He's Back

by Aria Ford

  “Let me buy you breakfast. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “I think I’ll just go get the bus,” she says, “Truth is, I’m kind of tired. Last night was a lot. For all kinds of reasons.”

  “Then I’ll drive you home.”

  “You don’t know where I live,” she says.

  “You’ll tell me, and then I’ll drive you there.”

  “No. I don’t want to tell you where I live or what my name is. Because last night was complete. Let’s leave it in the past. I’m glad. I mean, I appreciate you saying you didn’t mean that because it made me—sad. This is going to sound so corny, like something off The Bachelor, but I feel a connection with you. And when you said that, I thought I had it all wrong. That maybe you weren’t who I thought you were.”

  “Stay,” I say. I don’t argue with her about who I am, or how she’s idealized me. I go straight for what I want. “Stay,” I say again.

  “Oh God, Griffin, you have no idea how hard it is to say no to you,” she groans, backing up. She folds my robe and hands it to me.

  “It can’t be that difficult, since you’re refusing,” I say. I sound petulant, like I’ve been denied a treat.

  “I have to. I can’t get mixed up with you. Not any more than I already have. You saved me in a lot of ways last night, but I can’t date you. I can’t spend the day with you or another night or anything like that. I’ll wind up hurt,” she says.

  I’m pretty certain she’s right about that. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want her to stay.

  “Let me drive you,” I say.

  “I’ll let you drive me to a general area. You can drop me off at the Starbucks near where I live.”

  “I’ll take that deal, since I don’t think I’ll get a better one,” I say.

  “You’re right. You won’t.”

  I’m driving with her beside me. She keeps petting the leather seat and making an appreciative humming sound. I’m guessing she’s never been in a Porsche before.

  “What do you do?” she said.

  “I own nightclubs.”

  “Oh. How did you start that? I mean, did you just inherit it?”

  “My mom only died last year. My dad was never in the picture. So, no. I didn’t inherit a business. I mean, I had a trust fund from my mom’s family. I used that for tuition and to bankroll a few pop ups.”

  “Like the books? Where the picture’s in 3-D and it unfolds at you?” she says.

  I laugh. I can’t help it.

  “Pop-up clubs. When I was a sophomore in college, I talked some people in to letting me use their barbecue joint for a nightclub after hours for two weeks. They had a liquor license and all I had to do was guarantee them $3,000. They made that in half the bar tab the first week alone. A friend of mine DJ’d it. The campy location sold a lot of people on it—word of mouth had us turning people away. I took the profit from that and did another pop up the next month at an auto body shop. I did that for two years and had enough to buy my first club.”

  “Wait, a barbecue joint? What made you think of that?” she says, acting all impressed just like I meant her to do.

  “Rich kids are bored. They’ll spend money for novelty. For something different to talk about and someplace new to go. That’s why it was so important to do limited engagements at first. Get different DJs. Different themes, the cheesier the better.”

  “I wanted to work in fashion,” she says, “Now I get excited when Dominic lets me use the glass chalk on the specials board. Because it’s the closest thing I have to artistic expression.”

  “Do you plan to go back, get your degree?”

  “That’s why I started moonlighting with Epicurean Advantage. It was a good opportunity to save some money. It didn’t work out too well,” she says with a smirk.

  “Was last night the first job you did for them?” I say. She nods.

  “First and last. I don’t think they’ll keep me on after I caused a scene and ran out.”

  “If you’ll recall, I caused the scene. I shouldn’t have dragged you out there to confront them both.”

  “You did what you thought was right,” she says, and sighs.

  “Yes. But I wasn’t right,” I admit, “I made it worse for you. I could have beaten his ass and dealt with them both while you went home.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” she says, reaching over and putting her hand on my arm, “It sucked at the time. I thought you were an insensitive tool, but if you’d handled Simpson and his brother, I wouldn’t have met you. You would have been nothing but that hot guy I saw when I worked a private party one time.”

  “Oh, I’m that hot guy, am I?” I say, trying to sound like I’m joking when I’m pathetically thrilled by the compliment.

  “Yes. You are. I almost dumped food on you because I was staring at you. I have never seen anyone in real life as good-looking as you are. Since you’ve seen yourself in the mirror, this can’t be a surprise.”

  “I’m not often told that I’m supernaturally handsome,” I tease, trying to hide how incredible it feels to know she thinks that about me.

  “I’d tell you that every day,” she says. I think she sounds wistful.

  “Have you decided what you want for breakfast? Since, regrettably, you can’t survive on just my good looks.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it,” she says.

  “No, I want to treat you. What’s your absolute favorite breakfast food? Le Chat does a gorgeous Eggs Benedict with fresh hollandaise. The French toast at Aubrey’s is done with a loganberry syrup from Vermont…” I trail off.

  “Well, you know what I’d really like? That I haven’t had in forever? A sausage burrito.” She’s beaming. I have no idea where to find such a thing, but I suddenly want to get her one because she looks so excited.

  “Is there a particular restaurant that serves—”

  “McDonald’s. You can get them in the drive thru.”

  I’m dumbfounded. Given a choice between the Le Chat eggs and the french toast, she picks a drive-through burrito in wax paper. It’s unbelievable. Does she think that’s all she’s worth? Or is she seriously this thrilled about the idea of a greasy takeaway burrito? I look over at her in disbelief. She’s grinning expectantly, waiting to see if her wish will be granted. I’m such a pushover for this girl it’s unreal. I’m about to take my Porsche on its inaugural trip to a fast food drive up window. I would laugh at the absurdity of this situation except she looks so damn endearing and happy. So I ask her exactly what she wants. I order her two burritos, a hash brown, a large orange juice. She looks just that way you’d picture someone who’s won a sports car or the jackpot on a slot machine. I can tell she’s trying to restrain herself but she’s practically bouncing in her seat.

  “You can eat in the car,” I say, knowing what she’s thinking.

  She doesn’t say a word, just digs into the bag and starts scarfing a greasy looking burrito. She breaks off a piece of hash brown and offers it to me. I don’t want it, but I take it anyway and eat it because she gave it to me probably. It’s as salty and oily as I expect, but it also doesn’t disgust me the way I thought it would. Maybe because if she offered me a damned live frog I’d consider eating it. I nearly choke laughing at that thought. I have to take a drink of her orange juice to stop coughing. She laughs at me, and I don’t even mind.

  I drive around the city, making a lazy circuit and listening to her talk. She tells me about her little brother, about her professor in college that sometimes lapsed into a fake French accent during lectures, about how she likes to stand in the grocery store to read magazines. “I read them all,” she brags, “Vanity Fair, Cosmo, all the good ones. I don’t read all the articles, but I check out all the clothes and read my horoscope. They’re basically all the same, the horoscopes, but it’s fun to read them anyway. Just in case I skip it one time and that was the time that something horrible was going to happen, and I could’ve been warned.”

  “Superstitious,” I
scold a little indulgently.

  “Yeah,” she says, finishing off her second burrito, “God, I ate too much. But it was so good. Thank you.”

  “Is that the way to your heart? Fast food?”

  “Maybe,” she says, “why would you ask?”

  “I’m keeping my options open,” I say. “I still want your name. Your number. Something.”

  “You’ve got more than something. You’ve got the best night of my whole life, so my name shouldn’t matter very much compared to that.”

  “Kate,” I say, “I’m serious. I want to know who you are.”

  “You know who I am. I was a student and a sister and a daughter, and all that ended with a car wreck. I’m a waitress. I’m trying to get by. And one night I got in some trouble. This guy rescued me. He doesn’t want me to think he’s a hero. I don’t think you’re perfect, Griffin. I know better… but you’re still my hero.”

  It makes my chest burn when she says that. My throat feels tight. I have to stop driving. I find a place to parallel park. I manage to loosen my white-knuckle grip on the wheel after a minute and look at her. She is looking at me with these trusting, open dark eyes.

  She is in my arms now and we’re kissing. Whether it’s because I want her so much or because of what she just said, I couldn’t decide. My hands are in her hair. I don’t know if I can let her go. That’s how bad it is. I kiss her cheek and top of her head. I am undone by her.

  Maybe she’s right.

  Maybe I’m better off not knowing her name.

  Because that would make it too easy for me to come back for more.

  I might never stop.

  I drive her as far as she’ll let me. I give her my business card, in case she ever wants to get in touch. My personal number isn’t on there. But she’d never use it anyway. I know as I hand it to her that there’s no reason. She may keep it as a memento for a while, tucked in the corner of her mirror. She’ll never dial the number, never ask to meet me for coffee. I think of that card for a second, slid into the frame of the bathroom mirror, mute as she puts on lipstick to meet another man. I shut my eyes to that. There’s no point.

  She has me drop her off outside a convenience store. Makes me promise not to follow her, not to watch her walk away. I want to break my promise, but if I did that, I wouldn’t be anything close to the man she thinks I am. So I let her go. I drive away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Caleigh

  If I don’t get out of the car now, I’ll stay forever.

  I might have to live in his car. It’s more comfortable than my apartment and cleaner, that’s for sure. It’s about him though. About how we don’t fit in each other’s lives. He’s a CEO or something, and I just lost a part-time waitressing job. Not exactly a match made in the society pages.

  I’m crying.

  There’s no way to hide it. This is not one of those photogenic movie cries, where the gorgeous actress blinks her huge, beautiful eyes shining with tears and sniffles once bravely. This is crying with hiccupping sobs, wiping my face on my sleeve. It isn’t pretty. I can tell I’m puffy and red and look wretched. Way to give him a romantic goodbye—it would be perfect if not for the weeping and the snorting and gulping sounds I’m making. He kisses my cheek way back by my ear. I clutch at the front of his shirt for a minute.

  Griffin gives me his card. He presses it into my palm and closes my fingers over it. “In case you ever want to find me. If you want to see where this could go,” he says. He doesn’t know the bite of temptation I feel at those words. Right now I want to stay with him more than I want to breathe oxygen or walk upright. I can feel the sharp need like a beating in my blood, the overwhelming desire for a fix. Because here he is, the one drug that could bring me down.

  No one is counting on me. No one but me. I wouldn’t be letting anyone down. All I’d have to do is whisper my name to him, hope he calls me up. I know he can find me if he really wants to, but I also know that’s a terrible idea. All I’d get is maybe two weeks of memories and a broken heart I’d never recover from. It might not even take him that long to figure out that I’m not for him. I’m too ordinary, too lost. He needs someone stronger and more beautiful and more sophisticated. Griffin deserves someone better than me. That’s all there is to it. I don’t have much, but I have this shred of integrity left. It’s telling me that if I try to hang on, I’ll be taking advantage of him and hurting us both. That I know how to do what’s right even when it hurts, and that’s what has to be done.

  I kiss his lips very softly. Because I am not about to leave without one more kiss. I make it swift and gentle. If I let him kiss me deeper, my clothes will fall off on their own. I can’t risk it. I whisper to him, thank you. I am thanking him for everything from saving me from Simpson to the orange juice.

  Griffin has the softest lips. It is unbelievable how soft his lips are. The other guys I’ve kissed have always had these rough chapped lips, and they always kissed too hard, smashing my lips up against my teeth like that’s supposed to be sexy when you’re basically biting yourself on accident. Griffin kisses like he got his Ph.D. in the subject, I swear. And it’s never been the same twice. I wonder how many ways he can kiss, how many times he’d have to kiss me before there was a rerun. Because there are some I’d like to repeat. All of them, okay. I want all of them again and again. The hunger and protectiveness and wrenching tenderness of the first time he kissed me in the alley—that’s the one I know I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Because when I die, I’m pretty sure I’ll still think heaven is a place where I get to feel like that all the time—like I’ve been chosen and cherished, and I don’t have to be afraid any more. That’s how Griffin made me feel.

  That’s how come I can say it was the best night of my life even though Simpson mauled me in a hallway, and I was afraid for my life. I ducked in the alley to hide. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to escape the embarrassment and pain of being there. Embarrassment that Griffin was responsible for, by the way. As if offering me money would make it okay. He was totally clueless about the kind of person I am, and probably about what is an inhumane way to treat a person who’s just been abused. If I hadn’t been in fight or flight mode, I might have flipped him the bird and walked out. Instead, I ran and he came after me to make sure I was okay. He made me feel whole again like Simpson hadn’t taken any part of me away. And when he realized how he’d hurt me by trying to shove money at me, he apologized.

  I could tell by the way he kissed that he wasn’t a cruel man. Stupid, yes, because he’d used me as a visual aid to confront Simpson’s brother. But he wouldn’t hurt me on purpose so I held on to him for dear life. He brought me back to myself. He gave me the most healing closeness, an intimacy I’ve never known before. I’m grateful, I am. I just can’t stay with him for the week or two it would take him to figure out that I’d be nothing to him but a pet, a cute little thing he has to take care of. I wouldn’t be of any use to him as a partner. And I don’t want to be his mistress, his pretty girl he keeps in an apartment for his convenience. I can’t have all of him, and I won’t take any less. So I choose nothing before I end up with nothing and a broken heart to go with it.

  I walk back to my apartment. Amy’s there. I wish she wasn’t. All the times I’ve been lonely and wanted someone to make popcorn and watch TV with, now she’s here when I want to be alone. She asks me how it went.

  “I had a rough night. I walked out on the job.”

  “You what?”

  “One of the guys at the dinner groped me, and I left.”

  “If you left early, how are you just getting home now?” she says.

  I lift one shoulder and shrug it.

  “And whose shirt is that?”

  “I had to borrow one,” I say truthfully, “Because the guy ripped up my black shirt. It’s in my purse.” I show her.

  “I can put buttons on it if you want,” Amy says.

  “That’s nice of you, but I’m throwing it out. I never want to see it again.”
/>   “That bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sink down on to our couch, the scratchy brown one from Goodwill that Amy already had when I moved in. I put my head in my hands.

  “I’m sorry things went south. Are you okay? He didn’t rape you, did he?”

  “He tried. The guy having the party stopped him.”

  “You got rescued? There’s really guys like that?” Amy says.

  “There’s one at least.”

  “That makes me feel better. That men like that are out there who step in when some dickbag’s assaulting a woman.”

  “Yeah. He made me feel better,” I say. I put my hands on my cheeks so she won’t see me blush.

  “How much better? Is that why you’re just getting in? Did you hook up with the knight in shining armor, girl?” Amy says.

  I nod. She squeals and jumps up and down, and my head hurts like I have a hangover even though I don’t.

  “I’m gonna get the laundry together. Anything you need washed while you sleep?”

  “Yeah, and there’s quarters in the jar. I’d appreciate it. But you’re not changing the subject that fast. Tell me all!”

  “He’s just a rich guy who came to check on me and see if I was okay after I left.”

  “Wait—he followed you? He made sure you were safe? This is a fairy tale. Men don’t do that crap.”