Love and the Laws of Motion

by Amanda Weaver

  “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was just leaving.”

  At that moment, the elevator—finally—opened behind her.

  Nick let out a huff of humorless laughter. “Me, too.”

  * * *

  Somehow Nick found himself down on the street with Livie. He couldn’t be bothered to wonder at her presence. Not when his life had just been ripped in two.

  Poppy broke up with him.

  She gave back the ring.

  Well, technically, she still had it, since he’d flung it across the room when she handed it over. Right now, it was lying forgotten in some corner of their apartment. How fitting.

  “Are you okay?” Livie asked tentatively. Then she shook her head. “Sorry. Of course you’re not. You must be devastated.”

  Was he? Right now, all he felt was numb. Hollowed out. Lost. Still simmering with leftover anger and adrenaline from the...what was that? Was it a fight? It felt more like a lightning-fast shiv attack. He hadn’t even seen it coming, and now here he was, on the ground and bleeding out. He was still too much in shock to feel the hurt. The pain would come, though, he was sure of it.

  He dragged in an unsteady breath. “Fuck.” Then one overriding need made itself known. “I need to get out of here.”

  What he needed, right now in this moment, was to put as much physical distance between himself and Poppy as possible. Otherwise, he might go back upstairs and start fighting with her again. Or he’d start begging her to change her mind, and that was not going to happen.

  “Um, okay. Hang on.” Livie hurried to the curb and managed to flag down a passing green borough cab. Nick didn’t stop to think anything through. There was a car here, waiting to take him away from the scene of the crime and he was going to go.

  He climbed in behind Livie and fell back heavily on the seat, his unfocused eyes fixed on the ceiling. The cab pulled away from the curb, then stopped at a red light on the corner.

  Livie was silent beside him. So quiet he almost forgot she was there.

  The cab driver was the one to break the silence. “Where to?”

  “Nick? Where do you want to go?”

  Now there was a question. Where did he want to go? What did he want to do? A man could spend his whole fucking life working on that answer and never find it. He’d thought he had. Success, money, Poppy. It had seemed like he’d found all the answers he’d ever been looking for. But she’d slipped through his fingers, as insubstantial as sand.

  It turned out he didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. Okay, forget the big questions. All he had to do was answer a little one. Who cared what happened tomorrow, or next week, or next year? He only cared what happened in the next ten minutes.

  “I need a drink,” he muttered.

  At his side, Livie took a deep breath. “Well, that’s something I can fix.”

  Chapter Nine

  Nick was utterly silent for the ride to Romano’s, but he sat forward and looked around as the cab pulled up to the curb and Livie paid the fare.

  “Are we in Carroll Gardens?”

  “Yeah. We’re at our bar. You said you wanted a drink.”

  Nick sighed heavily, but he didn’t protest as he followed her out of the cab.

  It was a typical quiet Wednesday night at Romano’s. A few regulars nursed beers and watched ESPN on the flat screen while Clyde, their one part-time employee, dried and stacked a rack of glasses.

  “Where’s Gemma?”

  “Emergency. She needed some fresh rosemary.”

  “Only Gemma would consider fresh rosemary an emergency,” she muttered.

  “She’ll be back soon.” Clyde’s eyes cut to Nick, full of curiosity. Livie had never brought a guy to the bar. Or anyone else, come to think of it. There was no one to bring.

  Livie nudged Nick toward the bar. “Have a seat.”

  He fell heavily onto a stool and planted his elbows on the bar, lowering his head into his hands.

  “Your friend okay, Livie?” Clyde asked cautiously.

  “Clyde, this is Nick. He’s had a rough day. He needs a drink.”

  Clyde wiped his hands on his dish towel and threw it over his shoulder. “I think we can take care of that. What’ll ya have, my man?”

  Nick lifted his head enough to reply. “A beer. No, wait. Vodka. Straight up.”

  “Got a preference?”

  “You have Tito’s Handmade or Reyka?”

  Clyde snorted. “We got Smirnoff’s. Grey Goose, if you’re feeling fancy.”

  “Grey Goose it is, then.”

  Clyde grabbed the bottle and poured several fingers of vodka into a glass in front of Nick. “Good for what ails you. Livie? Soda?”

  “Thanks, Clyde.”

  When Clyde had left to get her drink, Nick lifted his glass in Livie’s direction. “Here’s to oblivion.”

  She watched in silence as he tossed it back, wincing only slightly. This might be a very long night.

  Clyde slid a ginger ale in front of her and wordlessly refilled Nick’s glass. He set the bottle in front of Livie. “I’ll leave this here. You good, Liv?”

  “We’re fine.”

  When Clyde had moved down the bar to pour refills for Dennis and Frank, Livie turned to face Nick. “Maybe she’ll change her mind.”

  She probably would, right? Relationships often got patched up after fights. By tomorrow, maybe Poppy would have rethought the whole thing. Which would be good, Livie told herself firmly. Look how miserable Nick was. Of course she hoped he’d get back together with Poppy. It would be selfish—and pointless—to wish for anything else.

  Nick took a sip of his vodka this time, instead of slamming it all back, as he stared into the middle distance. “She wasn’t wrong, you know.”

  “About what?”

  “I hate her friends. All these fake-ass pretentious fashion people. She’s a model. Did I tell you that?”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “She doesn’t get a lot of work. It’s hard to break in. And you need to start when you’re, like, sixteen. It’s creepy as fuck, that industry.”

  “How does she afford that amazing apartment?”

  “Her dad.” He downed the rest of his drink before swiping the vodka bottle from in front of her and refilling his glass. Moderation hadn’t lasted long.

  “Her father bought it for her?”

  “Yep. She said she wanted to come to New York and try modeling, and no way was his kid going to slum it in an apartment share like everybody else. So he shelled out four mill for her own personal luxury crash pad.”

  “That place costs four million dollars?”

  “Don’t worry, he didn’t miss it. He’s big in finance in London. And buying her an apartment is easier than showing a little affection. They both got what they wanted.”

  Nick’s glass was empty again. Was that two or three? If she was having a hard time keeping track when she was dead sober, he was going to end up burying himself before long.

  “Go easy,” she murmured, touching his arm. “You’re going to get drunk.”

  “That’s exactly the point,” he said, pouring another refill before launching back in on the subject of the moment: Poppy. “She says it’s all networking. Who you know. That’s how you get gigs. I tag along with her to all these fashion industry parties in these ridiculous clubs, and end up spending the whole night on my phone in the corner while she chats up the important people. I swear, I get so bored at those things, my eyes bleed.”

  “What was it like when you first met?” Livie took a sip of her ginger ale, unsure if asking him that question would make things better or worse. It wasn’t like he was going to be easily distracted if she tried to change the subject, right? Might as well let him get it all out of his system, like lancing a boil.

  His eyes were on his hands, his fingers sl
owly tapping out an uneven rhythm on the bar. “She seemed cool. Nothing at all like the girls I usually met back in California. She knew about all this stuff, art and books and theatre... I thought she was different. Smarter. More sophisticated.”

  She could hear the “but” he hadn’t spoken out loud. “Did she not turn out that way?” she asked cautiously.

  His hand was decidedly less steady as he took another swig of vodka. “Oh, she’s sophisticated, for sure. The world she grew up in, the money they have, you can’t even imagine it.” He paused and shook his head. “Maybe that was the problem. I can’t imagine it. Her life, her world, it makes no sense to me. Mine doesn’t make sense to her either.”

  “Computer programming? What’s confusing about that?”

  “When we met, she thought I was some internet start-up hotshot. She figured since I’d already hit the jackpot with stock options—”

  “What stock options?”

  “All those start-ups I worked on? Most of the time, I got paid in worthless stock options in some company nobody’d ever heard of.”

  Suddenly Nick’s stunning wealth made more sense. “I’m guessing all that stock didn’t stay worthless.”

  “Nope. She liked that about me, that I’d had all this success in tech when I was so young.” He scoffed softly. “I think she thought she was getting herself her own personal Zuckerberg. I guess I didn’t turn out to be what she expected either.”

  “But you’re still successful.”

  “It’s the work she doesn’t get. She doesn’t understand why I still work so much when I don’t have to.”

  “You don’t?” He had that much money?

  “No, but I want to. I like what I do. I like the challenge. That’s what Poppy doesn’t get. She wants me to fly off to Ibiza or Aspen or Paris with her every other weekend.”

  “Have you been to all those places?” Livie’s family trip to Lake George as a child was the sum total of her travels. Suddenly she felt very small and unsophisticated.

  He splashed some more vodka into his glass. “A few. Poppy’s spent her whole life running from one hot place to the next. I don’t think she knows how to just...stay.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Fuck, it’s not as if I do either. Guess two people who don’t know how to commit to shit probably shouldn’t get married. It was a dumb idea anyway.”

  “What was?”

  “Getting married. I didn’t even really ask her.”

  “Then how—”

  “We were walking down the street and she stopped at this store window, oohing and aahing over the jewelry display. She went nuts for this ring they had.” He lifted one shoulder. “So I bought it for her. And then while we’re standing there in the store and they’re ringing us up, I made some joke about us being engaged now that I’d bought her a ring. She said why not? I said why not? And we laughed and decided we’d get married.”

  Of all the flippant, insincere... Livie didn’t consider herself a romantic, but she had a few ideas about how declarations of love should go, and making a joke of it over a credit card receipt definitely didn’t cut it.

  “Maybe you dodged a bullet, then,” she observed.

  Nick gave that a moment of drunken consideration. “Maybe.”

  The door of Romano’s squeaked open. Gemma’s eyes took in Livie and Nick and the vodka bottle in a flash.

  “Hey, Livie,” she said cautiously as she crossed to the bar and lifted the pass-under door. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Nick. He’s doing the coding for my dissertation. Remember?”

  “Right.” Gemma’s shrewd gaze made short work of Nick. “DeWitt.”

  “DeWitt and I broke up. Like me and Poppy broke up.” He laughed at his own bad joke.

  “Who’s Poppy?” Gemma asked Livie as Nick tossed back the rest of his drink.

  “His girlfriend. Well, his ex-girlfriend, I guess. She threw him out. He said he wanted a drink, so I brought him here.”

  Gemma looked back at Nick. “Looks like he’s had half the bottle already. I’m Gemma, Livie’s sister.”

  “Nice t’meet you.”

  “You hungry?” Gemma asked him.

  He craned his head around in confusion. “This is a restaurant?”

  “No, but I keep stuff cooking in the back for family. I’ll make you a plate.”

  “I’m not really—”

  “If you’re gonna keep sucking on that bottle, you’re gonna eat something.”

  Gemma turned and headed to the back before Nick could protest further.

  “I don’t need to eat,” he said.

  “She needs to feed you.”

  “But—”

  “She’s like the Pasta Whisperer. She’ll just guilt you until you eat. Trust me on this.”

  Nick broke out in laughter.

  “See, you’re really funny, Livie.”

  “I am?” When people complimented her, they generally mentioned her intelligence, her dedication, her work ethic. Nobody had ever complimented her sense of humor. She hadn’t been aware she had one.

  Nick leaned closer. Despite the vodka fumes, her heart started pounding. His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s like stealth humor. I don’t even get that you said something funny until it’s over. Like...like a drive-by joke. That’s it.”

  Gemma returned, saving Livie from forcing her frozen vocal cords to function. She set a bowl of pasta and sauce in front of Nick and left part of a loaf of Italian bread on a napkin next to it.

  “Maria DiPaola brought me some leftover bread,” she said.

  “Who?” he asked in confusion, still staring at his food as if mystified by its existence.

  “Maria DiPaola?” Livie said. “DiPaola’s Bakery next door?”

  “Oh, right. I forgot all about them. They’re still open?”

  “Toughing it out with the rest of us old-timers,” Gemma said briskly. She pointed at Nick. “Eat that.” Then she turned to Livie. “Keep an eye on him. He’s a mess.”

  “That’s why I brought him here,” she said, as Gemma left to relieve Clyde. Because when you were in trouble and needed looking after, Romano’s Bar was the only place she knew to come to.

  Despite saying he wasn’t hungry, Nick dutifully picked up his fork and took a bite. Then another, and another. “This is amazing,” he said, mouth stuffed.

  “Gemma’s a good cook.”

  “Serious understatement.”

  His bowl was empty in a matter of moments. Then he sat back and exhaled heavily. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “You drank half a bottle of vodka.”

  “That might have been unwise. I should go.”

  “I’ll call you a Lyft,” Livie offered, pulling out her phone. “Where are you going?”

  He rubbed at his eyebrow with his thumb, face screwing up as he attempted to concentrate. “Ummm, I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to text a friend, see if you can crash with someone tonight?”

  He looked lost as he thought about it. “There isn’t really anybody I could ask.”

  “Surely you have friends.” Someone like Nick couldn’t possibly be friendless. He was too charismatic, too charming.

  “I do. But not here. I know loads of people out in California. And there’s Kurt, but he’s in Berlin. And Mitul, but he’s in New Delhi.”

  “You don’t have any friends in the city?”

  “I spend a lot of time online, okay? And since I moved back, I’ve been hanging out with Poppy’s friends, mostly. I’m not calling one of them.”

  “But you’re from Brooklyn. You could call your parents and—”

  “No,” he snapped. “I’m not calling them.”

  Okay... Livie carefully edged past that land mine. “You don’t have any childhood friends from around here?”

  “I k
ind of lost touch with everybody when I left for DeWitt. Not that I had a lot of close friends before that. Going to college at sixteen puts you in kind of rarefied company.”

  Well, she understood that well enough. She’d always been an odd duck, moving through the world in her own little bubble. Without her family, she’d have nobody, really.

  Nick was alone. Losing Poppy was just the tip of the iceberg. He was alone. For all his charm and confidence, he didn’t have anyone he could reach out to in a crisis. Her heart ached for him. Because despite her being a square peg, Livie’s family and community had happily made room for her pointy edges. It didn’t matter if they didn’t understand her. They loved her anyway. She’d always have a place to come home to, people who would accept and love her, no questions asked. And Nick didn’t.

  “Why don’t you stay with me?”

  “You?”

  “Our house is right around the corner, and we have a spare room.”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “It’s not an imposition.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Damn. Are you always this nice?” He was looking at her like she was some rare species of bird. Honestly, it was no wonder he had so few friends if a little kindness was such a shock to him.

  “Um, I guess? It doesn’t seem extraordinarily nice to me. You need someplace to stay. I have room. That’s just basic decency.”

  “Huh. Decency. Haven’t run into that one in a while.”

  “Maybe it’s time to hang around new people, then. Now, come on. You need to sleep this off.”

  When he fumbled for his wallet, she stilled him with a hand on his arm. “It’s on the house.”

  “Thanks, Liv. You’re the best.”

  He slid off his bar stool and immediately stumbled. Livie lunged forward, catching his weight as he righted himself. But he kept an arm slung around her shoulders, his side pressed up against hers. He was heavy and ungainly, but her body didn’t care, lighting up with tingles anywhere he touched her.

  She was pretty sure she’d just made a terrible mistake.

  Chapter Ten

  Thank God it was a short walk home, because Nick seemed to be getting drunker by the second, and he was heavy. He was also taking a drunken stroll down memory lane as they navigated his old neighborhood.