Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Jessica Hawkins

  I pound on Rich’s door until he yells from the other side, “All right, all right. Jesus. Who is it?”

  “Me.”

  The deadbolt slides open, and Rich peeks out, squinting. He looks less surprised to find me drunk on his doorstep in the middle of the night than I would’ve guessed. “Come in, Halston.”

  “I need a place to crash.”

  “I already said come in.” He opens the door wider. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, and I’m sleeping on the couch.”

  He surrenders with both palms up and leads me into the kitchen. “You know where the linens are. I’ll get you some water.”

  “I’m drunk.”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m sorry.” I steady myself on the kitchen island as he gets a glass from a cupboard. “I know you hate that.”

  “Actually . . . no. In a way, I’m kind of, I guess, glad.”

  Did he say glad? “Huh?”

  He glances up from under his lashes as he pours me filtered water. “I’ve been waiting for this to happen, and I’d hoped you’d come here when it did. Where you feel safe.”

  Is that true? Did I come crawling back here knowing the most dangerous feeling I might experience is tedium or Rich’s standard-grade condescension? “You’re not mad?”

  “No.” He brings me the glass, stopping for Tylenol from a medicine drawer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really. I just want to sleep.”

  “Does it have to do with him? Is it over?”

  I gulp down water and pills, looking at Rich over the rim of the glass. It doesn’t feel over—how could it be? How could all that love and passion just vanish into thin air? Finn said it, though. If I left, that was it. Defying Finn is less exhilarating now, less righteous, than it was twenty minutes ago.

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Rich doesn’t need to know any of that. “Not over.”

  He sighs on his way to the linen closet. “What’s with the bag?”

  I almost forgot. I open the flap of Finn’s bag, but there’s nothing in there. Finn still has his camera. And the account, and anything that means something to me. My chest aches, also empty. “It’s his.”

  “Ah.” Rich hands me a pile of folded sheets topped with a pillow and blanket. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

  I’m surprised he doesn’t have more to say, but I’m not about to argue. He follows me into the living room and turns off the lights before leaving me to it. I make up the couch.

  While removing my shoes and tights, I topple onto the cushions. I leave my dress on, get under the blanket, and take out my cell. I have the urge to talk to Finn, but what is there to say? I’m still angry. I still don’t think he was right to cut me out like that. Does he even want to hear from me?

  Instead, I open my camera roll. In here, I keep the photos Finn has sent me that we don’t share. The ones that’re just for us. Me, sitting up in bed first thing in the morning, the sheet pulled up around my breasts, barely hiding my nipples. My hair is mussed from a night of lovemaking. From Finn. My eyes water.

  “Will you be warm enough?” Rich asks from the doorway.

  Startled, I put a protective hand over my screen so he doesn’t see anything. “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He clears his throat. Tonight’s half-moon casts some light into the room. “So he lets you get drunk alone at night in this city?”

  “I knew it.” I’ll let you get some sleep. Can’t believe I fell for that. “I knew you couldn’t resist.”

  “Sorry that I want you to be safe.”

  “You just want to say you told me so.”

  “So I did tell you so?” I can just make out the way his eyebrows shoot up. “You’re admitting I was right about him?”

  “No.” I frown until I’m pouting. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Can I just tell you how things look from my perspective?” he asks. “Then maybe you’ll understand my concern. One night, out of the blue, no warning, no valid reason, you dump me. Over the phone. Right after you go off antidepressants. Whenever I see you at work, you have dark circles under your eyes or you look like you’ve been crying. Next thing I know, your bodyguard boyfriend is threatening me to stay away from you. It’s like you’re brainwashed or something.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t know what hold he has over you, but something feels off. I’m worried he’s encouraging your patterns, or worse, he’s become one. I don’t want you to get involved with something dangerous, something that can’t be reversed, because you’re blinded by infatuation.”

  Even in my inebriated state, Rich’s words hit close to home. He knows me well—how could he not after two years? What if he sees something I don’t? I never recognize a pattern until I’m already in too deep to get out on my own. With coffee, I was excited to find Lait Noir, a place that served it just how I liked it. I hadn’t realized anything was different until my dad congratulated me on getting my spending under control again. When had I stopped shopping and started drinking coffee by the gallon?

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” I say.

  “I disagree.”

  “No, I mean . . . you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not your responsibility anymore. You and my dad are getting on fine without me, you don’t need to date me for him to like you.”

  Crossing his arms, he looks out the window. “I don’t know why you so vehemently believe that I loved around you. I didn’t. I loved you. I still do.”

  Rich doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Or does he? I didn’t think I’d hurt him very badly, or maybe I just didn’t think. I was too consumed by my own life. “I do love you, in a way, but I can be selfish. You knew that.”

  “That’s not an excuse. You just left, no explanation, no second chances. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”

  I didn’t. Slowly, a thought creeps in. What if, all this time, Rich and my dad really have known what’s best for me? What if their protectiveness, and Finn’s too, has come out of wanting me to be happy, not a need to subdue me so I can be managed? They’ve said it, but I’ve never really heard it. I believe the pain in Rich’s voice, though, and it makes me think maybe he really was in love with me. More than he let on.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s easier to say in the dark, even though the dark won’t stand still at the moment.

  “You love the drama,” he says. “You always have, which is why you wanted to be on antidepressants. You crave the ups and downs, but they scare you.” Rich sighs and pulls the curtains shut, shrouding me in complete darkness. “I’ll leave a light on in the bathroom in case you need to throw up.”

  “I won’t. I’m fine.”

  I close my eyes but immediately open them when the world tilts.

  He’s such a goddamn know-it-all.

  When I’m alone, I unlock my phone and swipe through more photos Finn took of me. He isn’t in any of them. Dad, Rich, Finn—they love me, they do. Why is it so hard for me to accept that? Maybe controlling me isn’t the best way to show it, but Finn has also supported and encouraged me. He’s the reason I’ve bloomed these past few months.

  Isn’t he allowed to be protective of what he loves?

  I wake at the crack of dawn, and I mean the crack. I guess Rich didn’t shut the curtains all the way, because one asshole beam of light slices right through the dark and onto my face. I sit up too fast. My body protests almost as hard as my pounding temples. Stumbling to the window, I yank the blinds all the way closed, but with the sun rising fast, it’s still not dark.

  I’m drudging back to the couch when I see him and nearly fall flat on my face.

  George Fox.

  He’s sleeping in the club chair next to the sofa, his burgundy cashmere sweater wrinkled like he’s a bourgeois vagrant. I blink a few times, rubbing my eyes in disbelief. “Dad?”

  He shifts. After a moment, he lifts his head, squinting at me. “Banana?”

/>   “What are you doing here?” I sit on the edge of the couch, facing him. “Did Rich call you?”

  “He was worried. And before you go off on him, just know he’s been worried for a long time and kept it all to himself. Until last night.” He sits up, grimacing. “I’m too damn rickety to be sleeping on a chair, Halston. Are you trying to send your old man to an early grave?”

  I look at the ground, my throat thickening with unshed tears. He drove an hour in the middle of the night to see me. It’s becoming clear that I’ve gone out of my way to hurt all the people who love me. It’s been a two-way street, but I’ve grown a lot the last few months and I can’t help wondering if much of my struggle the last ten years was imposed by myself.

  “How much did he tell you?”

  “You’re shacking up with some middle-aged artist?”

  I roll my eyes. “He’s not middle-aged. He’s in his thirties. And we live together.”

  “You should’ve told me. What if something had happened? I wouldn’t’ve been able to find you.”

  “Like what?” I ask. “What else could possibly happen?”

  He furrows his eyebrows, then leans his elbows on his knees. “I know you’re hurting. I just don’t know why you won’t let us help you.”

  “I have to do it on my own, Dad. I want to heal, not numb myself forever. I never properly dealt with my feelings surrounding . . . that.”

  “Minnie’s death.”

  I inhale back tears. He rarely uses her name. I know it hurts him to even say it. “It felt like when you put me on that stuff, you just wanted to shut me up. Make me move on.”

  “I wanted to stop the pain for you,” he says. “If you were going through even half of what I was—”

  “Of course I was. More, because it was my fault.”

  “Oh, baby.” He rubs his face, his hands shaking. “It’s not your damn fault.”

  My chest constricts. I don’t know if he realizes he’s never said that. “You made me think it was.”

  He looks up. He’s crying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t. Getting you treatment was the only way I could deal with the fact that I was falling apart. I was scared to bring you down with me, so I gave you to a professional.”

  “Then why keep me there for ten years?”

  He shakes his head. “I thought you were doing well. Weren’t you? You graduated college. Rich was good to you. You’ve been a productive, creative employee. She’d be so proud of you.”

  I cover my face to hold in the tears. A blur of the provocative images Finn and I took flash through my mind. “No she wouldn’t.”

  “Yes.” He reaches out and pulls one hand away by my wrist. “She is.”

  After a few stuttering breaths, my sobs break through. Dad moves over to the couch and holds me while I cry. This is what I needed. All I ever needed. To be allowed to be sad, to have regrets, and for my parent to support me through it.

  “I’ve screwed everything up,” I say into his chest. “All these years, I resented you when I should’ve embraced the fact that I still have you.”

  He rests his cheek on top of my head. “We still have plenty of time, you and me. Time to make the changes we both need to.”

  “Changes?” I look up at him. “How?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to go back to how things have been. I want to be part of your life, not just at work or during December. How do I do that?”

  As soon as he asks, I know the answer. He won’t like it, but it might be the best road to repairing our relationship. I swallow through the lump in my throat at the same time a laugh bubbles up. I begin to giggle.

  “Are you losing it?” he asks, frowning.

  I shake my head. “Therapy. You and me, together. Not with Lumby, but with a new doctor. A fresh start.”

  “Fuck.”

  That makes me laugh harder. “It’s not so bad. Sometimes it’s actually nice to just talk to someone who won’t judge you. That’s why I write.”

  “You write?”

  “My journals. You’ve seen them.”

  “Oh, right. Your diary.”

  “It’s not that,” I say carefully. “It’s more like . . . poetry, I guess. It makes me happy.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  How could he? I never told him. “Well, you do now. And one day—” Maybe this is too much for today. I shouldn’t push it. But, to my surprise, I want him to know. “I think I want to try and publish it.”

  He rubs my arm. “That’s—I don’t know anything about that, but if that’s what you want, I’m sure it’ll happen.”

  I grin. It’s as good an answer as I’ll get for now.

  “So what’re we going to do about this mess?” he asks. “I assume since you’re here, it’s over with that photographer and you’ve got nowhere to live.”

  My smile vanishes. Finn. If I can forgive my dad and Rich and move forward with them, then I can do the same with Finn. Once he understands where I was coming from, and he will now that I feel more equipped to explain, then we can patch up the holes we exposed last night and start on firmer foundation. “I love him,” I tell my dad.

  “Banana . . .”

  “I know. It’s soon. It seems irrational.” I pull back to look him in the face. “It’s not. He’s really good to me, Dad. In a roundabout way, he’s the reason you and I are having this conversation. He’s showing me how to be comfortable in my skin. Well, mostly. I’m working on it.”

  My dad looks torn, and I don’t blame him. It sounds shifty, any way you slice it. “How does he pay the bills?”

  “His pictures.” Kind of. “And he used to work on Wall Street, so I guess he does some trading on the side.”

  His posture relaxes. “You don’t say?”

  Now I’m speaking my dad’s language. But his question still stands.

  What am I going to do about this mess?

  Because that’s what I am—a mess. I’m realizing I’ll never have my shit together. And maybe that’s okay. Finn fell in love with my mess, and that makes it a little bit magical.

  It’s become ours.

  I ran away, though. I’m still learning to manage the emotionally-stunted teenager inside me. Will Finn understand that? How can I tap into the adult I need to be rather than indulge the adolescent I can’t seem to outgrow?

  I’m not sure. All I know is, I’m not ready to walk away from him. I’m ready to run back.

  31

  As soon as I hear a key in the door, my eyes open. I didn’t shut the blinds last night; the room is bright and cheery. This time, it only takes me a second to realize there’s no key. No Halston. I haven’t really slept all night, startling awake every time I hear a noise, thinking it’s her. I’ve been too on edge to do much more than shut my eyes, my emotions pinging between worry, anger, and hurt.

  She’s there.

  With him.

  I gave her a choice, and she didn’t choose me.

  I told her this would happen. Love can only take you so far. If Rich gave her the kind of stability our relationship may never have, can I blame her for going back to him?

  Yeah. I think I can. I let myself fall hard and deep. Now I feel completely fucked.

  I didn’t handle things the best way last night, but when I saw another empty glass on the bar, I panicked. She was drinking with a big, alluring idea in her head—who knows what she might’ve done? After months of watching her come apart with even a hint of negative feedback, I wasn’t about to let her put herself in front of a firing squad. Not until we’d discussed it thoroughly, and I’d figured out a better way to explain how risky going public would be. She’d have nowhere left to hide. No armor to deflect judgment. Just me, and I’m not sure how much longer I could’ve gone trying to preempt anything that might’ve hurt her.

  “Finn.”

  I shoot up in bed, my heart nearly jumping out of my chest. Halston stands with one hand curled around the inside of her dry elbow, still in her dress, tights,
and pumps. I look at the clock. 7:49 A.M. She’s never up and dressed this early on a weekend. For one selfish moment, I hope she’s been wandering around all night, but I know it isn’t true. She’s been with him.

  I sit up against the headboard. “What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice scratchy.

  She flinches. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Me too.”

  The sun highlights the bags under her eyes. The bright red color of her cheeks tells me she’s been crying. It’s not enough to make me go to her.

  She steps into the room, taking off her shoes. “We hit a hundred thousand,” she says. “Even without the last photo. Happy birthday.”

  I clench my teeth together. Again with this shit. I’m so fucking tired of hearing about followers, likes, comments. “Why are you here?” I repeat.

  Her chin trembles. “For you. I get it now. I understand it better.”

  “Yeah? Explain it to me.”

  “None of us are without our faults or even . . . mistakes. I’m not saying I’ll accept being manipulated or controlled, but I’m beginning to see that it’s always come from a good place. Even with Rich.”

  “Stop.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t know what this is, but if you’re here to justify going back to him, you can turn around and leave.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing. I’ll just get to the point. I had a long talk with my dad this morning. He came to Rich’s. I’ve been fighting him for so long, and I’m tired. So is he. We have work to do, but I know he loves me and wants what’s best for me. He’s trying to understand that I’m the one who knows what that is, not him. Ten years ago, he didn’t think he had any other option but to get me professional care.” She takes a breath. “And now, it’s like I’ve opened my eyes. If I’m not angry at him, I can see you and Rich better. You want to protect me out of love, nothing more. Am I right?”

  All I ever did was love her, hard. It’s defeating to try and explain that to her. I’m happy she’s finally getting there, but I also feel other things about it. Things I don’t yet understand. Like will her sentience keep? Was last night just a preview of what’s to come down the line? And am I ready for a potential lifetime of that?