by Lark, Jane
She didn’t know me, how could she judge me? By the fact Jason had found me half naked, about to jump off a bridge.
Of course, he’d had to tell her that.
Yet I doubted he’d mentioned that he’d treated my hand while I sat naked in his bath. I doubted he’d told her we were sharing a bed either. But I wasn’t giving up sharing his bed. I liked being in it, lying warm near him and listening to his breathing and smelling his smell.
There was another lull in customers. I was only fifteen minutes off the end of my first shift. I got him another beer and took it over.
“I thought you might like another.”
“Thanks, I’m just sat here quietly getting tipsy.”
“On three beers? You seriously do need to get a life.”
He laughed.
His brown eyes looked up at my eyes, and there was a real depth and warmth in them. I don’t remember ever seeing that in any other man’s eyes. There was a slight complimentary smile on his lips, too.
I couldn’t stop myself, I just wanted to know. I leaned forward and rested my hands on the table, so he’d have a view down my blouse, where my breasts would now be hanging into the lace and satin bra I’d waved at him last night.
“So what do you say to a long walk home, and taking a detour round Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the way back?”
His eyes held mine for a moment then glanced down, only for an instant, but even so, when his gaze returned to mine, it was more heated, and his lips had tightened as the muscle in his jaw clenched. It seemed my interest was definitely returned. No matter, there was the small town opinionated Lindy in his life.
“I’ll say I’m up for that, seeing as you just accused me of being boring.”
I laughed. “Sorry, a night-time walk round the park ain’t gonna break that boundary. You need to do something more exciting and reckless than that to start living on the wild side, Jason Macinlay.”
He stuck his tongue out at me, which only gave me an urge to play tonsil hockey with him, but instead I returned to the bar and asked the manager if he wanted me to start cleaning up.
When the other customers left, Jason went outside too. I told him where the backdoor was, and to wait for me there.
He was standing there when I came out, and he smiled at me, a broad happy-to-see-you smile. The chef came out after me, looked at Jason and then winked at me. I screwed my face up at him.
Jason’s hands were firmly in the pockets of his leather jacket and he wore the woolen hat that he’d loaned me last night. His breath came out into the dark night air as steam. It was way below freezing again. Certainly a bit chilly to be walking in a park, but I just fancied doing something with him. I’d enjoyed last night.
I slotted my arm through his and hugged in tight to him, pretending it was for warmth; it wasn’t.
We began walking, and to make conversation I started asking questions, what food do you like? What movies? What TV shows? It kept the conversation light and released some of the tension in my head, I needed to be talking and it meant I didn’t have to give him any details of my life, but I could get to know him better.
We laughed, argued and debated, and in the park we walked down to the river, as I’d done earlier, but this time instead of looking at the water I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up against the night sky.
“One of the things I miss most about home, is that you can easily drive out of town and into the dark, and when you’re in the dark, you can see millions of stars piercing the sky like pinpricks of light, it’s awesome. You can’t really see the stars here. All the city lights screen them out.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I’d always lived in cities. “I’ve never seen that. I suppose you and Lindy used to drive out of town and make out beneath the stars?”
His hands were gripping the rail. He looked at me but didn’t turn. “Yeah.”
“Romantic,” I said dryly looking away from him and down at the dark shifting water.
“Yeah, our first time was out there.”
My eyes shot back up to him. It was an honest thing for a man to say, and without any prompting. Where the hell had it come from?
His eyes said he was remembering it. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the river to Manhattan and the city, lost in time and lost in thought.
I could tell from his expression his first time had been planned, and looked forward to, a momentous occasion designed to be fixed in his memory and cherished forever.
Fuck, he really was small town. My first time had been quick and disappointing, a drunken fumble on a park bench. I’d only met the guy that night. I hadn’t thought myself in love. I’d just wanted to do what everyone else claimed they’d done. Afterwards I’d discovered most people had been lying and they hadn’t done it at all.
I started laughing, which was definitely the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.
He let go of the rail and turned, looking at me, his eyebrows lifting.
I tried to stop laughing, but didn’t succeed. The back of my hand lifted to my mouth to hide my mirth. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe you’ve only ever slept with one woman … ” He hadn’t said it, but I just knew it was true.
“I can’t see why that’s funny.”
“It’s just… Well, it’s just… You amaze me… You’re so good-looking. The other night, when I met you, I assumed you’d left dozens of hearts broken in Oregon.”
He gave me a broad smile, apparently not offended in the least. Then I realized what I’d done, I’d told him I thought him good-looking. Well, he was good-looking, he surely couldn’t be blind to it, yet I hadn’t noticed any vanity in him at all. God, he was turning into the most perfect guy.
I smiled too. “I respect you. I think it’s commendable.”
“But you’re still laughing inside.”
He was getting to know me. I smiled more.
“What about you, then? How many people have you been with?”
My smile fell.
The question was lightly put. He was teasing me back for teasing him. But I couldn’t answer, not with the truth. He’d be disgusted. His small town ideals would be rocked to their very foundations.
“You don’t want to know.” I killed the conversation flat and for a moment he was silent as he looked past me probably trying to guess if it was tens or hundreds.
His gaze returned to me. “So, have you always lived in New York?” The perfect guy that he was, he didn’t push, just changed the subject.
Surely I’d dreamed this guy up. He was too nice to be real. “No, I grew up in Philadelphia. I moved here when I was eighteen.”
It was the most personal thing I’d told him about my life, and I saw him recognize that as his gaze struck mine with a searching look.
He wanted to ask more questions, I could see that, but he didn’t. He turned back to face the water and gripped the rail again. “You and I, have lived very different lives, haven’t we, Rach…”
The fact that he shortened my name gripped in my chest, about my heart; it made me feel closer to him, like we really did know each other, like I’d known him for years.
“Yeah,” I said in a quiet voice, feeling suddenly solemn and low again, as I looked across at the heart of New York, too.
Declan would be over there somewhere. I doubted Jason Macinlay could even begin to imagine how I’d lived my life. Fast. Reckless.
“We should be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to get up for work in the morning.”
“Yeah, Mr. Boring, we have lived our lives very differently.” I laughed. He didn’t. He just glanced at me, and then gestured with his elbow for me to take his arm. It was the first time he’d offered it. I’d just taken it before. It was a sweet gesture.
My laughter turned to a smile, and he smiled back.
God, I liked him.
Chapter Four
I was half asleep but desperate for the toilet when I woke up.
Jason wasn
’t in bed. He must have gone to work already.
My eyes half shut, I didn’t looked at the clock, merely rolling onto my side then got up, trying to cross my legs a little as I headed for the bathroom. I was seriously bursting, and with my mind focused on that, I didn’t hear the sound of the shower running, until I opened the door.
“Fuck, sorry, I need the toilet.”
God, he was gorgeous. When I’d opened the door, his hands had been on the wall either side of the shower and his head had been down as he let the water run over it and then down his body. It had been running down his back in a waterfall, and that back, and his butt… The air that had got trapped in my lungs left them.
The older guys I’d dated, or rather fucked, had been all swarthy with hard muscle. His skin was pale and it looked soft, and the muscular definition beneath it was sinewy and lean. I longed to touch… Nope, I didn’t just want to touch, I wanted to have him. His buttocks were so tight, I wanted to grip them with my fingers as we did it, and feel the strength of his thighs between my legs.
I was a messed up, bad girl––he was taken. And I was trouble.
His head had turned toward me, and I saw his brown eyes watching me. He’d seen me looking at his ass.
There were droplets of water caught on his dark eyelashes.
He really was beautiful, the most beautiful guy I’d ever known.
“Give me a second, I’ll be out…”
His words brought me back to reality, to the fact I was standing in his bathroom staring at him as he stood naked in the shower. “Sorry, I’ll wait outside.” I think I must have turned bright red as I exited, and then I remembered just how badly I needed to use the toilet, and leaned against the wall, crossed my legs and bit my lip. But the image of him was still in my head. I didn’t think it was ever going to leave.
I heard the shower turn off. A couple of moments later the door-handle shifted. I tried to straighten up without having an accident.
“Rach…” He had a towel wrapped round his lower half, secured low on his hips, so now I got a front view of the glorious chest I’d seen the definition of through his body-hugging top on the first night.
He didn’t have any hair across his chest, apart from a couple of stray ones around his nipples, but he had a line of dark hair protruding upwards from his groin which just slightly showed above the top of the low slung towel.
Fuck, I’d forgotten I needed the toilet again as my eyes swept back upward over his perfectly defined abs and pecks, and I couldn’t breathe when I met his brown eyes which seemed to be expressing laughter.
“All yours. Do you want coffee?”
“Yeah.” My body remembered it desperately needed to relieve itself, and I darted past him and into the bathroom, shutting the door and sitting on the toilet as quickly as I could.
My head rested in my hands. Stop it Rachel, he’s a good guy, you can’t have him, leave him alone, you’d only mess him up, and mess up his life.
I stayed in the bathroom longer than I needed to, simply to get a grip on myself.
When I came out and went into the living room to eat my humble pie I was conscious of the fact I was wearing just his borrowed tee and my new satin underwear.
I found him fully clothed. He had a crisp pale blue and white striped shirt on and light gray work pants which hugged his ass, which I could now picture naked beneath them.
My eyes lifted firmly to his face. “Sorry, I was half asleep. I didn’t realize you were in there.”
He smiled. “It’s okay, we’re even now, that’s all. I walked in on you the first night…”
It wasn’t quite the same. He didn’t have a habit of acting inappropriately and uncontrollably with girls, like I did with guys.
Still, what he’d said told me one thing, he remembered me naked just as I was going to remember him.
He handed me the coffee.
“Thanks.”
I rested my elbows on the counter leaning over and watching him put on some toast. He glanced back. “Do you want some? I’m going to poach an egg.”
He was a modern guy who looked after himself, as well as nice––even more not my type.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
Still looking back over his shoulder, his brown eyes dropped to look at the bandage wrapped about my right hand. “We ought to change that dressing tonight and check out your hand.” His eyes lifted to mine again.
The memory of my naked body had made him think of that… That wasn’t so flattering. I straightened up, nodding before I sipped my coffee as my wicked head wondered if he’d ever thought of fucking me.
He was probably too nice. He’d probably consider even thinking about it too disloyal to his Lindy.
Damn, I wished Lindy wasn’t on the scene.
We ate the poached eggs at the counter, he on one side, me on the other, facing each other, as I questioned him about what he was likely to be doing at work; it kept my splintering thoughts focused. He asked me about the shifts I’d agreed to and what time I was starting and finishing today.
I’d be out when he got in from work.
He offered to come and meet me at the restaurant and walk me home.
I said thanks as he put his tie on, getting ready to go.
I opened and held the door, while he put on a jumper, then his coat. But I stopped him before he walked out, and straightened his tie a little. Afterwards I tapped his firm chest and said, “Have a nice day!” in my waitress voice.
He laughed and left smiling.
Dammit! This was getting out of hand. I was getting far too close to him. I felt good with him. I could even feel normal with him. In a way I hadn’t felt normal for years. Although it just felt like a game, like I was stealing someone else’s life and playing husbands and wives with him, boyfriend and girlfriend. We shopped together, we ate together, hell, we even shared a bed.
I went into the bathroom to have a shower, but all I could think of as I ran the washcloth over my body was his hands on me and mine on him. It was bad news. It would be a couple of weeks before I’d earned enough money to pay him back and saved up for a deposit on my own room somewhere.
Dammit. Stop it Rachel. Hands off.
~
When I picked Rach up from work, she initially looked pleased to see me as she came out the back door. But her smile dropped as I saw the chef wink at her again as he passed, and then smile at me.
After last night, I suppose they thought I was her boyfriend.
She didn’t grip my arm, even when I offered it. She’d gripped it every other time we’d walked together since that first night.
It occurred to me, she was still embarrassed about this morning. I didn’t actually care. She’d been really nonchalant about me seeing her, like it was nothing. I’d assumed she’d have thought nothing of seeing me either.
Still, images of her naked figure had been drifting in and out of my thoughts all day when I was at work and when I’d been running.
I’d mentioned what had happened to Justin, at work. He’d just laughed.
I wondered if images of me had been running through her mind too.
I’d tried to convert mine into images of Lindy, but I couldn’t even remember Lindy naked now, I’d rarely seen her so. Lindy wasn’t the emancipated type. She wasn’t that comfortable with her body.
As we walked, I urged Rach to talk about her shift, to dispense with the awkwardness.
I remembered her laughing at me last night over the fact I’d only ever slept with Lindy. I wondered how many men Rach had leaned over the bar toward tonight and flashed her cleavage at, and how many she’d taken home or gone back with in the past, in previous jobs.
Was it really emancipation, or just lack of self-worth, and was it that which had brought her to stand on Manhattan Bridge one freezing evening and think of jumping off?
I had an urge to put my arm about her shoulders as I glanced at her. I didn’t.
Her reservation tonight was probably a good thing.
We’d probably been getting too close.
I kept my distance from him on the way home, physically. We didn’t make any detours either, just walked straight back. But we talked, and I was glad of his company. He asked me about my night. I asked about his day.
It was good to have him around. I just had to ensure I kept telling myself now he was someone else’s person-who-cared not mine.
When we got home, he insisted on looking at my hand. He’d bought a new bandage and unwound the dirty one, gently gripping my fingers as he’d done that first night while I sat on the bath edge and he sat on the toilet with the lid down.
The environment constantly reminded me of the beautiful figure I’d seen that morning, like some naked statue in a fountain in a park.
I wondered if tending my wound was reminding him of when he’d done this while I’d been sitting naked in the warm water. He showed no sign if it did.
But I enjoyed his touch and his attention far more than I ought.
The wound was healing okay, knitting together well, and he got me to move my fingers, stretch them out and then curl them up. It didn’t disturb the cut, and proved it was only the skin of my palm which was damaged.
He cleaned it again before re-bandaging it, and once he’d done that, he looked up and smiled at me. “What about a beer and a game of something on my Xbox?”
It was a brother-like smile, and a brother-like sentimentality and that’s what I should try to think of him as, nothing else––but I had no brothers to judge such a relationship by. Or rather none that I’d had anything to do with since I’d been fifteen.
I gave him a smile back. “Thanks, and, yes, to beer, and, yes, to the game.”
He stood.
I stood too, only to realize it brought us too close physically, and foolishly stumbled back, nearly falling into the bath. He caught my arm.
“Steady.”
“Thanks. I’m forever saying thanks to you, aren’t I?”
“It doesn’t matter, Rachel. I’m happy to help.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re happy, because it’s gonna be a couple of weeks before I can get out of here.”
His smile was gentle. “That’s okay. There’s no hurry.”