by Karina Halle
I finally dare to meet his eyes and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Those eyes of his burn into mine, in that masterful, carnal gaze that used to slay me over and over again. And like before, I’m hypnotized, and the world around me falls away until it’s only him.
“Natasha,” he says softly, searching my face. “I…” He pauses and takes a deep breath, pinching his eyes shut. Now he’s avoiding my gaze, staring at the floor. “There’s so much I want to say to you. To talk to you about. At the same time, it’s painful. All of it. And I’m so done with suffering. Aren’t you?”
I swallow hard and barely whisper, “Yes.”
He looks up at me, his forehead creased. “I just need you to know that the last time we spoke—”
“Brigs,” I tell him quickly. “You don’t have to explain.”
“I do,” he says. “I do. Because I wasn’t me.”
“I know.” God, it hurts that he doesn’t think I understand.
“No, you don’t,” he says, looking up at me. Fuck. His eyes are haunted, full of shadows and darkness. “I told you nothing but lies because it was the only way I could get you out of my life. At the time, all I could think was that I caused this.”
“And I helped,” I fill in.
“I fell in love with you,” he says harshly, pain written on his face.
My heart drops like an elevator in freefall.
I haven’t heard those words in so, so long.
“I fell in love with you and that was on me. That was my choice. I chose you, Natasha. There’s nothing you could have done to stop me.” He pauses, running his hand over his jaw. He gives a quick shake of his head. “Everything I said on the phone was a lie. I can’t believe I was too fucking scared to let you believe it for so long.”
I’m sorry too, I think. Because I ruined him. He may say it’s all on him, but it takes two to tango. We may not have slept together, nor been all that intimate at all, but when I told him I loved him, I willingly jumped into the deep end. I wasn’t naïve. I knew what I was doing and all the risks, and I did it anyway, the whole world be damned, because I loved him.
All because of love.
But I don’t want to get into that with Brigs. I didn’t come here to find out who feels guiltier. I came here because I wanted closure.
So I take a deep breath and say, “I accept your apology.”
It sounds lame but I hope he knows I mean it.
He eyes me. “You’re sure?”
I nod. “Yes, I’m sure. Brigs…I’m still trying to figure out what to do with you.”
He cocks a brow. “What to do with me?”
“The past will destroy me if I think about it too much. I’ve worked too hard to get back on my feet. I can’t even imagine how you did it. I want to keep putting it all behind me and try to move on, but it feels impossible when my past is standing before me.”
Just a foot away. So close I can breathe him in.
“I see,” he says softly. “I understand. That’s all I wanted to say, really. Just that I’m sorry. And I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sorry.”
“And neither will I.” I sigh and press my fist to my forehead. “But at the same time…this can’t be it.”
A glimmer of hope flashes through his eyes as he stares at me expectantly.
I give him a wan smile. “It’s what you said in your email. About disappointing fate. I don’t want to do that either. I don’t think I can live with you in my life as a stranger. It doesn’t seem right.”
He takes a small step toward me, his eyes trained so intently on my face, roaming from my brow to my nose to my lips. “What does seem right?” His voice is so low.
I lick my lips and his eyes linger longer. “I don’t know.”
He continues to study me and I continue to hold my breath.
“Come for a drink with me tonight,” he says after a few long, tension-filled beats.
I give him a wary look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why not?”
“You’re a teacher. I’m a student.”
“I’m not your teacher, for one thing. And for another…” He smiles wickedly. “I don’t really care.”
“I don’t know.” It’s damn tempting. That smile alone is making me weak in the knees. But when I said I didn’t want to make him a stranger, I’m not sure hopping to a pub right away is the right solution.
Oh, who am I kidding. It’s exactly what I want. I’ve been in his presence for five minutes now, and though I know the past is a wolf at our door, I haven’t felt this alive in years. It’s like I’m clicking with the solar system, my body charging cell by cell.
“Where?” I finally ask, giving in.
That smile again. Jesus.
“Any good places near you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’m at Wembley and there’s shit all.”
“Then my neighborhood,” he says. “I’m in Marylebone. There’s a pub you’d like called The Volunteer. Say, eight o’clock?”
“Okay,” I say quietly, stunned at where this meeting progressed. “You sure you won’t get in trouble?”
“We’re friends, Natasha,” Brigs says. “And we were friends before I started here. It’s not a problem. It will never be a problem. Friends have drinks together all the time.”
Friends.
I’m not sure if that’s what we are, but I’ll take it. It’s better than strangers.
“See you at eight, then,” I tell him, turning around and heading for the door so I can go freak out about it in private.
Brigs says goodbye and I’m gone.
***
“Now where are you going all dolled up?” Melissa asks while I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully applying magenta lipstick that I know is going to smear all over my face and clothes in a matter of minutes. I’m so not used to wearing it, and I have a bad habit of getting it everywhere.
I knew I should have closed the bathroom door. I avoid her eyes and concentrate on myself. With some eyeshadow and bronzer, I’m hardly what you would call dolled up, though I have managed to put my hair half back into a Bridget Bardot type look. Hmmm, maybe I do need more mascara to complete the look.
“Just trying new makeup,” I tell her. Then I quickly drop a lie to get her off my back. “I’m meeting one of the other TAs for a drink.”
She frowns. “Which one?”
Ah shit. I hope to god she doesn’t follow up with him about it. She probably would, as nosy as she is.
“Um, he’s not in film,” I say quickly. “You wouldn’t know him. His name is Bradley.”
“When did you meet this Bradley?”
“In the library. He’s in art history. We got to talking and he asked me out. I’m not really into it, but then I remembered you’d be proud of me if I went. Fingers crossed I get laid.”
Wow, I really am a good actress.
“I am proud of you,” she says. “I just wish you could have told me sooner. I would have put you in a better outfit than that.”
I look down at my black knee-high boots, jeans, black long-sleeved shirt. I think I look pretty good. Added bonus—all my clothes are clean.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?”
She sighs. “Nothing, if you’re going to class or grocery shopping. You’re going on a date. Show some skin. A mini-skirt would work.”
“Not with these thighs,” I interject, piling on more mascara.
“Push-up bra.”
“Not into false advertising,” I tell her. “Besides, he can get a pretty good idea of my body just by looking at me in this.”
She looks me over, pursing her lips. Then she says, “What about your bra and underwear, are they matching?”
“Yes,” I tell her, even though that’s a big fat lie. I’ve adopted the Bridget Jones way of guaranteeing nothing funny will happen tonight. I’m not wearing granny panties or Spanx, but my underwear have Sponge Bob Square Pants on them. It’s insurance for my well-being, not that I think a
nything like that would happen between Brigs and I, not now, not after so much time.
Then again, if he gets me drunk I can’t promise anything. Hopefully Sponge Bob will come to the rescue.
But Melissa needs to think I’m out to get laid and so that’s what I let her think. Besides, all this pretending is actually good for me. It’s taking my mind off of what’s really going on, and I’m afraid that if I think about tonight too much, I might chicken out and not go at all.
I can’t hide in my flat forever though. When it’s time to go, I say goodbye to Melissa, promising to text her any details, and then I head to the tube. I’m pretty much just as nervous as I was that morning but in a different way, and the only silver lining is that there is a drink at the end of this journey to quench my nerves.
I’m walking down Baker Street, about a block away from the pub, when I really start to flip out. Even the silver lining can’t save me. I don’t even know why I’m this nervous, it’s not like I don’t know Brigs at all, and it’s not like we’re together as anything other than friends. But my heart wants to take flight and my limbs feel like jelly, and the world is taking on this hazy glow, like I’m losing oxygen.
I have to take a moment outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum—closed for the day—and stare at my shadowed reflection in a mirror, trying to get my breathing under control. I keep telling myself there’s no reason to feel like this, but my body doesn’t care in the slightest.
Eventually I have to pry myself away from the wall of the building and head into the pub next door, otherwise he’ll start to think I’m standing him up. I already ran away from him once, I can’t let him think I’m doing it again.
The pub isn’t all that busy, and I spot him sitting at the bar, laughing with the bartender. His smile is dashing and genuine as always, flooding me with warm memories. He’s dressed down, wearing dark jeans, a t-shirt, and his leather moto jacket he always used to wear. I stop and watch him for a few seconds, unobserved, wishing in some ways that this was another instance of watching him from afar. I just want to take in every single detail and hold them in my mind, examine them like precious stones and see just how they make me feel.
But Brigs turns his head and looks at me, as if pulled by an imaginary string, and he gazes at me with wonder. His mouth quirks up into a small smile, his body twisting in his seat to face me.
I will my feet to move and walk on over, suddenly shy.
I stop beside him and rest my hand on the empty stool. “Is this seat taken?” I ask.
His eyes gently crinkle at the corners. He nods. “It’s all yours.”
I try to sit on the stool as gracefully as I can.
“What will you have?” he asks me, his body still turned in his seat facing me, one foot propped up on the rung at the bottom of my stool.
“A snakebite,” I tell him.
“Still have a fondness for that drink,” he remarks, looking me over. “You can change your hair, but not your appetite.”
I study him, wondering if that was innuendo. He has this way of setting his jaw that makes you think he’s struggling to keep all sorts of urges in control.
I clear my throat. “Do you like my hair?”
He reaches out and gently tugs on a strand, rubbing it between his fingers. I freeze, holding my breath, unprepared for how intimate this feels. “It suits you,” he says after a moment. “Brightens you up. Not that you ever needed it.”
Then as abruptly as he touched my hair, his hand falls away and he signals to the bartender. “Max, a snakebite for the lady. I’ll take another pint.”
Max gives me a nod and gets to work.
“So, you come here often, I guess?” I ask him since he seems to be right at home here.
He nods. “I live right across the street.”
“Really? And the Sherlock Holmes Museum right here. I remember you being quite the fan.”
He gives me a quick smile. “And what else do you remember?”
I eye him carefully, unsure of his game here, if there is anything. “I remember everything.”
“All good things, I hope,” he says as Max slides the drinks toward us.
I exhale. Slowly. I’ve just noticed his left hand, the absence of the wedding ring that was always there.
Oh my god. I can’t do this.
“Natasha,” Brigs says, leaning into me. “It’s okay.”
I stare up at him with wild eyes. “What’s okay?”
“This,” he says softly.
How? How?
He nods at my snakebite, a mix of lager, hard cider, and cassis. It gets you drunk fast which is why I normally just have one, and a lot of pubs won’t serve it.
“You’re just having a drink with me,” he explains. “That’s all.”
You tried to leave your wife for me, I think. How could any of this be that simple?
I take a large gulp of my drink and lapse into a coughing fit like an amateur.
Brigs places his hand on my back, as if to pat me there, but he doesn’t. He just presses his palm between my shoulder blades. Warm, even through my shirt. I briefly close my eyes, because god, even that simple contact feels so fucking good.
“So,” he says slowly. “Seen any good films lately?”
I almost laugh at how cavalier he sounds. I look at him and his hand drops away, leaving my back feeling cold and bare. He’s smiling, waiting for a response, his foot still resting on the rung of my stool, like he needs to be tethered to me in some way.
“Lately, no,” I tell him, having another sip and taking it easier this time. “But in the last four years, yes.”
“Still on your Christopher Nolan kick?”
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “Have you seen The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar? He just keeps getting better.”
He shakes his head. “Nah. He peaked with Inception. Or even before that.”
I roll my eyes. “You still don’t understand that film.”
“Maybe because I haven’t watched it a million times like you have,” he says. “Ogling Leo and what’s his face. You shouldn’t have to watch a film a million times in order to understand it. That says something right there.”
“It says that you don’t become obsessed with anything,” I tell him. “Remember when I told you that I saw X-Men eight times in the theatre when it came out?”
“Aye. I said you’re nuts,” he says somewhat proudly. Then he adds quietly, “And I do know what it’s like to be obsessed with something.”
His eyes become melancholic and I look away. “Anyway,” I say, sliding over it, “you’ve watched Vertigo more times than you can count, and you say it’s because you discover something new about the film every time.”
“Maybe I can relate to Jimmy Stewart’s character.”
The one who trails the ghost of the woman that he loved.
“Maybe.” I’m not sure what else to say. There’s so much I want to bring up, and I’m not sure what will send either of us into a tailspin. The elephant in the room is huge and will follow us everywhere.
After a few beats he takes a long swill of his beer and looks me over, his eyes razing every inch of me. He’s so bold and open about it, or maybe he’s unaware of how blissfully unnerving he’s being with his gaze.
“It’s really good to see you, Natasha,” he says. “Just like this.”
Like it was. My memory slides back a hundred frames to the few times we went to the pub together after a long day of compiling research for his book. Those days seem so long ago, and yet they shine in my mind like they just happened yesterday. I would get my snakebite, or maybe a glass of wine if I was feeling classy, he would have his beer, and we’d get a table or a booth and just talk for hours. How easy it was, comforting, just to be in his presence.
And whenever he wasn’t looking, I would drink him in like a sponge. All of his features, the lines at the corners of his eyes, the faint cleft at the end of his sloping nose, the sharp cut of his square jaw, the crooked twist to his smil
e that made you imagine he was planning all sorts of devilish things—I would take them all in with a sense of unbridled fascination.
Even now I feel like I’m losing my footing a bit, because my eyes keep being drawn to that same face, and my fascination is growing into something like hunger. As much as we are sitting here at a pub, just like old times, the air between us dances with electricity much brighter than before. It hums. The obstacles are still there—this time it’s our mutual shame, the destructive grief, instead of what’s right and wrong—but dare I say they are nearly buried by something much more powerful.
Rebirth.
Lust.
Need.
A cocktail more potent than the one in my hands.
Still, I finish the rest of my drink, my head warm and swimming. I’m aware I haven’t said anything in response to him, but it doesn’t feel awkward. Maybe that’s the drink talking.
“Want another?” he asks me while Max hovers around, waiting. I notice Brigs’ beer is gone too.
“I’ll just have a cider this time,” I tell him. “Magners, please.”
Max nods, seeming relieved. I’m sure if I ordered another snakebite, he’d cut me off.
“How’s your book?” I end up asking Brigs. It seems like a safe topic.
His brow twitches and he gives me a wry smile. “Oh, I’m still writing it.”
I want to remark on how slow he is, to make a joke, but I’m sure he hasn’t done much writing over the years.
And I’m right. He says, “Honestly, I stopped writing after you left. I haven’t looked at it since.” He tilts his head at me. “Would you want to be my research assistant again?”
I raise my brows. “Me?”
“Aye, you,” he says. “You were practically a muse.”
I offer him an apologetic wince. “I can’t. I have far too much work to do. So much to catch up on. You know, I can’t screw up this year. This is my second chance.”
He nods. “No need to explain. I understand.”
And yet, the idea of seeing him every day pulls at me like an addiction.
“But, maybe you could bounce ideas off of me,” I say slowly. “It might help. I feel I know almost as much about the subject as you do.”
“You probably do,” he tells me. “Tell me what you remember.”