They got dressed in companionable silence; a little awkward, certainly, but tinged with a giddy sort of anticipation that reminded Rosemary of the feeling she got when she was on the brink of a breakthrough in an experiment.
He walked her back to her building, a housing facility for faculty that was more like a row of condos than a dormitory, on the edge of campus. With a quick look around to ensure the coast was clear of students wandering home from the next-door recreation center, patrolling security guards, or marauding academy presidents, Wes pressed her back against the door of her apartment and delivered a scorching good-night kiss.
Rosemary kissed him back, her spine melting into the door. What happened next?
“Do you … would you want to come up for a while?” she asked. Curses. Did one never grow out of this terrible, painful social discomfort? She’d thought herself over it long ago, but evidently not.
Wes didn’t seem to notice. He let his body rub against hers, his weight keeping her deliciously trapped, and pulled back just enough to catch her gaze.
“You have no idea how much I’d love to, Doc. But I’ve got Lucille; she’s been shut up in my dorm all afternoon. Gotta let my baby out to do her thing. I could come over after, though. If you want.”
The rush of disappointment cleared Rosemary’s head. “No,” she decided. “That would be impractical. It’s late now, and we both have work to do tomorrow. There are some avenues of inquiry I’d like to pursue on the aphrodisiac project.”
“Oh ho,” he crowed, leaning his hands against the door on either side of her head, so there was breathing room between their bodies, but Rosemary still felt surrounded by him. “So you admit there’s something to inquire about, huh?”
“Maybe,” she said repressively. “Perhaps. We won’t know until we test my theories.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, dipping his head to nuzzle into her neck. “I’ve got a few theories I’d like to test, myself.”
“Stop it,” she said, in spite of the full-body shudder the touch of his mouth induced. “From now on, the lab will have to be off-limits for … for—” She didn’t even know what to call what they were doing.
“Shenanigans?” he supplied. “Sexual escapades?”
“Intercourse,” she said firmly.
“God.” Wes moaned. “Are you trying to torture me?”
“I’m merely attempting to apply the correct label to the situation. Any pain you feel is merely a negative externality.”
“You’re going to kill me dead,” he told her. “Talking like that, then sending me away? Heartless.”
“I invited you up,” she cried, smacking his chest. “You’re the one putting your dog’s needs ahead of your libido. Which, I suppose, could be considered admirable.”
“Even grumbling is cute on you,” he said, landing one last kiss against her temple before stepping back.
Despite the seasonably warm temperatures, Rosemary felt cold the instant his arms dropped away.
“Good night, then,” she said, suddenly feeling ridiculously shy. She turned to fit her key to the lock.
“ ’Night, Doc. It’s been … well, like nothing I ever had before. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The intensity in his voice had Rosemary’s fingers clenching around her house key. She whirled to get a look at his face, to try and figure out what he meant by that cryptic statement, but he was already walking away.
She stood there watching the lean line of his back and shoulders, listening to the crunch of his shoes against the gravel pathway, and felt something unfamiliar trying to take hold in her chest.
It lodged there, just under her breastbone, as she went about her nightly routine. She climbed into bed, her mind filled with images from the evening, along with a healthy dose of satisfaction at not being a virgin any longer. Not that sex with Wes Murphy felt like ticking something off her to-do list, but there was an element of personal accomplishment to it. A milestone passed, an important rite of passage observed.
Better late than never, she supposed. And really, she was glad she’d waited.
Despite the physical exhaustion of her body, and the way her muscles felt well used and pleasantly sore, Rosemary had a difficult time falling asleep. It was that strange feeling in her chest that distracted her and kept her awake; it felt as if someone had attached electrodes beneath her skin, buzzy and almost painful, but shockingly stimulating, too.
As she relived each thrilling moment of mind-blanking pleasure with Wes, everything inside Rosemary lit up like the filaments inside a light bulb. What was this? It felt very similar to the accounts she’d read of the chemical reactions to ingesting mind-altering drugs.
Could this be … happiness?
With that troubling yet exhilarating thought, Rosemary finally tumbled into a fitful slumber.
Sometime during the night, however, she must have attained full REM sleep of the deepest, heaviest type, because when she finally blinked awake in the light of the sun streaming in through the slats of her blinds, she wasn’t alone.
A small, white-furred canine face was approximately two centimeters from Rosemary’s nose.
“Oh!” she gasped, freezing to her sheets.
Seeing that she was awake, Lucille gave a pleased yip and pushed her cold, wet nose into Rosemary’s cheek. Her front paws were planted on Rosemary’s chest, two small points of pressure bearing down with what felt like more than Lucille’s twelve-to fourteen-pound weight.
“Ew, get off,” Rosemary said, struggling for breath. Because of the dog’s paws, she told herself, not because the fact that Lucille was in her apartment meant that her devoted owner probably was, too.
“Wes?” she called, her voice tentative. “Did I forget to lock the door last night? Hello?”
The only answer was another snuffling nudge of Lucille’s nose, this one followed by a dainty taste of Rosemary’s chin.
“Ugh! I am not a chew toy.” Sitting up dislodged her bed partner, but Rosemary’s attention was all for the bit of paper that crackled under Lucille’s scrabbling paws. Rescuing it from potential destruction, Rosemary unfolded it with shaking hands.
Hey Doc,
Something came up—an opportunity too good to miss. I’ve got a shot at my dream job, so I’m off to New York City. Take care of my baby for me, will you? Cornell already thinks she’s yours, and I won’t have much time for walks in the park once I start my externship. Besides, she likes you.
Yours,
Wes
Rosemary fell back against her pillows.
Lifting the piece of paper, she read it again, even though the words were already etched into her memory.
He was gone. After last night, after the tentative steps she’d made toward being normal, like other people, letting someone get close—and it hadn’t meant more to him than a momentary diversion, easily forgotten in the clear light of reality.
She ranked, once again, a distant second behind someone’s career prospects. It should’ve been a worn, comfortably familiar pain after growing up in a big house staffed by tutors and nannies, but it wasn’t. It was new and horrible, like a vacuum pump attached to her chest, sucking all the light and energy from her until all that was left were the hollowed-out, skeletal remains of her rib cage. She probed the left side of her chest with cold fingers. Was her heart still in there, at least?
It thudded weakly, sluggish and slow, but there. Good, then. She’d just … get up. And get dressed. And go to the lab … oh frak, the lab, where we—no! Pull it together, Wilkins, she lectured herself, working to control her breathing.
But the images from the night before, the memory of Wes above her, against her, inside her—the terrifying, wonderful intimacy of it all—had her light-headed in moments, air whistling in her lungs.
Two astonishingly heavy paws landed back on her chest, compressing it further. Lucille’s bright black eyes blinked down at Rosemary, who shuddered and sucked vainly for air.
Lucille barked once, sharply, then sandpaper
ed her tongue across Rosemary’s cheek.
Rosemary jolted, tugged out of her head and back into her body. Lucille butted her in the jaw with the top of her wiry little head, and Rosemary shocked herself by sobbing out loud.
She reached for the dog, who gamely allowed her to tuck the smaller body against her empty chest and curl in a ball. The wiggling weight was an unexpected comfort; even her doggie smell, warm and alive, made Rosemary feel better.
Lucille made a low, rumbling noise, and Rosemary scratched behind her silk ears. “I know. He left you, too. But we don’t need him, do we? No. Of course not. I’ve never needed anyone, and I’m not about to start now. We’ll be fine, just you and me.”
Lucille whimpered a little.
Rosemary squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t believe it, either.
Chapter 11
Five months later
Every muscle in Wes’s body twinged with the kind of bone-deep ache that came from hours of standing hunched over a cutting board in the fiery pit of hell also known as a professional restaurant kitchen.
He eased down on the bar stool next to Jess, moving all slow and careful like an old guy, his joints so used to tension and stress that the sudden relaxation was almost more painful than staying on his feet.
It was just the two of them, for the moment—the rest of the kitchen crew was still clearing down their work stations; the servers were all down in the locker room changing into street clothes.
Wes shot his friend a sideways glance. They hadn’t had time to talk after Wes spilled his tale of woe and tragedy—pretty much the second he was done, the line cooks all trooped back in, loud and obnoxious and lively as ever. Jess had pressed a hand to his shoulder with what looked like a sympathetic grimace, and hurried out front to do his impression of Best Waiter Ever.
“So,” Wes said.
“Yeah,” Jess replied. “One question.”
Wes fought to keep his voice even and light. “Shoot.”
Jess skewered him with a look. “Why the hell did you leave her?”
And there it was. The question Wes asked himself every day. He answered Jess with the same words he repeated to himself: “I had to. It was the best thing. For her.”
That pissed Jess off a little, Wes could tell by the red spots that appeared on his pale cheeks.
“And you get to decide that, do you?” he spat with all the venom of someone who’d recently been dumped “for his own good.”
Wes clamped his jaw. “In this case, yeah. Look, we got caught, okay? And I thought I talked our way out of it, but I was wrong. Cornell thought it over, and decided he liked his chances of keeping everything under wraps better if he broke us up. He wanted to keep his star scientist, the one the donors were so excited about, but me? The definition of disposable. And he found the perfect leverage, too.”
Gut churning, Wes recalled the scene. He’d just gotten back to his tiny apartment off campus and gotten Lucille settled for the night when there was a knock at the door. Cornell. Calmer, more rational—and therefore, more dangerous. He’d offered Wes a very simple choice.
“He was willing to keep our relationship quiet, and let Rosemary stay at the academy, on one condition. I’d leave to take over the externship at Market, and not contact her again. He made it pretty damn clear that he’d weighed the risks, and without the assurance of it being over between Rosemary and me, he wasn’t willing to take the chance of a scandal. Basically, I could stay and let him ruin Rosemary’s reputation, or I could make a quiet exit stage left. And, incidentally, walk into the opportunity of a lifetime, working at one of the hottest restaurants in Manhattan.” Wes shrugged. “It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”
And man, offering that externship to Wes had been a stroke of brilliance on Cornell’s part. It shored up his own plausible deniability—why would he give such a plum position to a student who’d misbehaved? And, incidentally, it made it next to impossible for Wes to ever convince Rosemary that he’d left her for any reason other than to advance his career.
Wes had known, the instant he made his deal with the devil, that he’d never be able to take it back.
Jess frowned. “So you left. Without even talking to her first.”
“I couldn’t—if I’d explained what was going on, she might’ve felt obligated to quit, or tell Cornell where to shove it, or something. I couldn’t put her in that kind of position. You have to understand how important her research is to her.”
“More important than you?” Jess asked quietly.
Wes started to laugh until he caught the solemn look on his friend’s face. “Wait, you’re serious? Yeah, man, the research is way more important to her than I ever was.” He held up a hand and continued over Jess’s immediate objections. “And she’s right.”
Whenever Wes questioned whether or not he’d done the right thing, all he had to do was remember the way Rosemary’s whole face brightened when she talked about her experiments, the way she seemed to come alive in the lab. There was no way he could take that away from her.
What could he give her to replace it, after all? One ex-con man, slightly used, maybe a fixer-upper if you squinted? He’d already given her his best friend.
“Hey,” he said, remembering. “I left my dog with her, to keep her company. That counts for something, right?” It ought to; he missed that silly little animal like crazy.
Jess threw up his hands. “I’m surrounded by idiot men who think they’re no good for anyone!”
Wes found himself grinning. He’d been around Jess Wake long enough to know that when he got melodramatic and flaily like that, it meant he wasn’t really mad. They were still buds.
And after all these months of doubts, regrets, and recriminations—through Wes’s first, surreal days at Market, the drama of Chef Temple’s romance with Jess’s sister, and the trauma of working under the slightly schizo celebrity chef Devon Sparks while Chef Temple and Miranda Wake were off on their non-honeymoon—looking back on his decision now, Wes still thought he’d done the right thing by leaving.
No matter how much it hurt.
He probed his rib cage thoughtfully. He couldn’t be sure, but maybe the ever-present ache in his chest had lessened slightly, just from having talked about it. Huh.
Slowly, a few of the other chefs and servers trickled into the bar area to collapse onto stools, all moving like Wes had, as if their bones were made of glass.
“Hurts,” huffed Quentin, the tallest, quietest dude Wes had ever met. It wasn’t a question—Quentin didn’t do questions, for some reason no one seemed to know or want to explain to the new guy—but Wes nodded anyway. Light from behind the bar glinted darkly off his bald, sweaty head when Quentin nodded back.
“Feels good, though, too. In a weird way,” Wes said.
He looked at the other chefs and front-of-the-house folks slouched in boneless, postbattle sprawls around the bar of their restaurant, Market. None of them looked like they thought he was nuts.
Well, sure. If it didn’t feel kind of awesome to be this tired, this played out after a hectic dinner service, they wouldn’t keep doing it. But there they all were.
Wes looked around the U-shaped bar between Market’s two dining rooms. Usually populated by Market’s trendy, smartly attired customers, the bar made a strangely classy, sophisticated background for the sweaty, wild-haired cooks and harried waiters slumped together in exhausted silence.
It had been a brutal service. The kitchen got weeded twice, but their capitán, executive chef and owner of the restaurant, Adam Temple, kept them at it until they pulled themselves clear.
Wes had thrown himself into it, head down, focused and intent, even if all he really did was scut work. As the resident culinary student extern, aka escapee from the Academy of Culinary Arts, aka kitchen bitch, Wes got all the shit jobs no one else wanted to tackle.
He didn’t even care. It was real work, worthwhile, and besides, the harder he worked, the more it kept his mind off … things. Things h
e had no business thinking about anymore.
“You girls planning to sit here all night, or come down to Chapel for the festivities?”
The low Cockney drawl of sous chef Frankie Boyd had Wes instinctively struggling to sit up straighter in his chair.
Beside him, Jess flinched hard at the sound of his ex’s voice, just once, before settling deliberately back into a slouch.
Most nights saw nearly the whole gang of them trooping downtown to their favorite Lower East Side dive bar, but as Wes looked around at the tired faces of the other cooks, he thought maybe Frankie was on his own in the wild afterparty department.
Apparently, Frankie saw the same thing because he said, with an audible sneer, “Fine, then. Adam’s off home to his girl, so I’m for Chapel all on my lonely—though maybe not alone for long. Don’t wait up, darlings.”
Wes shot Jess a look, but the young man’s face was set in a stubbornly blank expression.
“Aw, Frankie, don’t go,” said Violet Porter, sleepy and round-cheeked. As pastry chef, she’d normally have been long gone by this time of night, but Violet was a trouper. When the kitchen got slammed, she stuck around and helped out. “Come play the game with us.”
“What game?” Wes asked.
Frankie wandered over to lean negligently against the opposite side of the bar. Wes had been right—he was sneering harder than Billy Idol singing about dancing with himself. “The game, you berk,” Frankie said. “The one all chefs play.”
Shrugging, Wes glanced at Jess, who reluctantly supplied, “It’s called ‘Last Meal.’ ”
“Yeah,” Violet put in, her eyes brightening. “If you were on death row, scheduled for the chair or whatever tomorrow—what would you ask for as your last meal on earth?”
“Kind of morbid.” Wes wasn’t shocked or anything—he didn’t shock all that easily, and he already knew chefs were a messed-up bunch, as a rule—but he’d brushed close enough to prison once upon a time that the idea of death row sent a chill straight down his spine.
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