by Maggie Riley
“Come on,” he said, putting a hand on the small of my back. “Let’s get me out of these sweaty clothes.”
JOSH
“You know, you don’t really get the true New York experience if you take cabs everywhere,” Reagan told me as we grabbed one to take back to my apartment.
“This again?” I asked, leaning my head back.
She shrugged, trying to look innocent.
“Just trying to help you ease into city life,” she said.
“Technically my true New York experience doesn’t start until my sister gets back from her honeymoon,” I told her.
“Oh? Is that how it works?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“All right.” she sprawled back dramatically against the seats. “I guess I’ll take advantage of this luxury until then.”
I shook my head, before glancing out the window at the city speeding by. It was silly, but I was kind of pleased by the idea of treating Reagan to something as simple as a cab ride. Especially since she did seem like the kind of person who would consider it a luxury. From the looks of her apartment—where everything was just a little rundown, just a little worn out—to the clothes she seemed to wear on a regular basis, she wasn’t someone who had a lot of money on hand.
Not that she seemed particularly impressed by it. Being in minor leagues had given me a pretty good eye for the kind of person whose interest in me was based on my net worth. At least, I thought I had been vigilant until my former manager proved me wrong.
But Reagan did not seem like someone who was interested in wealth. Maybe being friends with Joanna—who was a part of one of the wealthiest families in the country—had numbed her to it. Either way, it had been a long time since I had spent time with a woman who wasn’t acutely aware of how much I made or had made.
Still, it was courting trouble, asking Reagan to come back to my place. The look in her eyes back at the furniture rental place was enough to tell me that whatever I had started to feel for her—namely gut-clenching, palm-sweating lust—seemed to be mutual. So being alone with her in an apartment which had a bed and very little else was a very, very bad idea.
But apparently I couldn’t help myself.
Because she was the first person, besides my family, that had managed to make me forget about how pathetic my life had become. Even if it was just for a few seconds.
She told me the other day that I had a nice smile. Well, I was finding that it was nice to smile around her.
“Did you just move in?” Reagan asked when we got to my extremely expensive, extremely sparse penthouse apartment.
“Not really.” I looked around and it suddenly seemed depressing and desolate. Especially compared to Reagan’s cozy place.
“Well, if the vibe you were going for was ‘serial killer’, you totally nailed it,” she said. “Patrick Bateman would be totally at home here.”
“I’m very concerned that you can reference American Psycho with such ease,” I told her, throwing my jacket on the black leather sofa.
“Well, someone made it into a musical,” she said. “It’s not bad, actually.”
“Ah.”
“But, I’m concerned that you seem to be living it,” she teased, walking over to the floor to ceiling windows. “Nice view, at least.”
It was, but the view I was focused on was Reagan herself, cast in the yellow glow of the late afternoon. Her backlit silhouette suddenly made my apartment seem a lot less bleak.
“Yeah, I like to give my victims one last thrill before I chainsaw them.” I toed off my shoes. “There’s not much in the fridge as far as drinks go, but help yourself. I’m going to take a quick shower.”
“No rush,” she said, still looking out the windows.
For whatever reason, I was reluctant to leave the room. Whatever it was about Reagan, I just felt better around her. Or at least not as terrible as I usually felt. It was kind of like how I felt around my niece, Emily. Like it was just easier to be happier. Like it was possible to be happy.
Only whatever I was feeling for Reagan was starting to feel infinitely more complicated. Comfort mixed with attraction and a lot of other things that had been missing from life as of late. Which is why I was hovering, still watching her.
“You’re going to go through my stuff while I’m in the other room, aren’t you?”
Reagan looked over her shoulder. “I would but it doesn’t look like you have any stuff to go through.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re no fun,” she admonished me.
Except, for the first time in a while, I was starting to feel like maybe I could be fun again.
Chapter 12
REAGAN
Josh’s apartment was depressing. If there had been any doubt that he was on a one-way trip to Bummer Town, well, this place made it perfectly clear that he needed some major redirection in his life.
At least he was right about one thing—the view was pretty nice. A great view of the city, but even that had a sense of distance and detachment. The windows were huge and awesome, but they didn’t open. You were stuck behind glass no matter what.
It reminded me a lot of the penthouse my parents kept in the city, which was actually only a few blocks from Josh’s place. It wasn’t a positive point of reference. They definitely had more furniture but the emptiness was still there. Like all the life had been purposely removed from the room. Looking around I searched for something personal, for anything that would indicate who lived here, but there wasn’t much. Not even photos on the fridge.
It was not comforting at all. I would be depressed if I lived here. Obviously Josh could afford furniture, and according to Allie he had been here for several months, so why was it so empty? This wasn’t a place anyone would want to come home to. I got lonely just thinking about Josh arriving here after a long day.
He was lucky to have a sister who cared so much about him. I tried to imagine my own sister recruiting someone to help coax me out of a depressive state, and I couldn’t. Then again, both her and my parents considered my current existence to be a depressive state, so I wouldn’t trust them to do what was best for anyone but themselves.
I had spent so much of my life trying to please them. It wasn’t until I was halfway through law school and totally miserable that I finally came to terms with the truth—which was that the only way I would be able to please them would be if I became someone else. Specifically my older sister, Amanda, who had done everything they wanted and done it well. She excelled at every subject, graduated with honors, went to Yale, was editor of the law review and was offered a position at the very firm where my parents met—Benson, Baylor and Grant.
Working there, of course, had merely been a formality. She was always going to end up as a soon-to-be partner at my parents’ firm. Her recent engagement to Fred Grant, Jr, son of Fred Grant, Sr.—of Benson, Baylor and Grant—was the cherry on the top of that pinstriped cake. My parents could not be more proud of their perfect eldest daughter.
Me, on the other hand . . . Well, they tried everything to get me to follow Amanda’s lead. When I was Caroline Richmond, before I started going by Reagan Bennett—my middle name and my mother’s maiden name—I was expected to act like one of the Richmonds. I was expected to do what Amanda did. Travel in the right circles, get the right degrees, be seen at the right places. It was ironic, of course, since my parents were the ones who took me to Broadway shows in the first place. But they went to the theatre because it’s what rich New Yorkers did, not because they had any interest in it. They were there to be seen, especially at sold-out shows that my father often slept through.
When they realized that I was developing an interest in theatre—one that went beyond its use as a social tool—they stopped taking me with them. They did everything they could to curb my passion, including sending me to a boarding school with no arts program.
And they were thrilled when they found out I would be rooming with Joanna Millet. Another member of an esteemed New York
family. Finally, someone who would be a good influence on me. Would get me to follow the dream they had laid out for me.
A dream I shattered. Because while Joanna and I became fast friends, we both encouraged the very passion our parents had intended to deny us. We loved Broadway. And we both felt the suffocating pressure of a family that didn’t understand us.
I knew the Millets blamed me for Joanna’s current career path, just as my parents blamed Joanna for mine. Even though she still fulfilled the requirements necessary to someone of her status—being seen at events and doing the occasional interview—starting The Hole in the Wall had become her priority.
And when my parents found out I intended to drop law to study theatre, they refused to pay for college and threatened to take away my inheritance and give everything to Amanda. I called them on their bluff. Left the money, the family name and the expectations behind. Went from being Caroline Richmond—of the New York Richmonds—to Reagan Bennett of the no ones. But I couldn’t have done it without my Great Aunts.
They had been cast out from the family just as I had been. My mother’s two spinster aunts had never towed the family line and were disowned just as I had been. But at least they had each other. I sometimes wondered what it would have been like if Amanda and I had been as close as Gertie and Sylvia were. But we weren’t. Amanda loved the life our parents gave us and she sided with them in every argument. The only people I ever had on my team were my Great Aunts.
They took me in. They helped me get scholarships for college. They came to see all my shows and gave me Broadway tickets for my birthday. They became my whole family. Because that’s what Gertie had always said—that you had to make your family if luck didn’t give you a good one. So I might not have gotten my parents’ or my sister’s approval, but for a while I had my Great Aunts’. And I still had Joanna. And now Allie.
I didn’t regret my decision. I missed my parents and Amanda, but I had to keep reminding myself that I missed the idea of them more than who they actually were. We still exchanged the occasional birthday phone call and holiday cards, but I had heard about Amanda’s engagement by reading it in the newspaper and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t getting an invitation to the wedding. It would prompt too many questions that I knew they weren’t willing to answer.
And it went both ways. Only a few people knew about my background, about my actual name. Too many questions. And it wasn’t as if I was sending my parents any invitations to Hole in the Wall productions. Because I couldn’t help but wish that one day they’d look at what I’d done, at what I’d accomplished and be proud. With each production, I thought of sending them an invitation. But so far I hadn’t. Because I was still afraid that they’d say no and I hated that feeling. I was an adult, for goodness sakes. I didn’t need my parents’ approval or their praise.
But I still wanted it.
“So, where should we eat?”
Josh’s voice pulled me back from my unpleasant stroll down memory lane. I turned away from the window to find him standing in the doorway of his bedroom in jeans and worn gray t-shirt, his hair wet and feet bare. It felt surprisingly intimate and I had to look away before I started blushing. Or ogling him again.
“What do you feel like?” I asked.
He lifted a shoulder casually. “Whatever you want,” he said. “I’m too hungry to decide.”
There it was again, that sexy little gleam in his eyes. That gleam that said he might not be talking about food. That gleam that I had a tendency to misread time and time again.
So I looked away and cleared my throat.
“How about pizza?” I suggested. “We’re kind of famous for it.”
“Sure,” I heard him say. “Let me grab my shoes and we can go.”
Then his phone rang. He looked down at it and his entire expression changed. His entire body. His shoulders went rigid and bunched up under his ears. I saw him clench his jaw, the muscle in his cheek twitching.
“I’m happy to wait,” I said, indicating towards the phone in his hand.
“Are you ever not?” he asked, his voice tight, his knuckles white.
“Am I ever not what?”
“Happy. Are you ever not happy?”
“I like being happy,” I told him. “Don’t you like being happy?”
“It seems like a lot of work.”
The way he said it—the exhaustion in his voice, the resigned look on his face—made me so very sad. He looked trapped in his own misery. His own frustration. His own anger. Whoever had been on the other end of that phone call had completely distracted him.
“I think it takes more work to be unhappy,” I said. “It takes a toll. I mean, look at you.”
Josh looked down at himself. “What about me?”
Well, you’re incredibly hot, I thought to myself. Especially in that tight shirt and extremely well fitting jeans.
“You’re clearly tense,” was what I said instead.
“I’m just tired,” he told me, clearly brushing it off, even though he did not seem to relax at all. “I did spend all day lifting furniture.”
“And I appreciate that,” I said, but we both knew that the reason for his tension had nothing to do with the labor he did today.
“We should probably head out, don’t you think?” He walked over, clearly expecting me to move out of his way so we could leave, but I didn’t.
“Have you ever tried meditation?” I asked him.
“Meditation?”
“Yeah, it helps with a lot of things, but anxiety is one of them.”
“I’m not anxious,” he crossed his arms.
He was standing pretty close. So close that I could tell what kind of soap he used. Good soap. Really, really good smelling soap. That, combined with something that was probably all Josh and his sexiness, was making me a little lightheaded. And tingly. In places that really deserved to get all tingly since they had been neglected for so long. I had half a mind to just lean in and take a nice, big sniff.
“Ok, well, even if you’re not anxious, meditation is good for a lot of things. Come on.” I sat down on the floor right in front of him.
It wasn’t my best idea. Now I was basically facing his crotch.
I shut my eyes quickly, even though I was more than curious. The guy had big feet and big hands. No doubt he was big all over.
Inappropriate, I chided myself. Stay focused.
I crossed my legs, settling myself into the position my yoga instructor had shown me, putting my hands on top of my thighs. I waited, wondering what Josh would do. Then I heard a long suffering sigh and opened one eye to see him taking a seat in front of me.
“I don’t have to do that ommmm thing, do I?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You don’t have to say anything,” I told him. “Silence is good.”
Somehow, he managed to fold his long legs into a position similar to mine.
“Ok, now what?” He still looked unconvinced.
“Try to clear your mind.” I closed my eyes again.
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” he muttered.
I ignored the comment. “What you want to do is try to stay in the moment. Pay attention to the way you feel—the way your body feels, the way the floor feels, the air, everything. Observe it without judgment.”
We were quiet for a moment, and I was just starting to settle into my meditative state when I heard Josh let out a frustrated huff of air.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“You have to give it a moment,” I told him, opening my eyes.
If it was possible, he looked even tenser than before.
“Ok.” I searched my mind for the alternative ways to get him to focus. “We could try something different,” I told him. “I’ve done this with actors—a way to get you to leave your inhibitions behind and focus on yourself.”
He gave me a wary look.
“Are you willing to give it a try?” I asked.
He sighed. “I guess so.”
“O
k, great.” I stood up and unhooked my overalls, letting them drop to the floor, before peeling my shirt off and tossing it aside. “Now strip.”
Chapter 13
JOSH
I didn’t know what I was expecting Reagan to do, but it certainly wasn’t that. She stood in front of me in nothing more than a black bra and black hipster panties. It wasn’t sexy lingerie by any stretch of the imagination and it certainly wasn’t the first time a woman had taken her clothes off in front of me, but I froze.
Well, all but one part of me. And that part got hard. Fast.
Because Reagan had been hiding a pretty gorgeous body beneath those overalls. If I had been turned on by just the sight of her legs, the rest of her was now scrambling my brain with lust. Those long, lean legs of hers came up to hips that were far curvier than any of her clothes would have suggested. I wanted to put my hands there and kiss my way up her stomach. Or down. I wasn’t picky. And she was close enough that I could have. I could have lifted my hands and brought her to my mouth.
Her breasts were small, but pert and I could already tell they would fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. If I got to my feet, I could reach around and have that bra off within half a second, giving me full access to all of her.
“Come on,” Reagan’s voice interrupted my mental seduction. “Strip.”
That would be a bad idea. At the moment, my not-so-friendly interest in her would be embarrassingly evident if I took off my pants. If I stood up for that matter.
I cleared my throat, my mouth feeling dry.
“Uh, what does nudity have to do with meditation?” I asked.
If I had known this is what meditation entailed, I might have developed an interest for it earlier. Or maybe my newfound interest was based solely on my meditation teacher.