by Amelia Wilde
“So you’ve heard the story.”
“I heard the highlights. From Whit. When she and Wes were...you know, when they were finally together.”
I take my beer over to the railing and look down at the street with her. She’s staring down at the cars moving slowly down the block. Someone’s grilling out, but I can’t see where—maybe the roof, or another balcony that’s hidden from view.
Beneath us, a read car pulls up to the curb and a man in a suit gets out. On the corner, a group of three teenagers are up to something furtive, but they don’t have the sense to go somewhere that’s actually out of view of the general public, so who knows what it is. A woman walks quickly toward the corner and out of sight, her shoulders heaving like she’s crying. On the other side of the street, a guy is sitting outside of a café, elbow braced against his knees, the sitting version of what Eva’s doing right now. Which one of them is she watching? I steal a glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but her gaze is far away.
So...none of them. She’s just staring down at the street like a melancholy supermodel.
“What are you almost done with?”
“Hmm?” She doesn’t look at me.
“You said you were almost done with something.” I take a drink of my beer. “What are you doing?”
“Smoking a cigarette,” she says flatly.
“Ha.”
She shifts, her hips swaying from side to side, and I feel her eyes land on my face. Eva must see something there that changes her mind about talking to me. “I came out here to write down an idea I have.”
“With your imaginary pen?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?” She turns to face me now, eyes narrowed. It doesn’t matter that she’s giving me that look; her eyes are a startling green. The early stages of sunset look good on her.
“Usually more.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Thinking.” She lifts her chin and folds her arms over her chest. “About what I’m going to write.”
“Does your boss pay you to skip out on parties for solo brainstorming sessions?”
A little grin, a little blush, and Eva’s eyes slide to the side. I can see her pulse fluttering at the side of her neck. It’s a dead giveaway.
And there’s more to read in her body language. She’s not enjoying the party, for one thing. Her shoulders are so tense they’re almost touching her ears.
“No.” She goes back for the railing and grips it with both hands. “They don’t pay me for that. Only...for the finished product.” Whitney never said what kind of writer she was. Maybe it’s one of those blogging jobs where you have to write fifty articles a week for five cents. The set of her shoulders indicates it might not be entirely pleasant for her.
“Harsh. You should agitate for better working conditions.”
Eva barks out a laugh and looks down at the corner, in the general direction of the teens. “They have no idea, do they?”
“No idea about what?”
“How simple everything is. How complicated things can get. You know. Generally. Not for me specifically.”
Sure. I believe that.
For a flash, I wonder if she and Whitney planned this somehow specifically to reel me in. Whitney of all people knows how I am. She knows I always follow the pull of a good secret.
Eva is trembling. Whatever is on her mind is seriously bothering her. No, it’s not her body; it’s her hands. Even though she’s holding onto the railing for dear life, there’s still a little shake. The curiosity that was a lit match before roars into wildfire. It turns me on almost as much as the particular way her hair falls down her back does. Don’t get me started on her lips, or the little pout she’s wearing right now.
I put my hand on top of one of hers.
And I’ll be damned, but Eva doesn’t pull away.
She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t tense.
No—she relaxes. A little sigh escapes her lips and her shoulders move down, away from her ears.
New fact acquired: Eva likes to be touched. By me.
“What are you doing out here, Bennett Powell?” Eva’s eyes are firmly down at the street, but she doesn’t make even the slightest move to pull herself away. It’s nothing, the way I’m touching her, palm flat against the back of her hand, fingers resting gently on hers, but the space between us heats up. It heats up more than skin has any right to, really, even in the warmth of the evening. The sensation settles over me like a blanket. A thick, heavy blanket that also has the effect of turning me on, more than the sight of her standing here did. And I don’t just mean in a raunchy, sexual way, although that’s true, too. In an intellectual way. Intellectually, I’m obsessed with the secrets she’s undoubtedly keeping.
“I wanted to write down an idea I thought of.”
It makes her grin, and I feel like a man who has wedged his foot in the door of a vault just in time to stop it from locking forever. “You don’t have a pen.”
“I can borrow one from you. You’re the writer.”
“Yeah.” Now she tenses...then lets the tension go. I have to know more about this woman. She fled to this balcony after three minutes at a party and she’s consciously trying to keep her cool. A hundred questions are on the tip of my tongue, but instead, Eva stands tall and takes in a deep breath. It reminds me of a diver preparing to plummet into the depths. “We should go back in.”
“I disagree.”
“You...disagree?”
With my free hand, I lift my beer off the railing and drain the rest of it. There. My obligation to this party, tenuous as it was, is now resolved. “I heartily disagree.”
Eva turns to look at me, but not so far that she has to take her hand away from mine to do it. “What else did you have in mind, aside from attending the party we’re both supposed to be at right now? With our friends?” She emphasizes the last word and the guilt is clear in her voice.
I look down at the street again, out of habit as much as anything else. The teens have moved themselves closer to the nearest building to stand in its shadow, but they’re still plainly visible. The man in the suit gets back into the red car and it pulls away, into the traffic. The other man—the one outside the cafe—leans back in his seat, staring up into the sky.
There’s nothing down there that could hold a candle to her. And I’d venture to guess that nothing down there—not the teens, or the man who clearly has his own story in progress—holds a candle to whatever it is that made her come out here so fast. Despite her own guilt over leaving her friend.
Maybe I’m overconfident, but the next time her gaze glides over mine, I pop the question.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
3
Eva
It has to be something about his eyes. Yes. Or the body beneath the gray T-shirt. The way it clings to him suggests a man who’s kept himself in shape. Maybe very good shape. Or maybe it’s the very fact of the party—my loyal fan, Christine, waiting inside, all the couples—but I say yes to Ben Powell. Yes, I want to get out of here.
We get out of there.
Down on the sidewalk, I think, Escape. But my brain still feels clouded with worry, so I don’t escape, nor do I come up with some fantastic excuse for why I really can’t hang out with him at all.
Plus, he doesn’t give me any time.
The moment the building’s front door closes behind us, Ben says, “This way.”
This way. He knows exactly where he’s going. I have no idea where I’m going, with my book or with my life in this moment, but at least Bennett Powell is a confident man.
I fall in step beside him. For once, it’s nice to let someone else lead, and he’s honestly leading me through a strikingly gorgeous New York City evening. As we walk, the sun careens toward the skyline and the sidewalk falls into shadow. Ugh. It’s so nice. My eyes are immediately grateful. It reminds me of the moment after a person turns out
the light but before you start to have sex with him. Not that I’ve found any men in New York who want to have sex with me. Not that I’ve been looking.
Now’s not the time to think about this.
Ben walks me around the corner, one block over and two blocks up, and by the time he stops in front of a little restaurant with a dark wood facade, the sun is setting. If I could see it, it would probably be a brilliant blaze of color, but next to these buildings, all I get is the warm afterglow.
It looks quite lovely on Ben’s skin.
He pulls open the door and turns back to me with a smile. “After you.”
It’s an Italian place. Tiny. Maybe fifteen tables. On a Thursday night, half of them are full, and waiters in black slacks and shirts with white aprons move efficiently between the islands of linen tablecloths.
I love it instantly. It’s not so silent that you just know it’s a shitty restaurant, but it’s not so crowded that someone might recognize me. There are only ambient clinks of silverware against dishes and the low hum of conversation. Nobody here is freaking out—or if they are, they’re doing it very, very quietly.
“What do you think?” Ben’s voice is equally calm. We’re still standing far enough away from the host’s station that it won’t be awkward if we pretend to have an appointment somewhere else.
“How did you find this place?” I’ve visited Whitney’s apartment twenty times, and she’s never mentioned it. Not that it’s particularly odd in Manhattan to not realize what riches are practically in your back yard.
“I do a lot of looking.” I can feel those brown eyes on my face, but in this moment, I don’t hate it. “Are you hungry?”
“I wasn’t. Until just now.”
It’s true. I was not. I spent most of the afternoon in a state of panic and then a state of get-me-the-hell-out-of-this-party. And now I’m ravenous.
We get a table toward the back and sit in a surprisingly comfortable silence. I order my favorite thing at Italian restaurants: grilled chicken on a bed of buttered noodles. Ben orders shrimp scampi. The waitress, a blonde woman with a seriously perfect smile, validates my choice of wine, takes our menus, and leaves us with a basket of bread so soft that the first bite melts in my mouth. I’m not done eating it when Ben leans back in his seat and looks at me. There it is: that bare-skin feeling, as if my clothes are imaginary.
“Eva.” My name curls from his lips like a whisper of smoke. “What’s really going on?”
My shoulders tense at the question, and the little door in front of my vulnerable writer heart slams shut. I take another bite of bread, chew, swallow.
“Nothing.”
He quirks an eyebrow at me, and my cheeks heat up.
“I shouldn’t have tried to go to a party,” I admit.
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t in the mood.” I think of the hour beforehand I spent pacing around my apartment trying to shake off the building anxiety. “It was a mistake.”
“It might have been a mistake in the first place, but it turned into this dinner.” Ben smiles and I’ll be damned if it’s not the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. “That doesn’t seem like a mistake.”
On some level, it’s true. The restaurant is probably the most relaxing place I’ve been in several months, and my editor has insisted on eating in some pretty high-end places around the city. That’s mostly so she can run into other people she knows and show me off. Or maybe she’s showing herself off. I can never tell. Nobody here, at least, is going to ask me who I am, and nobody is going to ask me about the book.
Ben is still watching me, in a casual sort of way, the way you might watch a piece of art. “Do you always stare at everything like this?” I ask.
“Only the things I’m interested in.”
Smooth. He’s so smooth.
“Well, what you see is what you get.”
He laughs out loud. “I don’t believe that for a second. Whitney’s your best friend, isn’t she?”
“I’ve known her a long time. I’d consider us pretty close.” I don’t know where he’s going with this. With Whitney, it’s absolutely true. Her emotions—and everybody else’s—are always written plainly on her face.
“But you still didn’t tell her what’s making you so stressed.”
“How would you know that?” I put another piece of bread on my plate and tear it in two. It’s just so good.
“I saw her face after she came in from the balcony. Sort of a little frown, like....” Ben does an exact imitation of Whitney and gets it so dead on that I start to laugh and choke on the bread a little bit. He leans forward, watching me until I’ve taken a drink and cleared my airway, and then gracefully ignores it.
“So you can read minds, then?” My eyes are watering a little bit and I dab them with the corner of my cloth napkin.
“Yes. And I can tell you’re hiding something.”
The waitress, God and all of his angels bless her, comes back with the wine. I don’t really care what goes with dinner. All I care about is that it’s so sweet I can’t taste the alcohol.
This moscato delivers.
The first sip is pure joy against my tongue, and so is the second, and by the time the waitress is back at the kitchen doors, my glass is gone.
Oh, that’s so much better.
“I should have had some wine at Whitney’s.” I stare longingly at my empty glass, willing it to refill before my eyes.
Ben doesn’t have a drink, and I stifle the urge to ask him why he didn’t order a matching glass of wine, but the question seems too intimate somehow. Even though he’s the one who whisked me to this secret hideaway of a restaurant.
Our waitress reappears and I signal her with my eyes that I need more wine. She knows instantly what I’m thinking and goes back into the kitchen, coming out with a fresh glass a moment later. I curl my hand around it and sip more slowly this time.
“What were we talking about?”
Christ, he is attractive. I mean, there’s not an ounce of fat on Ben’s entire body, and his hair is—well, it’s not so long that I wouldn’t be into it, but it’s not buzzed off either. I want to run my hands through it.
“You were about to tell me what you were hiding.”
At this very moment, a hiccup bubbles up from my chest that I can’t hide.
Ben’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.
“Are you—” Another hiccup. “—laughing at me?”
“No.” His expression goes instantly serious. “I think the bigger question is, are you drunk on one glass of wine?”
“Of course not.” I take a long sip from the second glass. “Not even.”
I’m not. The wine is going through me with a familiar warmth, but honestly I can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or Ben’s eyes. Both of them are having...an effect.
“You’re a bad liar. You should just give up your secret. It would be easier on us both.”
“You want to know what my secret is?” The gates around my heart are slowly creaking open under the onslaught of wine. Soon I’m going to need a third glass. “You really want to know?”
Ben leans in. “Eva, I desperately want to know your secret. Why else do you think I spirited you away from that party so we could have a solo date in an Italian restaurant?”
“A solo date?” I squeak. “This isn’t.... We’re not—”
“Dinner,” he says quickly. “A solo dinner. Have some more wine. You’ll feel better. Oh, and tell me what you’re hiding.”
“I’m totally not hiding anything.”
“Do your hands always shake when you have a secret?” This way, then that. This conversation is an ambush. I thought I was avoiding an ambush by coming with Ben, but instead I’ve walked right into it.
And I can’t say I hate it.
I look down at the glass of wine in my hand. “They’re not shaking.”
“They were. Out on the balcony.”
“Why are you so obsessed with the balcony?” My glass is empty, and ou
r heaven-sent waitress is at my side immediately with a third glass.
A half-smile plays at the corner of Ben’s mouth and I’m seized with the urge to kiss it right off of him. He leans toward me, flicking his eyes out to the other tables and back to my face. “Picture this. The most gorgeous girl you’ve ever seen enters the party you’re at.” If I thought my face was red before, it has to be spontaneously combusting now. “She leans away from her best friend and then...suddenly...flees to the balcony.” He sits up straight again, eyes alight. “If you ask me, that’s a mystery.”
“And you like to solve mysteries?”
“I like to get the facts.” Ben lifts his fork from next to his plate and twirls it in his fingers.
Two and a half glasses of wine on a mostly empty stomach. “What if I don’t want to give you the facts?”
He leans in again, about to deliver some deep secret. “What if you do?”
The wine has warmed my body from my belly up to my shoulders. I feel like I’m holding a giant balloon, too large for a human to keep pinned to earth, and my only option is to...let it go.
If I just told Ben, maybe I’d feel freer. What’s the harm, really? He doesn’t know who I am, and it might be nice to spill my guts a little in a way that’s not...you know, career-ending.
I don’t have to tell him everything.
I’m not going to tell him everything.
The words gather on the tip of my tongue like a heavy thundercloud. There’s no reason not to tell him. I’ve had enough wine. I’ve escaped enough parties. It’s time. It’s time to make someone else share this burden with me.
Now it’s my turn to lean in. “I went out to the balcony, because I’m on a tight deadline and I’m not sure I’m going to meet it.” I hear my own voice rising with worry, but it’s tamped down by the wine.
“Tell me about it,” he says. “I’m listening.”