“You’re sure?” Denise Revero said. She had that are-you-really tone.
“You’re not.”
“You’re incredibly marketable, Tom. But even more so if you do a year or two as MD of Rendel. It’s the cost of waiting versus jumping into something new now. Unless I can get you into an MD role, you might get there quicker by waiting than you will by starting fresh somewhere else. Is there another reason for wanting to search outside Chicago? Because if there is, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble placing you in either city, but you could also think about San Francisco. I know, I know, living costs are higher, but for the right job, I’d get you the right money.”
There was a wine-colored dress with what he now knew were called three-quarter sleeves that would soon be seen on streets outside Chicago. “No, no other reason. I thought it made sense not to restrict the search.”
“In any case, you’re right to think about this before Rendel slap a restraint clause on you and you can’t move to a competitor without them suing you. I’ll nose around and see what I come up with,” Denise said.
Later in the day when he next saw Wren, he checked her feet. Navy with a white toecap, medium-height heels. “Those are no-nonsense,” he said, pointing at them.
She looked down. “Why are you taking notice of my shoes?”
“Everyone notices your shoes.” She didn’t buy them loud by accident.
“I repeat, why are you taking notice of my shoes? I know they’re fabulous, but they’re all about me, so you don’t get a say about them.”
“I don’t want a say about them. I just figured out there is a rule of law about your shoes.”
Both her brows shot up toward her hairline. “This’ll be good.”
“You choose your shoes based on what you think is going to happen during the day. That’s why sometimes you arrive in zebra or leopard and later I see you ditched the zoo for something plainer. I thought it had to do with comfort, but it’s not that.”
Wren narrowed her eyes at him. “How many years have I known you?”
“Since the grad program here.” They’d joined Rendel together, along with Josh.
“And now you have a theory about my shoes.”
“I always noticed them. I never understood them.”
“And what makes you think you do now?”
Half an hour spent on his hands and knees to make sure Flick was appropriately shod. “Women’s clothing is complex. I never thought about how there is a code. What you choose to wear is part of that. Oh sure, I know a dark suit is conservative, and you don’t wear a party dress to the office, but when you wear leopard or zebra shoes with your black skirt, you’re making a statement that you’re more than the suit.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Who are you and what did you do with old Tom?”
“Josh already knew all that stuff, didn’t he?”
“He did. And now I’m completely freaked out by you. Please go back to being the oblivious Tom I know and deeply resent for not needing to wear animal-print shoes to make a statement, or I’ll think you’re back on with Flick and start to worry you’ll do something rash, like quit and move to Washington with her.”
“When have I ever done anything rash?” It would be rash to throw up his job here to start again somewhere else. Denise Revero as much as said so.
It wasn’t rash to assume Flick would be home for dinner and hungry, so he went by the market first. She was home, standing on the balcony still wearing the clothes and shoes he’d laid out for her. It was perversely pleasing to know it was a one-off. If he tried suggesting what she wore outside for something like a hike, he’d be risking skin. Although he had every intention of seeing her in the black thing that looked odd on the hanger.
He joined her, smoothing both hands up her back, closing his fingers over the bunch of her hair and pulling her head back to his shoulder so he could see her face.
“How did the day’s wardrobe choice work out?”
“Very fine, thank you.”
The words and the expression didn’t match. Her voice was flat and there was no sunshiny smile. He moved Flick in his arms so they were face-to-face, a shot of fear zipping up his spine. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Flick?” If it was Drew, he had to know. If it was Drew, he needed to work out what she needed from him and be there with it.
She put her hand to his face. “Oh, Tom, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”
He’d read her wrongly. He’d taken her hiking and made her come in the bath and held her while she grieved, dressed her for work without screwing up. He’d made her scream with delight and howl in annoyance. How was it still possible he could get her moods wrong?
“Oh, hell. I had another fight with Elsie. It always makes me feel rotten.”
“A fight with your sister.” That’s all. He forced a stale breath out. He should be relieved.
“Yeah. I knew it would happen too. I’m such a patsy. The bikes she blackmailed me into buying, they’ve been stolen. I mean, I don’t know if they’ve truly been stolen or traded away. I only have Elsie’s word and she’s insisting I buy two more bikes, as it’s my fault these two got taken.”
“You’re upset about a bike.”
“Two bikes, and maybe it is my fault. I could’ve bought less expensive ones. They were probably a target. Thing is, I wouldn’t put it past my stupid brother-in-law to have pawned them.”
He shook his head and turned away. Dumping his suit coat and tie, undoing buttons and rolling up his sleeves. He’d gotten it so wrong. He didn’t know Flick at all. It was a good reminder they were only in this temporarily. It was coupons, not commitment. He was an idiot for letting himself get in so deep when this was only a distraction.
“Oh, Tom, you thought it was Drew.”
Now it was anger that fizzled in his head. Bikes. He went to the kitchen and started on dinner.
He bashed around, acutely aware she’d followed him inside and was sitting at the counter. “Hey, can you look at me, Tom?”
He fiddled about with the stove, keeping his back to her.
“I annoyed you. And I haven’t taken anything off and spread it around the room yet.”
“Let me get this started.”
“Which is your way of saying you don’t want to talk to me.”
He turned to face her. “What do you want me to say?” You’re leaving. I’m fucking invested in you and you’re leaving. It occurred to me there was nothing stopping me from following you.
“That you got upset because—”
“Thought you’d fixed things with your sister.”
“That’s what you thought?”
He couldn’t lie so outright to her. “I thought it was Drew.”
“And you didn’t like how that made you feel.”
How was it that she could read him so much better than he could read her? That was his problem. Feelings too intense for a relationship too temporary.
“I think we should put on loud music and dance till our legs give out,” she said.
“That’s not on a coupon.”
“An off-coupon special.”
He came around the counter. “Very loud music, from musicians I’ve never heard of.” He put a hand to her ear and worked an earring out. Did the other one, putting them both on the counter. Then he lifted the necklace over her head. She let her shoes drop to the floor one by one. He took the pearl slide from her hair and was surprised to find it didn’t fall everywhere.
“There are pins and a band. Artfully tousled hair like this doesn’t just happen.”
He found them. One by one, the pins went to the countertop, until Flick’s hair was free and his emotions had settled, soothed by the process of undressing her.
“I overreacted,” he said.
“Talking to Elsie makes me
so mad and then it depresses me. Knowing you were worried like that makes me want to keep you forever, Tom.”
But that wasn’t on a coupon either, regular glitter pack or special off-coupon offer.
They both changed. He cooked and they watched the first episode of The Handmaid’s Tale instead of dancing. They went to bed on clean sheets in Tom’s room where it wasn’t dystopian societies or coupons or forever that mattered. It was skin and touch, reaction and smell and every emotion they were both capable of that counted.
Chapter Eighteen
After that night when Flick spooked him, Tom took it easy with the coupons, going for the least emotionally taxing ones. They went out to breakfast. He dressed her for bed, in her sleep shorts and T-shirt, and then changed his mind and dressed her in nothing. They saw a movie—he did, she fell asleep during it—and had Vietnamese takeout that was delicious.
He was less easy with her about her shopping. Saturday morning she went out and bought new bikes at Target. “Glad that’s done,” she said, when they were sharing a bowl of nachos on the balcony.
“For now.”
“Right, until the girls grow again, because these new bikes aren’t as pawnable, but that’s not what you meant, is it?” He crunched a corn chip and she narrowed her eyes at him. “What am I supposed to do, Tom?”
“Set boundaries.”
“With my own family.” It was all right for him, he didn’t have people who needed his help. “What kind of person would that make me?”
“One who’ll survive them.”
“I might resent how they go about asking for help, but that doesn’t mean it’s not deserved.”
“I’m not saying don’t help out.”
“I know what you’re saying, put them on a budget, be selective, don’t let them take advantage of me.” She unfolded from the sun lounge and went to the railing, kept her back to him. “You don’t think I’ve tried all of that?” Tried and failed and put that on repeat.
“You saw how things are with Dad. They’d be worse if I hadn’t put distance between us. I don’t want things to be worse for you because your family keep dragging on you.”
“I can handle it.” Tom should stick to making nachos.
“Flick Dalgetty, you can handle anything you put your mind to, but no one should make you act out of guilt that’s not deserved.”
The tension dropped out of her neck and shoulders. He wasn’t trying to start a fight about this. She turned and rested her back against the railing. “You’re sweet on me, Tom O’Connell.”
“Is there a coupon for that?” he said.
There was for a TV marathon.
Flick made popcorn and they marathoned their way through ten episodes of Westworld. Eleven hours and a pizza later, they were sprawled on the sectional speculating about what the next season would be about.
“It’s the dawn of consciousness in artificial intelligence,” she said. “Maeve is the only one who can wake herself up in the real world.”
“What makes you think that isn’t a manipulation? She’s programmed to try to leave the park.”
“That’s so cynical.”
“The whole show is a mind fuck.”
She slumped over sideways on the sectional. “Oh my God, they’ve sucked me right in. I’m going to get more wandering around in the wilderness and distorted reality and I’m never going to know what’s true. I want a happy ending and I’m not going to get one, am I?”
“Does anyone?” he said.
Was he serious? She sat up and thumped the seat. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“They exist. They have to.” Otherwise life was guilt and fear and loneliness and too damn hard.
“Where’s the evidence? Not from my parents, or yours, or your sisters. Wren is still pining after Josh, which is a kind of complicated I can’t begin to understand. What’s a happy ending anyway, except a manipulation sponsored by Hollywood and Mills & Boon?”
She crawled across the space between them, right up in his face. “Please tell me you’re joking?” He didn’t crack a smile. He’d told her earlier he’d never binge-watched a TV series before. It was sometimes hard to believe this man existed, walked around upright, functioning in the world and caring about her family relationships.
“I don’t think everyone gets the same kind of happy ending. I don’t think it’s a marriage-only bargain. Some people find it in their work,” she said.
“That’s not the deal. The happy ending is about finding the one.”
“Says you, who said you don’t believe in it. There could be more than one over a lifetime. And the one might be more than one at a time, and the—” He laughed and she stopped. “You know what I mean.”
“I have an inkling.”
“Ooh, an inkling. You do say the darnedest things.”
He grabbed her and hauled her into his lap. She was set to get inklinged, and it was about time. They’d both been so absorbed by the show, they’d only taken breaks for the bathroom and for food top-ups. Tom was overdue to marathon The Wire and it was well and truly time for another kind of top-up.
“What’s your happy ending look like, Flick?”
She knelt over his thighs, facing him, one hand resting on his heart, the other messing with his hair. By the fix of his features she knew this was a serious question. It made her stomach swirl. What was that, nerves? This was Tom—what was there to be nervous about?
“All my coupons redeemed.”
“That’s all you need?”
No, that was a fake-news answer, but that swooping in her stomach was in her chest now and she didn’t know what it meant, except she wanted Tom to kiss her and she wanted him to cook for her and be at her back and let her be at his. What more could she expect from a roommate she was in love with?
Oh. God. That’s what it was.
She was lovesick over him.
She’d couponed herself into a corner and she was going to break her own heart. They had this mad physical attraction thing, and they liked to argue, to talk shop about work, and since the coupons they’d learned so much more about each other, but that couldn’t be love; it was infatuation at best. She did stuff that annoyed him. And his stoic adherence to a routine made her want to shake him.
If he really wanted to be with her, he’d say, wouldn’t he? He’d missed out on his promotion and if he was going to quit for somewhere new, that somewhere new could be in Washington. But he wouldn’t do that, because he was Tom and he didn’t leap into the unknown and no matter how many romantic bubble baths they shared, they weren’t each other’s one.
Oh God.
“Whatever you’re thinking, Flick, I’m convinced I won’t like it.” He traced a finger down her nose to rest on her lips.
She bit it softly. “Do you believe in love?”
“I believe in attraction. The chemistry. Can’t claim to understand it, but it exists. We have it. People do crazy things in the name of it.”
They did. It wasn’t a terrible answer. It’s just that she wanted more than a chemical reaction to build her life on, because after the froth and steam, after the color change and the oxidization took effect, what were you left with?
“Think I’d like to go to bed now. I’ll play the brothel madam and you can play the innocent-but-ready-to-be-debauched tourist who has no moral qualms about doing it with a robot woman.”
“I didn’t choose the fantasy coupon yet.”
He had a lot of things left to choose, before their chemical reaction was a finished experiment. “Consider it practice.”
He made her whoop when he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, a slap to her ass to hold her in place. He played the brothel-visiting ready-to-be-debauched tourist surprisingly well for a man who’d only recently learned to enjoy a blow job, and enthusiastically requested another
one, and the next morning he hung her black satin off-the-shoulder body-con dress on the bedroom door.
They were going out for dinner. She had to scramble to get a reservation somewhere decent.
And that dress called for some quality primping. She sent him to the gym while she did the full overhaul including an avocado clay mask, mini facial and hair treatment. He did not need to see her wandering around with green goop all over her face and her head in a plastic bag.
She exfoliated and moisturized from top to toe. She curled her hair and put it up. She took extra care over her makeup, and the first thing Tom said when he saw her dressed and ready was “How does that stay up?”
“I have to breathe carefully.”
“You can breathe in that? I had no idea it would look like that from seeing it on the hanger.”
“You don’t like it?” She wanted to take that back. She looked edible and if he couldn’t see that, he was blind, and outside of having to dress a specific way for work, to hell with dressing to please a man, which was what she’d spent all afternoon attempting. Goddammit.
“I’m in—”
He paused, and in the gap, she heard love.
“—awe. I’m worried about touching you in case I wreck something.” He said that as he hesitantly ran a hand around her waist to spread his palm over her back.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Heartache, despair, the return of the sleepless nights she’d stopped having, mostly because the sex was exhausting and she didn’t want to leave a bed Tom was in.
“You could flash your underwear in a restaurant full of nice, unsuspecting people.”
“What underwear?”
He double-blinked and then his eyes narrowed as his hand went first up her back, feeling for a bra strap, and then down looking for a panty line.
“Fuck me, are you naked under this dress?”
“It’s not going to fall off.”
“Oh Lord, you are. Why are we leaving the condo?”
“Because you chose the dinner-out coupon.”
“I need my head examined.”
“I thought that’s what I’d been doing since I moved in.”
The Love Coupon Page 20