Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Hawkins, Jessica

  I’m on the sunny, open second level of an Upper East Side apartment shooting senior class photos for a group of girls when I get the call that changes everything. It’s been over twenty-four hours since I saw Halston in person, but I was with her all night long. As I read more, I felt her with me. I pictured her writing in her journal, fantasizing as her pen moved across the page, then acting out those desires with me.

  Pry me apart

  Make it slow

  Forget my heart

  Make it fast

  Pry me apart

  My thoughts, my thighs

  Whatever it takes

  Your truths, your lies

  Lows and highs

  There is no feeling

  Like having you inside

  When the sky falls through the ceiling—

  “Mr. Cohen?”

  I start. Fuck. I forgot where I was. One of the moms is holding out a coffee. It’s not from Lait Noir, but I accept it. That’s when I look around and realize I’m sporting a hard-on in a roomful of teenage girls and their moms. I’ll be lucky if they don’t arrest me. “How do you think it’s going?” I ask.

  “Oh, I’m sure the photos are wonderful,” she says. “You seem to know just how to get the girls to liven up . . .”

  I stop listening. I could give two shits what they think, it’s not exactly my best work, but conversation will distract from my disheveled state. The students chew on ice in a corner. When one of them asked for snacks, they were denied. Anything other than vegetables might make them bloated, and carrots or celery would leave food in their teeth. This is the sort of thing my ex, Kendra, would do—hire a private photographer when the school provides a perfectly good one.

  I return my attention to the mother as she speaks. She’s not my type with pearls coiled around her neck, and styled, crispy hair. She’s also several years my senior, but I catch myself noticing the line of her collarbone, the delicate bracelet on her wrist, the resemblance of her hair color to coffee. I don’t want to take measured photos of snotty girls in uniforms. I want to make people feel the way Halston just made me feel without us even being in the same room.

  Caught.

  Flustered.

  Hot.

  Guilty.

  I haven’t been able to do that since Sadie. I’ve photographed other women for my portfolio, but they might as well be inanimate objects. Sadie continues to fuck me over a year later, stealing not only my future and my family from me, but my art too, the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life. Now that Halston’s reminded me how it feels to be feverish and consumed by someone, I want to turn my lens on her.

  My back pocket vibrates, and I get out my phone. It’s an unknown number, which could be new business. “Excuse me,” I interrupt the mom, handing her back the coffee. “I have to take this.”

  Crossing the room for some privacy, I answer the call. “Finn Cohen.”

  There’s silence on the other end. Fucking telemarketers. It always takes them a few seconds to pick up.

  “Hi.”

  I freeze. One word, and I know it’s Halston. All the things I want to say come bubbling to the surface. I’m not sure please don’t hang up is the right choice, so I go with the obvious response. “Hi.”

  “I’m sorry, I still had your card. I shouldn’t have run out on you yesterday. It was a nice thing you did, but I freaked out.” She releases a long breath. “This is Halston, by the way. From Lait Noir? Or from the art gallery, I guess.”

  Even though I believed the journal was hers all along, I’m relieved. I don’t know if I can take getting fucked over by fate again. I don’t want to convince myself she’s the one. I want to feel it in my gut, and my gut is telling me not to blow this. “I know who you are.”

  “Right. I’m sorry I ran out, except . . . I’m not sure I’m the one who should apologize. You kind of stalked me, showing up at the gallery that way.”

  “Yeah . . . about that.” I glance around to make sure none of the moms are nearby. Between untimely boners and tracking women, I could rack up some serious charges if I’m not careful. I step into the hallway. “The journal seemed valuable. I wanted you to have it back, that’s all.”

  “It is. Valuable. I’ve tried to stop, but I can’t. I’ve even tried to get rid of them. When I lost it last week, it was . . . I couldn’t believe it. I felt so helpless, naked.”

  I don’t know which of the questions running through my head I should start with.

  What is she trying to stop? Why get rid of it? Them? There are others?

  If the journal is so important to her, why deny ownership?

  Did she say naked?

  “Anyway,” she says. “Thank you for going through the trouble, and I can pay you for that, but I’d like it back.”

  “I don’t want your money.” I scratch the scruff on my jaw. Maybe I should’ve taken care to shave this morning. “Where are you?”

  “Work. Off Fourteenth. I can meet you after.”

  “I’ll send you my address. I live by the coffee shop.”

  “Should we meet there instead?”

  “Nah. I have better coffee at my place.” I doubt that’s what she’s worried about, but I don’t want to be in yet another crowded place with her. In public, we’re strangers meeting briefly for a benign purpose. I need more of the intimacy I got from her words, even if it can’t come close to what I really want. “I have to get back to work,” I say, afraid she’ll protest, “but I’ll text when I’m done.” I hang up.

  When I get back to my job, the moms don’t seem so bad. I have something to look forward to for the first time in a while—since Sadie. And even then, looking forward to Sadie came with a certain sickness in my gut. I never knew when I’d see her. If her husband would appear at my door instead. If the next words out of her mouth would intoxicate or crush. The affair had been exhilarating. Exciting. Stimulating. Everything my marriage wasn’t. At the time, I would never have described it as exhausting, but looking back, it almost seems to be the most appropriate of words.

  Maybe, just maybe, it was all meant to lead me to Halston. If my instinct is right this time, if she’s the one I’ve been looking for, then the heartbreak, the struggle, the loss—it would be worth it.

  6

  Not much sends my heart racing like a knock at my door. It’s a conditioned response to last November, when the person at the door could’ve been my mistress, her husband, or my wife.

  Kendra packed up our house in Connecticut while I got our new apartment here in Gramercy Park ready for her and Marissa. Twice, she came into the city to surprise me, but it only took one fuck-up from me for her to jump to conclusions. She’d accused me of infidelity enough times over our marriage, but the difference was, when she found Sadie’s coat in the apartment, that time she was right.

  When Halston knocks, I’m instantly tense, even knowing who’s on the other side of the door . . . or maybe that knowledge makes it worse. She’s early, but I’m ready for her.

  She stands on my doorstep, holding her purse in front of her, white-knuckling it with both hands. “I’ve always loved this neighborhood,” she says.

  “Don’t you live here?”

  “No.” She gives me a look. “How would you know where I live?”

  “Something you said.” She’d mentioned Lait Noir was convenient, but really, I’m just looking for more information. I step aside. “Come in.”

  She cranes her neck, looking around. There isn’t anything to see in the enclosed entryway. “Is that coffee I smell?” she asks.

  “I just put on a pot.”

  She won’t come in for me, but apparently she will for coffee. Fine. “Can I take your coat?”

  She shrugs out of it. Like an old habit, I check her outfit, trying to find a piece of the puzzle I’m creating in my mind. A picture of who she really is. Her top is white but the material is thick enough to hide her bra. With her hair down, her tattoo is hidden. She’s wearing black pants and those leath
er boots again that come up to her knees.

  “I told a friend, a man, I’d be here.”

  I blink from her legs to her face. I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that she needed to tell someone where she is. And to let me know about it. “Do I scare you?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “This just isn’t something I’d normally do. Go to a stranger’s apartment by myself.”

  I turn and lead her into the living room. “What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

  She hesitates so long that I glance back at her. “Any number of things,” she says softly.

  I’ve seen through her eyes. Maybe if I hadn’t peeked inside her mind, I might not understand. I do, though. She lives in vivid fantasies of love, sex, pain, need. Of course, a stranger would slip right into any role she wants—a hero to save her, a villain to be terrorized by. They both make for good fiction. “Don’t worry. You’re safe with me.”

  She looks at the only things in the room—the big screen TV, a neutral-colored couch and love seat, an antique wooden coffee table. Books stacked on the window ledge above a vintage record player. My sneakers by the kitchen doorframe. My camera bag on the coffee table. That’s all of it.

  She touches her neck. It’s possible I’ve made it too warm in here. “How long have you lived here?” she asks.

  “Why not your boyfriend?”

  She whips her gaze back to me. “What?”

  “You said you told a male friend you were here. Why not your boyfriend?”

  She swallows. I’d like to feel her skin on mine, the delicate ripple of her throat against my palm. She crosses her arms lightly, as if she needs something to do with her hands.

  She looks so uncomfortable, I let her off the hook. “I’ll get the coffee,” I say, going into the kitchen. “I moved in last November.”

  “You don’t have much furniture.”

  I pour coffee from the pot into a mug, comforted by the black hole it creates. “I’m in the process of replacing it.”

  “Bed bugs?”

  “What?”

  “Is that why you had to get rid of your furniture?”

  “Oh.” Gross, but I’m not sure if the truth is worse. When I’d rented this apartment, I’d already begun moving things in from our house in Connecticut when Kendra found out about the affair. She’d made me move it all back. Not that I’d been upset to say goodbye to the butt-ugly, green-velvet couch she’d bought without my input, or the kittens-with-babies photographs she’d insisted on hanging in my mature daughter’s room.

  I guess I should be grateful I got to pick out my own shit for once, but I’ve never had an eye for interior decorating. I only buy what I need.

  I can’t begin to think of how to explain all that to Halston without freaking her out. “Sure . . .” I say. “Bed bugs.”

  I return to the living room with two steaming mugs. She takes one before I even offer it, lifting it to her lips.

  “It’s hot,” I say. “You’ll burn—”

  She sips and winces, but hums with appreciation. Her eyes are closed, yet I can’t take mine off her. I watch her like she’s the goddamn Mona Lisa come to life. I want her to hum into my mouth, to melt like that with my tongue between her legs. The way she writes, the way she moves—she’s got to be sensuality personified in bed.

  My craving for her makes it hard to talk, and even more difficult to control myself. “You shouldn’t do that, by the way.”

  She opens her eyes. “Do what?”

  “Go to a stranger’s place alone. Drink from a cup without knowing what’s in it.”

  Her lips part for an audible breath. “But you said—”

  “You’re safe with me. Just don’t make it a habit.”

  She holds the coffee to her chest, right above her breasts, as if I might try to take it back. “It’s good. Where’s it from?”

  This time, it’s hard to speak for a different reason. I’ve had a bag of Quench coffee in the freezer for a year. I couldn’t drink it after Sadie left, that shop the coffee came from was something special between us, but I couldn’t get myself to throw it out either. Now I realize I’ve filled the entire apartment with the smell of Sadie but am only now noticing it. I don’t want to be thinking about Sadie when I’m here with Halston, so I say, “Quench Coffee, a few blocks over.”

  “I’ve been there,” she says. “They have a location in Chelsea Market, right?”

  I nod. “Best coffee in the city, if you ask me, but like you said, Lait Noir is more convenient.”

  “Not if you take Lexington. It’s probably about the same, distance-wise.”

  I rub my chest. “I’ll go grab your journal.”

  “Where is it?”

  “My bedroom,” I say before I realize how it sounds.

  “Your bedroom?” she asks.

  Shit. It sounds bad, because it is. “I was just, you know, keeping it where I could see it.”

  “Sure,” she says as I turn. “Leave the lotion and tissues, though.”

  I look back, my eyes wide.

  She’s busting my balls, and I have no comeback. Just a flushed face. I can slink off, shamed, or I can give it right back to her. “I’ve made no secret of the fact that your words do something to me. So, yeah, I did something to them. I’m sorry if that’s overshare, but why else would I practically hunt you down?”

  She bites her bottom lip with all her teeth, hard enough to turn the skin around it red. “Finn . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Boyfriend. Fuck off, Finn. This is dangerous territory. I go into my room and grab the leather book from my nightstand. I should return it to her and ask her to leave. It seems unfair, but as long as there’s a third-party, I can’t risk getting too close.

  She has to go.

  When I return from my room, she’s sitting on the couch, and I know right away that I don’t have what it takes to make her leave. If she does it on her own, it’d be hard not to stop her, but asking her to go? I can’t. I’ve never been able to flip fate the bird, as many times as I probably should have.

  To put some distance between us, I take the loveseat. It came with the couch, or I wouldn’t know fuck all about loveseats, but now I’m glad for it. As tempted as I am to get physically closer to Halston, distance is my friend right now. Too close, and I might forget how it feels to lose what was never mine to begin with.

  To her credit, she holds my gaze, even though I just admitted to jerking it to her words. She’s getting braver with me. I can practically feel her not looking at the journal until she caves and drops her eyes to my lap. “You read it,” she says quietly.

  “Not all of it. But yeah. A lot.”

  “And you can still look me in the eye?”

  “I was caught off guard at first.” My hand sweats around the leather. “But you’re talented. You drew me in and I’ve been unable to get out since.”

  I think I see tears in her eyes, but then they’re gone. “It’s just a bunch of random stuff. I wouldn’t have thought anyone would even get it.”

  I wish I could explain how it felt to read through her pages. Like she’d been inside my head. “I get it.”

  “Because of the sex?” she asks.

  I sit back a little. “It’s more than that, you know it is. It’s really moving, the way you write.” She stares down so hard, I wonder if she’s even listening. “I don’t understand why you tried to deny it was yours.”

  “I looked at your website,” she says quickly, glancing up again.

  “Oh.” The subject change leaves me scrambling to shift gears. “My website?”

  “It took almost ten seconds to load.”

  “Yeah, that could be right.” I rub the back of my neck. I designed my own website, but I haven’t put much effort into making it any good. My technical skills have gotten me as far as I can go on my own, but it’s kind of like my apartment. Just the necessities. “It’s a work in progress.”

  “I got bored waiting, so I went to your Instagram inste
ad and looked through everything.”

  Just like that, she’s turned the tables. Now I’m the one naked and on display. Ever since I quit my job, I’ve desperately wanted people to just look at my pictures, hire me for a gig or two. But suddenly, I wish she hadn’t. My work is nothing like her words. It isn’t worthy of her almost-stormy, definitely-confusing gray eyes.

  We stare at each other.

  Stalemate.

  Neither of us wants to talk about our work. It’s too personal. Too raw. I actually care what she thinks, and maybe she feels the same.

  “It’s good, your stuff,” she says finally. “But . . .”

  My stomach drops. Well, fuck. I guess we are going to talk about it. “But what?”

  “I’m—how do I explain this? One of my responsibilities at work is judging art.”

  I set her journal on the cushion next to me. “What do you do?”

  “Market research for an ad agency. You know how you go into a dentist’s office or a chain restaurant or even a clothing store and they have art displayed? Photos on the walls or sculptures out front?” She waits for me to nod. “I help businesses choose art that speaks to their customers. Or in some cases, doesn’t.”

  “Why does a customer care what’s on the wall?”

  “Because you don’t want art that’s so good, people get distracted from your product. Or you don’t want a patient to see something aggressive while waiting to have their mouth torn apart. Right?”

  “I guess. I never really thought about it.”

  “There’s a lot that goes into that.” She purses her lips. “I have a team that collects and analyzes data on consumers. We’ll run focus groups to see how people interpret certain images or colors, types of clothing, hair color. If you’re selling parkas, you don’t want people looking at a beach.”

  I drink from my mug to hide my expression. Is my artwork the beach in this situation? After everything I just confessed this is beginning to feel like a sucker punch.

  “That’s why I was at the City Still Life exhibit,” she says. “To network and buy some things for clients.”

  The coffee tastes stale all of a sudden. “So it wasn’t crap then.”