Flirting with Forever

by Cara Bastone

  “Are you two dating?” he asked.

  Richie grimaced. “I like him. He likes me. He’s not fooling around in anyone else’s office for now. Is that enough of an answer, Mom?”

  John stared unseeingly out their shoebox-sized window. “Crash Willis,” he said again. “Well, I’m happy for you, Rich. Mazel.”

  “Oh, John, you sentimental sap.”

  Richie’s voice dripped with sarcasm, but John could read between the lines and see how much his approval meant to Richie.

  “Besides,” Richie said, sitting on his chair and swiveling toward his desk, “now you and I are even.”

  “Even?” John exclaimed. “For what?”

  He put his foot on the side of Richie’s chair and swiveled him back around. He’d never in his life been caught necking in the office.

  Richie had a sly smile on his face as he clicked a pen with annoying slowness. “For that show you put on at Mary’s party.”

  John frowned. “There was no show.”

  “Oh, for the love of God, John, there was a show. A freaking hawt show.”

  John folded his arms over his chest. “We were just dancing.”

  “That wasn’t dancing. That was foreplay.”

  John grunted. “Foreplay implies there was play. And there was no play. I went home with you.”

  “Foreplay doesn’t imply immediate play. And don’t tell me you don’t have plans to see her again soon. Don’t tell me you left her house without securing a playdate.”

  John grunted again. He actually had left the house without securing a date. A fact that now seemed like a grossly incompetent oversight. Why hadn’t he shot his shot that night? Why hadn’t he laid it all out on the table for her? For God’s sake, the woman had pressed her cheek to his heartbeat. She’d smiled into his smile. He should have asked her on a date. He should have trusted the signs. John eyed Richie. “You, ah, think she was interested?”

  Richie’s chin dropped two inches as he shot John a look dry enough to turn a grape into a raisin. “John” was all he said.

  John’s foot bounced. “It’s just weird is all,” he eventually said. “I’ve spent so much time convincing people that there was nothing going on between us. My mom. My dad. Her friend Tyler.”

  “Convincing?” Richie asked pointedly.

  “Yeah. Everyone was skeptical.”

  “John, have you ever stopped to really think about what that actually means that no one believed you? Not your mother, your father or her friend Tyler?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that there’s a reason you have to convince them that you two weren’t together.”

  John cast his eyes down, frustrated and embarrassed. “Because my feelings for her are so freaking obvious.”

  “No. Well, yes. But, jeez, you’re dense. That’s not what I’m talking about. So, listen closely because I’m only going to lay this out once. Nice and clear.” Richie clicked that pen again, faster this time. “All these people, including myself, think that you and she make sense together, John. When they ask if you’re together, what they’re really asking is Why not? Because they look at you and they think, Yup, there are two people who could really make a go of it.”

  John stared at Richie. His friend was rarely this fired up outside of a courtroom. And apparently he wasn’t finished. Richie barreled on. “I truly think that you might be the only person on earth who looks at the two of you and thinks you’re not good enough for her. People aren’t thinking about you having to save money to take her out to a fancy birthday dinner. They aren’t imagining her in her Tom Ford shoes avoiding the loose nails in the floor of your tiny apartment. They aren’t wondering why in God’s name she would slum it with you. You’re the only one who asks those questions.”

  John marveled inwardly at how well his best friend knew him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Richie kept going. “The rest of the world looks at you and thinks, Look at those two bighearted, kind, hardworking people. Don’t they make a handsome couple? So, why in God’s name can’t you see it, John? Why? You’re the only one left fighting this thing when you’re the one who actually wants to be with her. And don’t deny it, John. I’ve seen it on your grumpy-ass face. You look at Mary like all the light in the world originates from her. Stop telling yourself you can’t have her. Just stop it already.”

  John just stared at Richie.

  Richie glared back.

  “Wow,” John eventually said. “I was gonna wait until she got back from Connecticut. But... I guess I’ll go call her?”

  “Good.” Richie nodded his head, swiveled back to his desk and made several decisive swipes with his pen on whatever paper was in front of him.

  John stepped out into the hallway and strode all the way down to the window at the end of the hall. Brooklyn sprawled out a few floors below. He watched people scurrying from place to place, guzzling water and trying to stay out of the blazingly direct sunlight.

  “Hi,” Mary answered on the first ring.

  “Hi,” he answered slowly, partly because his stomach was swooping and partly because she sounded different than she normally did. “I was going to wait to call you until you got back to Brooklyn. I didn’t want to interrupt your family time—”

  “You’re not interrupting. I came home yesterday. Unexpectedly.”

  He frowned. She sounded dull. Hurt. “Is everything all right?”

  “Ugh. Yes. I just had a fight with my mother, and I needed to get back to reality before she got too far into my brain.”

  “I’m sorry, Mary. I’ve definitely been there with my dad before.”

  John wanted to know more. He wanted her to unload on him so that he could help carry some of the heaviness he could hear in her voice. But he had to be in court in twenty minutes, and he assumed that she was at work as well. Besides, maybe that was better done in person?

  He took a deep breath.

  “I was calling because I was hoping to see you this week. Are you free anytime? I could just pop by the shop.”

  She paused, his stomach plummeted.

  “Will you make me dinner instead?” she asked.

  His stomach took off like a Fourth of July firework. He actually felt a little ill with how fast it swooped. Making someone dinner was a date-like thing to do.

  “I know it’s presumptuous to invite myself over to your place,” she said. “But it’s been a hell of a couple weeks, and I just want a beer and something simple to eat, and I want to pet Ruth.”

  John blinked. He...kind of couldn’t believe his ears? Because this was Mary Trace on the other end of the line. She was asking for Ruth. And for a simple meal. And his studio apartment. She was asking him for a whole lot of things that he could absolutely give her. What a freaking world.

  “I—Yes. Of course. Anything.” He cleared his throat. “What day are you free?”

  “Thursday.”

  John felt a bite of disappointment. It was only Monday and that felt like an interminably long wait to him. He imagined a movie star happening into her shop tomorrow, falling in love with her on sight and whisking her away to Ibiza.

  No. It was just three days. He could be patient. And besides, this was his moment. This was what Richie was talking about. John had an opportunity to tell Mary exactly what he was hoping to have happen between them. And that was all he could really do, lay it all out there for her. If he was lucky, she’d want something similar to what he wanted. But he was never going to know if he didn’t take this chance. If he didn’t treat Thursday like the stroke of heavenly opportunity that it really was. He could be bummed that he wasn’t going to see her for half a week, or he could treat this as if the cosmic cogs of kismet had all ticktocked into perfect sync in order to create this little window of a moment.

  Thursday. What couldn’t happen on a Thursday? Thursday was a gift from God.


  “Perfect.” He checked his calendar. “Eight o’clock work for you?”

  “It does.”

  “See you then, Mary.”

  “See you then, John.”

  * * *

  MARY HUNG UP the phone and stared unseeingly down the cereal aisle.

  “This ain’t your living room, honey,” a woman said at Mary’s shoulder, muscling past her with her grocery cart and giving Mary the stink eye for blocking the way.

  Mary shook her head. Right. She was in public. Her heart was galloping, she had underboob sweat and she was in public.

  The last twenty-four hours had been a mess. Mary had yo-yoed from outrage to pain to everything in between.

  Mary pushed thoughts of her judgmental mother from her brain and thought instead back to Friday night. John’s confident hands at her back, her cheek over his heartbeat.

  She grabbed cereal off the shelf and tossed it into her cart, moving to the next aisle. She thought of John smoothing the strap of her sundress over her shoulder, the weight of his hand at her collarbone.

  “John likes me,” she told herself.

  I was expecting someone younger.

  Different stages of life.

  Interestingly enough, when Mary heard those two phrases this time, they were in her mother’s voice in her head, not John’s. Those two simple sentences didn’t paint a very flattering picture of how John felt about her. But she was done letting those handfuls of words outweigh everything else. The way he’d smiled at her on the dance floor. His hand at her back when she’d met his father. His fingers laced with hers on the train. He’d given her his bed, for goodness’ sake.

  And the hug. She could finally let herself think of the way he’d held her in her kitchen after the break-in.

  It had been medicine, that hug.

  Maybe she’d even known then, that things had changed between the two of them. Because those kinds of hugs were rare. And he’d given her two of them.

  John liked her. Maybe, technically, she wasn’t quite sure if Thursday was a date or not. And maybe, technically, she still hadn’t seen his eyes track her up and down the way they had that waitress, but he’d danced with her like he’d wanted her. And that was enough for her. For now, that was enough.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT WAS WEDNESDAY night at 5:00 p.m. that John was nearly brought down to the sidewalk in a sweaty, joyful hug. Hang Nguyen’s mother, Cuc, was sobbing into John’s shoulder and leaning her whole weight on him.

  “Mom!” Hang said, trying to pry her mother off of her lawyer, but it was no use. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Modesto-Whitford.”

  “It’s okay,” John said, a blisteringly big smile on his face as he patted Cuc’s back. “I know exactly how she feels.”

  Hang broke into a smile herself, still nervous at the edges, tight with emotion even as she blinked with relief. She gave up on trying to pry her mother away from John and just plunked herself down on the nearest bench. “Oh, my God,” she muttered into her hands. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

  “It’s officially over,” John repeated, his smile threatening to helicopter him straight into the ominously gray cumulonimbus that was creeping up from the edge of the horizon.

  Cuc said something to Hang in Vietnamese.

  “Yes, Mom. You’re right. Come sit.” Hang patted the bench beside her and finally Cuc released John’s neck only to give her daughter’s neck the same treatment. The two women hugged and cried, and John gave himself the small pleasure of soaking it in. There were so few moments like this one as a public defender. When the world quieted and the only thing buzzing through his veins was good news.

  All charges dropped. The jury had found Hang Nguyen innocent on all counts. This good-hearted young woman would not be serving time she didn’t deserve to serve. She would not be spending time and energy and worry inside the walls of that courthouse. She would sleep well tonight.

  And so would John.

  The three of them walked to a meeting room in the public defender’s office, where he explained things in full to them, walked them through the next steps. They spoke for another twenty minutes, exalting in their shared victory. And then the mother and daughter went on their way. He left a note for Sarah on his way back to his office. She didn’t accept presents of any kind from her staff, but she had a hell of a thank-you card headed her way.

  Richie had already left for the night, so the office was quiet and hot as John sat there, buzzing, looking at the ceiling.

  He’d won.

  Hang had won.

  He’d fought tooth and nail and saved years of this girl’s life. This, right here, was worth every late night, every moment of worry. Every taunting comment from his father.

  There was a knock on his door and John lifted his head just as Crash Willis stepped inside.

  “Willis.”

  “Whitford.” There was a long pause and then Crash gave him an unexpected smile. “Reynolds told me about your win just now. Congrats.”

  John’s eyebrows rose. “That’s...generous of you.”

  Crash’s eyes flickered over to Richie’s desk. He took a deep breath and gave a shrug. “I think we got off on the wrong foot all those years ago. I’m not a bad guy. And for the record, I didn’t mean to crash your breakfast with your father the other day. He’s kind of a personal hero of mine, and I just...couldn’t help myself.”

  “My father is a personal hero of yours.”

  “He’s an exceptional lawyer.”

  Well, he figured that Crash’s apparent idolization of a man with an uncompromising hardline on crime was Richie’s problem. All John had to do was play nice. He surveyed Crash’s face, which looked like he was smelling something bad and pretending he wasn’t. John internally sighed.

  “I take it you’re here, in my office, attempting to make amends, because you have a crush on my best friend.”

  Crash’s cheeks went electric pink, but he didn’t drop eye contact. “I think my odds with Richie are gonna be drastically improved if you and I aren’t enemies.”

  John could respect that logic. Especially as his mind flicked momentarily over to Tyler. He actually might have to follow Crash’s logic himself pretty soon. “We’re not enemies. And as long as you treat Richie well, then we’re not going to have any kind of problem.”

  Crash wilted a little bit, but it seemed to be with relief. “You’re not going to whisper in his ear about what a snake I am?”

  “Richie’s a smart person. If he wants to date an ADA, that’s his business.”

  “You say ADA like your father isn’t the most famous district attorney in the United States.”

  John shrugged. “Justice is supposed to be blind. I try not to inflate my father’s ego too much.”

  “Fair enough,” Crash said after a moment, as if what John said actually made sense to him. “Congrats, though, on your win today. I mean that. There are too few days when I feel the way you looked when I walked in here.”

  John stood, draped his messenger bag over his body and held out a hand to Crash. “True.”

  The men shook hands and parted ways in the hallway.

  The adrenaline from the win still buzzed in John’s veins and even the interaction with Crash was buoying him. He was happy for Richie, to have found someone who liked him enough to make amends with an enemy on his behalf. He was blindingly happy for Hang and her mother, who he hoped were going to celebrate tonight.

  There was sparkling water in his blood, and suddenly, John wanted to celebrate tonight. He wanted a freezing-cold drink. Or two. Or three. He wanted to share this bubbling, blazing feeling with the world. He didn’t want Ruth to be the only being who knew just how freaking happy this made him.

  He pulled out his phone. Without too much thought, he called Mary.

  “Hi!” she answered, this greeting so
unding significantly sunnier than her last one had.

  “I know we don’t have plans until tomorrow, but I had some good news, and I’m over the moon.” And I just wanted to hear your voice. He could hear those words in his head as clearly as if he’d said them out loud. He wondered if Mary could as well.

  “Oh,” she said softly, and he could sense the pleasure there. There were people talking in the background, and he guessed that she was at a bar or restaurant. “Wanna come tell me the good news in person? I’m out with Beth Herari. Richie’s here too, actually. That wasn’t planned, though.”

  “At Fellow’s?”

  “Yup.”

  Of course Mary would be at John’s regular watering hole, rubbing elbows with John’s world. Of course, after half a season of being intertwined in his life, she was threaded through almost every single aspect of it.

  He laughed. “I’ll be there in five.”

  John’s spirit was on roller skates as he strode down the long city blocks that divided Brooklyn Heights from Fort Greene, deftly sidestepping shoppers who were cruising the Fulton Mall, mostly, he figured, for the free air-conditioning. It was August and the city was doing that charming thing it did midsummer, where it became the mouth of hell, each building absorbing the heat of the sun and spitting it back onto the population for hours after sunset.

  But John didn’t care. He was buoyant. He was a human glass of champagne. He was a fresh start and a fresh breeze, and he was on his way to meet Mary Trace in a bar.

  “Hey, John!” someone called to him when he stepped through the door at Fellow’s. He waved but didn’t stop, scanning the area for a bright, sunny head of hair. He spotted Richie, leaning too far over the bar to hear something Marissa was saying, and then there was Mary. Laughing hard at a story Beth was telling, her hair lit up like a beacon and her dress falling off one shoulder.

  The bar was crowded for a Wednesday. He shouldered his way through his colleagues, his eyes on Mary.

  She looked up, as if his gaze had called to her, and her smile fell away. She looked elated to see him, but there was more to this expression. She looked as charged as he felt. As if seeing him cross a bar on a single-minded mission was really doing it for her. John would have done this same strutting, striding walk for hours if it really was all it took to put that look on her face. Her hair fell over one eye; her teeth caught at her bottom lip.