Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology

by Alexander, Erica

  A handsome young man wearing a staff uniform rounds the bench, holding out a tray with two glasses of wine. He bows low.

  “For Miss Jackson and her companion,” he proclaims, winking at me.

  “Ooh, Miss Jackson.” Mira wiggles her eyebrows at me as she takes a glass. “When did you start taking that title?”

  I roll my eyes. “He just owes me from the Christmas party when a guest mistook me for the staff.” Mira’s jaw drops, and I can tell she’s about to say something. But I continue. We can discuss her rude guests later. “Instead of correcting her, he just sent me off to the kitchen to grab a tray of truffles.” Taking my glass, I give a playful sneer at him. He’s a couple years younger than Mira and me, and always good for a laugh.

  “He’s hot,” Mira comments as he walks away with the tray tucked under his arm. “I’ll have to ask Mother where she found him. And I’ll have to talk to her about her guests insulting my best friend. I mean, racist much?”

  Please no. Anything but bringing even more attention to my being the only black guest at the party. I clear my throat. “It’s cool—I mean, I get to hear everyone call you Vladimira, so we’re kind of even.”

  At the mention of her full name, she shushes me before we both dissolve into giggles. Mira hates her full name.

  “It was a good idea to not drive here,” I tell her after taking a sip of the Riesling. It’s possible I may never drink Riesling again without thinking of Renan Vidal. “I don’t even know which number this is for me.”

  “Well, it’s my third,” Mira says. “And I’m still hoping to get my hands on my dedushka’s vodka.”

  I’m not a fan of vodka, but it’s basically law to drink her grandpa’s straight-from-Russia stuff whenever you visit.

  “At least now that I’m unemployed I don’t have to worry about being hungover in the morning.” I sigh and lean back to stare at the stars. There are so many to see out here away from the city. Lots of stars reminding me that even with all the millions of galaxies out there, my tiny, insignificant self is still here. Afraid of doing anything.

  “Hangovers are almost essential for making good art.” Ren appears in my peripheral vision and my head snaps up. His hair isn’t long at all, but it’s enough to manage looking mussed and windswept after an action-packed game like croquet.

  “I trust your advice,” Mira says. “You’re the editor of a major magazine-blog-vlog-whatever at age twenty-eight.”

  He doesn’t acknowledge this comment.

  “I see you two are enjoying the Riesling?” he asks instead.

  What is it with this guy and the Riesling? It’s good, but I’m not starting a religion out of it.

  “It’s excellent, Ren,” Mira drawls. “But have you had the Chardonnay?”

  “I have. But I’m more of a straight liquor man.”

  Mira leans into me. Her wine-laced breath fans across my face. It is not unpleasant. “Straight liquor,” she mocks, winking at me. “And what’s your liquor of choice, Mr. Vidal?”

  He’s moved in front of both of us now to crouch with his hands on his knees so we have nowhere else to look but at his face.

  “Bourbon,” he says. Speaking directly to me. Even in the dark, his gaze is electric. At once, my heart rate kicks up.

  “Hate bourbon,” I blurt.

  Mira breaks out into surprised giggles. “Still suffering from secondhand trauma?”

  I roll my eyes. “You have no memory of the incident, so of course it doesn’t bother you. I, on the other hand…”

  After winter finals our senior year of college, Mira went a bit heavy on the bourbon during a week-long trip to her parents’ beach house. There was one long night that is now a blur of vomit, hurtful half-truths, more vomit, and injury. And vomit. I’d never touched bourbon before then, and now I never will. Babysitting your hammered best friend is not only terrifying, but also educational.

  “I bet I could teach you to like it,” Ren says. The skin under his eyes pulls up as if he’s smiling, but he’s not. That perpetual smirk stays in place.

  “I bet not,” I reply before finishing off my glass of Riesling. I may not know how much wine I’ve drunk so far, but I know for sure it’s enough to loosen my tongue a bit.

  “Come on. Take a walk with me and I’ll teach you how to drink it. If you hate it, I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the evening. If you love it, you have to sing for me again.”

  Mira gasps, a hand to her chest and her mouth open in ravenous interest.

  “Again?” she squeaks. “You, Penelope, who hardly ever sings for me, have been singing for Renan Vidal?”

  “No. Nope.” I shake my head. “He heard me sing in high school. Once.”

  “She has a beautiful voice,” he informs her, as if she hasn’t known me for six years.

  “She does,” Mira agrees. She faces me as she says this, and she grins.

  Vladimira Levitzky is so beautiful. A soft, heart-shaped face and cheeks that are always rosy even if she’s not wearing makeup. I was intimidated by her when she sat next to me in Biology freshman year and started talking my ear off. How on earth could a girl so pretty and cool want to be friends with me, who still had no idea what type of person I wanted to be? She did, though, and now I get to brag that the gorgeous girl in the ballet is my very best friend.

  It makes sense that she and Ren would have been a thing once. They are both unsettlingly beautiful, with a strange sort of charm.

  “What do you say, Penelope?” he says.

  Tingles rocket through me. My name on his tongue is so intimate I can’t breathe. How he holds it in his mouth, caresses the syllables, smooths over the consonants to make it something soft and sweet and impossibly feminine. As he stands up and holds his hand out to me, I realize the lightness in his tone is triumph.

  He didn’t know my name before.

  Now he does.

  “Go ahead, Penny.” Mira rubs her hand across my back. “It’s fine. You’ll have her back to me soon in one piece, right, Ren?”

  “I will take excellent care of her,” he promises.

  She nudges me. “Go on. Have fun. I think I’ll join the game and teach these pansies how it’s really done.”

  It’s not like me to go off with guys I don’t really know. I know I’m safe whenever I’m with Mira’s family, but this event is so crowded that I could disappear and no one would notice for hours. But I know Mira would never let me be alone with someone she didn’t trust, just like I would do the same for her. So I get up, ignoring Ren’s outstretched hand.

  As I straighten out the skirt of my dress, Mira takes my wrist and pulls me down.

  “One hour,” she says. In other words, if she hasn’t seen or heard from me in an hour and a half, she’s going to tear the place up.

  I nod at her and, once again, follow Ren. Behind us, the guys are getting worked up again about the game, but Ren ignores them this time.

  “When is the last time you sang?”

  For some reason, I thought he was about to ask when the last time I drank bourbon was. Silly me, assuming he was going to stay on topic. The answer, “Never,” is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back once I hear the rest of his question. He can’t be serious about me singing. The guy heard it once almost ten years ago, and now he won’t leave me alone about it?

  “Seriously or just for fun?” I ask.

  “Either.” He slows down to walk next to me and turns my way to looks me up and down. The dress I’m wearing—one I splurged on at Macy’s last year—reveals just a hint of cleavage, but I get the sense he’s not looking for that. His gaze lingers nowhere except for on my lips. On instinct, I wet them.

  And for the first time since I saw him walk through the door tonight, his half-smile wavers. Renan Vidal off his game. What a sight.

  “Well, I sang a little happy birthday ditty for my sister’s birthday last month,” I tell him. My shoulder brushes his arm as I shift out of the way of an older woman wobbling past. Already more than
a few drinks in, I’d guess.

  “You sang for your sister?” Ren says, recovering from his moment of vulnerability. “That’s sweet of you.”

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “It was just family there, so it was fine.”

  “You don’t like singing in front of people who aren’t family?” He constantly does this, I’ve noticed already. Asks questions when he means them more as statements. More than annoying, it’s unnerving. How he treats people as if he already knows them.

  “No,” I say. “And you won’t get much more out of me until you get something in me.”

  His eyebrow quirks.

  “Bourbon!” I shout. Some guests glance at us, searching for the source of the outburst. I become very interested in my fingernails as Ren laughs them off. “I meant bourbon. Give me some bourbon.” Oh, dear. Jumping from one offense to the next. “I mean, let’s get some bourbon, since that is what you asked me out here for.”

  He snorts softly. “As you wish, Penelope.”

  There it is again. My name, so precious between his lips.

  To my surprise, we skip past the alcohol on the terrace and head around to the side entrance. It deposits us in the kitchen. The staff there doesn’t seem too surprised. Some of them know me, and some of them probably just don’t care.

  Taking my hand, Ren guides me across the room to a small liquor cabinet. I’m too distracted to wonder how he knows where to find it. His hand in mine is not what I expected. I expected masculine roughness, maybe some sweat, an awkward fit. But the only sweat is mine from the nerves. His palm is cool and smooth. Bigger than mine, but softer than most men’s.

  He doesn’t let go as he opens the cabinet and searches through. In fact, he entwines his fingers with mine and pulls me closer. There is still space between us so that only our hands are touching. Even so, I feel surrounded by him. As if everything in me survives from the one spot where my skin meets his.

  “The key to drinking bourbon is knowing what to mix it with,” he explains, dragging me back to earth. “Of course, I prefer to drink it on its own, but a beginner should start with the cocktail.”

  “You’re making me a bourbon cocktail?”

  “Yes. What, you thought I’d just give it to you on the rocks?” Two short laughs. Husky and deep. “Not for a bourbon virgin. Come on.”

  Three small bottles in his free hand, Ren guides us to the center counter of the kitchen. A few staff members give us looks out of the corners of their eyes. He sets the bottles down and takes one of the empty martini glasses sitting off to the side.

  “I’ll be using one of these, if you don’t mind,” he announces to no one in particular.

  He lets go of my hand to mix the drink, and my lungs seem to fill with air for the first time in forever.

  “Isn’t making it a cocktail cheating?” I say without much heat. “You said you’d make me like bourbon.”

  From the side, his crooked grin seems a little fierce. A little reckless.

  “But you said you don’t like it at all,” he counters. “The first step to liking a liquor is tasting it with something else. Now watch closely, Penelope. This is called a Bourbon Manhattan Cocktail.”

  I recognize the bottle of bourbon he pours in first, but not the other two. Even just smelling the bourbon from here makes me queasy. But I have to admit, once he’s mixed everything in, the reddish-brown liquid looks tasty. It’s a quiet color. Like it’s promising me it’ll be kind to my stomach. Drink me.

  “One more thing.” Ren taps a finger to his lips as he looks around the room. “It’s not complete without a cherry. A nice red cherry.” He winks at me before sauntering over to a wooden table in the corner and plucking two cherries from a tray.

  “What’s the second one for?” I ask when he returns to me.

  At first I think he’s ignoring me. He plops one cherry into my cocktail, watches it settle, and then turns to me.

  “This one is to prepare you,” he nearly whispers. And his low, sensual voice relaxes all my insides. I don’t even tremble when he steps closer. When he touches the cherry to my lips. “Open.” Oh… oh. When he guides it into my mouth. When he traces the outline of my top lip just before he pulls his hand away.

  He smells like Riesling and temptation. And the best decisions.

  “Is there a pit?” he asks.

  I bite down and meet no resistance. I shake my head.

  “Good.” He grins, stepping back and holding the cocktail up to me. “Now, take a sip.”

  If his goal was to hypnotize me into trying the drink, then he has succeeded.

  Focusing on the pleasant taste of the cherry on my tongue to combat any fears, I take the glass, close my eyes, and tip it back. Tip it until I get a small sip.

  I open my eyes to spot Ren watching with eagerness as I test the taste and swallow. This isn’t the same expression he had when I tried the Riesling. Then, he seemed to know I would like it. Now, he seems to anticipate my reaction, whether it be good or bad.

  The taste isn’t awful. It’s sweeter than I expected. But I can’t say that, because then he’ll say I like it, and I’ll have to sing for him.

  “How do you like your Manhattan?” he asks after a long moment of silence.

  Keeping my face straight as best as I can, I reply, “I can’t decide yet. I’m going to drink the whole thing first.”

  The other corner of his mouth turns up so his grin isn’t that crooked. It transforms his face into something younger and more boyish. Just as beautiful, but in a different way. Like this, I can almost picture him back in high school. His friendly expression as he hopped up on stage, said, “Are you ready, Ella?” The handsome senior who sang terribly and made everyone crack up.

  “Well, let’s make one more. For the road.” He pilfers another martini glass and mixes the drink. While he’s turned around grabbing another cherry, I take another sip of my Manhattan. It’s a little more bitter now without the taste of the cherry fresh in my mouth, but still not terrible.

  “Shall we, Penelope?” he says, holding his arm out to me. I loop my hand through the crook of his elbow after only a moment’s hesitation.

  And like that, I’m on the arm of the most interesting man at the party.

  Chapter Three

  “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” - Ella Fitzgerald

  and Louis Armstrong

  “Tell me how we ended up here,” I say a few minutes later. We’ve snagged Adirondack chairs near the lake. Other guests are hanging out along the shore as well, but they are mostly in hushed conversation. Unlike the people in the house and in the yard beyond, these men and women don’t seem as if they’re at the party to be seen. The bourbon is starting to hit me, and I find myself relaxed and more talkative. “Two kids from an average town, here at a fancy party just outside the big city.”

  “I have a job here.”

  I snort. “I know that. How’d you even get into the industry anyway? They say Out of Print is a big business to have such a young editor-in-chief.”

  Ren lounges in the chair with one knee up and his arm hanging over the armrest. The cocktail balances on his thigh, but I don’t think I’ve seen him drink it yet.

  “I’ve been making videos and writing blogs for years,” he says. I’m almost shocked that he’s actually answering my question. He’s been so focused on me that I figured he was just a private guy who relied on deflecting inquiries about his life. “In college I founded a blog that blew up so quickly I could barely keep up. I sold it after a couple years, and I hear it’s doing well.”

  “What blog?”

  A vague smile flits across his face. The outdoor lamps by the lake are dim, but keep the area lit well enough that I can see the flush over his nose and cheeks. Here in the grass, with fog drifting in from the water, he looks even more like a character out of a storybook. Disheveled dark hair, a dreamy look in his eyes. His tie is loosened but I don’t know when he did it.

  “Not telling,” he teases. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it be
fore. Anyway, while I was running the blog, I had some editorial internships. For my masters, I did my thesis on the decline of print media and how multimedia can be used to change the face of journalism while also preserving the traditions.”

  “Wooowww,” I draw out. “Sounds smart.”

  “Some people hated it, some people loved it.” He holds up the martini glass and peers at the drink. “Some newspapers and magazines started implementing new policies to integrate new media. I worked with a couple, helping them make the changes. But Out of Print is newer and I think the young staff has something to do with its success. When Jin Yokoyama offered me the job, I couldn’t not take it.”

  I drink a little more of my cocktail. I’ve almost finished now, and the more I drink, the more I like it. I can’t be sure if I like it more because I’m getting numb to the alcohol or because I’ve gotten used to the taste. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s Ren.

  “So you’re kind of a big deal,” I say.

  He grins at me and wrinkles his nose. The chair creaks under him as he turns to sit sideways in it, resting his elbows on his spread knees and cradling the glass with both hands.

  “I heard you could have been a big deal,” he says. “Scouted by a theater agent?”

  Oh, dear.

  “How do you know that? Did Mira tell you?” I demand.

  “Perhaps.”

  Several months ago on a trip to New Orleans with Mira and her then-boyfriend, we went to a jazz club. Much like now, I’d had enough drinks to lose most of my anxiousness. So when the evening turned into an open mic night and Mira and her boyfriend volunteered me to go up and sing, it didn’t take too much coaxing to get me up there. I sang something short, only about a minute, but after I got off stage, a woman approached me. An agent on vacation, she hadn’t been looking for talent. But she gave me her card, told me to look her up if I’d ever be interested in doing some theater in New York.

  I threw away her card on the walk home.

  Now, Ren rubs two fingers over his lips as he studies me. I push myself up in the chair in an attempt to look more confident.