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NELL
Hands roving over my body.My legs wrapped around a strong waist as he grinds into me. Those same hands fisted in my hair while lips press against my lips, my skin, my neck.
“Nell!” Hugo barked my name, snapping me out of my daydream and bringing me very firmly back into the present. “Are you alright in there?”
He was giving me a strange look, his brows furrowed in concern, and his head cocked to one side.
I shook myself as I tried to get the images of what had happened in my apartment the day before with Blake out of my mind. Even though I had done the same thing a thousand times in the last 24 hours, it still wasn’t helping.
“Yeah,” I answered, giving Hugo a shaky smile. “Sorry. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Radiator still out?” He asked, a look of sympathy crossing his face.
“Yes, but my landlord gave me a space heater last night.”
I blow out a breath, not exactly loving recalling that particular memory either. When Blake had left to call my brother back, a part of me had clung to his promise of a space heater. And, he had delivered on it. The space heater had arrived later that night.
But it wasn’t him that had delivered it like I had assumed. Just a delivery person who he had apparently paid extra to drop it off. Oh, the things that money could do.
I had told myself that it didn’t matter, that I hadn’t been looking forward to seeing him again and maybe picking up exactly where we had left off.
But, after a good night’s rest (and a little personal time with some of the special contents of my bedside table), I could admit that it was for the best. The kiss had been a mistake. I could see that now.
The stark light of the morning and the headache from the wine had made that glaringly obvious. But that didn’t keep the events of the night before from popping into my mind what felt like every few seconds.
“Well, then, why weren’t you able to sleep? Plus, you’re all spindly today?” Hugo waved his hand in circles around his head, indicating my scattered frame of mind and causing me to laugh.
“Spindly?” My eyebrows shot up in amusement.
“Yes. Spindly. You know. Circley. Scattered. In space. Whatever the hell you want to call it.”
I gave him a soft smile. “Just sleepy. Apparently, that makes me spindly.”
A patron approached us at that moment, asking about one of the paintings and pulling my attention away from Hugo. He disappeared into the back, getting ready for one of his art classes that evening, while I helped the young couple, walking with them as they browsed through our prints, asking questions about the artists and the varying inspirations.
And, always happy to talk about art, I lost myself in the conversation.
By the time the day had ended, I had made a total of four sales and had successfully secured the gallery as a venue for an upcoming social event. Feeling good about it, I said goodbye to Hugo as his students began to fill in and headed out the door.
It was colder than the day before, and you could feel the threat of snow in the air as I wrapped my coat more tightly around my shoulders. My sneakers crunched over fallen leaves, noticeably more on the ground than there was the day before.
The ride from Brooklyn to Queens was relatively uneventful, which I chalked up as a blessing. And by the time I was climbing back up the concrete stairs a few blocks from my apartment, I felt something in me unclench.
I could accept that kissing Blake was a terrible idea and that it was best not to happen again. If I didn’t keep him at arm’s length, his being in my life would make everything so incredibly complicated.
So, while the kiss was great, maybe even the hottest one of my life – it couldn’t happen again. Because even if we were older, it was still Blake we were talking about. He was still a part of the world and the life I hated, the one I wanted so badly to leave in the past.
He may be hot, but he was still a bit of an ass. So, he would be my landlord and absolutely nothing else.
I was so lost in my thoughts and absorbed in talking myself through letting the idea of Blake go that I wasn’t paying attention at all as I turned onto the street my building was on.
I didn’t look up from where my feet slapped on the sidewalk, wasn’t listening to the two people standing in front of my building bickering in soft, hushed tones. It wasn’t until I was almost right on top of them, trying to get my keys out of my pocket, that I even realized they were there at all, not until one of them turned to greet me.
“Juniper!” My mother’s voice exclaiming my name broke through my thoughts and sent a shock racing through me like I had just been dipped in an ice bath.
My head shot up, gaze flying around wildly until it landed on my mother and brother standing in front of the door to my building, looking at me with wide, expectant expressions.
My mother was wearing a long, expensive wool coat in bright green, clutching it tightly around her slender, waifish shoulders. Her red hair glinted in the weak winter sun, and she was holding her Chanel purse so tightly her knuckles were white.
