by Jolene Perry
There are some small life insurance checks deposited into her account that I didn’t know about. Her accountant has sent close to twenty envelopes. I’m beyond what the bank will insure. Where do I want the money? Please contact him right away.
Two more offers have been made on the apartment. The figures are high. What am I going to do? Go back to New York? Continue to hide on Dad’s boat?
No. I can’t keep hiding. I have to get back to New York. And soon.
- - -
Once I make the decision for real, I’m frantic to get started. To get out of here. I pack in minutes.
Dad hugs me tightly, and I hug him with the same force. Sucks that we didn’t take the time to know one another before now.
“If you need help with anything out there, you call and I’ll be there.” His hand stays on my shoulder. “I plan on coming in a month or two no matter what, okay?”
It’s not condescending like I would have taken it not long ago. “Thanks.”
“You need a ride to the airport?”
“I called a car.”
He smirks. “I’ll bet you did.” He knows I haven’t hardly spent a penny of my new money. “Amber?”
I shrug. “I got her a seat on the plane, but I don’t know if she’ll take it.”
“If she doesn’t now, I bet she will later.” He ruffs up my hair just like Mom used to do.
“Maybe.”
“Love you, son.”
“Love you, Dad.” I put my arms around him one last time before stepping off the back of the boat. Alone. Dad knows this is how I want to go, and he gets it. He gets me. Finally.
As I make my way to Amber’s, my heart’s banging in my ribs, telling me that something big is about to happen. Please let it be something good. So far this feeling has gotten me nothing but disappointment or tragedy.
I knock on the door of Amber’s boat and wait.
She steps out with a smile that falls as she takes in my expression, and the bag slung over my shoulder.
“What’re you doing?” she asks. Her eyes are wary, scared.
She has a right to look this way. The old me would’ve just left. “I have some loose ends to wrap up in New York.”
Her brows pull together, like I knew they would. “You’re…leaving?”
I have to get the words out. “Come with me.” Please, please come with me.
Her head snaps up. “What?”
“Come. With me. My mom’s…well, I have a place to stay and stuff to sort. You don’t have to. I mean, I’m sure I won’t be much fun, but it needs to be done, and…I can’t imagine doing it alone. I know I’m asking too much of you here. To leave, and I promise you can go home anytime—”
“Why are you asking me?” Her voice is still wary.
“What?” Does it matter?
“Are you asking me because you want me there? Or because you feel like you should because you don’t want to upset me?”
Honesty. “Because I’m a selfish jerk-off, and I really need you with me. I love you.”
I don’t even see her coming and our lips are together. I pull her close, and the relief I feel at knowing she wants to hold me like this is like nothing I’ve ever felt.
She pulls away, but keeps our faces together. I keep my eyes closed, soaking up the feeling of her, in case she can’t follow me right now. “If you want to think about it, I can bring you out to visit in a few days, or a few weeks, or—”
“How long do I have to pack?”
“What?” She might do this.
“How long do I have to pack?”
My heart’s thrumming. The pounding dread from a few minutes ago has been replaced with something infinitely better. “A few minutes?”
“Wait there.” She spins around and disappears.
I stand on the back deck of her boat, feeling needy and undeserving, but also knowing I don’t want to do it alone. I’m also wondering when or if she’ll ever see how one-sided this relationship is because I’m definitely the one who got the best deal.
In less than five minutes, she’s on the back of the boat with a large backpack over her shoulder. “Take me to New York.”
“You’re amazing, you know that? Amazing.” Everything Amber and I have been through was worth it for how I feel in this moment.
“Don’t you dare forget it.” She kisses my cheek, takes my hand, and we leave together.
And that’s it. Knowing me. Knowing my faults and all, without question, she’s following me from her home. I squeeze her hand, promising both of us I won’t screw it up.
Two Months Later…
Dad –
Thanks again for making it all okay that I took off the way I did. Mom’s apartment is sold. I hate the thought of leaving that place, but there was no good way to live there either. I’m moving into my new apartment in the village tomorrow. Smaller. The place is barely two bedrooms and pretty much no kitchen, which suits me just fine. Amber insisted she needs her own room, and she’s still thinking about living in the dorms this year. Please talk her out of that.
It’s not too far from here for Amber to get to NYU. Which brings me to my next point. I know I said I’d get to school, but the book I’m finishing about Mom comes out near the end of this semester (yeah, crazy rush) and that’s going to bring all sorts of craziness. Your lit agent hooked me up with another agent here I really like. I sent him the same two books I emailed to you, and he can’t wait to get started.
I’m missing Amber so much. You can tell her I’m pathetic without her here. Sounds like she’ll be back next week.
And seriously, Dad. You and Lynn need to get married already.
Love you,
Antony
Two Years Later…
The silk of Amber’s dress is smooth under my fingertips, and I slide my hands up and down her back.
She fingers the lapels of my tux. “That was quite a wedding.”
“Hmm.” I breathe out next to her ear as we dance. “I can’t believe your mom finally said yes. Maybe we’ll be next.”
“No way, Antony. We’re twenty. I’m got getting married at twenty to some guy who didn’t even go to college.” She looks up at me through her thick lashes—a smirk on her face.
“I seem to be doing okay,” I tease.
“Just because you can write best-sellers doesn’t mean you can be a slacker.” Her nose tucks underneath my ear. This makes my knees weak. She knows this just like she knows everything about me.
“You love it.” I kiss her dimple, just like I know makes her crazy.
“I love you.”
My mouth comes down onto hers, and we kiss like we always do. Like I always get to do, because of all the guys who would have been thrilled to be with her, she chose me. And I choose her, too. Every day.
Mom would be proud.
To my mom who was a woman who believed in unique experiences – whether they happened in our backyard or on the other side of the word. I hope I can someday be half the person she was.
-Antony Preston
by Jolene Perry
Two things:
One – this book takes place after the end of the last book, but before the prologue.
Two - I wasn’t sure where this story was going to go, and then it turned a bit sexier than I expected… You’ve been warned.
Even after hours of traveling, the air in the airplane smells. First-class seats don’t fix stale air. Antony lets out a long breath next to me. I want to wrap him up in my arms and hold him together. But the set of his perfect jaw, and the determination in his eyes says he doesn’t need that kind of comfort anymore—at least not now. And this is why I packed in two minutes and am now in a first-class seat on my way to New York.
I jumped in.
His hand tightens over mine as he readjusts in his seat, his eyes closed. He’s not sleeping, but he’s trying. The thing is, I never jump into anything. Ever. And not only did I jump into this trip, but I basically told Antony that I'm all in with us, too.
>
And I guess he showed me he was all in by asking me to come with him. I rest my chin on his shoulder, which earns me a small smile in the form of the dimple on his left cheek.
I’m not sure how he’s this comfortable place for me. After weeks of tiptoeing just outside of his range, I’m here. Thighs touching. The armrest between us folded back.
“You okay Amber?” he whispers opening his eyes into small slits.
“Okay,” I answer. One word cannot come close to how I feel in this moment. I’m floating. Falling. Letting myself go, and I can’t wait to know what that’s actually going to feel like after living in it for a couple of days.
* * *
I’ve been to New York before, but it was always for a purpose, and always very brief. Riding in the back of a sleek, black car is different. My face is plastered to the window taking in the old buildings mixed in with the new buildings… I can feel Antony’s eyes on me, but right now I want to soak up city, despite my exhaustion.
We stop, and Antony slings my bag over his shoulder and his follows us into a gorgeous stone building where the door is opened by a man in uniform. Antony pauses to shake his hand and exchange a few words. The beginnings of nerves start to pace my insides. I’m now in Antony’s world.
The elevator is as sleek as the lobby, and when the doors open to his floor, I can only see four apartment doors. On the whole floor. The world almost feels as if it’s blurring around me.
Antony unlocks the apartment and we stand just inside the home Antony used to share with his mom.
It’s open and sleek and the exact kind of place I can’t imagine ever feeling at home at, but the kind of place that Antony belongs in. I glance at my worn jeans, and his perfectly hung ones—a simple thing that speaks volumes about where we come from. For the first time, I sort of wonder what he’s doing with me. I’ve been trying so hard to keep my distance, I never stopped to wonder.
Antony’s fingers lace with mine. “I can’t believe you came, but I’m so glad you’re here.”
I kiss his shoulder. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”
He drops his bag and kicks off his shoes. “Help yourself to whatever. I’m so tired… Now that I’m here, my body’s short of shutting down.”
”You’re home,” I say. “And yeah…no sleeping on planes for me either.”
He turns to face me, his dark hair swishing just perfectly over his forehead. “Come crash with me?” he asks. “Or…” He shakes his head. “There’s a nice guestroom up the hall. That’s fine.”
I step into him until our bodies touch. I want to show Antony that when I said I’d come to New York with him, it also meant that I was ready for…everything with him. “I’d love to crash with you.”
Now he’ll slide his arms around me and kiss me and make some kind of slight sexual joke. And maybe we will tonight, or maybe we’ll just get a little closer than we have before. I’m for sure tired, but I could stay awake with him.
He backs away from me, starts up the hall, and points. “Bathroom is there. My room is here. You can just crawl in with me, dig around for my pajamas, or change into your own.”
I stare at his back. Really? That’s it?
Maybe it’s just being home. Maybe he really is super tired. Maybe I’m being horrible because it has to be so hard for him to be back in the space he shared with his mom.
I head for the bathroom, and Antony steps into his room with my bag. Before I close the door, I wait for the waggle of eyebrows or some indication that we’re alone and going to share a bed. The light flicks on in his room, but nothing.
I close the bathroom door and this space is smaller and more like what I’d expect from a New York apartment, but it is perfectly decorated in black and grey glass tiles, silver and white. Must be Antony’s space.
When I step back out, Antony’s leaning against the wall, a door cracked in front of him.
I step behind him and once again rest my chin on his shoulder. My hands rest on his arms, and I resist the urge to trace his biceps.
“The room smells like her. And pretty soon it won’t.” He shakes his head. “I love and hate being here.”
I slide my hands around his waist and lean against him from behind.
“It’s better with you here,” he says quietly.
“I’m glad I came.”
He turns just enough so I can see his profile and lets out a slow sigh.
“Want to sleep?” I offer.
He nods once before grasping my hand and leading me to his room.
I glance at him as I change into my tank and pajama shorts, but his eyes are fixed on the wall opposite me. Not on me like they usually are. Is this even the same guy?
I’m thinking too much.
We climb into bed and he tucks me into him, barely saying a word before sliding into sleep.
The fact that he suddenly doesn’t seem to care about going further makes me curious. Curious about his body. What it would feel like to have sex with him. What his hands would do to my body. What I might want to do to his. It’s maybe wrong of me given his state of mind, but now that I’m here… Maybe it’s that I know it’s going to happen between us at some point because I love him that way. I trust him like I never thought I’d trust Antony.
I turn toward him and run my hands slowly up and down his sides and back as he sleeps. I think back to the night when he ran his hands up and down my sides. How scared I was. Tense. Every time his hand moved, I wondered where it would land. I want him to touch me like that again. I want him to go further. I’m ready, I just don’t know how to tell him I’m ready.
Now I get what it feels like to want someone when you’re not sure how to move forward.
* * *
There is a very particular grace with which Antony moves, a very polite smile that comes off as so much more than politeness. The doormen all know him. The woman at the bakery this morning full-on blushed when Antony thanked her.
He’s in his sloppiest clothes and looks like he stepped out of a catalog. I’m very aware that I look as if I just stepped off a boat. People who might wear Top-Siders in New York, probably don’t wear them on boats.
Never in my life have I felt self-conscious about how I look but really, everyone around his building looks as if they stepped out of a magazine. All of them. I’m like the charity case of the milk moustache ad.
Antony uses a lean finger to tap the button to head to his floor.
“You’re looking at me with the strangest expression,” he says over his coffee.
I gesture loosely at him. “You…in your element… I just feel…” But the admission catches in my throat.
“You feel…?”
“Very out of my element.”
He grins. “Good.”
“Good?” I choke.
Antony leans close enough to whisper. “Now you have some idea of how I felt when I moved in with my dad.”
“Hmmm.” I’m not sure I totally buy that. Even in his black dressy-type shoes, he seemed pretty at ease on the boat. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
He laughs a little as the elevator signals our floor. “Well, I can’t really help you with that.”
No…he can’t.
* * *
We sit with our picnic breakfast on his mother’s floor, staring into a closet that’s nearly as big as the room.
He shakes his head. “I’m getting slammed with too much reality again.”
I pull apart the croissant that tastes like it was made by angels…and butter. “You could keep the apartment. You could just box everything up and sort it when you’re ready.”
“I’d rather get it over with now.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “And sitting in here with you and with breakfast is so much better than sitting here alone. And now that I’m thinking about it, we have a lot of things to do here together.” No innuendo whatsoever. What has happened to my Antony?
I watch him, waiting to see what he has on his list. “Okay.”
“We sh
ould go check out campus for you, huh?” he asks. “Since you’re coming here for school this fall. And I need to scope out a new apartment. Maybe find something close to the NYU campus?”
He’s serious. We’re now planning months away. I smile and forget to breathe a little so my last bite of croissant gets caught for a moment. I don’t care if the teasing innuendos are gone if he’s planning for us to be together this way.
“My brain is jumping all over the place, so sorry for being so scattered, but I was going to tell you that you can have anything you want from Mom’s closet. I don’t think hardly any of it had been worn much, if at all. She rotated her wardrobe almost every season and never had a ton of clothes at once, so it’s not like you’ll accidentally wear something that would make me feel weird. I’ll pull out a few formal things to donate for auction.”
“I can’t wear your mother’s clothes.” First, it might be weird, and second, “She was like…famous.”
He smiles a little. “You only feel out of place because of what people are wearing and who they pay to show them how to look that way. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Dress the part. Enjoy New York.”
I have no idea what to say to him right now. He is all over the place. I love it. I love seeing him less than perfectly composed without him doing something stupid to put him in that situation. “Antony?”
His eyes finally focus on mine. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He takes my face in his hands, achingly slowly. “I love you too.”
My whole body quivers as he leans down. His lips press against mine in the softest kiss.
I open my mouth to kiss him again, but he’s pulled away. It feels like someone just jerked a warm blanket off my shoulders.
He pauses as I lean closer to him. I’m waiting for his hands to slip around my sides. For his strong arms to hold me.