by Cara Bastone
There. Simple as that. She sent the text and waited for the weight of her uncomfortable guilt to alleviate a little bit.
It didn’t.
Still frowning, she turned back to the movie and tried to lose herself in it.
She jolted when her phone buzzed a second later. She was surprised he’d texted back so quickly. She thought for sure he’d either still be snoozing on his couch or passed out in bed by now.
You’re welcome. And don’t worry. I didn’t expect you to do the dishes.
Hmm? Maybe he was one of those people who didn’t like guests to putter around in his space—
You don’t exactly strike me as the housework type.
His second text came in and a yelp of outrage escaped Fin. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she muttered as she quickly typed the words and sent them off.
Moments later he’d texted back. Oh, come on. Don’t pretend that right this very minute you aren’t laying on a cushion held up by four shirtless men feeding you grapes and fanning you.
Despite herself, she laughed aloud. I think you’re confusing me with Cleopatra.
She looked around her small, clean apartment. In reality, she spent a lot of time on housework, despite the occasionally rock-dusty kitchen. She very much believed in “cluttered space, cluttered mind.” And though she had a lot of knickknacks, decorations and emblems around her house, everything was in its right place.
Wouldn’t be the first time, he texted her.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d confused her with Cleopatra?
And then he texted her a picture of Cleopatra from an old movie. She quirked her head to one side and observed the long black hair, the golden crown and unsmiling, regal features. He thought she looked like that?
Come on, he texted, you don’t see the resemblance?
She’d like to think that she smiled more than that, but then, looking back on her time with Tyler, she supposed she could see why he’d think of her like this. Untouchable, ruthless, unforgiving.
Blind spot.
Would it kill her to loosen up around him a little bit? Maybe she could hold him at, like, ten paces. She’d still be safe and maybe he wouldn’t be quite so kicked-puppy.
She sighed, rolling her eyes at herself and decided to play around a little bit. She pulled up a picture and texted it to him. Better Cleopatra than this:
It was a photo of James Spader from Pretty in Pink. Tyler really didn’t look anything like him, but at first glance they had the same preppy douchebag vibe.
You wound me, he texted back.
She laughed, reading the vibe off the text and knowing, in her heart, that he’d laughed when he’d seen what she’d sent him. It was then, and only then, that she felt some of the weight of her guilt over her behavior lift off of her. She hadn’t ruined everything; she hadn’t injured him unnecessarily.
She laughed again as she looked back at their texts and tried to picture having this conversation in person.
A static shock zapped her when she moved her leg against a velvet cushion and she jolted. She felt almost like she’d been jump-scared by the violins in a scary movie.
The fact was, having this jokey conversation was making her nervous system flare.
Hey, I was thinking. You need to give Kylie her own space.
The second she even typed Kylie’s name, Serafine felt her blood calm. Kylie was a safe subject between them.
What are you talking about? She has her own bedroom.
No. I mean in the rest of your house. You need to let her leave a footprint on your space.
I repeat: what are you talking about.
She rolled her eyes. It was silly of her to have forgotten what a skeptic he was. Serafine brought up his home in her mind’s eye. She brought a hand to her cheek when she realized that she was blushing just a little bit. Well, that sort of made sense, considering that every inch of Tyler’s home was so unusually, palpably him that just stepping in the front door felt like stepping into his bedroom.
How to explain that to him?
Let’s just say that your place is very YOU. Your energy is slathered all over every surface.
I don’t know what that means, but somehow I’m positive I’ve been insulted.
Serafine found herself laughing again. Had she just inadvertently insulted him? She looked back at her use of the word slathered. She tried again.
She needs to be able to make the place her own. Otherwise she’s not going to be comfortable there.
There was a long pause before he texted again in which Serafine considered getting up for another Popsicle. If Tyler were another person, she might have pushed at the energetic space between them, tried to ascertain whether he was pausing because he was searching for words, or distracted, or unhappy. But not wanting to upset the delicate ceasefire they seemed to have come to, she merely waited, attempting to be patient.
You act like I’m the one locking her in her bedroom every night. Trust me, that’s all her.
Maybe make some design changes. Ask her opinion. Or change around the living room so that she can study out there.
She paused, her fingers hovering over her phone. She typed the next part in a jumble. And definitely move that leather chair out of her room. Give her something that’s completely her own.
What’s wrong with my chair?
Though she’d been trying her hardest not to think about what it had felt like to sit in that chair, the memory of it was unstoppable now. It was like trying not to think of a pink elephant. She couldn’t avoid remembering the warm buzz of energy that had enveloped her as the back of her legs had hit the smooth leather, the wooden arms of the chair almost warm under the palms of her hands. It had been like sitting down in a dark room only to realize that Tyler was already sitting there. Almost like she’d accidentally sat in his lap.
She got that nervous-system-juddering feeling again and shied away from it immediately.
Strike that, actually, he texted a moment later. I don’t even want to know what you hate about my chair. Ignorance is bliss.
Have you been steering clear of patronizing her with
women’s soccer?
He immediately sent her back an eyeroll emoji. Some of us call that having common interests. Tell me this, Cleopatra. Do you get off on chastising me or something?
She pursed her lips for a moment and then burst out laughing. It wasn’t that the text was even all that funny. But it made a giddiness rise up within her and it burst out of her in laugh form.
She worked a few different responses in her head, but anything that was funny in return seemed too flirty.
In the end the best she could come up with was, I’ll work on it.
A few minutes rolled past and Fin couldn’t help but check her phone again and again to see if he’d texted her back yet. Were they done? Was he sleeping again? Damn, she should have said something sweeter. The words I’ll work on it looked so terse as she reread them.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she almost fumbled it.
I’ll move the chair.
She blinked at her phone for a minute, turned off the movie and then went to brush her teeth, inexplicably smiling all the way to the bathroom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“AUNTIE FIN? ARE YOU named after lettuce?”
Tyler, sitting at Seb and Via’s dinner table, nearly choked on the meatball that was in his mouth at that very minute.
“What?” Fin asked, leaning around both Mary and Kylie in order to see Matty.
“Well, your last name is St. Romain, right? And isn’t this—” he waggled the bit of salad at the end of his fork “—named romaine? Just like you?”
There was a sparkle in the little boy’s eye.
Tyler reached a fist across the table toward Matty. “Good one, broski.”
“
Please refrain from referring to my son as a broski,” Seb said, restraining his smile. “And, Matty, quit philosophizing about your salad and eat your salad, please.”
The conversation hummed on around him, and Tyler just kept eating, his thoughts whirring. Halfway through the meal, Fin got up and inched behind the table to get to the kitchen, the sleeve of her dress accidentally brushing the back of Tyler’s neck as she went past. He stiffened at her familiar sagey lavenderish scent. Even though he wasn’t into her anymore, that scent of hers still had a bit of a hold on him. There was just something so earthy about it.
Generally, he liked the scent of perfume on a woman. Something fancy and bottled and sophisticated. Until he’d met Fin, he’d associated the scent of essential oils with hippies, or an attempt to cover body odor. But now, he could honestly say that the scent of herbs was sexy, interesting...and just a little bit agitating. He scooted his chair in so that she could get past.
“More water, anyone?” she asked.
“Will you grab me a beer?” Sebastian asked.
Tyler couldn’t help but glance at Kylie, who raised her eyebrows sassily back at him. He rolled his eyes at her.
“Me too, Fin, please,” Tyler called.
Kylie gave Tyler a smug look.
“The store’s been swamped,” Mary said in a non sequitur, cutting off Via as she asked Matty about his day at school.
Tyler nearly groaned. Mary had this rehearsed, quasicasual look on her face that he just knew Kylie was going to see through in a hot second. Mary was the most genuine person that Tyler knew. And by nature of that, she was also the worst actress he’d ever met. Lying? Playing a part? For Mary that was like asking a farsighted person to read minuscule print casually. Her face, though attempting to play it cool, looked exactly like she was trying to recite a cue card from across the room.
“Yup,” she sighed dramatically. “The dang holiday season. I thought surely it might ease up this year. But alas...”
Alas? Alas? Kylie was going to sniff out this set-up from a mile away.
“It’s really that bad?” Via asked in confusion. “Haven’t you hired any seasonal help? You usually do, right?”
“She up and quit on me. Just like that!” Mary snapped her fingers.
When Mary had called him yesterday to complain about the unexpected quitting of her seasonal help, an idea had hit Tyler like a bread truck. The perfect solution to all of his problems.
Well. Not all of his problems considering he hadn’t gotten laid in months, and this was definitely not going to fix that. But a huge portion of his problems would be fixed, at least temporarily, if Kylie took the dang bait that Mary was ostentatiously whipping around.
“So,” Mary said, and Tyler winced as he realized that she was also now speaking in some sort of accent he couldn’t quite identify. “I really need someone who can help out on the after-scho—” She cut herself off just in time. “After-work rush. A person who is available say, five p.m. to 9:30 or 10:00 a few days a week and wouldn’t mind making a few extra bucks.”
A cold beer touched Tyler’s cheek and he jumped, twisting in his seat to see Fin holding out his drink for him, a wry expression on her face that told him she’d figured out exactly what he’d cooked up with Mary.
He gave her that raised eyebrow right back, picturing his own face as that imperiously eyebrowed emoji she loved to send, and reached up for his beer. For just half a second, his fingers overlapped with hers on the bottle, and he didn’t feel the cold glass, the condensation. He felt only the slices of heat of her slim fingers against his, smelled only lavender.
Then he felt her flinch under him and he deftly removed the bottle from her hand and turned back around without so much as another glance her way. How many times and in how many ways was she going to have to remind him that she was completely and utterly uninterested in him? They’d finally started to get friendly, even joking around over text. He didn’t need to go screwing things up by imagining electric moments between them. Tyler figured it was because he was so hard up. He hadn’t gotten laid in an entire season, and now he was pretending to feel sparks when a woman handed him a beer. Yikes. Didn’t get much sadder than that.
“Anyone know anyone who fits that description?” Mary prompted him, her eyes wide and slightly panicked.
Right. Crap. He’d missed his cue and now Mary was floundering. He had to get things back on track.
“Uh. Actually,” he said, and then cleared his throat because his voice was rusty. “Kylie, would you have any interest in an after-school job like that?”
Kylie jolted and Tyler considered it a minor miracle that the kid wasn’t rolling her eyes at the adult antics taking place. Was she actually buying this?
“A job at Mary’s shop?”
“It’s a really great space,” Fin said casually, apparently the only one among them who could actually pull off a ruse like this. “I think you’d like it. Great energy. Cute shop and in a nice part of town. Have you been to Cobble Hill yet?”
“You’d like it,” Mary prompted. Then she cocked her head to the side. “Well, actually, I don’t know you quite well enough to know what you’d like. But I like it.”
Kylie laughed at that, seemingly a little charmed by Mary. She turned to Tyler. “You think it would be all right? Legally?”
It made him sad that a fourteen-year-old thought to consider stuff like that. “Uh, we’d have to talk to your social worker.” Tyler had already done so this morning and gotten the okay. They would have to get her working papers and also the social worker was putting a strict fifteen-hour weekly cap on things in order to make sure Kylie didn’t fall behind on homework. “But the legal working age in New York is fourteen, so it should probably be fine as long as you can still get your schoolwork done.”
“I only need help maybe three days a week,” Mary rushed in, a little overhelpfully. “So, I wouldn’t be taking up all your time.”
As world-wise as Kylie sometimes seemed, this whole scheme seemed to be going straight over her head. Anyone a little older might have raised eyebrows at the fact that Mary, apparently drowning in work and in desperate need of help, would only be looking for someone to help out three days a week. The truth was, Mary was going to have to hire someone in addition to Kylie. This was a considerable favor to Tyler. Especially considering the fact that she’d already agreed to make Kylie’s work schedule line up with the Nets home game schedule and had already agreed to take Kylie home after work any night that Tyler couldn’t pick her up.
Basically, Mary had agreed to pay to be Kylie’s babysitter without Kylie having to feel condescended to. Tyler knew he should be buying Mary a diamond necklace for Christmas, a house in Vail, a car. She’d officially clawed her way to the top of the Best Friend of All Time list.
“I don’t think schoolwork would be a problem,” Kylie said slowly. “But... I’ve never worked in a shop before.”
“Maybe we could do a trial period, Mary? Try it for a day or two and see if it suits you two?” Tyler suggested.
“Perfect!” Mary chirped, a little too loud, a little too high. She looked deeply relieved that the whole thing had gone to plan. “How’s Monday?” she croaked, sagging back into her chair. Was that sweat on her brow?
Tyler bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Works for me and my schedule. Ky?”
She blinked for a second. “Works for me too.”
“Great!”
* * *
“MARY, YOU SLY DOG,” Sebastian said a little while later, after dinner. The adults were reclining in the living room and Kylie, much to Tyler’s surprise, had volunteered to walk Matty and Crabby to an ice-cream shop down the block. Well, down the block by New York standards, which meant at least a twelve-minute walk.
“Oh my god. I’m still having heart palpitations.” She dramatically clutched at her heart and sagged back into t
he couch where she was nestled next to Fin.
“That was a pretty good idea you two had,” Via said, plopping herself down into Sebastian’s lap where he sat in an armchair.
Tyler, not having wanted to crowd the ladies on the couch, stretched out on the floor in front of the TV, his beer balanced on his chest and his head propped up by couch pillows. He watched the multicolored reflection of the blinking Christmas tree lights on the ceiling and tried hard not to think about all the ways he wasn’t prepared for a holiday of this magnitude with Kylie.
“Ty?” Seb said, nudging Tyler’s foot with his own.
“Hmm?” Tyler lifted his head and took a sip of his forgotten beer.
“Via asked if you knew that Kylie had wanted a job.”
“Oh.” He dropped his head back down and watched the red-and-green lights reflect on the ceiling again. “I wasn’t sure. But...I know she’s got some issues around money so I figured she’d jump at a chance to earn some on her own.”
He could feel Fin’s eyes on the side of his face. And it wasn’t the normal nudge of another person’s gaze. This? This was different. Her eyes were like fingertips of ice lightly tracing his profile.
She’d been the one to tell him that Kylie was sensitive about money.
“She’s got issues with money? The same kid who was pumping you for fifty bucks every single time you needed her to do anything?”
Tyler blinked. Right. He’d almost forgotten that Kylie used to do that. The extortion seemed so unlike her now.
“She hasn’t done that since...” He racked his brain. “Thanksgiving, I guess.”
Huh. Since they’d come to Brooklyn. She’d done it all the time in Columbus but here she’d pretty much cut it out immediately. He wondered why and came up empty.
“So, how are things going with her?” Via asked softly.
This time, Tyler couldn’t help but glance at Fin. She was watching him still and Tyler thought of the bejeweled tiger again. Her eyes, so eerily light in color, glittered like two aquamarines set against the twisted perfection of her braid. No. She wasn’t a tiger, he corrected himself. He’d gotten it right the other night. She was Cleopatra. An imperious, untouchable queen who couldn’t help but surveil her kingdom with the confidence of the most powerful woman on earth.