.
“Hungry?” she asks.
“Starving,” I say. We eat at her kitchen table. It’s small, and beneath it our knees brush against one another. The silence feels heavy. Not because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s not, and there’s something even more significant about that.
I clear my throat. “How was your marriage?”
She pauses, chopsticks in hand. “Where did that come from?”
I take another bite to gather my thoughts. Sleep deprivation, exercise, the desire to crush her ex into a pulp… and now this, prolonged exposure to her, has thrown me off-balance. I’ve lost all sense of propriety. “You mentioned that he didn’t like your career. I’m curious.”
“He didn’t. Well, he did in the beginning, but the way he was raised made itself known soon enough.”
I frown. “How so?”
“His mother is very… traditional,” she says. “She was a stay-at-home-mom, but also a homemaker, a philanthropist, on the school board, organized charities, and ran three households. So I think he expected the role of wife to be a full-time job.”
