by Lia Romeo
I nod fervently, shivering as I think about what might have happened. Even though it’s almost two a.m. and I’m standing in Lewis’ lobby wearing a blanket, I’m feeling like a very lucky girl right about now.
And I’m feeling even luckier when we’re back upstairs ten minutes later, inspecting the closet. The flame-retardant rubber, which runs all the way around the door, has melted slightly—which is what I’d smelled burning. The edge of the rug where it meets the sheet metal floor of the closet is charred. There’s a lingering chemical smell from whatever the firemen sprayed in there, and smudges of dirt from their boots on the hallway carpet. The sheet metal walls of the closet are still glowing faintly red, and Lewis warns me not to touch them. But other than that, it’s like the fire never happened.
“A fireproof closet. Why would anyone do that?” I wonder aloud.
“I don’t know,” Lewis says. “Maybe it’s some kind of anti-terrorism thing.” His building is in what would have been the shadow of the World Trade Center, so that actually makes sense. “In any case, it isn’t the strangest thing I’ve seen in New York. I knew a woman who turned her spare bedroom into a stable for her horse.”
“What?” I start laughing. “That poor horse!”
“She lived uptown,” Lewis says, “near the park, so she’d take the horse out late at night in the service elevator and ride it around the reservoir. She actually got away with it for almost a year, until one of the doormen caught her and called animal welfare.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know,” he says. “And speaking of terrible . . .” He steps closer, unwrapping the blanket and revealing the scraps of red lace that are all I’m wearing underneath. “We were interrupted at a very inopportune moment before.”
He leans in to kiss me and my knees go weak—literally weak—again. How does he do this to me? He takes my hand and pulls me back into the bedroom, pushing me down on the bed.
“Wait,” I say. “That’s not fair. I’m already practically naked—you have to take your clothes off too.”
Slowly, he begins unbuttoning his shirt. I want to grab him, pull him in and taste his skin with my tongue, but I make myself wait until he takes his pants off and lies down beside me. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs . . . and his socks.
The socks again. I want to ask him about it . . . but I’m afraid he might have some sort of foot fungus and it would be embarrassing and completely ruin the moment. And besides, he’s kissing me again, and our bodies are melting together, his lips trailing over my neck, my breasts, my stomach, and then he’s driving me absolutely insane with his tongue while I’m clutching the bed sheets, trying not to scream, and then he’s unrolling a condom so we can finish what we started, and he could be wearing a pair of pink fuzzy unicorn slippers on his feet for all I care.
It turns out that almost dying in a fiery blaze is an excellent aphrodisiac. We don’t actually end up getting to sleep until four.
I STUMBLE INTO work bleary-eyed the next morning, having gotten about six hours of sleep in the past two days. My hair is wet and I’m not wearing any makeup, since I opted for hitting the snooze button on the alarm Lewis thoughtfully set for me instead of getting up in time to put it on. I made a quick stop at my apartment to shower and change, then walked the six blocks over to the office, picking up an extra-large coffee from a street vendor on the way.
I flick on the office lights—Linda’s not in yet—and then gasp in surprise. Sitting on my desk is an enormous bouquet of flowers—yellow sunflowers, purple larkspur, red and orange daisies, bursting out of a crystal vase tied with a red satin ribbon. A small white card sits on top.
Thanks for a lovely night. Hope to see you again soon.
—Lewis
I start up my computer, take his card out of my wallet and open my email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
9:36 am
Re: Flowers
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
9:45 am
RE:re:Flowers
Figured I owed you something, since I kept you up so late last night ;) Speaking of which, when can we do that again?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
9:53 am
RE:re:re:Flowers
Um, I don’t know . . . on my lunch break?
I have to say—again—that I’m really not this kind of girl. Natalie’s always running off to meet some lawyer or doctor or banker for a lunchtime quickie, and even Melissa and Brandon have been known to lock her office door and spend a few minutes on top of her desk. But not me. Even when I was having regular sex—back when I was with Ben—it was usually at night, and always in our bed. Not in the tiny bathroom in the hallway outside the office, which is where I find myself come one-thirty, with my legs wrapped around Lewis and my mouth smashed against his shoulder so Linda won’t hear us.
Afterwards, we walk down the street to my favorite falafel place and order pitas stuffed with falafel and hummus and lettuce and tomato and yogurt sauce. Lewis pays, which is sweet, because it’s not as though this is a proper date or anything. We sit at the counter to eat, and end up chatting about books—we’re both big Stephen King fans, though Lewis thinks Misery is his best and I’m a fan of The Stand. The sun shines through the window, and everything seems to sparkle—the glass, the counter, the rows of sodas in the refrigerator case. I haven’t felt this happy in a long time.
After we’re done eating, he walks me back to the office. It’s almost three p.m., and I ask him if he isn’t supposed to be back at work.
“No,” he says. “I make my own hours. I’m sort of an independent contractor.”
It’s the most he’s told me about his job, and I press him for more. “So what does that mean? You do recruiting for a bunch of different companies?”
“Mostly just one,” he says. “But I’m not on staff. I’m more of a freelance headhunter.”
“So what’s the company?”
We’re in front of my building, and Lewis leans down and gives me a kiss. It lasts for a long time, and I’m just about ready to pull him upstairs and into the bathroom again, but I’ve already taken an hour-and-a-half lunch break. Reluctantly, I break away.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says, touching me on the tip of the nose with one finger. As always, his touch leaves an impression of heat behind on my skin. Then he heads off down the sidewalk.
It isn’t until I’m halfway up the stairs that I realize he never answered my question.
– 5 –
THE NEXT TWO weeks are perfect. Literally perfect. I spend almost every night with Lewis, except for Friday, when Mel and Nat drag me out to Vinoteca, the wine bar around the corner, because they haven’t seen me all week. And then, between mouthfuls of tuna carpaccio and sips of sauvignon blanc, I spend the whole night talking about Lewis, causing Nat to roll her eyes and Mel to clap her hands delightedly. I still can’t figure out what he sees in me, but when I share this concern with my friends they tell me I’m an idiot—and also that I’m amazing, despite being an idiot, and any guy, including Lewis, would be lucky to have me.
And he does seem to think he’s lucky to have me, baffling as that may be. He emails during work, calls after, sets up plans to meet at one or another cozy, charming restaurant. He pulls out my chair, asks me questions about my day, pays for dinner and the cab ride back to his place which inevitably follows.
And in bed, he’s more attentive than anyone I’ve ever met . . . he seems to know exactly which touch will make me shiver, which will make me scream, and when to use them, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. And to be fair, he seems to be enjoying himself just as much, though I’m not sure how that’s possible.
He still keeps his socks on. Every time. And I still want to ask him about it, but I can’t thi
nk of a way to do it without sounding awkward. Besides, I’m usually very quickly . . . distracted.
Sometimes after we have sex we fall asleep right away. Other times he lights a cigarette—with his fingertip, a trick I still can’t figure out. I’ve asked him to show me how it works, but he just laughs and says he can’t give away all his secrets. We lie in bed, passing it back and forth, sheets tangled around us, my head on his chest, still slightly salty with sweat, and I’m perfectly content. It scares me how fast I’m falling for him, given that I hardly even know him yet, and that we certainly haven’t talked about anything like a future.
And then, on Wednesday night of our second week together, he tells me he’s going away on Friday. “It’s a business trip,” he says. “To Vegas. Just for the weekend.”
“Oh.” I’m suddenly, absurdly disappointed. Two days without him—three, at the most—but suddenly the weekend, which I’d imagined spending lying in bed all morning, then going out for brunch and an afternoon walk, then sipping wine at some impossibly chic bar where all the men looked like Lewis and all the women looked like models (but he only had eyes for me)—stretches before me like a blank gray space.
“You should come with me,” he says. And just like that my heart, which had been in a puddle somewhere around my feet, bounces back into my chest again. He wants to travel with me! To Vegas! I’ve never even been to Vegas, and somehow I have a feeling that Lewis would make an excellent guide to the City of Sin. “The hotel’s all covered,” he continues. “All you’d have to pay for would be your flight.”
And then I come back to reality. A last minute flight to Vegas could easily be four or five hundred dollars, and I have exactly forty-four dollars in my checking account at the moment. I’m getting paid tomorrow, but that money’s going into next month’s rent. “I’d love to,” I tell him. “But I don’t think I can swing it. I don’t have a lot of extra cash right now.”
We’re in my living room, sitting on the camel-colored leather sofa Nat bought when she and Melissa first moved into the apartment, a year and a half before Ben and I broke up and I moved in with them. It’s Lewis’ first time over at my place. Nat and Mel insisted they had to meet him, so Mel told me to bring him over and she’d cook dinner for all of us. (Did I mention that she’s also practically a gourmet chef?) But Mel got stuck working late at the office, and Nat’s waiting in a long line at an “amazing” DVF sample sale, so Lewis and I are waiting for the girls to get home.
On the coffee table in front of us is the latest issue of Vogue, and stuck in between the glossy pink and green pages as a bookmark is a stack of hundred dollar bills. Lewis’ eye falls on the money. “What about that?” he says.
“Oh,” I chuckle. “That’s not mine, it’s Natalie’s.” Nat sometimes gets paid in cash for her modeling jobs, and she tends to be careless about money, leaving bills lying around all over the apartment. I once found two dripping wet hundreds as I was emptying the dishwasher.
“Okay,” he says, “but didn’t you say she’s rich?”
“Um, yeah,” I tell him. “But . . .”
“So you really think she’d notice if a few of them were gone?” He gives me a sideways smile, his wicked smile, and I can’t tell if he’s joking. He has to be joking . . . right?
“Um . . .” I chuckle uncomfortably.
“Seriously,” he says. “She wouldn’t know the difference, and you’d get to go to Vegas . . . with me.”
Maybe he isn’t joking. And for a brief moment I actually let myself consider it . . . Lewis in a tux and me in a shimmery gold evening gown—not that I actually have a shimmery gold evening gown, but it’s a fantasy, right?—sipping champagne and watching him win at blackjack before we go dancing at Tao or Pure or some other place I’ve read about in gossip magazines.
Natalie really wouldn’t know the difference. When I’d handed her the hundred-dollar bills I’d found in the dishwasher, she’d just blinked in surprise and said thank you. She’d clearly had no idea they were even gone. And it’s not as if she has to work for her money. Most of it comes from her dad’s estate, and even when she has a modeling job, she’s just standing there posing while people look at her, which is pretty much her favorite thing to do anyhow. But . . .
“I can’t,” I tell him.
“Why not?”
“I just . . . can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
Just then Melissa comes through the door, weighed down by a heavy black leather Kate Spade bag and a pile of documents in her arms. Lewis moves smoothly to the door to catch the teetering stack of documents, which are about to fall all over the floor, and then there are handshakes and introductions, and more handshakes and introductions when Nat comes breezing through the door a few minutes later, carrying five shopping bags with bright, gauzy scraps of fabric peeking out of them.
And then there’s salmon with baby asparagus and a bottle of Sauvignon blanc, which Lewis brought to thank Mel for the dinner. And there’s warm chocolate cake and laughter and conversation, and the girls are completely charmed by Lewis, just as I knew they would be. And finally after dessert, Nat and Mel tactfully retire to their own rooms, allowing Lewis and me to tactfully retire to my closet.
I’m embarrassed to show him my makeshift room, especially since his apartment looks like something out of the Waldorf Astoria. There’s hardly any space to stand between the end of my full-size bed and the door, and my entire wardrobe is hanging from a bar next to the bed that runs along the wall (no room for a dresser). At least I’ve got a cute yellow and white striped bedspread (from Target, but Lewis doesn’t need to know that), and a nice framed print of Central Park hanging above the bed.
I switch on the lamp in the corner of the closet, and it floods the tiny room with warm light. I shrug, giving Lewis a sheepish smile. “I told you it was small.”
“It’s cozy,” he says, and he squeezes my shoulder. “I like it.” And I can tell from his smile—not the wicked sideways smile, but a warm smile, his blue eyes crinkling up at the corners—that he really does. I turn the lamp down to low and step forward to kiss him, and we tumble together onto my bed, and soon our clothes are tossed in the corner—well, except for his socks—and my legs are wrapped around his and my mouth is pressed against his neck to keep from waking Mel and Nat up.
And then we drift off to sleep, his arm draped protectively across my chest in the darkness. Just as I’m falling asleep, I remember him looking at the money on the coffee table, saying: “She wouldn’t know the difference.” The Lewis who’d said that seemed like a completely different person than the one who’d complimented Nat’s jewelry and Mel’s cooking at dinner, who’d made me feel good about my tiny room. I decide to think about it in the morning.
– 6 –
OF COURSE, I don’t think about it in the morning. In the morning, Lewis and I have a repeat of the night before, and then I jump in a quick shower and rush off with wet hair to work. Which is busy—we have a meeting with Kruger coming up, so we have to put together a progress report of all the press we’ve gotten since the last time we saw them—and then after work Lewis calls and tells me to meet him at a tiny little pizza place in the Village, and after pizza with prosciutto and pecorino we spend the night at his apartment, and then he kisses me goodbye in the morning and tells me he’ll see me Sunday.
He doesn’t mention me coming with him again, and in fact, I don’t think about it until that night, Friday night, when Nat and I are sitting in a booth at an Irish pub called McSwigger’s. Mel’s out of town—she’s running the Marine Corps half-marathon with Brandon in D.C. this weekend. Not that she’d be caught dead at this place even if she were here . . . it’s got sticky floors, tables with the names of years of drunk college students carved into them, and giant plastic shamrocks and Guinness signs on the walls.
But Nat’s sleeping with Jimmy, one of the bartenders, and she’s assured me that he’ll give us our beers for free. This being the case, I’ve had a couple, as has Nat—and Jimmy, who�
�s blond and Irish-looking and very cute—though not as cute as Lewis, I tell myself smugly—has brought a round of kamikaze shots over to our table also.
So we’re both a little drunk, and, as we tend to do when we get a little drunk, we’re talking about sex. It starts with Nat leaning across the table and confiding in a whisper that Jimmy has a tiny penis—she measures against the candle in a glass jar that sits on the table, and we both dissolve into giggles. Jimmy looks over and gives Nat a hopeful wave, and she blows him a kiss.
Usually these dish sessions just consist of me listening while Natalie talks about whatever guy—or guys—she’s having sex with, but tonight I can actually contribute to the conversation. “Lewis?” I say, and Nat leans across the table eagerly. “Amazing.”
“Amazing dick?”
“Amazing . . . everything. I mean, better than it’s ever been. There’s just one thing that’s weird.”
“What?” I hesitate. “Come on, spill!” Nat insists.
“He never takes his socks off.”
“What?” Nat collapses into giggles again. “You mean, like, even while you’re doing it?”
“Shhh! Yeah.” Heads—mostly male heads—are turning to look at us. When a girl who looks like Natalie shrieks the words “doing it,” the men in the vicinity tend to get excited. “That’s weird, right?”
“Really weird!” she says. “Have you asked him about it?”
“No . . . I’m afraid it’ll be some kind of . . . foot fungus or something, and then it’ll be gross and embarrassing.”
“He was the perfect man,” Nat intones in a deep voice, “except he had disgusting feet.”