She smiled, and I felt like a traitor as I smiled back. But what else could I do? I knew how fragile Cat was.
* * *
I INVENTED A HEADACHE as an excuse to leave the bar. I couldn’t spend another minute there, couldn’t watch Cat pine after this guy who wasn’t into her and who, frankly, wasn’t that attractive anyway. And I couldn’t tell her that he wasn’t worth her time, not without having to tell her about what had transpired at the jukebox, and I really, really didn’t want to tell her that.
I couldn’t break her heart like that. Not again. Even though this thing with Connor was decidedly not my fault, I worried that Cat would see parallels to the Bruce Gellar incident from sophomore year. Back then, Cat had a crush on this guy Bruce, who was cute in a very Jim-from–The Office way, but who also was an idiot who kept a three-foot bong named after a porn star in his room and who had a broken arm from jumping off the frat house roof two weeks prior. He was a bad match for sweet, studious Cat, and I told her so. I assumed she agreed, so later when Bruce went to kiss me at a party, I didn’t think twice. Like I said, he was cute, and I was soaked through with spiced rum and THC. It was one dumb little kiss, but the way Cat reacted you would have thought I’d married the guy. For weeks afterward, I’d felt the fury pulsating off her in waves. If Cat could generate so much anger over some dopey stoner, I could only imagine how enraged she would be about Connor, this man whom she’d been obsessed with for something like seven years.
As I stalked home, I grew more and more frustrated with Connor for ruining the evening. Why couldn’t he have responded to Cat’s overtures like a normal man? She was textbook hot—maybe a little awkward, sure, but so was he—and she was plainly into him. So why had he come on to me instead? I hated him for reinforcing Cat’s stupid theory that everyone fell at my feet and was repulsed by her. It wasn’t true, and I worried it was driving us apart. And I couldn’t lose Cat, not when she was the only real friend I had in this city. It was so unfair that Connor was the one who had made a mess of everything, and yet I was the one who had been chased from the bar, who would now have to spend the rest of the night alone and angry.
Or, I thought as I reached my gate, I don’t have to be alone. Cat might be my only real friend here, but she’s not actually my only friend.
* * *
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Nick was sauntering through my front door, toothpaste-commercial smile gleaming.
“That was fast,” I observed.
“When the lady beckons,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat to me. “Actually, I was already in the neighborhood.”
“Lucky me,” I said, wrapping my arms around his torso and burying my face in his chest. I inhaled, filling my nostrils with the familiar scent of Nick’s musky, slightly spicy cologne and the faintest hint of beer. It was a combination that reminded me of simpler times—sitting on Nick’s lap at football games, cuddling in his bed on lazy Sunday mornings and watching DVR-ed SNL—and made me glad I had called him.
“I’ll show you lucky,” he said, voice low as he captured my face in his hands and covered my mouth with his, ending all conversation.
* * *
LATER, NICK AND I lay side by side in bed on our phones. Nick was texting with his friends about some sports something or other, and I was composing an Instagram Story about the night, trying to figure out how to share the evening with my followers without revealing how it had ended in disaster—or how I had salvaged it by calling my ex-boyfriend.
“Oh, hey,” Nick said, looking up suddenly. “I just remembered. My mom wants to see you.”
“Your mom?” I asked, putting down my phone. “Why?”
“She always liked you,” he said with a shrug. “She knows you moved to town, and she thought you might come over for dinner sometime.”
“Oh,” I said noncommittally. The last thing I wanted to do was have dinner with Nick’s family, his mother especially. I’d met her a few times when Nick and I were dating, and the elegant but frosty woman had seemingly taken an uncomfortable shine to me. She’d run her hands through my hair, leaving it lightly smeared with her rose-scented hand cream and getting the strands caught on her cocktail rings, and begun talking about future holidays spent together. She’d thought our relationship was more serious than it was back then; I didn’t want to know what she thought about it these days.
“I’m pretty busy with work right now,” I added, “but maybe sometime.”
Nick nodded and returned to his phone. Relieved I had dodged that bullet, I lifted my own phone and went back to work on my Stories. My heart twisted when I saw an image of Cat’s happy, hopeful face, and I sighed heavily.
“Something wrong?” Nick asked, glancing over at me. “Is this about my mom? Because, Audrey, you don’t have—”
“No, it’s just …” I started, then trailed off. “Nick, do you think I’m a bad friend?”
“Babe, I’m in your bed,” he said, smirking. “I think you’re the very best kind of friend.”
“I’m serious,” I said, lightly punching his arm. “My decades-long friendship with Izzy just completely disintegrated. And then there’s this thing with Cat—”
Nick interrupted me with a groan. “I can’t believe you’re friends with that girl. She’s so weird.”
“Don’t be mean. Anyway, you haven’t seen her in years. She’s changed a lot since college.”
“I’ll believe that once I see it. What’s this ‘thing’ that happened?”
“I went to trivia with her tonight—”
Nick laughed. “Is that why you’re always at trivia night? I’ve seen you post about it and wondered if you’d been taken hostage.” His voice turned slightly mocking. “It seemed a little off-brand for Audrey Miller.”
“You’re right, okay?” I said, pinching him playfully. “But I’ve been going for Cat. She has this crush on some guy on her trivia team, but … well, tonight he tried to kiss me.”
Nick’s golden eyebrows arched. “Did you kiss him back?”
“Of course not.”
“But what? Cat thinks you did?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think that Cat even knows he tried to kiss me.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I wrapped a lock of hair around my finger, pulling it tighter and tighter as I considered how to articulate what was bothering me. As the tip of my finger turned red, I said, “I guess the problem is that I don’t know why he tried to kiss me. Like, why did he think I would reciprocate? Did he think I had been flirting with him? Had I been flirting with him? Am I the kind of woman who flirts with her friend’s crush?”
“You think too much,” Nick said, gently unwinding the hair from my finger and twisting it around his instead. “He tried to kiss you because you’re hot. Full stop.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, tugging lightly on my hair. “But I don’t like the idea of other guys trying to put their filthy mouths on you.”
I laughed and pushed him away. “Oh, come off it, Nicky. I don’t belong to you.”
He growled low in his throat and rolled on top of me, pinning my hands down to the bed. “Tonight you do.”
* * *
“YOU’VE POSTED about this coffee shop so many times I feel like I’ve been here myself,” Nick joked as we joined the queue at Columbia Brews. “Are they paying you for all that publicity? Should I alert the FCC?”
“You know, that’s not a half-bad idea. If I could work out a partnership with them, then maybe I wouldn’t have to spend half my paycheck just to sustain my caffeine addiction.”
“Have you considered investing in a coffeemaker?” he asked wryly.
“Considered and rejected. Come on, how aspirational is brewing your own coffee? I’ve got to think of my followers!” I teased.
He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, Aud.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door swing open and a tall man stride in. My laughter caught in m
y throat. Even with his face partially concealed by a Nationals baseball cap, I recognized Connor.
Clutching Nick’s arm, I hissed, “Don’t look now, but the guy I was telling you about last night just came in.”
“Where?” Nick asked, immediately twisting toward the door.
“Dammit, Nick,” I muttered as Connor looked up and directly at us. Our eyes met, and he smiled. He removed his hat and ran a hand through his thick, sandy blond hair as he approached.
“Audrey, hi. How’s your head feeling?”
I ignored Nick’s questioning look and touched my forehead lightly, squinting as if the light hurt. “Better, thanks.”
“Great, I’m glad to hear that.” He glanced at Nick and then back to me, clearly expecting an introduction. I had no intention of prolonging our conversation and was about to dismiss him when he took matters into his own hands. Turning to Nick, he said, “Hey, I’m Connor.”
“Nick,” Nick said, throwing a casually possessive arm around my shoulders. Any other time, I would have knocked Nick’s arm away—I hadn’t liked that proprietorial move when we were dating, either—but I didn’t want Connor to think I was doing it for his benefit. For all I cared, Connor could think I’d been up all night, clawing at Nick’s back with him pulling my hair—which, of course, was exactly how I had spent the evening.
Connor remained in front of us, smiling dopily, like he was waiting for an explanation or something. I felt myself growing angry. Cat was the one who deserved an explanation. It was so obvious she was in love with him, so outrageously obvious that even my four-month-old nephew who was just discovering his own feet would have been able to recognize it. I was gearing up to say something biting to him when the barista called, “Next!”
Relieved, I offered Connor a fake smile. “See you around.”
“That was the guy who tried to kiss you?” Nick snorted, making no effort to lower his voice as I tugged him toward the counter. “Babe, you’re so far out of his league.”
I elbowed Nick sharply in the ribs and cast a quick glance over my shoulder to see if Connor had heard him. He was looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face. For reasons I didn’t totally understand, I shivered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CAT
I turned over a bottle of shimmery nail polish to read the name. Kiss Me Coral. I shuddered and could hear Audrey’s voice in my head, instructing me to get the brighter color, to be bold, be someone different. Easy for her to say. Audrey didn’t have to be someone different to get what she wanted.
Or what anyone else wanted.
I should have known better than to invite Audrey to trivia. How could I have forgotten what it felt like to be compared to her? Audrey eclipsed everyone within a hundred-foot radius; she always had. How could I have expected Connor to notice me with Audrey in the picture?
I didn’t tell Audrey that I saw her with Connor. I’d just returned to the booth, fresh from reapplying the lip gloss Audrey had lent me and giving myself a pep talk, only to find Connor missing. I’d glanced toward the jukebox, looking for Audrey, and that’s when I saw him leaning toward her. Tears blurred my vision, and I had averted my eyes. When I dared look again, she was shoving him away, and I was pleasantly surprised to see she was doing the right thing. I couldn’t have always said that about her.
It was stupid of me to think I could have Connor. We had known each other for years, had weathered plenty of all-nighter study sessions and work-related fire drills together. If Connor thought of me as anything more than a friend, he’d had ample opportunity to make that known. Our relationship had remained strictly platonic, aside from that one drunken kiss.
It had been four years ago, the night we finished the last of our law school finals. Too many of us were crammed into our friend Betsy’s tiny apartment, giddy with having survived law school and drunk on cheap beer. Things had started innocently enough: Connor and I had been sitting beside each other on Betsy’s cat hair–covered couch, as we often did, when his leg brushed against mine. Normally, I would have adjusted to give him more room, but that night everything felt different. School was over; the possibilities were endless. And so I kept my leg where it was, our denim-clad thighs touching. Connor’s leg pressed more firmly against mine, and he threw his arm along the back of the couch, resting his fingertips on the back of my neck. He gently traced small circles on my skin, and I was so thrilled I nearly blacked out.
I shifted slightly so that we were sitting even closer, our arms now touching, and he abruptly rose from the couch. Immediately, I felt sick, sure I had misread something and had weirded him out. Stupid, I thought to myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is why no one likes you.
But then Connor’s hazel eyes met mine and he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly before walking to the bathroom. I glanced around the room, and once I had confirmed that no one was paying attention, I stood and followed him. My hand on the doorknob, I paused. What if I had imagined his silent message? What if he was just using the bathroom for its intended purpose? I almost backed away, but the magic of the evening compelled me to twist the knob.
The second I did so, Connor thrust open the door and grabbed my arm, pulling me inside and shutting the door behind me. Suddenly we were kissing, his tongue colliding with mine and his hands on my body and all I could think was It’s happening, it’s finally happening.
But then someone was trying the knob, and we broke apart, panting and smoothing our clothing back into place. Without a word to me, Connor opened the bathroom door and loudly said, “Thanks for getting that out of my eye, Harrell.”
He didn’t look at me again as he strode back into the thick of the party, falling easily into a conversation about baseball with some of our classmates. I stood there, unsure what had just happened, unable to process the knowledge that Connor’s tongue had been inside my mouth, and that it no longer was.
Look at me, I thought desperately. Just look at me and give me some sign that we’re in this together.
He didn’t look at me, not even when I gathered my belongings and left the party without saying goodbye to anyone. I didn’t see Connor for weeks after that, and then he acted like nothing had happened. In the years since, we hadn’t once discussed that evening.
It was obvious I shouldn’t continue ascribing meaning to that night’s kiss. The only thing that mattered from that party was the aftermath: the way he had brushed me off then and every night since then. Pursuing Connor was a waste of time, and I knew it. I shouldn’t squander another second on him, and should instead focus on things I could achieve: like securing a spot on the team for the Phillips trial. The high-profile case was going before the Southern District of New York in a couple of months, and Bill Hannover, one of the firm’s most prominent partners and head of the litigation group, had announced that one of the associates would have an opportunity to argue in court. Even though the very idea of speaking in court made me break out in hives, I desperately wanted that to be me. I needed the experience to progress my career, and I wanted to prove myself to Bill, a man who could almost single-handedly guarantee my future at the firm.
I promised myself that, going forward, I would clean up my act. I would stop wasting time on Connor, I would stop letting Audrey jerk me around like a pet, and I would stop trying to be someone different. Instead, I would be true to myself, be the ambitious, hardworking woman I knew I was. It had been working for me thus far.
I replaced the bottle of coral nail polish on the shelf and selected instead my usual pale pink. Handing it to Monet, I said by way of explanation, “Client meeting.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AUDREY
Two months before college graduation, Nick and I were sharing a joint in his bed on a Tuesday morning when he lazily asked me, “So, did you want to move to DC with me?” I had laughed in his face, and that had been the beginning of the end of us. Rather, it had been the explicit beginning of the end—I’d always known our relationship came with an expirati
on date. Nick was fun, but it wasn’t like we were going to get married or anything. I mean, how could I spend my life with a man who counts Maroon 5 among his favorite bands? If Nick were moving to New York, we might have squeezed another couple of years out of things, Adam Levine and company notwithstanding, but at the time I couldn’t fathom moving to DC—not for Nick, not for anything.
Against all odds, though, DC was starting to feel like home. It would never be New York, but that was true of all cities that weren’t New York. Now that I’d been here a month, I was starting to appreciate the things that made DC unique: the slightly slower pace of life, the ambiguously patriotic feeling I got when I saw the Capitol Building each day. I missed the 24/7 vibrancy of New York, but there was something to be said for rolling up to a restaurant without a reservation and not facing a two-hour wait. That very night, I had ignored Cat’s protestations about work and dragged her out to sample some kale nachos at a place I’d seen written up in the Washington Post, and we had only had to wait fifteen minutes. I was so busy thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about the city—The food is top-notch! The drinks are reasonably priced! Even my street is charming!—that I was halfway through my gate before I realized I hadn’t yet pulled out my keys.
I frowned, scouring my mind for a concrete memory of locking it. All I recalled was a text message from my mom: Have you seen Nick lately? she’d asked, subtle as a sledgehammer. I always liked him. I’d lied through my teeth, responding as I left that no, I hadn’t seen him for a while. I must have been so distracted that I didn’t remember to lock the gate.
Good work, Audrey, I thought as I deliberately pulled the gate shut and twisted the lock behind me. I turned around and put my key in the front door, only to find it was unlocked as well.
My stomach hit the pavement. It was conceivable I’d spaced out on locking the gate, but I was certain—certain—I had locked that goddamn door.
Follow Me Page 9