by Corri Lee
It felt like watching my life. I was slowly becoming a little stronger and thinking of London a little less, seeking out new treasures in a city that had tested me more in three months than England had in twenty-two years. Was everything perfect? No.
But it was getting there.
The last week of November saw the arrival of Thanksgiving. I’d built myself up to spend the holiday alone by accumulating an impressive collection of world cinema movies and bullying Henry into sending me further budgeting information. Something was amiss, and I planned to use the week Calloway was with his family in Boston again to figure out what it was.
Secretly, I was a little glad to have a week to myself. I’d put so much effort into working on us as a couple that I’d had no time to work on myself. I missed the things I’d done in those early weeks of arriving in New York, and now autumn had rolled across the city in full swing, it seemed like doing it all again now would be an entirely new experience.
Not that Calloway hadn’t stamped his feet and tried his damnedest to drag me on that plane with him.
“So explain to me again why I’m not going to be eating turkey out of your belly button tomorrow and spending Thanksgiving with my family while you’re rattling around in that big apartment on your own?” Jeez, how long did he have? The list was endless and exhaustive. Still, consistency went a long way with him.
“I told you, I’m not American. I’d feel like a festive fraud.”
“Ah, yes, your ‘festive fraud’ theory.” It was really less of a theory than good strong logic. I had no idea what Thanksgiving was about. There was something to do with pilgrims and turkeys, I knew that much, but beyond that was a mystery. What kind of fool would I look like strolling into the home of one of America’s best known and loved white collar families giving thanks for my ignorance?
“I don’t understand your crazy traditions, Cal. I wouldn’t ask you to celebrate St. Georges Day.”
“I would do St. Georges Day! What does that involve? Chintz tea cups and flag waving?” I giggled, wedging my phone between my shoulder and ear to lift the blinds in Calloway’s kitchen. He’d given me a key a couple of weeks earlier but I’d refused to use it out of principle. I had no need to go into the penthouse without him.
Until now. Like the mug I was, I’d agreed to check on the place while he was away and I really didn’t want to miss a weeks worth of photographs in my journal. “Are you in my fortress, petal?”
I rolled my eyes at the pet name that had stuck since I’d flat out refused to let him call me his ‘rose’. “I have infiltrated the shit out of your fortress, m’lord. Everything is good here.”
“Good? Even without me?”
“Are you fishing for compliments, Mr. Ryan?”
“Maybe a little. Remember, make yourself at home there. Just keep your filthy Brit paws off my Carte D’or.” My insides tightened and hummed for the little indulgence Calloway had allowed into his life. He still looked at his meals like a human calorimeter, but was beginning to enjoy treats with my help. He was more fragile than I was in that respect, so it was a tricky path to tread, but it was satisfying to see him grow and adjust. Watching his progress made me feel... useful.
“You come back on the third, right?”
He sighed glumly. “On the late flight, yeah. Mother is determined to get the most out of since I won’t be back for Christmas.” I winced, feeling awful. The only way I’d negotiated my way out of Thanksgiving was by agreeing to let him spend Christmas with me. I’d figured that I might be a little more comfortable with the idea of meeting his family by then, but he’d insisted that if I wasn’t seeing my family, he wouldn’t see his. Something to do with equality. “About that...”
“Oh, boy. I worry when you say ‘about that’.”
“Hush, you. I was wondering, since you won’t visit London, how would you feel about seeing in Christmas somewhere unseasonably sunny like... hmm... Barbados?”
“Hmm...” Calloway must have read my mind. Meteorologists were making hints at a big freeze and I hated snow with a passion. There was already an icy edge in the air that was starting to get my hackles up when I walked between our homes. “Sounds perfect. Where do I sign?”
I heard the creak of leather and the sound of voices approaching on the other end of the line. “I’ll book everything while I’m here. Just have a bag packed for the fourth and we’ll fly out in the afternoon. We’ll come back when we feel like it. Our offices can cope without us.”
Wow. That was progress in giant inter-planetary leaps. “I can’t wait.”
“Me, either. I have to go, my brothers have arrived. Call you later?”
“Okay.”
I held my phone to my chest when he hung up. It might have been happiness I felt—I couldn’t be sure. There was still a gaping great hole in my heart that I couldn’t fill.
Something in my life was lacking.
The void began to ache the next morning when I walked the quiet streets between Fifth and Park Avenue after a solid ninety minutes in Calloway’s home gym, getting the occasional waft of Thanksgiving turkey and cranberries through the open windows that plumed steam. It didn’t really seem possible that I’d been there three months already and could count on one hand the number of conversations I’d had with anyone back home other than my parents, but it was. I was a runaway and so in love with how successfully I’d eluded my life that I really didn’t care if I never saw a familiar face again.
Or at least I didn’t until one of those faces found me.
When I finally noticed the thick flakes of snow that had started to fall like feathers and settle on the rooftops, I began to notice other things I’d tuned out over time.
It started with a man carrying a woman over his shoulder. Her gleeful squeals of objection pulled me away mid-order in a coffee shop and left me looking dumb as a box of rocks with my mouth wide open. She just looked so wrapped up in him, not really caring where he took her as long he was there.
Then I noticed an elderly couple walking directly behind them, hands linked so tightly like time itself was so fragile that, paradoxically, it caused no barrier in them wanting to make every second of it precious to the other. It seemed like everywhere I turned, people were paired off, unphased by each others histories and flaws.
Hadn’t Blaze accepted me in exactly the same way? He didn’t care how many scars I had or who I loved, as long as he had my time. He might have had a fairly unforgivable motive for staying married, but wasn’t he just doing it to make her happy for whatever time she had left? It wasn’t like I was sharing him the way he had to share me with Hunter.
What the fuck? Why was I thinking about them? I had a very yummy man who also loved every strange atom of my being and I never had to make any concessions on his time, attention or exclusivity. It was a waste of my time to be licking old war wounds from past battles lost.
But then I caught sight of a group of friends laughing on the other side of the street. Two girls and three boys trying to scrap together scant snowballs to pummel each other with. The shocking red head shield herself with a handbag while one of the guys tried to juggle the powdery clumps.
Friends. Something I’d left behind in the name of running from a man. If I’d met another woman who could say she’d done the same thing, I knew she’d have been the victim of my merciless ridicule.
Despite teeming with endorphins after my workout, I felt markedly less buzzed when I got back to my own apartment. I suspected that I’d only noticed the pals and lovers because I was on my own for a week, but the matches between them seemed so poignantly parallel to my own life.
Whatever. Scolding myself for getting so stupidly sentimental when I’d come so far in accepting that my old life was over, I kicked off my shoes and turned the television on before I headed for a quick shower, planning on blocking out my rogue feelings of homesickness with anime.
I got as far as the bathroom door before the door knocked.
“This had better be good
,” I muttered as I backtracked on myself, “I’d hate to have to discharge my holiday spirit all over someone’s fa—”
I froze on the threshold when I opened the door...
... and found Hunter-fucking-Rosen standing on my ‘welcome’ mat grinning like an idiot.
I stared at him in a stupor for a long minute before I snorted and my head snapped back like someone had clicked their fingers in my face. He had the nerve to show up unannounced after our last conversation ended on him telling me that I wasn’t good enough for the man who had been keeping me as a secret mistress?
“You’re unbelievable.” He had no time to react before the door slammed shut on his nose. Too many times he’d talked down to me like a child then acted like butter wouldn’t melt when he needed another round with his verbal punch bag. Given my current moodiness, I had no desire to provide that service anymore, regardless of whether he’d materialised on my doorstep looking to take some mental swings at me. I was likely to swing back. “Go home.”
His voice was muffled through the pine. “Don’t be like that, Emmeline. I’ve travelled halfway around the damn world to be here.”
“Bullshit, you drama queen. It was a few thousand miles in first class; don’t make out you’ve done the whole twenty-five thousandish in a hot air balloon.”
“First class was all booked out for Thanksgiving. I went to London first, then had to swap over at Charles De Gaulle and Philadelphia on economy flights. I would have been more comfortable in the cargo hold.”
I had to admit that hearing he’d had an uncomfortable flight made me feel better. After telling me to ‘recover or die’ in time for his wedding, my attitude towards him had cooled significantly to the point of me being damn near vindictive, and everything beyond that had just been salt on some very raw wounds. That meant I still held a bloody big grudge when I opened the door again and leaned into the frame.
“So I’m not good enough for a male model but I’m good enough for you to chase me around the world? That says a lot about your self-esteem, fuckwit.”
Hunter grinned at me from underneath his mane of sun bleached strawberry blonde hair. The Japanese weather had left him gloriously well tanned, and after two years there, he was even more the gorgeous boy next door. Just as I remembered, his smile was contagious, and I mirrored it as I stepped back to let him into the apartment. It really had been too long. Reunions could dispel all sorts of resentment. “What do you want, asshole?” Sort of.
He stepped in past me and stared at the apartment with fascination. He’d stayed there a few years earlier with his fiancée when it had been bleak and ultra-modern, the only warmth added by the odd sandstone wall and extraordinarily large log fireplace—the single most advantage to living on the top floor. Now, it had my fingerprints all over it in the pop art canvases and animal print faux fur couch throws. While I’d been establishing my own bohemian geek style, I’d been applying it to my environment, too. I think he was impressed.
“Hunter?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry. I’ve come to take you home.”
I frowned at him and splayed out my hands. “I am home. I have a job. Responsibilities. I’m a real New Yorker now—” I pointed out to the open streets, “—I drive in that mania and don’t break into a cold sweat. I like it here.”
“Do you?” Hunter stepped right up to me and ran his hands down both my arms. As much as I looked at him now, I didn’t understand why I’d loved him so much for so long. Sure, he was easy on the eyes, but not spectacular. Not like Blaze. Not like Calloway. Did I just only have space for two men in my heart at once? “Are you sure you’re not just running away?”
“Okay,” I admitted. “I came here to escape, but I’m done running. I feel better here. Safer.”
His eyes narrowed. “You do know that you can’t escape yourself, don’t you?”
I turned away with a whine, knowing that he was partially right. Parts of me would never go away. My family assured that I would always have a tie to London I couldn’t sever. Daniel was the only friend I knew would travel the distance to me. My scars would always remind me of my past.
And despite all the medication in the world, I would always have Fat Emmy waiting to impart her own brand of cathartic wisdom. Masking the features wouldn’t change the fact that I was always going to be a ticking time bomb, regardless of what time zone I was in.
But I sighed and looked back up at him. “I’m not trying to escape myself.”
“No, you’re running away from a man. Your friends need you and you’ve holed up across the pond with a new alter ego because of a man who didn’t respect you enough to tell you the truth. Friends who’d protect you given half the chance.” Hunter relented a little when he saw the tears filling my eyes and led me over to a couch. “Your parents worry about how much you’re working. You keep Skyping Henry when it’s three in the morning here and still making breakfast meetings...”
“But—” They were still objecting to me working hard?
“You’re finding extra work for yourself and forcing yourself out to social engagements with probably the most conceited and self-righteous business man on the planet. Calloway Ryan has a shocking reputation for trying to manipulate and coerce the women he’s dating into meeting his standards.”
What the hell? Did everyone on the planet have to know about his poorly justified reputation and take sly stabs at him for it? “Don’t bring him into this. You have no idea what he’s been through.”
Hunter murmured a rueful contemplation and left me on the couch while he paced into the kitchen. “He’s your only real company in this city, right?” I answered with silence. “And I’ll put money on him making some suggestions regarding visual ‘improvements’ you could make. If he’s your only friend and you’re on the verge of burning yourself out, is New York really your better option?” Again, I had no words. Calloway’s mission to modify me was a non-issue now, and no, I didn’t feel burnt out? Did I?
I was on medication to dispel the schizophrenic delusions I hadn’t suffered much in the weeks before I came to New York. I survived on coffee and happy thoughts because I didn’t sleep well through my recurring nightmares. And I’d only won my peace from Calloway by making compromises—compromises I still wore a ring to promise I’d never make. Maybe I had burnt out when I’d once blazed.
Hunter always had a way of making me see sense in the harshest of ways before I’d gotten far too crazy for him. Those early days of just crushing on him came with some heated rows and debates but always ended up in me feeling a little wiser. That must have been part of the appeal.
“Out of curiosity, why are you the one woman to ignore him?” I frowned at him. “Calloway. He’s left in his wake a legion of bitter women who bent to his demands because he’s, admittedly, a hot guy. Why are you different?”
“Oh.” Looking down thoughtfully, I flashed my left hand, which he quickly filled with a cup of coffee. “I promised a different idiot that I’d never change myself to meet someone’s expectations.”
Hunter nodded knowingly. “He told me about that.”
My eyes snapped up to meet his. “What?” He’d spoken to Blaze? Christ, I bet that was an interesting conversation.
“We met. Seems I didn’t give either of you enough credit and I’m sorry for that. Really. He told me how he’d never have your whole heart because you were stuck on some idiot who didn’t accept you for who you are. How you tortured yourself for years over him with that horrible shit you used to do to yourself. Using all your energy to love someone who only gave half in return—Emmeline, you deserve some serious respect for that. And honestly, I feel bad for the guy to be going through it himself, except he doesn’t even have half of you anymore.” I had to give the guy credit for strategically telling Hunter what he’d done to me without actually revealing that he’d done it to me and I felt a little humbled that he’d defended my honour in my absence.
But it was too little too late. That gesture wasn’t nearly enough to ma
ke a difference anymore.
“Whose side are you on, Rosen?”
“Yours.” He laid his hand over mine. “Always yours. But your friends need you and they’ve done nothing to deserve your cold shoulder. Come back for Christmas at least. Don’t make me go to Esme’s winter ball alone.”
The winter ball. It hadn’t really occurred to me how much time had really passed since my mind was jolted to recognise that it was nearly December. The ball always took place at The Roses on the last day of the November, and I’d left in August. Laid out that way, it seemed like a lifetime.
But I already had plans. “We’re going to Barbados next week, Hunt. I’m hardly going to pass up that opportunity in favour of the grim English weather.”
“So just come for the ball.” Scrunching up my eyes, I groaned indecisively. Hunter had always possessed a strange ability to get his own way and as headstrong as I was, I’ve never been able to resist it. From the minute I’d let him into my apartment, he’d have known that his victory was guaranteed.
I’d go along with it even though the thought of setting foot in his city made me feel sick with dread. If Hunter had met him it meant that he was still drifting around in my abandoned social circle, so to hope that I could avoid him would be naive. Three months might have been long enough to prepare myself to confront the face I’d missed so much it was physically painful, but it might not have been, either. After how far I’d supposedly come spiritually, could I really take that risk?
Sensing my turmoil, Hunter tossed an arm around my shoulders and swayed me on the spot. “A lot has changed since you left. Chris tried to kill himself. Esme’s mother found her. Daniel and Jonathan are separated, and it’s all because you left.”
“Bullshit. None of that happened. You’re trying to emotionally blackmail me.”
“All right.” He held up his free hand in surrender. “You got me. But everyone is feeling the void you left behind.” I felt it, too. Of course I did. New York had a lot to offer, but good understanding friends came around once in a lifetime. I was lucky to have as many as I did. “Come on, don’t make me go back to Esme empty-handed. She saw something pretty in a magazine and I promised I’d get it for her for Christmas.”