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7
Feeling out of place along shimmering Fifth Avenue on Friday night, I tried to use the time to sing every mantra I could to myself about how I wouldn’t be mistaken for a server, everything would be okay, and I’d be able to act normal because I was the only normal one in my family. It didn’t help though, but I tried. Instead of following Rhys’s direction for the cab driver to drop me off outside of his apartment, I asked to be dropped near the park so I could walk off my nerves. The frigid air was refreshing, and it numbed most of my feelings, so things were looking up.
The streets were ablaze with sparkles, streamers, and people in flashy outfits that promised frostbite, so I fit in beneath my knee-length sequin dress. I couldn’t help but smile, the contagion of celebration catching me with a smile as I approached Rhys’s building. My hands trembled as I walked up the steps, but hearing the intercom buzz and unlock the main door made my stomach twist with excitement. He was on the fifth floor, the topmost unit, and my heels carried me swiftly up to his hallway.
Expecting to hear the clamorous sound of clinking glasses in celebration, a mellow hum of jazz music filtering out from an open door at the end of the hall surprised me. The only other door on the fifth floor was an emergency exit, so I straightened my shoulders and held my breath while following the music.
Leaning against the doorframe, I peeked inside his apartment. It was warm, and too welcoming. Although the main area was enormous and he didn’t have clutter or much furniture, it all meshed together in the soft blend of gray and white to feel like a cloud. The music was an afterthought, something to accompany the flickering glow of his fireplace and the dim bulbs dangling sporadically from exposed beams and the intoxicating smell.
“Rhys?” I called after thawing in the doorway. Standing there melted me into a puddle, forgetting the drama with my mom or that I’d even felt nervous about seeing Rhys again. A popped cork preceded his footsteps, the erupting bottle in his right hand when he met me at the door.
“Mia,” he greeted me, just about stopping my heart altogether. Rhys’s short hair was combed back, his eyes wide and radiating the smile that weakened my bare knees. “I swear you’re more beautiful each time I see you.”
“Hi,” I replied, chastely returning the warm kiss he pressed to my cheek before pulling back. Rhys nodded to where he’d come from to greet me and I followed, stunned that his home wasn’t bursting with guests.
“You’re asking for trouble, leaving your door open like that,” I teased, watching Rhys move around his kitchen to gather two champagne flutes.
“It’s open for you. I didn’t want you to get lost.” I focused on his grin, unable to look away from his lips as they parted with ease.
We were like magnets, meeting each other against the island in the middle of his kitchen. Champagne dribbled from the bottle as he poured our glasses, overflowing onto the butcher block.
“Dinner will be ready any minute,” he continued, lifting both glasses. My fingertips warmed in the graze of contact when I took my glass from him.
“Happy New Year.” We spoke in unison, our laughter following as we clinked glasses and sipped the flavorful champagne.
“I want to show you something,” he murmured, taking my hand and guiding me around the kitchen and into a small room off the expansive living room. Opening two panels of glass, Rhys flipped a switch and waited for the flickering hum to soften into a warm glow. The light barely lit the room, but I could tell he didn’t need it bright, as he knew where everything was in the piles and crates of photography equipment, prints, and canvases.
Following him further, he began sorting through a wooden crate. I quietly stepped between piles of his work, tracing the frame of a photograph hanging on his wall, the shadows hauntingly deep beneath the dim light.
“Here,” Rhys declared behind me. “I wondered if you might want to see this. Borrow it, keep it, whatever you’d like.”
The matted photograph rested heavily in my hands once Rhys took my glass, letting my thoughts fall into the transfixing picture. The swirls of emerald and lavender were exactly the same as the print I’d purchased, but the photograph held more significance than the landscape I owned.
Rhys pointed to a crumbling building, its fallen stones covered with moss and mortar broken by thriving vines of violet and green. “This always made me feel melancholy, wondering what might’ve happened there forever ago, so that’s why I never showed it with the one you have. Same day, same place. I took yours just a few feet in that direction.” His finger traced to the left edge before he sipped from his glass. “It’s yours if you’d like it.”
“Your melancholy photograph?” Looking up at him, Rhys’s smile was bashful, not the torturously seductive expression cemented in my memory. “I’m honored. Thank you, Rhys.”
“Perhaps melancholy wasn’t right. Curious, maybe? Well, it’s a sibling to yours and you should have it.”
“Sibling?” I grimaced, laughing at the word.
Rhys held the stem of his empty glass with the same hand holding my champagne, freeing him to reach for my chin. The warmth of his thumb as it pressed against my skin rattled my knees.
“We don’t like those,” he agreed, smiling before slipping his hand away from me.
We lingered in that room until I finished my champagne, lost in a cloud of Rhys’s description of random pictures he’d pull out to show me. The timer beeping from his kitchen was our alarm, bringing us back to reality as we slowly returned to the kitchen. Rhys filled my glass again and suggested I wait by the fire while he managed dinner, waving me away with a smile any time I offered to help.
Snowflakes clung to the frozen window panes as I tried to look beyond Rhys’s reflection in the glass. Dinner smelled incredible, and watching him move purposefully around his small kitchen without a stain of food hitting his black cashmere sweater made me want to hire him as my chef.
Shivering against the window, I turned to watch him set the long wooden dining table for two.
“Where is the rest of your party?” I hesitantly inquired as I crossed the living room to meet him.
Rhys was already refilling our champagne flutes, lifting one for me as he joined my side at the window. Graciously accepting the champagne, I swallowed a sip and reveled in the bubbling burn that met my stomach just as Rhys’s words elicited more butterflies.
“That’s one more way Matthew and I are opposites.” Rhys waved his hands as he spoke, spilling some champagne on the table. “He wants the show, the people, the artificial, and he thrives on it. I’d much rather be home with the crackling fire, a delicious champagne,” he winked, clinking our glasses, “with one person whom I like very much.”
The sound of his voice pulsed through my body in waves, distracting me and numbing whatever else mattered. I thought back to sitting on the bench earlier in the week, so close to where I was in this moment. Maybe the excitement was simply about having fun, without consequence or commitment, or maybe it was just the fact someone desired me, even for only a little while.
