Larry ran back with the keys and gave them to me. He opened the driver’s door. “You did say your name was Madison Huntington, right?”
Why was he checking? Did he think my ID was fake? “I did. That’s me.”
He nodded and handed me my license. “Great. Let’s go so you can see what this car is capable of!”
I grabbed the keys and climbed in, adjusting the seat and mirrors. I caught a glimpse of Tyler sitting in the back seat and he shot me two thumbs-up. I smiled, shaking my head as I clicked my seat belt into place.
Once Larry was situated in the passenger seat, I pulled the car forward. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be checking for, but the car went forward when I pushed the gas and stopped when I depressed the brake. The signal lights also seemed to be in order.
Larry carried on a one-sided conversation listing all the car’s safety features and something about horsepower. I understood only about half of what he was saying.
I wanted to listen, but I kept getting distracted because Tyler, sitting in the back seat, was having very expressive responses to Larry’s monologue. Whenever I checked my rearview mirror, I tried hard not to giggle as Tyler alternated between rolling his eyes, raising both eyebrows in mock surprise, and flashing me impish grins.
I didn’t drive very far, as my answers as to whether the car ran had been answered. Everything else was just icing on the cake. When I got back to the parking lot, Larry asked, “So tell me, Madison, what can I do to get you to drive this car home today?”
It was nice that Larry didn’t address himself to Tyler and talked solely to me. It was a heady experience to be treated like an actual adult capable of making a decision. “Here’s the thing, Larry. I’m going to be blunt. I’ve done my research. I have a cashier’s check in my purse that’s for four thousand dollars less than your asking price. It’s what I can afford. I can’t go any higher. Do we have a deal?”
Larry seemed to consider this and then nodded. “Sounds good. Deal.”
Wow, that had been much easier than I expected and went against everything I’d read online about how this exchange was supposed to go down. “Really? You don’t want to go get your manager or something?”
“I am the manager and you caught me in a good mood. Let’s go inside and fill out the paperwork.”
Larry got out and I turned around and let out a squeal of excitement to Tyler. Why had all my friends complained about this process? Getting what you wanted was either much easier than I’d been led to believe or I had some secret ninja negotiating skills.
“You did it!” Tyler said. “High-five on that one. You handled that guy like a boss.”
I slapped my hand against his. “I can’t believe it worked.”
“Yeah, I wish my business deals went that smoothly. Come on, let’s go in and get this process started. This is going to take a long time.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him. I mean, I was probably going to get lost several times on my way home, but I’d find it eventually. I hated the idea of taking up more of his Saturday by sitting in a car dealership.
“No way. You’re stuck with me. I have to see how this ends.”
“It ends with me having a car.”
“Possibly. Let’s go find out.”
He made it seem like some kind of grand adventure, which in turn made me excited to see if things would actually turn out the way I thought they would. “Lead the way.”
“Nope. You’re the boss here. You go keep Larry in line. We can’t leave the circus until the lions have been sufficiently tamed. You’ve got this.”
Grinning, I headed off toward the dealership offices. I liked feeling as if I could conquer every obstacle around me and tame all the lions in my path. A girl could get used to a guy who made her feel like she could take over the world.
What should have been a mind-numbing and thoroughly boring afternoon spent at a car dealership turned out to be one of the most fun in recent memory. Tyler and I got on so well. Talking to him was easy, uncomplicated, and beyond enjoyable. We talked a lot more about traveling, then about Pigeon and the progress I’d made in our relationship, and about his job. There were no awkward silences or trying to decide what to say next. I loved how new it felt, how I wanted to know everything about him, but at the same time how it seemed comfortable and familiar, like we were good friends just continuing an old conversation. Finally the last paper had been signed, my ownership papers and temporary license had been handed to me, and it was finally (finally!) time to go home.
After I explained my inability to follow a GPS, Tyler carefully led the way home and when we got back to the apartment I pulled into the spot next to his in the parking garage. He was waiting for me when I climbed out of my car.
“So how does it feel to be driving your own car? A car that you own?”
“It feels fantastic! Like I want to celebrate.” I realized a moment too late how that might have sounded. As if I were insinuating that I wanted to celebrate with him. I was about to correct myself when he pulled out his phone, checking something.
“I have this charity thing I have to go to tonight. Want to come with me and we can celebrate there?”
Two warring emotions struck me. The first, sheer excitement that while I logically understood it wasn’t a date, it still felt like a date. The second put me on an anxiety high alert. “Charity things” were my parents’ favorite way to spend their time. Other than belittling their children and trying to crush their dreams.
I had no desire to be in a ballroom with my mother, father, and Tyler. I was trying to be his friend. I didn’t want to scare him off with the crazy that was my life.
“Who’s hosting it?” I asked.
He looked confused. “I don’t know. Let me pull up the invitation.”
We walked back to our apartment as Tyler scrolled through his phone, finally finding what he’d been looking for. “Here it is. It’s the Women’s Texan League. It’s to help fund some local homeless shelters. My boss wants me to go and network.”
The Women’s Texan League was chaired by my mother’s mortal enemy, Bitsie Fernley. Which meant I didn’t have to worry about running into my parents and was free to show up and enjoy myself.
“Bitsie is hosting so, yes, I can go hang out and celebrate,” I told him. Thankfully, he didn’t ask me to explain.
But when we got into the elevator, he did ask, “I can’t believe you know who is hosting the event just based on the organization’s name. Do you think this is the kind of stuff I should know? Who hosts events?”
“I only know who’s in charge because I grew up with people that it mattered to. People with more money than they know what to do with. Didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t grow up with money.” His voice had a haunted quality to it and I immediately wondered what made him sound that way.
Then I immediately felt stupid because when we first met he said he’d grown up without money. “Right. You told me that. But I thought you meant ‘poor’ like your family had one yacht instead of three.”
He laughed. “Not quite.”
I think I’d forgotten about his upbringing because most guys that I’d met who worked in investing and finance usually had someone in their family to open a door for them. They’d grown up with wealth and felt comfortable in that world. My parents had some pretty strong prejudices against what they called “new money” and made it into a game to spot people at parties who “didn’t belong.” I’d seen Tyler’s custom-tailored suits. I lived in his very expensive apartment. He seemed at ease in his environment. I never would have guessed that it was recently acquired.
“Oh,” was my initial brilliant and insightful response. “You seem like you belong to all this.”
We went into the apartment and he sat on the back of the couch, facing me. “Then I’m a better actor than I’ve given myself credit for. It’s like I’m impersonating someone else. Maybe that’s the reason I always feel so out of place at these things. I g
raduated from USC. It’s not like I’m uneducated. But sometimes it seems like everyone there is speaking a language I don’t quite understand.”
He wasn’t wrong. I hung my purse up and came over to stand in front of him. “My people are look-down-their-noses-at-you rich. So I am fluent in snob. I could teach you.”
“Really? You’d do that?”
“For the guy who just spent his entire day helping me get a car? Absolutely.”
“I didn’t do anything to help.”
There was no way I could explain to him that him standing aside, letting me get my car on my own, had been the absolute best thing he could have done. It was just what I’d needed. At the time I’d also understood that if I’d asked him for advice on any part of the process, he would have given it to me, which I’d also found very reassuring. “You may not think so, but you being there was helpful to me. I appreciated you having my back. Now I can have yours. What’s the dress code for tonight and what time do we need to leave?”
He checked his phone again. “It says cocktail and it starts in about half an hour.”
“Is there a dinner? Dancing?”
“It doesn’t say anything about dinner, but yes to dancing.”
“Okay. That means we want to show up late. You never want to be on time for an event like this. I’m going to go start getting ready. Meet you back here in about an hour so we can drive over together?” I held my breath, wanting a yes.
Probably because of how date-like it felt.
“Sounds like a plan.”
I wanted to kick myself for not allotting enough time to get ready. I’d have to forgo a shower and get dressed. While all my formal gowns were in a closet at my parents’ house, I still had most of my semi-formal and cocktail dresses, given all the mixers and events our sorority had done in college. I picked out a midi-length dark-blue dress with delicate beading across the neckline. It was my favorite; I’d picked it up in New York during Fashion Week three years ago. I had always loved that it was one of a kind.
Since I was the kind of person who was overly committed to staying in bed until the last possible moment every morning, it had forced me to learn how to apply my makeup quickly and yet still make it look good. Expensive products and brushes helped, and now I used them only for special occasions like this one. I tried not to think about the day when I was going to run out of everything completely.
I tugged my hair up into a messy bun, using hair spray to tame the flyaways. I went back into my room to go through my jewelry box to see what I had to wear. I had a pair of square sapphire earrings deemed not worth enough money to be put into the family vault.
The diamond tennis bracelet Brad had given to me glittered inside the box. For a moment I was tempted to pick it up and put it on. But only for a moment. I closed the jewelry box, leaving the bracelet behind.
I grabbed a pair of black heels and then gave myself a once-over in the mirror I’d hung up on the inside door of my closet.
Satisfied with what I saw, I dug through the top closet shelf to find a small black clutch. I headed out toward the foyer to transfer over my ID, debit card, cell phone, and lipstick from my purse.
Tyler had apparently been sitting on the couch, waiting for me. He stood up when he saw me and my breath caught as I skidded to a halt, dumbstruck by how handsome he looked.
At some point I was going to have to get used to the sight of him in a suit. It emphasized his broad shoulders and the darkness of it highlighted his light-blue eyes. I gulped.
“You look nice,” he told me with a smile.
You look like I want to bear your children. Shaking off my gut response, I smiled back and said, “So do you.” As far as compliments went, “nice” was on the bland side, but I’d take it. If I’d been entirely truthful in returning his compliment, what I would have said was that he looked choke-on-your-own-tongue good, but I didn’t feel it was appropriate to say so.
“Should we go?”
I grabbed my purse and made the transfer of stuff I thought I’d need. “I’m ready,” I told him, as I reached for my coat.
“Here, let me.”
It had been a very long time since a man besides my butler had helped me put my coat on. And it was a totally different experience to be standing so close to Tyler, because he smelled like heaven and radiated a delicious heat that made me want to get even closer to him. The feel of him standing just behind me, so close that we were almost touching, made me tremble slightly. It took me two tries to get my left arm into the sleeve, but I finally managed it.
When he put his hands on my shoulders for a brief moment after I’d accomplished the apparently impossible task of dressing myself with assistance, it took all the willpower I possessed not to lean back into him.
Oblivious to my plight, he pushed the button to the elevator and I gave him a shaky smile, hoping he didn’t sense how nervous and excited he made me.
Now if I could just remember that nothing was going to happen between us, everything would be fine.
CHAPTER NINE
The charity event was, as so many of them were, in the ballroom of a hotel downtown. There was a DJ playing innocuous music in the background, trees with white Christmas lights surrounding the room, tables and chairs set up on the outskirts of the dance floor. A few couples danced, but most of the people were congregated around either the open bar or what looked to be a silent auction.
There was a podium up front on the stage near the DJ and I wondered whether we had missed the speeches or if we’d be forced to sit through them while the Women’s Texan League congratulated themselves on how amazing they were for what would feel like an actual eternity.
“Can I get you a drink?” Tyler offered.
I figured with how pretty he was I should probably keep my wits about me. “Just a club soda for me. Thank you.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I tried to tamp down my jealousy when I noticed all the female gazes that followed him to the bar. I found an empty table and sat. My phone buzzed inside my purse and I took it out.
There was a text from Brad.
So much for not contacting me. He hadn’t even made it an entire week.
Annoyed, I clicked on the text. It said:
It was hard to tell with Brad whether this was just a friendly but completely misguided text, him forgetting that I’d asked for no contact. Or if he was just ignoring the fact that I had ended things and was still holding out some hope that he could “win” me back.
He couldn’t. I wanted more.
Speaking of more, my eyes were drawn to where Tyler stood. He had run into somebody he knew at the bar and I watched as he shook hands with the other man. The man must have said something funny, because Tyler laughed, and I wished I were closer so that I could hear him.
Brad got what he wanted because I was thinking about him and our relationship, but none of it was good. I remembered when I’d been talking to him at my parents’ house and had told him that we should move on and find other people. At the time I had thought it was strange that Tyler had popped into my head. But I realized that it was because he was the first person I’d been this attracted to, ever. It was quickly becoming a more intense crush for me than the one I’d had on Brad when I was fifteen.
And if I were still that teenage girl, I’d probably be scheming to figure out a way to get Tyler away from Oksana and to fall in love with me. But Tyler had been beyond clear that all he wanted was a friendship and for boundaries not to be crossed. I could do that. Even if part of me (okay, nearly all of me) resisted. I could respect what he wanted and just enjoy what he did offer, his friendship. I’d just spent the whole day with him. He was a fun guy to hang out with. That could be enough.
I couldn’t really control whether or not I was attracted to him. The constant flutter in my stomach when I looked at him testified that I was. And there was nothing wrong with that. It would only be wrong if I tried to push it to be something more.
If nothing else, a
t least I was going to get some amazing eye candy out of the deal.
Tyler got our drinks and I saw him looking for me, raising my heartbeat slightly. I waved so that he could see me and he made his way over.
“Thank you,” I said when he gave me my drink.
“My pleasure.”
His words sent little chills up and down my back. I took a sip of my drink, hoping it would cool off my heated skin. It was more than a little ridiculous to be getting so worked up over such an innocent statement.
“So, why a teacher?”
It took me a second to recognize that he had asked me a question. “What do you mean?” Didn’t most people become teachers because they loved teaching? I wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to get at.
“Based on what you told me earlier, I’m assuming that you’re an heiress.” Well, that wasn’t quite right, but I understood why he’d come to that conclusion. “You don’t really hear about heiresses leaving it all behind to become an elementary school teacher.”
“No, you usually don’t,” I agreed.
“Why did you make that choice?”
This was something I had thought a lot about, because my parents had wondered the same thing. “Growing up, my parents had very specific things they wanted me to focus on. I loved stories and reading and drawing, but they thought those were wastes of time. That I should focus on more serious academics. It was my teachers who encouraged me, made me feel supported. I usually felt unseen and unknown at home. My teachers made me feel seen and heard. I wanted to do the same for other kids.”
He nodded. “I know what that feels like. It’s cool that you wanted to do that for other kids.”
“Nobody should have to feel that way. My family always made me feel like the odd one out. They thought television and movies were vulgar, and they only wanted me to associate with girls who were of our ‘standing.’ Which left me with a lot of time alone to read and daydream. From eight to ten years old, I was convinced that my parents were changeling trolls who had taken me away from my real parents.” I’d never told anyone that before. How alienated and alone I’d always felt, unwanted for not being a boy and for not living up to my parents’ expectations of me. Not wanting to dwell on it too much, I shifted gears. “But I just really love teaching. Seeing a kid’s expression light up when they grasp a concept is amazing. Although sometimes I feel like they teach me more than I teach them.”
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