by Amelia Wilde
Brandon surveyed the property openly. “It’s nice.”
I shrugged. “It’s no mansion on the Commons, but it’s home.”
“It looks more like a home than any mansion,” Brandon said with a small smile, and maybe even a trace of envy? Then his gaze shifted to me, and we both seemed to stop breathing for several seconds.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Red,” he said, his voice cutting roughly through the night air. “Maybe it’s your seriousness. Maybe it’s your hair. Maybe it’s the way you sing, or maybe it’s the way you don’t take any of my shit. But when I’m around you…it’s like there’s no more Brandon Sterling, CEO anymore. There’s just me. And there’s just you. Am I wrong?”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. He wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t quite find the words to say it.
“I think there’s something here,” he continued gruffly. “Something that I…that I think I have to make time for.” He paused. “Am I crazy? You have to tell me.”
“Maybe a little,” I said, no joke in my voice.
His eyes searched mine as he moved one step closer. “But…you feel it too?”
There was no use pretending I didn’t. I didn’t understand the attraction, didn’t know why this man had followed me all the way to New York just to make sure I got home safe. I didn’t understand why my tongue felt about two sizes too big for my mouth when I looked at him or why I didn’t want it to stop either.
Somehow, in just the space of a few hours, a few layers had been shed, and it was clear to me that the idiot in his office, the smartass on the street, they weren’t the real Brandon Sterling. The guy who cared enough to escort me home, who listened raptly when I talked about myself, who spoke vehemently in my defense, and who offered his home to a stranger on a cold, snowy night—that was the real Brandon Sterling. He was kind, slightly awkward, and intensely generous. And he was someone I wanted—no, needed to know.
“Yes,” I whispered, unable to summon my normal voice. “I feel it.”
Slowly he removed his gloves from his hands and put them in his pocket. He placed his palms gently on my cheeks, framing my face and forcing me to look up at him.
“So, it is real,” he murmured as he brushed his thumbs over my cheekbones. “Skylar, do you mind if I kiss you right now?”
I shook my head wordlessly. There was nothing to say as he touched his lips to mine. He looked at me as if uncertain whether or not I would allow him to continue. In response, I wrapped my arms around his taut waist and tugged him to me, lifting my face to his once again.
He wanted to be gentle, but it only took a few seconds for his hands to cup my head securely at the neck and pull me deeper, teasing my mouth open so that he could twist our tongues together. This kiss didn’t have the same fury as the one in his office, but it was more potent. I relished in the slow, tentative strokes of his tongue, luxuriating in the taste of him. I gripped his jacket, wanting more.
When Brandon finally released me with a nip on my upper lip, we both gasped, our breath dancing around us in disappearing clouds. He grinned.
“So,” he said. “Dinner next Friday?”
Apparently, the cocksure guy wasn’t completely gone. I blushed, already feeling like a foregone conclusion.
“I thought you didn’t have time for that sort of thing,” I murmured.
“I’ll make time,” he said and leaned in for another brief kiss. “Like I said, I have to. I’ll pick you up at your place at eight. Wear a dress.”
“Planning something fancy?” I teased.
He just smiled, his eyes suddenly full of heat that belied the cold weather. “No,” he said. “You just have great legs.”
Without breaking his gaze, he lifted my hand and pressed his mouth against my palm.
“Good night, Skylar,” he said solemnly. “And don’t go walking down any dark streets by yourself, all right?”
He watched from the sidewalk as I let myself into the house, then waved before turning away. I shut the door behind me and released the long, deep sigh I hadn’t known I’d been holding. It was going to be a long time until Friday.
11
The weekend was far too short, but I was able to enjoy a few carefree days with my dad and Bubbe, playing board games on Saturday and eating Bubbe’s stuffed cabbage before Dad’s gig. Throughout, however, the conversation with Nick lingered in the back of my mind.
To his credit, Dad didn’t ask about Brandon, but that wasn’t unusual. I had dated so few men seriously, and I had brought friends to his gigs before. I didn’t want to tell him that his initial instinct was right, that I had possibly met someone special. I wasn’t sure what that meant anyway. Not yet.
“Now, Skylar, are you sure you don’t want me to pack you some cabbage for tomorrow too? We have plenty left over,” my grandmother said Sunday morning, her short, squat frame positioned at the stove while she stirred a pan full of onions and eggs.
A large blintz cooked in the oven. As was her usual routine, she had taken my visit as an excuse to stuff her family silly. I was going to have to roll myself back to Boston.
“You’re too skinny, girl, look at you. Daniel, will you look at her? Like a twig, this one. What kind of man is going to want a girl with hips like a little boy?”
She clicked her tongue a few times, and Dad winked at me over his morning paper. I was reading the finance section, the one part my dad didn’t read, while he leafed through the op-eds.
It was a familiar scene, the kind that made me wish I could stay longer just to soak in the ease of it all. Bubbe, all tight gray curls and friendly admonishments through a thick Brooklyn accent; Dad, with his feigned apathy and late-morning coffee; and me, dodging comments about my weight and the men in my life. A typical Crosby breakfast.
“Ma, be nice,” Dad muttered absently. “Pips, you’re gorgeous, and don’t let anyone else try to tell you otherwise. She’s gorgeous, Ma, you got it?”
Bubbe tugged the blintz out from the oven, engulfing the small room with the scent of sweet pastry, and set it on the table with the eggs. She skittered back to grab our dishes and cutlery, and Dad and I both folded away our papers so we could eat.
“Of course she’s beautiful, Daniel. Did I say she wasn’t?” Bubbe leaned over and pecked me on the cheek, no doubt leaving a lipstick stain I wouldn’t dare wipe off while she was looking.
“No, you didn’t say that, Ma,” Dad replied as he set the paper down on the table and stood up. “Pips, is your bag packed? I’m going into the city, so I can give you a ride to Grand Central.”
The clatter of a dropped spatula interrupted him. We both found my normally coordinated grandmother frantically scooping splattered eggs off the linoleum floor.
“You all right, Ma?” Dad asked as he helped her stand up.
She batted away his hands and tossed the paper towels into the garbage next to the sink. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just clumsy. Go pack up. I’ll take care of this.”
Dad backed away, his hands raised. “You’re the boss.”
Bubbe finished cleaning up the floor, then marched over to sit next to me at the table, fresh spatula in hand.
“You are gorgeous, sweetheart,” she said with a warm rub on my back. “Just need a little more meat on these bones. Here, this’ll help.” She scooped me some eggs and cut a huge slice of blintz.
“Bubbe, that’s too much!” I protested.
She waved away my concerns and proceeded to serve herself a much smaller portion. Then she scooted her chair closer, checking quickly behind her as my dad bounded out the front door with my bag.
“Before he comes back,” she said in a low voice. “I found some tickets in his pants the other week while I was doing the laundry. Stubs from the track.”
She scooted back to her plate and calmly picked up her fork, satisfied that she had met her moral obligation.
My fork hovered over my plate of food, which now looked about as attractive as the contents of our garbage pail. “Are
you sure they were from the track? Not movie tickets or something else?”
In return, I received a look of pure disdain that only my grandmother knew how to give. “What do I look like, a fool? I may be an old woman, but I know the difference between a ticket for that superhero what’s his face and a bet on a horse.” She bent back down to take another bite of her blintz. “I was married to your grandfather after all.”
I sighed and pushed my fork through the mounds of food on my plate. It wasn’t talked about much, but I had pieced together how my grandfather had been forced to resort to petty crime to resolve some of his gambling debt. Our house had only been saved from foreclosure when Bubbe collected his life insurance. No one ever said it directly, but it wasn’t one hundred percent clear that his death by drowning in the East River wasn’t an accident, although I wasn’t totally sure if that meant suicide or something more sinister.
As I grew older, it became evident that a weakness for gambling ran in the family. The last time my dad had gotten into trouble, it had cost Dad a few black eyes and me about fifty thousand dollars out of my trust fund to pay off Victor Messina and finance Dad’s three-month stint in a rehabilitation center. And now it looked like we were facing that road again. Damn.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said quietly.
Bubbe nodded as Dad strode back in. He sat down to his food and eyed us curiously.
“Everything all right in here?” he asked. “You’re too quiet.”
“I’m just trying to get your daughter to eat,” Bubbe said without looking up from her food.
“Bubbe, I’m not this hungry. Really.”
“You need to eat,” she said, pushing my plate toward me. “Especially if you’re going to impress that young man again.”
I jerked my head to my dad, who simply drank coffee while avoiding my gaze.
“He told me everything, Skylar,” Bubbe said, patting my hand. “What a doll, escorting you home like that. A real gentleman.”
“I can’t believe you told,” I grumbled at Dad, who shrugged and mouthed “Sorry” before taking a large bite of eggs.
A bike messenger had delivered a first-class ticket yesterday morning while I was out for a jog, providing the means to get back to Boston by train instead of bus. It was no mystery who had sent it, and Dad clearly spilled the beans.
“I even looked him up on the online,” she informed me proudly.
I pressed my mouth into a firm line at her misspeak; trying to correct Bubbe on technological jargon was like trying to teach a cat to ride a bike.
“Goyish, of course,” she continued, “with that blond hair and those blue eyes, but still, very handsome. He looks very nice.”
“Would nice mean rich?” I asked slyly, acting as though I was about to poke her with my fork.
She batted it away.
“Eat,” she ordered again with an imperious point of her finger. “And, Skylar, it’s not a bad thing that a man has enough to take care of his family. You would have nothing to worry about; you wouldn’t even have to work.”
“Bubbe,” I chided gently. “I’m not going to law school to become a housewife.”
“And is that the worst thing in the world?” she asked. “To take care of your home and family?”
“Ma,” my dad said with the rare sharp tone that generally stopped Bubbe’s tirades. “Stop. We should be proud of Skylar that she’s doing so much with her life. She don’t need a man to take care of her; she can do it herself.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Pips.”
I quickly took a few bites to appease my demanding grandmother while the conversation turned to the latest gossip at temple. Thoughts of impending classes loomed in my mind, as did the conversation I’d have to have with my father before my train.
“I need to finish getting ready. I promise, Bubbe, I’m stuffed,” I said, leaning around to give her a peck on the cheek after I stood up. “But I couldn’t eat as much of anyone else’s cooking, I swear. Pack me some more for the train, all right?”
My bedroom door creaked open just as I finished stripping the sheets off my bed. I threw the last pillowcase into the pile by my desk and looked up to find Dad in the doorway.
“Hey, Pop,” I said, sitting down on the naked mattress. He took a seat next to me, looking around the room as if he hadn’t been up there a million other times.
“You know,” he said, “I never come up here anymore. I forget how it looks sometimes.”
It was an attic room that had never been finished, with one of the walls still gaping with exposed studs and a few electrical wires. The others had been drywalled but never sanded, and one of Bubbe’s old oriental rugs covered the thick subfloor that had never been carpeted. Over the years, I had hung faded tapestries over the insulation and Christmas lights from the rafters, along with a few concert posters and some street art on the other walls. I had moved up there when I was just a kid, preferring the space and quiet of the attic to the tiny room wedged between Dad’s and my grandmother’s. It wasn’t posh by any means, but it had always been mine.
“Does it look different?” I asked.
“No. It’s just strange to think I could forget what my kid’s room looks like.” Dad shrugged. “I guess I just miss you, kid.”
I laid my head on his flannel-covered shoulder. “I miss you too, Dad. I’m sorry I don’t come home as much these days.”
“You’re busy.”
The sadness in his voice was obvious. I sat up.
“Dad?” I asked, turning to face him. “Are you okay?”
He frowned. “Yeah, Pips, why do you ask?”
I pulled nervously on one of the buttons on the mattress. “It’s just…well, Bubbe mentioned you’ve been going to the track again.”
“Oh, that’s nothin’, sweetheart. Just hanging out with some of the guys. You know how they like to watch the horses.”
His eyes flickered nervously around the room. He always was a terrible liar. Just like me.
“Yeah,” I pressed, “but Nick mentioned that Victor’s been coming around the bar sometimes too.”
Dad shrank at the mention of the name, but he didn’t say anything.
“Dad,” I said, trying to be gentle. “Do you need help again?”
It had been three years since I’d had to deliver a thick envelope of cash to an unmarked office in the Navy Yard in exchange for a promise to leave my dad alone. I had really thought it would be the last time.
“Yeah, well, it’s a funny thing, sweetheart,” Dad whispered. His long fingers—the ones that made such beautiful music––tapped a silent melody on the mattress. “These guys, you know them. They’re always needing a little something more.”
“Dad…” I started slowly. We’d had this conversation many times before, to no avail. “You don’t have to stay here. Whatever you owe, I can just give it to them, and you can come live with me in Boston. You can get away from all of this.”
“Pips, I can’t just leave your grandmother. Plus, I’ve got four years left until I make pension, and my band is here. I’m not leaving New York, kid. You know that.”
“But, Dad—”
“Skylar, it’s fine,” he said, clearly forcing himself to meet my eyes. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s done. He just asked me if I could look into something for him—you know they’re always interested in government employees. I said I couldn’t do it, and he said okay. I don’t owe him anything, I promise.”
“Yeah, but Bubbe and Nick said—”
“Pips, Ma gets so far into other people’s business she has to make it up as she goes, and Nick’s a paranoid alcoholic who’s scared of his own shadow. That ticket was a friend’s, Skylar. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Dad slung a thin arm around me and pulled me into his side. I sighed contentedly at the familiar scent of clove cigarettes and coffee that permeated the soft flannel.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m the paren
t here. You just need to get yourself back up to school and kick some ass, all right? That way you can defend your old man if I actually do get locked up one day.”
I didn’t find his weak joke the slightest bit funny, but there wasn’t much else I could do if he insisted everything was fine. He had promised me years ago that he was out of the life for good. I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t have anything else to go on either. And I wasn’t about to hand-deliver an invitation for Victor Messina and his thugs to come back into our lives, considering how hard it had been to get him out in the first place.
“All right,” I said. “Just be careful, old man, will you?”
“Don’t worry, baby. I always am.”
I smiled weakly and nodded. I wanted to believe him. I really did.
12
I returned in Boston early Sunday afternoon after enjoying a first-class ride that also gave me plenty of time to finish my readings before classes started. There was no signature on the card that accompanied the ticket, but a typed note was paper-clipped to the envelope: “Be safe, Red.” It was only after I opened the ticket that I realized Brandon and I hadn’t exchanged numbers. I had no way to say thank you, no way to confirm our plans unless I called his office, and I had no intention of setting off water cooler gossip.
On Monday morning, I was in the front row of the in-class component of the Family Law Clinic. Eric sat in the row behind me, tapping away on his phone after waving a brief hello. I wondered who he was talking to so early in the morning.
When the professor strode in as the clock struck eight, my stomach fluttered with a bit of characteristic first-day jitters.
“Good morning, everyone,” he said.
The class was small, only fifteen of us or so, but big enough for an elective. We all sat up just a bit straighter as Professor Ashe dropped his bag on the front table and set a stack of notes on the lectern.