Also by Jessica Topper
Louder than Love
Dictatorship of the Dress
Courtship of the Cake
Softer than Steel [9/15]
Deeper than Dreams
Jessica Topper
InterMix Books, New York
AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC
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DEEPER THAN DREAMS
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Topper.
Excerpt from Softer Than Steel copyright © 2015 by Jessica Topper.
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19226-3
PUBLISHING HISTORY
InterMix eBook edition / August 2015
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Penguin Random House is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.
In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words
are the author’s alone.
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Contents
Also by Jessica Topper
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Deeper than Dreams
Acknowledgments
Preview of Softer Than Steel Rick - Shafted
Sidra - Cinderella in Reverse
For all the dreamers.
“Where would you find fairy tales on the library shelves, luv?”
Adrian’s question sifted into my slumber, adding depth and dimension. I was vaguely aware of his warm skin against my cheek and his chest rising and falling in a deep rhythm.
“398.2,” I recited, my voice drowsy from dreaming. “Why?”
“I love fairy tales,” Abbey murmured to my left. Her small body stiffened in a long stretch before curling around my hip and leg, and her tiny hand pat-patted Adrian’s where it was cupped around my shoulder.
“I’m just making sure you know where you’re waking up.”
Oh, I knew exactly where.
The three of us were all under one roof, in the twenty-six-hundred square feet of the Manhattan sky that was Adrian’s apartment, waking up together for the first time. Some might call it a fairy tale, happily ever after and all that jazz. I was thinking more along the lines of the best kind of dream, finally come true.
I had, after all, dreamed of Adrian Graves before I had even met him.
“You’re smiling, Kat,” he whispered. “I can feel it.”
My grin pressed against the spiral of his desert flower tattoo. Unlike the species it was based on, which took years to blossom and only opened for a few days at a time, Adrian’s flower was always in bloom. It was more like the love that had inspired it: quickly growing, fresh, and beautiful.
“My favorite fairy tale of all is ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears,’” Abbey continued in her breathy, morning rasp. “My bed at home is too small. Natalie’s bed down the hall is too big. But this bed? Just right!”
“Don’t get too used to it,” I warned her. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
Reality had been sucked into a surreal vacuum as I had watched Adrian perform last night as Digger Graves to a screaming, sold out crowd at his Madison Square Garden show. The concert had taken place on Halloween, which just so happened to have fallen on a Sunday.
“Mommy, do we have to go back home?” Abbey’s small fist punched at the pillow in protest. “I don’t want to go to school.”
“Let’s not think about tomorrow just yet.” Adrian raked a hand through his wayward, dark blond hair. The only lingering evidence of last night’s performance was a smudge of kohl liner under his right eye, reminiscent of Malcolm McDowell’s creepy character in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. My gentle menace kissed both of our foreheads in turn. “Let’s think about . . . breakfast in bed. What shall we have? Beans on toast? Smoked eel pie?”
Abbey gave a delighted squeal of disgust, disturbing the kitten at her feet. She loved when Adrian waxed poetic on what she considered the humorous meals of his homeland.
“How about a full English breakfast for your mum?” he continued. “A proper fry-up that’s old-school, greasy, and gorgeous?”
Abbey giggled with every trilled r that rolled off his tongue. “What will Chelsea eat?” she asked.
The kitten was now up and stalking a loose thread from the sheet, pouncing as Adrian rolled out of bed and shrugged into a zip-up hooded sweatshirt. He was always careful to shield his “boogeyman” body art from Abbey’s young eyes and imagination, lest she have nightmares about some of the more gruesome tattoos on display.
“Kippers for the wee little Chelsea?”
Whether my five-year-old even knew what a kipper was, I wasn’t sure. But she clapped her hands and bounced off the bed after Adrian.
“A full English breakfast would be wonderful,” I told them both, propping myself up on my elbows. “Hold the black pudding, baked beans, and fried bread.”
“So basically bacon and eggs?” Adrian laughed. “I can do that. But I need the help of a certain cat and trusty sidekick.”
Ever a slave to PBS and her favorite TV show, Abbey pricked up her ears. “Maxwell MacGillikitty?” With zero hesitation, she added, “And Mr. Quackson, his dashing duck confidant?”
Although he had written the show’s theme song in jest many years ago, Adrian respected Abbey’s devotion to its cat crusader hero, and answered her in all seriousness.
“I’m afraid Max and the Mister are indisposed, Abbey. But you and Chelsea will do just fine.”
He gave me a wink, which threw my own imagination into overdrive. Sexy man, entertaining your child, as Marissa would say. My best friend had seen the potential in Adrian as soon as he strummed his first bar chord during that children’s program he so graciously agreed to do at the library back in April. Little had I known, I had pulled one of the world’s most elusive hard rockers out of hiding and back amongst the living that day.
“Do they have spiral staircases in English?” I heard Abbey inquire, as they made their way downstairs.
“England’s got loads of ’em! There are the Tulip Stairs at the Queen’s house, for one.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Adrian’s laugh was faint to my ears, and his response was too far away to hear as they descended. I smiled and stretched, reveling in the glorious view that was just beyond my fingertips. There was barely a need for curtains when you were set so high above Central Park, although I had no doubt some of the apartments on the East Side housed telescopes powerful enough to see right across to the West Side. We had fallen asleep under the fattened Manhattan moon last night, and had awoken to a crisp, autumn day. The park was awash with golden browns, oranges, and yellows; its treetops like a seventies-era sha
g carpet I could imagine walking across. The foliage was still lush, although there were a few bare spots here and there where leaves had already found their way down to the ground. My smile turned into a sigh as I realized it was November 1st.
Some people reveled in flipping to a new page on the calendar, for them it was a time of new beginnings and fresh starts, and I didn’t begrudge them that. Fate had just dictated a sadder habit for me, reminding me of loss with each passing of the milestone first of the month. So much, in fact, I couldn’t bear to keep a calendar in the house until Abbey reached school age and necessity had warranted it.
Do we have to go back home? Abbey’s plaintive tone, entreating me, came to mind. I don’t want to go to school.
School was in Lauder Lake, and Lauder Lake had been our home for the last four years. Sanctuary after our senseless loss. That September 1st day had started like any other, and had ended in a memory I could never shake. I hadn’t been able to stay in the city after Pete died. Home couldn’t be where my husband had existed one day and not the next. So I had taken our baby daughter to the one place where I had existed before I knew him.
But I had just been living on autopilot there. Until Adrian stumbled—adorably and drunkenly—into our lives last spring.
And now here we were, back in Manhattan. I was happy, but sometimes found it hard to wrap my head around it.
“Over easy, luv?” Adrian bellowed.
“Scrambled, please!” I kicked down the covers, suddenly restless. I wasn’t used to being waited on. “I can come down, please don’t fuss.”
“Don’t come down yet!” Abbey screeched. “We’re not fussing, we’re busy.”
I laughed to an empty room, shaking my head, and reached for some reading material. My fingertips fell on the red-leather binding of Blake’s poetry. Adrian had read from the book the first time I had visited—not long after I had discovered the legendary identity of my new lover. The memory felt like an old one. He’d had a MetroCard marking his spot that day, conjuring up images in my mind of him entering the subway with both in hand and winding under Manhattan for hours, lost in Blake’s world of words.
Today there was a new marker holding his place on a different page. Adrian had underlined select passages, and certain words were even circled with inky emphasis.
I seize the sphery harp, strike the strings!
At the first sound the golden Sun arises from the deep,
And shakes his awful hair;
The Echo wakes the moon to unbind her silver locks:
Arise and drink your bliss!
I wake sweet joy in dens of sorrow, and I plant a smile
In forests of affliction,
And wake the bubbling springs of life in regions of dark death.
With a smile, I couldn’t help but wonder if Adrian had been pondering the poetry, or dreaming up new song material inspired by such heavy stanzas. I loved Blake’s imagery of golden suns and silvery moons. The actual sun chose to shine strong as I glanced back up, setting the trees ablaze in glorious light and warming my face.
Arise and drink your bliss!
Perhaps it was time for new beginnings.
I moved to stow Adrian’s place marker, realizing it was an envelope as its unsealed flap caught on the pages. Digger & Kat was inked across the front in neat, narrow script.
I had only met Adrian’s best friend and bandmate in person once, last night, but I recognized Rick’s signature left-slanting scrawl immediately from a lifetime of sharing living quarters with my brother, the ultimate Corroded Corpse fanboy. Mass-produced centerfold spreads still hung on the walls of my house from various music magazines, photographs in full-color with signatures printed across them. Kevin had cherished them all as if they were personally inscribed. Rick’s penmanship graced the liner notes inside the band’s albums as well, from handwritten lyrics to clever hidden messages for the fans to find.
I peeked inside the envelope, and gasped.
Digger had some explaining to do.
***
I found Adrian and Abbey in the kitchen. Breakfast was indeed in progress on the stove, but those two were conferring, thick as thieves, at the kitchen island. I glanced around suspiciously. Markers and paper were strewn everywhere. Adrian, leaning on his forearms across the work surface, hastily slid back and nonchalantly grabbed a spatula. Abbey curled her bare feet around the chrome rungs of the stool she perched on and quickly immersed herself in her artwork, pretending to whistle even though she hadn’t quite mastered the skill yet.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “And why does everyone look as guilty as the proverbial cat who swallowed the canary . . . except for the cat?” Chelsea was hunkered by a tiny ceramic bowl, chowing down on dry food rather than the smelly, oily fish Adrian had joked about upstairs.
“Nothing,” Abbey sing-songed. “Just drawing.”
“Abbey’s been keeping me company while I was cooking, and now,” Adrian sidled up next to me with frying pan in hand, “brekkie is served.” He slid a healthy portion onto Abbey’s plate, and she quickly abandoned her art.
“How come your eggs are so much fluffier than Mommy’s?” Abbey demanded around a mouthful.
“Chew first,” I advised her. “Ask questions later.” My advice, of course, didn’t apply to me. “Care to explain?” I asked, placing the envelope I had found next to the plate Adrian had just prepared for me.
“Ah, yes,” he supplied, bringing his own serving to the island. “I was going to tell you about those.”
“Adrian, these are tickets to the Library Lions gala! And it’s tonight!”
My lover swapped out his potholder for my hand and twirled me toward him like we were on a ballroom floor. “Will you do me the honor?” he joked.
“These tickets had to set Rick back a bundle,” I protested.
“He said his in-laws get an entire table at the benefit.” Adrian gave a shrug and took me for another whirl in the opposite direction.
“An entire table?” I sputtered. Scoring two tickets to one of New York City’s most anticipated social events of the year took big bucks; securing an entire table was probably equivalent to the GDP of a third world country.
“The perks of being a ‘cultural conservator,’ I reckon,” he said with mock panache, and dipped me so low I squealed, sending Chelsea skittering right across the top of her food dish and out of the kitchen. Abbey grinned through a mouthful of bacon.
“Speaking of donating to the library,” I chided, “I heard my local branch received a generous sum recently.” The library director had asked me repeatedly to remind Adrian to cash the check cut for his services after he performed last April. No sooner had the check cleared than a donation was made, coincidently for that exact same amount. “Does that make you a ‘cultural conservator,’ too?”
“I’d prefer the term ‘anonymous benefactor,’” Adrian allowed, smiling modestly. “Now, eat before your eggs get cold.”
“I still can’t believe this,” I said, turning over the tickets to the iconic annual event.
“Why not? On our first real date, you told me you always wanted to attend one of their galas.” He handed me my coffee. “One sugar, two splashes of skim.”
“You remember everything, don’t you?” I asked, with more admiration in my voice than accusation.
“The devil’s in the details, darlin’.” Adrian flashed me a grin and picked up a fork. “Or in this case, the devil on this shoulder plots diabolically, while the angel over here”—he patted his other shoulder—“dutifully takes notes.”
Leaning toward Abbey, he stage-whispered, “The secret to fluffy eggs is . . .” He put the back of his hand up to his mouth as he delivered the rest of the message privately in her ear. Her big brown eyes widened.
“Mommy, you really need to put sour cream in your eggs,” she dictated, both hands curling aro
und the glass of orange juice Adrian set down in front of her.
“You’re too much, Mr. Graves,” I said lovingly, shaking my head.
“Come on, can’t a rock star spoil his favorite audience of one once in a while?” he said, with cocky pomp and circumstance.
“Oh, so you call yourself a rock star now?” I tilted my chin up in challenge.
“Now and again,” he quipped. “And last night? Certainly. But today . . . today is all about you.”
***
If the devil was in the details, I began to wonder how in hell I was going to be able to pull off a night out. Not only was it another school night, I didn’t have a sitter for Abbey and had only brought one change of clothes.
“She’s in kindergarten, luv. What’s one more day? The absence won’t go on her college transcript,” Adrian teased as I voiced my concern.
“Yes, but—hey, don’t try to ply me with bacon!” I protested, as he popped the last piece into my open mouth. “At the risk of sounding like Cinderella”—I tugged at the sash on the black terry robe I had appropriated from Adrian’s closet—“I have nothing to wear to the ball.”
A chime echoed through the spacious apartment.
“Batphone!” Abbey announced. Adrian’s intercom system was accessible from any room in the house, but in the kitchen it was still connected to its original hardware: an old school, corded telephone, which happened to be red.
Adrian had it to his ear in seconds flat. “G’morning to you, Hector. Yes, you can send them both up.”
“Company so early?” I asked. With Abbey in her footie pajamas and me in a borrowed bathrobe, we were the epitome of lazy houseguests. Our host, in a pair of beat-up board shorts and a hoodie zipped halfway up his naked, tatted chest, could at least pass for lounge-casual.
“No worries, Kat. They’re family.” Adrian smiled as Abbey’s vinyl-bottomed feet hit the floor. Summoned by a sharp rap on the door, she shuffled out to answer it.
“Unkie Luke! Unkie Kimon!” Her squeal found its way back to my ears in the kitchen.
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