by Cara Bastone
“Actually, at first I meet all of them in this little office space I rent for the occasion. My neighbor’s sister is a therapist and has a little annex attached to her office that I rent by the hour while I’m still learning about a new client. After a few sessions, I can tell if I trust them enough to meet at their home.”
“And if you don’t trust them enough?”
“I drop them as a client. Life is hard enough without inviting people I don’t trust into it.”
Ty’s eyes dropped from hers and she guessed immediately what he must be thinking. The baseball game. The way she’d so effectively cast him out of her life, like he wasn’t even worth the few minutes it would have taken to let him down more gently.
Her stomach cramped and she got up to get a glass of water.
She turned back after sipping her water and saw that his eyes were still downcast. He was still mulling over her words at the baseball game, she was sure.
But what, really, could she say now? Tyler, I was wrong. You’re not selfish. You’re interesting and generous and kind, and now I’m the one crushing on you? No. No way. There was no way that she was going to muddy the waters between them. She’d never forgive herself if she let this silly crush get in the way of what she was building with Kylie.
But that dulled look on his face as he worked his way through his rice and beans was just killing her. And she was the one who’d put it there.
How could she make this better?
“You know, I’ve been kind of having a breakthrough with the client I saw tonight. And I think I have you to thank for it.”
This was a delicate bridge to walk. Barely a few inches wide, with rushing water on either side.
His head came up. “Me? Really?”
“Yeah, this client, he’s a man. I don’t usually take on male clients.”
He nodded. “Makes sense. Especially if you’d have to be in their houses alone with them.”
Something smooth and hot seemed to wrap itself around her. He really understood what she was saying. She sat here, eating tacos and drinking cheap beer with him, the same way she might have done with Via. And he wasn’t thinking she was overvigilant or silly when she explained her reticence to work with men. He simply nodded in understanding. It was new. It was refreshing. It...almost hurt, it felt so good.
“So,” he said when she was quiet for a moment too long. “How was it that I helped?”
“Right. Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “It was our friendship, I guess, yours and mine, that helped more than anything.” She couldn’t help but notice that his eyes had softened on the word friendship. “See, a while ago, when Kylie first got here, Mary mentioned something to me.”
“She’s been known to casually drop truth bombs.”
“Exactly.” Fin pointed her fork at him and took a long sip of beer. “She’s kind of a Jedi master when it comes to that.”
“Mary Poppins. Spoonful of sugar.”
Fin grinned. “Anyway, she told me that I have a blind spot when it comes to certain things.”
“Right,” Ty agreed easily. “When it comes to men.”
For some reason, when Mary said it to her, it had been illuminating. When Tyler said it to her, it was just plain annoying. “Oh, what do you know about it?” she huffed.
Ty pushed back from the table a bit and crossed his arms. “I know that you wrote me off the second you could tell I was attracted to you. Like it was some sort of fatal flaw. Right from the very beginning. It was like you pulled a big velvet curtain between the two of us. And the one time I tried to pull the curtain back, you just about katana-ed my head off. All because you could tell I wanted you.”
He stared down at his plate. The fire in his eyes sort of leached away and a kind of sheepishness took its place. He uncrossed his arms and scraped a hand over the back of his neck. Maybe, she guessed, he was wishing that he hadn’t brought up just how much he’d wanted her back then. “I’m gonna check on the kids.”
He was up and into the living room. Fin heard their muffled voices stutter to a stop when Tyler entered the room.
She tried to regain her equilibrium.
He was back in the kitchen a second later. “She’s sitting in the armchair, not on the couch,” he reported with palpable relief.
Fin laughed. “Really, Ty, I don’t think you have much to worry about there. He seems like a nice kid. And she doesn’t even realize he has a crush on her.”
Ty’s eyes narrowed. “He has a crush on her?”
“Didn’t you sort of have a crush on every girl whose house you went over to for school projects?”
Tyler looked for a second like he was going to argue, and then his face relaxed. “Touché.”
He polished off his remaining taco. “So, if you instantly reject any man who’s attracted to you, it leads me to this question. Which men actually do have a chance with you?”
“Only the ones who aren’t attracted to me, apparently,” she replied dryly with a lift of her eyebrows and a swig of her beer.
He batted his eyelashes at her. “Does such a man exist?”
“Anyway,” she said with a pointed eye roll, though internally she was relieved that he was playing around again, “After Mary said that, I’ve tried not to—”
“Use the velvet curtain?”
“What is it with you and this velvet-curtain metaphor?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s because all your clothes look like an old lady’s curtains?”
He was grinning dumbly at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ever since then I’ve tried not to be quite so blind when it comes to you,” she barreled on. “And, yeah, I guess it’s helped with a lot of the men in my life. Enzo, my client, said I’ve been different. Nicer, I think he meant.” She shrugged, wanting to make this seem like not quite so big a deal. “So. Thanks.”
When she looked up from her plate, his teasing expression was long gone. In its place was a contemplative look she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him make before. He was studying her. His eyes finished traveling her face and just looked directly into hers. It wasn’t a long moment, but it was a loaded one. His navy eyes were momentarily unguarded, open. She felt as if a braided steel rope connected them, as if all she’d have to do was give that rope a tug and he’d move toward her.
“Ty? Can we watch that gymnastics meet you DVRed?”
Tyler jerked his eyes away and toward Kylie, leaning in the doorway. “What? Oh. Sure. It’s pretty old, though. Probably a month or so.”
“That’s okay,” Anthony said as he came to appear in the doorway as well. “I haven’t seen it and I like gymnastics.”
“Do you do any yourself?”
“Used to when I was younger. But then I got more into this coding club and my mom said I had to choose one.”
Fin hid her smile. She liked the way Anthony said mom. There was nothing grudging or embarrassed in his tone. It spoke a lot about their relationship.
“Usually I only get to watch it during the Olympics because we don’t get very many sports channels.”
“Well, I get all the sports channels. Just have Kylie ask me and I can record whatever you want.”
Now the smile Fin was hiding became the grin that Fin was hiding.
Tyler went out to help them cue up the program, and when he got back, Fin let her smile free.
“What?” he asked as he sat back down.
“Got a soft spot for gymnasts?”
“Huh?”
“Oh, come on, Ty. All the kid had to do was tell you that he used to play a sport and you completely dropped the overprotective act and straight-up invited him over again.”
His brow furrowed before his expression broke open. “Huh. I guess you’re right.” He laughed at himself. “I guess I’m an easy lock to pick. I used to do some gymnastics, so maybe
it was a perfect storm.”
“A gymnast and a ballet dancer?”
He froze, his beer bottle halfway to his mouth, his eyes narrowed. “Who told you? Sebastian?”
“Ky.”
“Kylie knows?”
“She googled you when she first found out about you. She showed me the videos.”
“She showed you the videos,” he repeated numbly. “Oh, Jesus. The internet deserves to get punched in the nuts. Is nothing allowed to die? Ever?”
She leaned her elbows forward, impossibly charmed over his embarrassment. “Why are you so concerned with hiding it? It’s really cool.”
“Yes, I agree. Ballet is really cool. It’s an exacting and demanding sport slash art form. And it’s not like I’m ashamed of it or anything. But come on, would you want to see videos of your much younger self doing a bunch of crap that you were only marginally good at?”
“Marginally good at? Tyler, you were an incredible dancer. Seriously. I was really impressed.”
He blushed, looking up at her through embarrassed eyelashes. “I mean, I loved it. Even though I got mocked for it my entire high school career. But in the end, I just didn’t have the chops to make it professionally.”
She shook her head. “The dance world must be cutthroat then, because from what I saw, you were incredibly gifted.”
Again, charmingly, he went quite pink. “I auditioned a bunch at the end of high school, for all sorts of companies and troupes. But got nothing but a series of ‘good try, kid.’ Writing was another passion of mine, so I went to journalism school and danced with a few clubs for a while. After that, I tweaked my knee pretty bad and I realized that I might permanently injure my body for something that had become just a hobby. So I quit halfway through college.”
“Do you ever dance at all anymore?”
He opened his mouth and then clapped it closed. “Uh. Yeah, actually. Before Kylie I was renting some studio time over by Union Square for an hour a week. Sometimes I’d stay for the class right after. Just messing around really. Trying to stay in shape. Stay flexible. Yoga is too slow. Pilates is too boring. So, mostly, in my normal life, I run, shoot hoops with Seb and Matty and—” he cleared his throat “—dance.”
“But not since Kylie came to live with you.”
“Right.”
“You know I’d hang out with her if you still wanted to do that, Ty. It’s just a couple hours a week. You could probably even plan it for when she’s in school. You don’t have to put your whole life on hold. I’m sure she doesn’t even want you to put your whole life on hold.”
He lifted his eyebrows and didn’t look convinced.
“Honestly,” she continued, “it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal to leave her at home alone sometimes. She’s a trustworthy kid.”
“With Anthony the gymnast sniffing around? I don’t think so.”
Fin laughed and shook her head.
He groaned, his eyes tracing up to the ceiling. “I can’t believe you’ve seen the ballet videos.”
Seen them? I practically licked them.
“We need more beers,” he decided. “I’m gonna go ask my neighbors real quick.”
Fin cleared up the kitchen while he was gone, washing their plates and boxing up the leftovers. He came back with two more beers under one arm and half a cake balancing on a plate in the other hand.
“Medovnik cake for dessert,” he said, hefting the plate up and setting it on the table with a flourish. “Courtesy of Ivetka and Kamil, my neighbors two doors down.”
“Oh, yum. I haven’t had this in years! Are they from the Czech Republic?”
“Yeah. She teaches at a few CUNY schools, and he works at a restaurant in Queens. Czech food that’ll make you punch your grandma it’s so good.”
She laughed, which proved just how much of a crush she had, because that was not the kind of joke that would normally make her laugh.
“Beer and cake?” he asked. “Beer first, cake second?”
“Beer first, cake second.”
“Good choice.” He sat down, twisted the tops off their icy beers and peered thoughtfully at the label. “You were really popping beer bottles in your preteens back in Louisiana?”
“I was popping coke bottles in my preteens. And maybe, like, three or four beer bottles once when Tammy Wegren stole some beer from her mama and we got drunk while she was at work.”
Tyler laughed, took a swig of his beer and squinted thoughtfully into his own past. “Let’s see. The first time I ever got drunk, Seb and I were sixteen and trying very hard to be cool at this hot senior girl’s party.” He cleared his throat. “We did not end up being cool.”
“Lampshade dancing?”
He laughed. “No. But there was definitely dancing of other kinds. That was the first night I ever freaked a girl on the dance floor. And then I had to run out of the house to go puke in the bushes. Seb basically carried me to the train. Then, he puked in a trash can on the platform, and I basically carried him home from the train.”
Fin laughed. “Classic? I guess?”
Tyler joined in her laughter. “No, not a classic for us. We actually didn’t party that much in high school. I was the kid who did ballet, and Sebastian had yet to grow into that giant head of his.”
Fin thought of how handsome Seb was now with his blunt face and big body, but she could easily see how those large features would be pretty burdensome midpuberty. “Think Matty’s in store for some awkward teen years?”
“Oh, I’d put money on it. It’s gonna be a long and painful decade of teendom when he shoots up like a beanstalk and realizes that he’s in love with Joy.”
“You think so? I’m not sure they’re in love.”
“Trust me. They love each other. If it didn’t make me feel like a perv, I’d put money on them losing their V-cards together.”
“Oh, God.” She squinched up her face and shook her head. “Why? Tyler? Why?”
“What? I’m sure they’ll be over eighteen, and there’ll be plenty of rose petals. Does that make you feel better?”
“No, you sicko. And I wouldn’t wish rose-petal virginity losing on my worst enemy. Too much pressure.”
“Bad experience?” he asked, blatant curiosity written in every line of his face.
“Not bad. Just awkward. I was kind of old. Twenty. And I’d been dating this guy for a few months. I was kind of like, eh, why not? Meanwhile he was like—”
“Drawing you a bath and serenading you with Boyz II Men?”
“Pretty much, yeah. He did the whole nine. Champagne. Flowers. Chocolate-covered strawberries...”
“And then you had really terrible, awkward first-timer sex?”
“Yup.” She popped the p. “We didn’t last as a couple much longer after that. It was pretty clear we weren’t on the same page.” She took a swig of beer. “How about you?”
“My first time? Let’s see. I had you beat. I was twenty-one.”
“Late bloomer?”
“Sort of? I think people thought I was gay because of the ballet thing, so I’d often go on a date and then the girl would be like, ‘Hold on, is this a date?’ Not exactly an aphrodisiac.”
“Was she your girlfriend?”
He grimaced. “No. Just a nice girl I met at a party. We did it in somebody’s bedroom and then got walked in on by a drunk kid looking for the bathroom while my pants were still around my ankles.”
She grimaced too. “Ouch.”
“You said it.”
“You think anyone’s first time is like, amazing?” she asked.
“Probably?”
“Doubts.” This conversation was making them both a little giggly, and something about the way she said “doubts” made them both burst into loud laughter. It was the kind of laughter that picked you up and shook you out. The kind of laughter that m
ade you feel like you’d just sprinted around the block in the fresh cold air. The kind that made it very hard to stop smiling afterward and made everything else seem funny simply by association.
The kind that made everything it touched sort of glitter.
She was still glittering an hour later, after they’d split the cake, when she and Tyler walked Anthony down to the curb and put him in a cab. She was still glittering when Tyler waved down another cab for her, held the door open for her.
Still glittering when, to her surprise, he reached down before closing the door and gave her shoulder a good, firm squeeze.
“Night, Fin.”
“Night, Ty.”
And then he did that thing. That thing where a man knocks twice against the roof of the cab to indicate that it’s time to pull away.
She figured she had to add that to the list along with tie-adjusting and helping a woman take a coat off. Because Fin just sort of crumpled back into her seat, her eyes closed, savoring the glitter of the moment the way someone might savor the first sip of truly great whiskey, or a fresh strawberry still warm from the sun, or a first kiss.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A WEEK LATER, Tyler was trying not to be disappointed as he stood in Via and Seb’s kitchen, Matty and Mary chatting away at the counter, Seb canoodling with Via while she attempted to wash lettuce for their salad.
Fin wasn’t there. And now, only in the face of the brick wall of his disappointment could Tyler admit that he’d maybe been kinda, sorta looking forward to seeing her there tonight.
They hadn’t seen one another since he’d put her in that cab last weekend.
January had slammed the door on its way out, dumping eight inches of snow, followed by two hours of freezing rain, and then plunging New York into what felt like subzero temperatures for almost a week straight. Everyone in the city was living in enough layered clothing that it took at least four minutes to undress for bed each night. Tyler hadn’t seen his own skin in five days. Well, except for showers.
And now, here they were in February. The grayest, coldest month of the year, where all there was to look forward to was fudging on New Year’s resolutions and maybe happening to see Fin at a friend’s dinner. Where she then didn’t show up for no good reason at all.