“Been out mining bitcoin from a payphone?” Jess teased.
“Very funny. Actually, I’ve been out apartment-hunting.”
The words hit Livie like a blow to the chest.
“Apartment-hunting? You’re moving out?”
She should have known. She should have expected this. Once they’d crossed this line, he was sure to get antsy and run. But she’d gotten lulled by his kisses and his body and the crazy things he did to her. What was that phrase Jess’s friend Lina used to describe it? Right—dickmatized. So drugged by the good dick that you stopped paying attention to the problematic guy attached to it. He’d dickmatized her and she’d never seen him inching toward the door.
“I can’t hang out in your spare bedroom for the rest of my life,” Nick said, dropping into the chair to Livie’s left. “Don’t get me wrong, you’ve all been great. But I am a grown-up. Time to get back out there.”
Gemma nodded approvingly. “Good for you, Nick.”
“And you found a place? In New York?” Jess asked. “That fast?”
Nick shrugged. “When you’re willing to throw a bunch of money at a problem, you can solve most things fast.”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve seen that in action. You should see Alex’s dad operate.”
“Tell us about your new place,” Gemma said.
Livie listened in silence as Nick described it, the square footage, the amenities, all the work he’d have to do to get the internet up to scratch, and she tried not to feel stung. She had no right to be hurt. She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open. She wasn’t allowed to be angry at him for doing exactly what she’d known he was going to do—if she hadn’t been so dickmatized she quit paying attention.
Okay, so he’d be living somewhere else. Their coding wasn’t done yet, so she’d still see him, right? Although maybe that would go back to a purely work arrangement, which might be more terrible than not seeing him at all. She couldn’t imagine being friends again after this, but wasn’t that what she’d signed on for?
Gemma went down into the basement to find a tote bag strong enough to hold her full stockpot, and Jess went upstairs to grab a change of clothes before heading to Alex’s apartment. When they were alone, Nick twisted in his chair until he was facing her, dropping his arm across the back of her chair.
“I’m not ditching you, Liv.”
Great, now he could read her mind, too. “No, I know.”
He leaned closer, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s a little weird, knowing your dad is sleeping down the hall while I’m doing a dozen filthy things to you in bed.”
She didn’t believe him. Once he was living somewhere else, it seemed inevitable that this—whatever it is they were doing—would eventually draw to a close. “I’m sure you’ll appreciate having your privacy again.”
Dipping his head to the side, he kissed her neck, slowly and softly. “I’ll appreciate having room to lay you out and have my way with you without worrying about disturbing the neighbors.”
Livie’s eyes slid closed as his tongue flicked out to taste her skin. “Why do you always talk like that?”
He chuckled, the vibration racing through her body, making her nipples tighten. The hand that had been on her knee slid to the inside of her thigh, stroking upward. “Because I like watching you squirm. I like making you wet.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Are you getting wet, Livie?”
“Um. I mean, yes.” How could the filthy things he said to her make her this unbelievably turned on? Even now, when she knew he was setting up his exit strategy, her mind was telling her no while her body was begging for him.
Another chuckle, and now she ached between her legs. “I want to feel it.” His fingertips brushed against the seam of her jeans.
She moaned softly.
“Let’s go upstairs before another family member shows up to cock block us.”
Whatever he said about it, his moving out was definitely the beginning of the end. But it wasn’t over yet, which meant she might as well enjoy every second she had left with him. She let him take her by the hand and pull her out of her chair, up the stairs, and into his room. She let herself get so lost in his arms she forgot all about the future.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It’s great, right?”
Livie turned in a slow circle, taking in Nick’s new place in Greenpoint. It was very big. Very clean. Very white. And totally and completely empty. Just endless expanses of pristine white walls and glossy pale wood floors.
The place was in a brand-new development, and it had everything—an on-site gym, a roof deck with a pool, and sweeping views of Manhattan from most of the units’ balconies. What Nick’s unit didn’t have was a single stick of furniture.
“It’s empty,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the sterile void. “When are you moving your stuff in?”
Nick looked around at the vast, blank space. “I don’t really have a lot of stuff.”
“But you must have some stuff.”
“My equipment, of course.”
“Nick, you have to own more than that.”
“I have clothes,” he said defensively.
“But all that stuff in your old apartment—”
“Was Poppy’s.”
“Oh. But what about before that? In California?”
He rubbed his hand across the top of his head as he looked around at all the blank whiteness. “Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose, Santa Clara... I bounced around a lot. Sublets, mostly. And I didn’t plan on moving here. I met Poppy and didn’t go back.”
How could someone be this completely rootless? Eight years since he’d left home and he hadn’t once planted himself anywhere. It gave her a cold, hollow feeling in her stomach, imagining all that wandering, with nowhere to call home, no safe place to go. She remembered Poppy’s apartment—its impersonal coldness, not a hint Nick had even lived there. At the time, she’d blamed Poppy, thinking she kept it that way on purpose. Now she suspected it was Nick’s doing. Engagement or not, he’d never seriously committed to that situation, not even enough to properly move in with her. It was no wonder he was already chafing at living with the Romanos. All that family and togetherness—their roots that stretched so far and went so deep—must be absolutely terrifying to him.
“What’s your plan? Are you going to sleep on the floor?”
“I’ve done it before.”
Seeing the irritated look she aimed at him, he relented. “Okay, obviously I need to buy some stuff. What do I need first?”
She’d spent her whole life living in a house continually inhabited by her family for four generations. Their problem had always been too much stuff. Layers upon layers of it, each new generation adding more while rarely getting rid of what was already there. Faced with such an empty void, Livie was at a loss. How did you turn this into a living space?
“You need everything. Furniture, lamps, rugs, kitchen stuff.”
“I don’t suppose you’d want to—”
She threw up her hands. “Don’t look at me. I’m terrible at shopping.”
“Do you think I can hire someone?”
“I guess you’ll have to.”
He sighed again, running his hands over his face. “I don’t suppose you know where I should look for someone?”
“Not a chance. I could help you out writing a paper about sub-atomic particles in space, but interior decorators? Sorry, you’re way outside my area of expertise.”
They were both silent for a moment as they looked around at the endless yawning expanse of empty apartment.
“Except...”
Nick looked up at her expectantly.
Once again, Livie had something Nick needed. This time it was two women with a passion for HGTV and no homes of their own to tinker with. “I cou
ld ask my family.”
“Gemma and Jess?”
The idea of Jess picking out sofas and wall art made her laugh out loud. She’d hate that as much as Livie would. But Gemma wouldn’t. And neither would Kendra. “Gemma and my cousin Kendra. They’re both really into this stuff. They might be willing to help.”
“Seriously? I’ll hand over my Amex Black. Take it. They can buy whatever they think I need. I don’t care.”
Gemma and Kendra set loose to shop without a limit? Even if they were doing it for someone else, it would be like Christmas coming early.
“I’ll ask.”
His relief was palpable. He walked toward her, arms outstretched, then he pulled her into a tight hug. “You’re a lifesaver, Livie.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his shoulder. Such a warm, perfect place to be. But perfect things were always fleeting.
“Nick?” she murmured into his shoulder. He was going to run soon, she knew that. It might be easier for her to handle if she knew he wasn’t running back out into his rootless existence, and there was a way she might be able to make that happen.
“Yeah.”
“I’m happy to loan you my family when you need them, but you know you have your own, right?”
He pulled back to look at her. “What?”
“You have family. Maybe they’d want to help you out, if they knew you needed help.”
His eyebrows furrowed into a furious frown. “No, they wouldn’t.”
“How do you know? You haven’t spoken to them in years.”
He turned away, running a hand roughly through his hair. “I know them, Livie. You don’t. Trust me, they’re happy I’m out of their lives.”
Surely he was mistaken. At least, she hoped he was. It was horrible to imagine, your own family not wanting you. But Nick had closed up tight, unwilling to discuss it, or even look at her. She wasn’t sure how long she might have with him. The last thing she wanted to do was hasten the end by fighting.
“Okay, fine. Forget I said anything. Let’s go talk to Gemma.”
“You really think she’ll help?”
“Um, a chance to spend somebody else’s money without a limit? Yeah, she’ll help.”
Chapter Thirty
“Nick, sand or taupe?”
Nick looked up at Gemma in confusion. “What?”
She shoved her phone in his face. “The couch. Sand or taupe?”
There were two identical couches on the website on her screen. “They’re the same.”
“One is sand and one is taupe. Which one do you like better?”
He cast a pleading glance at Livie, who ducked her head to hide her smile. Traitor.
“Seriously, Gemma, they look exactly the same to me. Get whichever one you like.”
Gemma sighed in exasperation.
“Sand,” Livie said suddenly.
He and Gemma both turned to look at her in surprise.
She shrugged. “The sand one looks like your couch. The taupe one doesn’t.”
Gemma considered that a moment, then tapped her phone to resume her phone call. “We’re going with sand, Kendra. Of course, that means we need to get the rug in sage, not moss. Right.”
Nick watched her running through the myriad purchases with a gnawing sense of panic. Not about the money. Gemma had yet to put a serious dent in his spending limit. It was the permanence of it all. He hadn’t thought much of it when Livie suggested letting Gemma and Kendra furnish the place for him. He needed stuff if he was going to live there, and this solved that problem quickly and efficiently, like moving in with the Romanos had solved his homeless problem without a lot of fuss.
But like that situation, simple things never really were. Living with the Romanos, especially once he and Livie had started this thing, was thorny and complicated. They were a family, tightly knit and tribal, and he constantly felt himself being drawn in by the sheer gravity of them. Which wasn’t bad...he genuinely liked them. But the deeper he fell into their world, the worse it would be for everyone when he eventually screwed it up and it ended.
Moving out had seemed like a good solution. A little distance would be good, and that empty, raw space had felt right for him the minute he saw it. A blank slate—the perfect place to hit restart. Now Gemma and Kendra were filling it up with stuff—stuff that was supposed to be his—and every choice she presented him with—sand or taupe—felt much more significant than which color he liked better. He was being asked to describe what home would feel like to him—and that was something he didn’t have a clue about.
He knew he was supposed to be excited to see the finished product, but secretly, it filled him with dread. He’d have a home of his own for the first time, crafted just for him. What if he didn’t recognize himself when he saw it?
“Thanks for doing all this, Gemma,” he said when she’d ended the call with Kendra—after negotiating the purchase of half a dozen other things. They’d both refused him when he offered to pay them for all this, which would have at least turned it into a straightforward business transaction. Now it felt like family pitching in to help. And families made him itchy.
“Are you kidding? I’m living in a house my grandmother decorated. I never get to do stuff like this. This is a blast.”
“See?” Livie slid off her bar stool and retrieved her coat from the coat rack in the corner. “Told you she’d have fun. I gotta go.”
“Go where?” he asked.
Livie was going out? It was eight p.m. Usually Livie was holed up in her room with her laptop and a stack of research by this time of night. And it was a Friday night. Where was she going? And with who?
“It’s my new lab assignment, remember?”
“Right. It’s your class.” For reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely, that was a relief. School. She was going to school.
“It’s not really teaching. The students have to do a lab as part of their class. I keep an eye on the equipment, help them calibrate the telescopes, that sort of thing.”
“Hold up. Like, actual telescopes? Looking at the sky?”
“That’s what astronomers do, you know,” she said with a smirk. “We look at the sky.”
“Very funny. Where is the lab? At Adams?”
“No, it’s off campus, all the way out in Mill Basin.”
“How do you get out there?”
“A subway and two buses, which is why I have to go.”
“Why don’t you drive? John has a car, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, but I don’t drive.”
Nick burst into laughter. “You don’t drive?”
She prickled defensively. “Tons of New Yorkers don’t know how to drive.”
“I know how to drive,” Gemma interjected as she poured a beer at the taps. “Jess knows how to drive.”
“Nobody asked you, Gem.”
“You seriously never learned?” Nick pressed.
Livie shrugged and Gemma answered for her. “Dad tried to teach her, but she chickened out.”
“Hey!”
“Livie, were you scared?”
“No, I wasn’t scared. There was a lot to keep track of. And other New Yorkers drive like crazy people.”
“Well, I know how to drive, too. Want me to drive you out there?”
Livie turned her big brown eyes back to him. “You’d do that?”
He shrugged, reaching for her hand. “For you? I’m willing to do a couple of special favors.”
* * *
“It’s this way,” she said, heading across the street to a ramshackle wooden shed.
Nick locked John Romano’s car and followed her. The streets, lined with well-kept single-family homes, were empty in this quiet little far-flung residential neighborhood of Brooklyn. A wooden construction fence lined a small lot on the corner,
the door to the shed seemingly the only access.
“Adams leases the lot from the city,” Livie explained as she wrestled with the stubborn lock on the door. “It’s the darkest spot we can find in the borough, since we’re this close to the water.”
“We are?”
“Mm-hmm. On the other side of the lot. It’s still too light for serious stargazing, but they’re undergrads in an intro class. It’s more about learning to use the equipment and finding their way around the night sky.”
The door gave way, screeching open on rusty hinges. Livie flipped on a light and a weak, red glow from a single bare bulb washed the small room with an eerie half-light.
“Cozy. Is this where you dismember the bodies?”
“Funny. The light has to be dim so it doesn’t interfere with the telescopes in the field. And red light is least intrusive.”
The room was spartan, a university-issued steel desk and chair in the corner, and a huge whiteboard on one wall. On the other side of the room, a dozen battered telescopes on tripods stood along the wall like a line of soldiers.
Livie set her bag down but didn’t remove her coat. Neither did Nick, since it was cold as hell in here. There was no sign of anything like a heater. He watched as she got out her paperwork, checked something on her phone, and wrote out a bunch of stuff on the whiteboard.
“What’s that?”
“We give them the coordinates of one object in tonight’s sky, so they can calibrate their telescopes based on that. Then they have to find other objects on the worksheets and answer questions. It’s pretty basic stuff. Can you grab a telescope?”
He did as he was told, following her through a door in the wall opposite the entrance. It opened onto a field. No, that was too kind. It opened onto an empty lot, bare of vegetation, the ground lumpy and uneven. Beyond the wooden fence on the far side, he could see the inky darkness of the water, reflected lights shimmering off the surface. Across the water, a strip of land, dotted with low buildings, cut across the horizon.
“That’s Jamaica Bay out there,” Livie said as she set down her telescope and deftly kicked the legs open. “Across the bay is the Rockaways, and past that is the harbor.”
Love and the Laws of Motion Page 19