Love and the Laws of Motion

by Amanda Weaver

  Out on the sidewalk, he stopped and closed his eyes, his head falling back as he exhaled heavily.

  “Nick—” she began cautiously. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Nope. No.” He lifted his head and looked her straight in the eye. “Fuck her. And fuck him. I’m not going to go cry into my pillow over her, because she doesn’t deserve it.”

  Without thinking, Livie grabbed his hand in both of hers, squeezing hard. “You didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of like that. By either of them. I can’t believe she did that to you.”

  “Gotta hand it to her. She’s an ambitious girl.”

  “Do you think that’s why she—”

  He dropped his head forward. “No. That was a shitty thing to say. I think she was just looking for something that wasn’t me.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay to cheat on you.”

  “Fuck, no, it doesn’t. Livie, you know what I need right now?”

  “What?”

  “I need a good stiff drink to erase the visual of Klaus naked and fucking my ex, because that’s what’s in my head right now.”

  “I know how to fix that.”

  “Let’s get out of here. Do you think Gemma cooked anything tonight?”

  “Gemma always cooks something.”

  “I could really use a good meal and a drink.”

  Well, she couldn’t heal his broken heart, or fix his fractured family, but she could provide him with a meal, a drink, and companionship. Maybe tonight that was enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nick dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter. “Gemma, another knockout.”

  Gemma smirked as she swept his empty plate away. Turning to Livie, she murmured, “What brought tonight on?”

  Nick wasn’t nearly as drunk as he’d been the first night she’d brought him to Romano’s, but he was on his third vodka tonic, and definitely feeling at peace with the world.

  “We went to pack up the rest of his stuff and Poppy was there.”

  “The ex? So? She still lives there, right?”

  “Yeah, except she wasn’t alone. And there was every indication that it wasn’t a recent development, if you know what I mean.”

  Gemma’s expression softened into sympathy as she looked over at Nick. Frank was commiserating with him about faithless women, probably telling Nick all about his ex-wife. “Ah, poor bastard. That sucks.”

  “I can’t believe she would do that to him.” Livie watched Nick for a moment, trying to gauge his mood. He seemed in good spirits, all things considered, but that might have been the vodka.

  “You like him, don’t you?”

  “Of course. He’s great.” Kind of a mess, but he tried.

  “No, you like him.”

  Livie met Gemma’s concerned gaze as alarm rattled through her system. Was she that easy to read? “Gemma—”

  Gemma laid a hand over hers to stop her. “Just be careful, okay? He’s an okay guy, but he’s got about a hundred issues he’s dealing with right now. You could get hurt.”

  Gemma’s mothering could be really annoying, especially when she was right. “Gem, I know that. I’m not dumb. I got this. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  Gemma paused, watching her steadily. “Sure. Friends. Be careful with your friend.”

  “Gem—”

  But Gemma had turned away to get Dennis his refill. Nick was still talking to Frank.

  “You gotta be careful with that online stuff, Frank. You could get catfished.”

  “But I don’t fish,” Frank protested.

  “No, catfished. Like, you think you’re talking to some attractive divorcee from Bay Ridge and you don’t find out she’s some dude from Moldova until you’ve given him access to your checking account.”

  Frank’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “That happens?”

  Nick clapped him on the shoulder. “Frank, you have no idea. Promise me you won’t chat with anybody online until you talk to me. I got your back.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  “Anytime, Frank.” He looked back over his shoulder at Livie. “You ready to head out?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.” She was still unsteady, thrown by the way Gemma had seen right through her. She’d thought she’d been handling these feelings well enough, burying them where they couldn’t do her any harm. Maybe not.

  They left the bar and stepped out into the quiet coolness of an early fall evening. Farther up the street, there were more lights, more people, but the block Romano’s occupied was quieter, nearly empty of pedestrians at this late hour.

  Nick fell into step beside her as they headed home. Home. Oh, why had she ever asked him to stay? It had muddied up everything, and now she was tangled up in these feelings for a guy who was about as bad for her as it was possible for someone to be.

  “You’re quiet,” Nick said. “What are you thinking about?”

  How I’m pretty sure you’re going to end up breaking my heart, no matter what I do.

  “Um, thinking about you, actually.”

  “Me?”

  “And Poppy. I’m wondering how you’re doing with that.”

  Nick tipped his head back, staring at the flat, starless night sky as he thought. “To be honest, I have no idea how I fucking feel. Is that weird?” His question seemed rhetorical, as he didn’t wait for her reply. “It feels like I should be more hurt. Or maybe pissed? And don’t get me wrong, I’m fucking furious at that asshole, Klaus. I always hated that prick. I mean, his name is Klaus, like some character in an SNL skit. Did you see his hair? Fucking ridiculous. Now I know what that condescending sneer of his was really about.”

  “You sound angrier with Klaus than with Poppy,” she pointed out.

  “Eh. Too much vodka and good people and good food, I guess. I don’t feel like being mad at Poppy tonight. Maybe I’ll be mad at her tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll just let it go. What’s it matter now anyway?”

  “She didn’t deserve you, you know.”

  He slung his arm across her shoulders, pulling her into his side in a one-armed hug. “Maybe she didn’t. But maybe I didn’t deserve her either. She was right about a lot of stuff. I would get wrapped up in a project and be lost for days.”

  “Because you’re passionate about what you do.”

  “Yeah, but maybe if I’d been a little less passionate about work, she’d have been a little less passionate about Klaus.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, Nick. What she did, that was all her. And it was terrible.”

  “True. Cheating is always a dick move. What about you, Liv?”

  “What about me?”

  “Did you ever get your heart broken?”

  Not until now. “I’d had to have had a relationship for that to happen.”

  He looked down at her in surprise. “Seriously? Never?”

  Ugh, why was it suddenly embarrassing to admit it to him when she’d never cared before? She shook her head, ducking her chin until her hair slid forward. “Never.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Why is it so unbelievable?”

  “Because you’re attractive? And brilliant? Somebody must have been into you.”

  For a second, she couldn’t speak, still stuck on what he’d said. Because you’re attractive. Nick thought she was attractive? Her face flushed as she processed that piece of information.

  Finally, she said, “Yes, but I wasn’t into anybody, and I wasn’t going to do it just because society thinks I should.”

  “You are really something, Liv.”

  Something? A good something or a bad something? “What does that mean?”

  “You’re just... You’re not afraid of who you are.”

  “Are you?”

  He shrugged, and it pulled her in tighter against his side. “I have a
pretty shitty track record of hurting people, whether I mean to or not.”

  “But I’ve seen you help people, too.” He liked to deny that altruistic streak of his, but it was in there.

  “Leave it to you to point out all my positives.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m too nice.”

  “Never stop being nice, Liv. It’s the best thing about you.”

  She kept her eyes on her feet and her warm face hidden behind her hair. If she tried to talk right now, she wasn’t sure what would come out.

  They reached the house and Livie gratefully slipped out from under his arm, needing to put a little space between herself and Nick, who found her attractive. She jogged up the front stoop, but when she paused to unlock the front door, Nick was right behind her, closer than she’d expected. So close she could feel the heat of his body on her back. His breath ruffled the tendrils of hair in front of her ear. Fumbling, she turned the key in the lock and let them both in.

  Spudge was right inside the door, his tail thumping loudly on the wood floor, his droopy doggy face lit up with happiness at the sight of them.

  “Hey, my man.” Nick crouched to rub Spudge’s ears affectionately. Every time she wanted to strangle him for being late or waking her up at three a.m. to talk coding, he’d turn around and do something great, like making friends with Frank or cuddling Spudge, and her resolve crumbled to dust. Forget what she told Gem earlier tonight. She was a total idiot where Nick was concerned.

  “I’m going up to bed,” she said. Sometimes she sat up with Nick watching TV until he felt tired enough to sleep, but not tonight. Her emotions were all over the place, and spending hours sitting inches away from him on the couch wasn’t going to make it any better.

  “Yeah, sleep would be good, I guess,” he muttered, straightening up. “What a fucking day.”

  “Well...okay.” She turned and started up the stairs.

  Nick started up them, too, one step behind her. Her heart began to pound, which was absolutely ridiculous. He was climbing the stairs behind her because his bedroom was across the hall from hers. He had to climb the same stairs to get there.

  It was dark in the upstairs hall. The lightbulb in the wall sconce had burned out ages ago and it was that specialty kind, shaped like a little candle flame, which they never seemed to have on hand, and nobody ever remembered to get them at the drugstore. None of the Romanos had much minded, as they could navigate this hallway in a blindfold. But suddenly, the darkness seemed to press in on her, like walls closing her in.

  She reached her bedroom door and turned back to say good-night. There was only a weak, gold glow from the light at the bottom of the stairs, enough to pick out the side of Nick’s face, his jawline, the slope of his cheekbone, the sweep of his hair across his forehead, inky in this light.

  He was close. A bit too close for ordinary conversation. Of course, the door to his room was right there, a foot behind him. Maybe it was this pressing darkness that made it feel as if he was close enough to reach out and touch her. He made no move to back up and give her more space. Maybe he was going to hug her, or squeeze her shoulders in that friendly way again. But he didn’t touch her. He stood still, watching her, the air between them vibrating, like the space between two magnets.

  “Thank you for today, Livie,” he said. Oh, that low rumble of his voice did terrible things to her, making her heart pound, and her thighs clench, and—most embarrassingly—her nipples tighten.

  “Anytime,” she whispered, because her throat wouldn’t allow her to speak at a normal volume. Her arm was folded behind her, her hand clutching her doorknob, the wood of the door at her back. All she had to do was turn the knob and she could escape to the solitude on the other side, and put an end to this awful, vibrating tension.

  But Nick could have easily stepped back and disappeared into his room, and he hadn’t yet. Why was he standing so close to her in the dark? Why was he watching her like that, like she was some puzzle he couldn’t figure out? Why—?

  Every other question in her mind was abruptly silenced when he took a step forward, lowered his head, and kissed her. She froze, completely unprepared for this turn of events. Nick was kissing her. Her hand curled around the carved brass doorknob behind her until the curlicues were surely impressed on her palm.

  For an endless moment—at least it felt endless—his lips pressed against hers, smooth, dry, and firm. Then his mouth moved against hers and Livie’s thoughts scattered like marbles on a polished floor. Any chance there had been of her doing the smart thing, stepping back, putting a stop to this, scattered with them.

  His lips parted slightly. A spear of panic lanced through her. She’d never been kissed before. She didn’t know how to do it.

  But then his lips gently teased hers apart, and her panic ebbed. It was easy then, to relax and let him show her. Then there was warmth, and wetness, and suddenly she just knew. No, that wasn’t true. She didn’t need to know, because her body had already somehow figured it out. She let him urge her mouth open further, feeling herself dissolve into the luxurious, intimate heat of the moment. Then his tongue touched hers.

  Theoretically, she knew how it all worked. But nothing she knew, nothing she’d seen in movies, had prepared her for what it would feel like to have another person’s tongue invade her mouth this way. To have Nick invade her this way. She melted back against the door, distantly aware of his hands on her hips, his body moving in closer. She finally relinquished her hold on the doorknob, and despite her complete inexperience, her hands knew to reach for him. They knew how to grip his shoulders, how to hang on as he slowly, thoroughly, explored her mouth with his.

  Everything tingled, everything ached. His knee slid between hers and suddenly his thigh was between her legs. God, it was embarrassing, how much she wanted him to touch her there, how badly she wanted to grind herself against the long, hard length of his leg.

  His fingers curled into her hips, dragging them closer to his own. His teeth scraped across her lower lip, and somewhere low in her throat, she let out a sound, a needy little moan that would have made her blush in daylight.

  It was becoming hard to draw a full breath, and then Nick paused. He drew back. In the darkness, she could feel his eyes on her face. She waited for the rest, for him to kiss her again, for him to take her by the hand and lead her to his bed. She’d go, without hesitation. She wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

  Instead, she watched as his eyebrows furrowed. He shifted his weight—not much, but enough to put some space between them. Enough space. Somehow his leg was no longer between her thighs. His hands were no longer gripping her hips quite as desperately.

  “Ah, fuck,” he whispered.

  Then his hands slid away entirely, and he took a full step back. She went cold all over. Her nipples still ached, her thighs still tingled, even as the rest of her body slowly began to flood with mortification.

  “I’m sorry, Livie.”

  Her heart thumped painfully. She tried to swallow, to say something—anything—but her throat refused to cooperate.

  But now he’d started talking and he couldn’t seem to stop. “Today was a nightmare, and my head is a mess, and I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

  She thanked God—who she didn’t even believe in—for that blown-out lightbulb, because now he couldn’t see the humiliation heating her cheeks, or the tears welling in her eyes. “It’s okay,” she muttered, her voice choked and rusty.

  “You’re a good friend and I had no right to take advantage—”

  Friend.

  Stupid girl. They hadn’t been starting anything. This was Nick—chaotic, disastrous Nick—being impulsive and thoughtless once again. She knew better. Hadn’t he just told her he hurt people without meaning to? She knew he could hurt her if she let him, and she’d invited him right in to do it with that kiss.

  �
�It’s okay,” she said again, with considerably more strength.

  “It’s... I’ve been drinking, and—”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat, trying to sound confident and unconcerned, and every single thing she was absolutely not feeling right now. “It happens, right?”

  Did it? How would she know? It had never, ever happened to her, but Nick probably kissed his friends all the time and it meant nothing at all.

  Nick hesitated. She couldn’t read his expression in the dark. “Right.”

  “I’d better get to bed.”

  “Sure. Livie, again, I’m so sorry.”

  If he apologized for making the colossal mistake of kissing her one more time, she was going to burst into big, ugly sobs, right here in front of him. They were fighting to get out as it was. “You don’t need to feel sorry,” she said, as firmly as she could manage. “I understand completely.”

  She absolutely did not. She’d never been more confused in her life, but that was the last thing she’d ever say to Nick. She had to save face, and that meant pulling herself together and pretending this never happened. If she let it be awkward, it would ruin everything between them, so she’d fake a smile and pretend it meant as little to her as it meant to him.

  “You sure?” he said quietly.

  “Absolutely.” She’d never told a bigger lie in her life.

  “Livie, you know you’re the best, right? I don’t know what I’d have done without you the last few weeks.”

  He didn’t have a clue how dangerous he was to her. Fine, let him stay oblivious. They were friends before, they were friends now. “Good night, Nick.”

  “Night, Livie.”

  Finally, her hand found the doorknob, turned it, and she let herself into her room. If only she’d managed that ten minutes ago, this whole horrible, humiliating scene never would have happened.

  The door clicked shut behind her. She stood still in the darkness, and her fingers drifted up to touch her mouth. Humiliating, yes. God, she’d never get over the humiliation. But the rest...that kiss had been a revelation. Despite the awful way it had ended, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.