“Have you ever heard of sexual harassment laws, Seth?”
“Calm down.” He leaned forward and leered at me. “Or are you looking to get laid, too? Tell me, was I the last one you had?”
“Shut up, Seth.”
“’Cause I could give it to you again. Real good. Right on that desk you’re sitting at. Just like last time.”
“Fuck you.”
“Gladly.” His smirk made me feel dirty, in the worst possible way. I wanted nothing more than to bust out of that office and never look back. But this task list loomed before me like an unspoken threat. If I didn’t finish it, I’d probably be out of a job. Or, at the very least, I’d never get out of this godforsaken New York office. I’d be doomed to spend the rest of my career working alongside McKinley’s most worthless employee, picking up his slack and enduring his verbal vomit. Forget about finding a job elsewhere; without a ringing endorsement from my direct supervisor, I’d never get hired at another consulting firm.
What would Grandma tell me to do?
Think of the big picture. Stick to my plan. Keep chasing success.
She would definitely not tell me to reopen that browser window and start researching the history of the Sydney Opera House. But that’s precisely what I did. Three hours later, I’d produced a five-day itinerary hitting all the hot spots in New South Wales: two days exploring Sydney on foot, followed by a hike in the Blue Mountains, a wine tour of the Hunter Valley, and wrapping up with a day of relaxation on Manly Beach.
I’d been so engrossed in my vacation planning, I didn’t notice Seth had left the office. The clock on my computer screen read 5:40, which meant he’d absconded at least forty-five minutes ago. Probably longer. He hadn’t touched his task list since Elizabeth set it down on his pile of papers.
Then again, neither had I.
How much could a plane ticket to Sydney possibly cost?
I navigated to the Qantas website and searched for flights out of JFK. The shortest flight time was twenty-three hours. The earliest I could get there was two days from now. And to buy it, I’d have to pay the equivalent of one month’s rent. Damn Elena for wasting all my frequent-flyer miles.
It was a stupid thought anyway. What was I going to do? Quit my job to hop on a plane and surprise Carson? I didn’t even know where he was. Or if he’d already found a new partner to travel with.
With slumped shoulders, I shut down my laptop and stuffed it into my briefcase. I figured I should bring my work home with me to make up for all the time I’d wasted in the office. I still had to get all this done. Somehow.
I walked down the hall like I was being led to the guillotine. But as I pressed the button for the elevator, I felt stupid for feeling so glum. Really, my life wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t I lucky to have this job? Wouldn’t hundreds—no, thousands—of people kill to be in my position? That’s what everyone kept telling me. So why was I so miserable?
As I descended to the lobby with a crowd of other white-collar workers, I stared down at my sensible pumps. Maybe I should’ve said yes when Carson asked me to meet him in Sydney. Maybe I should’ve said yes when he asked me to stay in Hong Kong. It would’ve been messy, but it would’ve been worth it.
In the lobby, the revolving door felt heavier than usual, and outside, the setting sun momentarily blinded me. When I regained my vision, I stood there, unable to move, my soles glued to the pavement.
Sitting at the curb, leaning against a worn canvas backpack, was a sandy-haired man with a sketchbook in his lap. His pencil danced across the page. When he smiled up at me, I had to grasp the side of the building to prevent myself from falling to the ground.
He was here, in real life.
Carson.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Is it really you?”
My tongue felt thick in my mouth. I was dumbfounded. How could Carson be standing right here, on 42nd Street? Was this merely an apparition, the ghostly manifestation of my fantasies? Slowly, I reached out to touch him, half expecting my hand to pass right through his body. Instead, I felt the warmth of his chest, sturdy and solid, and I couldn’t help but trace my fingers up his shoulder, down his bicep, along his waist. Feeling every inch of him, every curve, to make sure he was real.
“In the flesh,” he said.
I stepped closer, my heart pounding as he cupped my face in his hand. He stroked my cheek with his thumb and I leaned into his caress, breathing in his scent, at once foreign and familiar.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I needed to see you.”
“What about Australia?”
“Australia’s not going anywhere.” He stroked his thumb over my lips. “I’ll get there eventually. Right now, being here with you is more important.”
“I can’t believe it.”
He smiled, revealing that deep dimple in his stubbled cheek. “You’d better believe it, because I just traveled for almost twenty-four hours. The only ticket I could get at the last minute had a crazy short layover in Tokyo, where I actually had to change airports. I made it to the boarding gate at Narita just before they closed the doors.”
“When did you get here?”
“About an hour ago. I’ve been sitting here, sketching. The people-watching in this city is phenomenal. I could fill a whole book with the scenery from this block alone.”
I looked up at the fifty-five-story skyscraper towering high in the sky, then around at the busy street, where a sea of white headlights sailed by in the encroaching dusk. Suddenly, I remembered that Carson had never been to New York before.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I had your work address, remember? The business card? With all the time you spend at your desk, I figured you’d be in the office at least until sundown. And, of course, I was right.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re unreal.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe this is only a dream. Maybe I’m a figment of your imagination.”
He drew me closer, fixing his blue eyes on my parted lips, and when he pressed his hips to mine, I felt his gentle, rigid pressure rise against me. There was no denying that he was real, that I was wide awake, that everything was actually happening. So I opened my mouth, and I let him in, and we kissed like we weren’t standing in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk, like there weren’t a dozen tourists watching us with jealous, wide-eyed stares. In that moment, we were all that existed and all that mattered, and I needed him more than I’d ever needed anything in my whole life.
“Let’s go to my place,” I muttered.
“Where do you live?”
“A few blocks away.” I was already at the curb, hailing a taxi. I didn’t have the patience for a twenty-minute walk through the chaos of urban bustle. I wanted Carson all to myself, to stare at him, to talk to him in the privacy of a chauffeured car. I wanted to get him home as quickly as possible, behind closed doors.
But it turned out I didn’t have the restraint to keep my hands off his body. After we piled into the backseat and slammed the door, my fingers were sliding beneath the hem of his T-shirt and working their way up his hard stomach, grasping at his chest. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me toward him, enveloping my mouth in his. Our kisses were savage and powerful. I could taste nothing but his tongue, smell nothing but his musk, feel nothing but his smooth skin beneath the palms of my hands.
When the cab screeched to a halt on Tenth Avenue, right outside Zum Bauer, I swiped my credit card in the kiosk as Carson retrieved his backpack from the trunk. I thanked the driver, but he remained silent, avoiding my gaze in the rearview mirror. Perhaps we’d made too much of a scene.
I didn’t remember unlocking the door or climbing the five flights of stairs. I didn’t remember how my clothes wound up strewn across my apartment. Because the next thing I knew, I was on my back on my bed with my hair splayed across the pillow and Carson hovering above me. My fingernails clawed at his shoulder blades as I told him to go harder, go deeper, to give m
e everything he had. I was frenzied, unbridled, releasing more and more stress with each of his powerful thrusts, until the burden was gone and I felt so light I could float up to the clouds.
When he slumped forward to bury his face in my hair, I could feel his heart beating through his chest. The heat of his breath, the weight of his body, the rhythm of his pulse. We were a sweating, panting mess of flesh and heat. Nothing had ever felt so right.
“Shit,” he said, still gasping for air. “That was intense.”
He rolled onto his back and I turned to nestle my face in the crook of his arm, slinging a leg across his slack body.
“All that phone sex really built up the tension,” I said, my voice raspy.
He kissed me tenderly on the lips. “Nothing compares to the real thing.”
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
We lay together in my bed, listening to the sounds of our own breathing. I ran my fingers along the lines of his tattoo, stroking each tree branch from base to tip. I thought of its meaning, how it was the home Carson carried with him wherever he roamed.
“So how long are you here for?” I asked.
“Not sure yet. I bought a one-way ticket. Why, are you ready to get rid of me already?”
“Of course not.” I kissed his chest. It was so hard to keep my lips off of him. “I just want to know how many condoms to buy. If you’re gonna be here for a while, we should probably buy them in bulk.”
My head bounced against him as he laughed. “I don’t think it’d take us very long to go through one of those big boxes. But that was my last one. Do you have any? If not, I think I’ll have to make a run out to the corner store and buy a little pack to get us through the rest of the night.”
“I’m not sure. Check my nightstand.”
Carson rolled over and opened the drawer. “I don’t see any.” He rummaged around for a moment, before unearthing my copy of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Traveling the World. “What’s this?”
I snatched it from his hand. The string of obscenities I’d uttered while we were in the throes of sexual ecstasy didn’t embarrass me as much as his discovery of my oldest book. “It’s nothing.”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “If it were nothing, I don’t think you’d react like that.”
Clutching the book to my chest, I bit my lower lip. “It’s my favorite book. I’ve had it ever since I was a kid.”
“That’s cool. Can I see it?”
Reluctantly, I handed it over. He flipped through the yellowing pages and took a long look at the cover image. “This girl looks just like you.”
“I know.” I propped myself up on one elbow and turned to face him. “I’ve always dreamed about being her.”
“And now you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are.” He leaned forward to kiss my shoulder. “A wild woman traveling the world.”
“I’m not exactly wild. And I’m not traveling on my own terms. Remember? You’re the one who said that.”
“I only said that because I didn’t want you to leave me in Hong Kong. Look, I know how important your career is to you, how important it is for you to be financially stable. Your job may not be perfect, but at least it lets you see the world. Although, I was thinking, what are you still doing in New York right now?”
My eyes welled with tears. I flopped back down on the pillow and pressed the heels of my hands against my face to keep him from seeing me cry, but it was too late.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Things aren’t going so great at work.” My voice was unsteady. I wiped my eyes and swallowed against the lump in my throat. “When I came back from Hong Kong, I got assigned to this shitty in-house job, so I can’t travel. And now my boss is nitpicking everything I do.”
“Shit. What do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know.” I stared at the cracks in my ceiling. “Actually, that’s not true. I do know. It’s because I’ve been really distracted lately. I can’t focus. I can’t bring myself to stay late when I know I should. And I hate my partner more than anything.”
Carson played with my curls, twirling them gently around his thick fingers. “Do you think it’s just a temporary thing? Like, post-vacation blues or something?”
I considered this for a moment. Could I simply be in a funk? One I would snap out of as soon as I’d readjusted to real life again? I turned my head to look at him and saw his eyes scanning my face with admiration and concern. With Carson here, in my bed, the lines between real life and vacation were all blurred. I realized there was no going back to what I knew before I met him.
“My heart’s not in it anymore.” Saying the words out loud made me feel lighter, free. But I wondered, had my heart ever been in it to begin with?
“Well, you shouldn’t be doing anything when your heart’s not in it.”
Of course that’s what he’d say. His entire life was lived in pursuit of his heart’s desires. “What made you realize art was your passion?”
“Hmm.” He scratched his head, as if he’d never before pondered the answer to this question. “I’m not sure. There was no aha moment, if that’s what you mean. It was just something I’d always felt, even when I was a little kid.”
I knew exactly what he meant. His affinity for art was inborn, like my travel bug had been. “Lots of crayon drawings on construction paper in your childhood?”
“Yup. But it didn’t take me long to move on to pencils and sketchbooks. Then I spent my teen years doodling my way through math and science, counting the seconds until art class started.” He bit back a smile, his cheeks flushing the palest shade of pink. “Not many people know this, but I was the president of my high school’s art club.”
“Get out.” An image flashed in my mind: Carson, in the prime of his adolescence—skin a little spotty, hair a little shaggy, but still the kind of dreamy, artsy guy that all the girls were crushing on. “I don’t even think my school had an art club.”
“Our art department was great. There was a studio with easels and drafting tables, a darkroom, even a ceramics workshop. You should see how talented I am with a pottery wheel and a slab of clay.” He inched closer and slid his hand around my waist, nuzzling my ear with the tip of his nose. And as tempted as I was to shut up and surrender to his touch, I was dying to know more.
“Then what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it sounds like the art department was a very formative experience for you. So why didn’t you continue your studies? Go to college and get a BFA or something?”
He snickered and pulled away from me slightly. “Been there, done that. Wasn’t for me.”
“You went to college?”
“Only for one semester. I consider it a failed experiment.”
“Why?”
With pinched brows, he scrubbed a hand through his hair for a moment, before answering, “It was hard.”
“College is supposed to be hard.”
“Yeah, but art school isn’t just about hard work. It’s about talent, too. Once I got there, I realized I wasn’t as talented as I always thought I was. In high school, I was a big fish in a small pond; it wasn’t hard to be the best artist in a group of a few hundred kids. But when I got to college…man, everyone was more talented than me. Way more talented. My freshman roommate, Johnny, specialized in sculpture and got his own pop-up gallery show three weeks after orientation. Meanwhile, I was struggling just to keep up with all my classwork.”
“Well, some of that boils down to luck. Maybe Johnny just had the right idea at the right time, you know?”
“No. He was gifted in a way I never would be. All those kids were. I just didn’t belong there. After I got my first shitty grade report, my aunt and uncle said, ‘I told you so,’ and I couldn’t argue. It seemed all my professors agreed with them about how talentless I was. So I quit. That’s when I moved out on my own and started working all those
odd jobs.”
I simmered with anger on Carson’s behalf. Of course he didn’t have the self-esteem to navigate the challenges of art school. With his aunt and uncle constantly criticizing him, they taught him to give up before he ever had a chance to find success. What could he have accomplished if only they’d believed in him?
“But it worked out for the best,” he said. From the scowl on his face, I wasn’t completely convinced he believed his own words. “I wasn’t really interested in paying a bunch of people to tell me how to be an artist. I’m a lot happier doing my own thing.”
There was nothing I could say to change his mind. How many times had I already tried to convince him that his work was remarkable, that he was brimming with talent and capable of anything? Instead, I pulled him closer to me, dancing my fingertips along his bicep, eager to lighten the mood. “That makes sense. You are a dreamer, after all.”
Immediately, his brow relaxed. “Well, there’s something to be said for being a planner, too.”
“Right, because my five-year plan is working out so well for me.”
His mouth twitched. “You know, I actually put together a five-year plan of my own.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure Mr. Seize the Day has developed a detailed five-year plan of all the goals he wishes to achieve.”
Without a word, he hopped off the bed and strode toward his backpack, which sat in the entryway beside his discarded T-shirt. As he knelt down to unzip the side pouch, I watched his muscles flexing beneath his smooth, tanned skin and marveled once again at how gorgeous he was, how lucky I was to have met him. When he returned, he sat on the edge of the mattress, holding a folded piece of paper in his hands.
“Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Take a look.”
I sat up and took it from him. It was a thick piece of white vellum, the shredded edges still hanging from the side where he tore it from one of his spiral sketchbooks. I opened it carefully and read the words written in smudged pencil:
FIVE-YEAR PLAN
1. Find a way to be with Sophie.
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