by K. C. Crowne
“That sounds fun.”
“We watched old episodes of Sex and the City and laughed. It was kind of like being back in college. Great fun, but really silly.” She smiled. “It was just what I needed, honestly. Something I didn’t need to take too seriously.”
I nodded. “You’ve been through a lot lately. Any word from the police yet?”
“No. I think they’re also not taking things too seriously.”
“Really? Their special investigative team didn’t turn anything up?”
“I’m starting to doubt whether there even was such a team, to be completely honest with you,” she said. “They probably pulled a couple of guys who hadn’t seen the place yet over and had them check it out, and they called that a special investigative team.” She rolled her eyes, looking remarkably like Tess. “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of faith in the cops to solve this one.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure my apartment break in isn’t exactly the worst thing the NYPD is looking into. Or maybe it’s just hard for me to believe that I could get an answer.” She paused and sighed, shrugging unhappily. “Maybe it’s hard to believe that my apartment will ever feel like a safe place again.”
I ached to reach out and hug her, but I resisted. “It will,” I assured. “When terrible things happen, it can make you feel like your life will never be comfortable again. But we adapt, as much as it sometimes feels like we won’t.”
“You’re thinking about your wife, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.
I nodded, a sad smile on my face. “After she died, for the longest time, I felt like I was sleepwalking through my days. It felt like I was just killing time on Earth, waiting until my stay here was over too. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel normal again.”
“And do you?” she asked.
“Not entirely,” I admitted. “I guess I never will completely. But someone told me once that eventually I’d go a whole day without thinking about her, and that’s happened. I get up in the morning, and my first thought isn’t the fact that she’s not here. And my family feels whole again. I’m able to be a father to Tess without constantly brooding about who’s not here with us.”
“You’re healing, in other words.”
“And so will you,” I promised.
“What happened to me—it’s not like I lost a loved one. It was just a break in.”
“It was a trauma,” I corrected. “It’s okay to feel messed up about it. It’s okay that it’s changed the way you feel as you walk through the world. You don’t have to be okay just because worse things have happened to other people. That’s not how this works.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Noah. And thank you for letting me stay here while I got my feet back under me.”
“I really wish you’d come back,” I admitted quietly.
She shook her head. “It isn’t a good idea,” she said, adding, “for either of us. We made that decision when we were both upset, when we’d both just left my house...but it’s not smart.”
Tess came tearing back into the kitchen. Table’s set!
“Okay,” I signed to her. “You stir the sauce while I make the pasta.”
“What can I do?” Jenna asked.
“You’re the guest,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything.”
“Of course I do. Come on, let me help.”
Jenna can make the salad! Tess signed.
I shrugged. “How about it?” I asked. “You want to make the salad?”
She grinned. “I make a great salad. You two have no idea what you’re in for. Do you have olive oil and vinegar?”
“Up there,” I said, pointing to a high cabinet.
The rest of the meal preparation passed quietly. As for dinner itself, it was an enjoyable hour and a half. Jenna’s salad was incredibly delicious, and Tess and I both had second and third helpings. Finally, when the dishes had been cleared and the leftovers had been put away, I turned to Tess. “You’d better head off to bed,” I said, signing as I spoke.
What? No! I want to stay up and hang out with Jenna!
“It’s bedtime,” I said firmly.
“I’m going home soon anyway,” Jenna said, making an effort to sign. She didn’t have many of the necessary words, but I go home was easy enough. She also knew enough about deaf culture by now to put on a sad face, indicating she was sorry to be leaving.
But was she really? I had no idea. She was so hard to read. She’d run out of here yesterday like her tail was on fire, but we’d just enjoyed a meal together like good friends. I wanted to open a bottle of wine and keep her here for a while.
I wanted to confide in her about everything that had been going on with LM, Kepler, and the men who had been threatening me. But I didn’t dare. The more she knew, the more at risk she was likely to be, and I couldn’t chance those men hurting her. I felt awful at the thought that they’d probably broken into her apartment to send me a message. She had been driven out of her home because of me. No, I couldn’t tell her anything.
But she did feel like someone I could confide in. Preparing dinner tonight, I’d told her things about my grief process after my wife’s death that I’d never told anybody before.
“Are you sure you won’t stay?” I asked her as Tess disappeared upstairs. “I have a really nice merlot I’ve been saving.”
“I should go, Noah, really.” But she lingered.
She wants to stay, I thought. Some part of her felt the same reluctance to part as I was feeling. I stepped closer to her, feeling a charge buzz between us. It was almost tangible, this connection. I could almost see it. “Stay,” I said quietly. “Just for an hour. Just stay.”
“Noah…”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know what we are,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “And until I figure it out, I need to keep my distance.”
I took her hand and pulled her close. She didn’t resist, and her body came flush against mine. Our eyes met. In that moment, I forgot my worry over Tess’s growing attachment to this new woman in our lives. I even forgot my fear that I was putting her in danger with my closeness to her, painting a target on her back that my enemies would try to exploit. All I could think about was her warm skin and her soft body.
She looked up at me, total trust and abandon in her eyes.
I bent to kiss her, moving slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull away, but she didn’t resist. Instead, she rose on her toes to meet me.
The taste of her was intoxicating. A thrill shot through every nerve in my body. I wanted more.
She pulled back. “I have to go,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Then she was out the door, and I was standing in my front hall, my head spinning.
Chapter 24
Jenna
“All right,” Sara said firmly. “Get up off the couch.”
I opened my eyes and looked up at her. “What’s up?”
“You’ve been lying there all day,” she said. “I know you’ve got a lot going on, but really, enough is enough. You can’t just lie around moping. We’re getting out of the house.”
“I went out of the house yesterday,” I pointed out.
“You went to Noah’s,” she countered. “And then you came back looking all frazzled and worked up, and you still haven’t told me what happened.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing happened.”
“Uh huh,” she said skeptically. “Come on. We’ll go out and get some food, and you can tell me all about it.”
“Out where?”
“There’s a new sandwich place I’ve been wanting to try.” She kicked the couch cushion. “Come on, up. You need to get your mind straight.”
I had been lying there brooding all day, so she was right, technically. I hadn’t even changed out of my pajamas. “Okay,” I agreed, getting to my feet. “Give me a minute to get changed and we’ll go.”
Staying with Sara meant sleeping
on the couch rather than in my own private guest room like I’d had at Noah’s. It meant living out of my suitcase instead of putting my clothes in a drawer. I wasn’t complaining, of course. It was good of her to give me a place to crash. But at Noah’s, if I’d been feeling moody, I could have gone into my room, shut the door, and been left alone.
Of course, if I’d been staying at Noah’s, I’d have a lot more to brood about.
Sara wasn’t blind, I knew, and I was sure I’d come home from dinner last night looking wild eyed and weird after the kiss Noah and I had shared. How could I have allowed such a thing to happen? It had been so irresponsible of me. Every time I told myself I wasn’t going to let things escalate between us again, I went back on my word.
Maybe I just needed to stay away from him altogether.
Because what I’d said to him was true. It was too hard to be with him with the relationship as nebulous and undefined as it was. I wanted to know what we were. What the future held. I couldn’t let him know that when he’d referred to us as ‘friends’ it had felt like an arrow in my heart.
I dressed casually in a strapless denim sundress and put my hair up in a clip. Sara smiled when she saw me. “You clean up good,” she praised.
“Thanks,” I said. “What kind of sandwich place are we going to?”
“It’s supposed to be really good,” Sara said. “According to my coworker, they make this green goddess sauce that really takes the sandwiches to the next level. I’ve been meaning to go ever since I heard about it.”
We could walk to the restaurant, Sara said, so we stepped into our shoes and headed out the door of her apartment. It was a warm, beautiful day, the kind that made me glad to live in a place like New York. Even though this city was ripe with crime, even though my apartment would probably never have been broken into if I’d lived in Iowa or Kansas, I was glad to belong to this city full of active, moving people who were always on their way to somewhere.
“You’re right,” I told Sara. “I did need to get out of the house. Thanks for getting me to do this.”
Sara shoved my shoulder lightly. “Next time you should just listen to me without arguing first.”
“I’ll work on that.”
“Now, tell me what happened between you and Noah.”
“Come on, I told you, there was nothing.”
“Right,” Sara said. “Okay. Nothing. Now let me tell you what I see. First you go out for drinks with me and leave with him.”
“I’m really sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I get it. He’s a cute guy. But I’m your friend. You could at least be honest with me. You hooked up that night, right?”
“Okay,” I admitted. “We did.
“And then the next morning you found out your apartment had been broken into and you decided to stay at his place.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Which means you feel safe with him.”
I didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, nodding. “So given all that, what prompted you to show up on my doorstep the night before last?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, sighing heavily. “I don’t know what he wants. I don’t know how seriously he’s taking us. And he has a daughter he needs to think of. I just didn’t want to force his hand, you know? I didn’t want us to fall into a relationship just because I happened to be staying at his house. If it happens, I want it to be based on something more than that.”
“If it happens. So it still might happen?”
“You should be a detective, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know. Now tell me what happened last night.”
“We kissed,” I said.
“He kissed you? Or you kissed him?”
“Neither. Both. We kissed.”
“That sounds like you both want to see if there’s something in this.”
“He also called me his friend.”
“Maybe he’s nervous,” Sara suggested.
“That doesn’t really sound like him,” I said. “I’ve never seen him nervous.”
We had arrived at the sandwich shop, and now Sara pushed the door open and led the way in. “You grab a table, okay?” she said. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom.”
I found a vacant table by a window and sat down to wait for Sara.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I looked up, expecting to see a server, prepared to let him know that I was waiting for a friend before placing my order. But the man standing beside my table was dressed in a suit and tie, not the bright orange t-shirt with the restaurant logo on it. And he looked familiar.
“You’re Jenna Robertson, right?” he asked.
I was spooked. Someone had it out for me, as evidenced by the fact that my apartment had been broken into. Could this be the guy? You’re in a public place, I told myself firmly. He can’t do anything to you here. “Who’s asking?” I said, struggling to inject my voice with the courage I didn’t feel.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “We only met once in person. I’m not surprised you don’t recognize me. I’m Mr. Michaels. Joshua’s father?”
“Oh,” I said, the memory flooding back. Mr. Michaels and I had met at a bookshop, where we’d both been browsing interior design titles. When I’d told him what I did for a living, he’d hired me to help with his son’s new place.
Of course, now I was wishing I’d never taken that job.
“I heard about your apartment,” he commented.
That struck me as suspicious, and I lifted my eyebrow. “How?”
“The police contacted us,” he said. “They say Joshua’s a suspect in their investigation.”
Somehow, I’d never thought about the fact that Josh would be contacted by the police. I had envisioned them knocking on his door to arrest him once they were sure of his guilt, but I’d never imagined him knowing I had accused him without being arrested. The thought made me feel shivery inside. “Oh,” I said again, wishing to God Sara would come back. “Okay.”
“I just wanted to tell you—well, that I’m sure Joshua wouldn’t do something like that,” Mr. Michaels said. “He’s a good boy, really.”
“He’s a good boy?” I raised my eyebrows, indignation fueling my courage. “He tried to attack me, you know. I told you what happened.”
“I know you did,” Mr. Michaels sighed.
“Do you not believe that either?”
“I do,” he confessed quietly. “I believe you, Jenna. Ms. Robertson. And I’m sorry that that happened, truly. But I still don’t think my son was the one who broke into your apartment. He’s, well, he’s not really that ambitious.”
I didn’t know what to say. A part of me just wanted to tell him off. But there was the fact that Noah didn’t believe Josh had been behind the break in either. He certainly wasn’t the innocent boy his father thought he was, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty of this particular crime.
“Are you still designing?” Mr. Michaels questioned, changing the subject. “I plan to hire someone soon to do some work for me.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to continue to work together,” I told him.
“This would just be for me,” he assured me. “Not for Joshua. And it would pay well. Twice what I paid you to do Joshua’s apartment.”
I hesitated, looking to the side as I thought.
“We’re very pleased with your work,” he continued quickly, sensing my hesitation. “I’m very pleased with your work. I’d love to have your eye on my next project.”
I did need to start accumulating more clients. “Let me think about it.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. “Give me a call,” he said. “I’m heading out of town for a few days, but I’ll be reachable at this number. I look forward to hearing from you.”
I took the card, wondering as I did so if I would live to regret it.
Chapter 25
Noah
“Can we mee
t?” Eric asked on the phone the next afternoon. “Can we just sit down and talk about it?”
In truth, I was glad he’d called. Eric and I had been friends since our grade school days, and I couldn’t quite believe he’d had anything to do with the attack on Jenna’s apartment, no matter what I’d found in his pocket. I wanted to hear that there was some rational explanation for the whole thing.
Now I sat across the table from him in an upscale downtown restaurant, a place I took clients when I wanted to impress them, to leave them with the feeling that I was refined and well-heeled and would do well with their money. It felt strange to be sitting there with Eric, whose tastes usually ran more toward seedy pizza joints.
But I didn’t know who I could trust these days, and I wanted to be somewhere well lit and highly visible. I wanted to be surrounded by people who had cell phones and would be appalled by even the slightest amount of aggression.
I hated that I thought about my best friend like that.
Eric looked jittery and jumpy, out of place, and not just because of the restaurant we were in. I’d never seen him look so uncomfortable. I was used to Eric being relaxed and at ease in almost every setting—he was that kind of guy. But now he looked as if he might climb the walls.
“What’s with you?” I asked.
“What?” He looked confused. “Nothing.”
“You’re about to jump out of your seat, don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
“I’m fine.”
I didn’t buy it. I was already so suspicious of him that it was hard to take anything he told me at face value. “Are you looking for someone?”
“Who would I be looking for?”
Well, he certainly wasn’t meeting my eyes. It occurred to me that maybe he hadn’t wanted to come out today so we could resolve our differences. Maybe he’d been trying to lure me into a public place so the family he might be a part of could join us.
If so, the joke was on him. Nobody was going to try to ambush me in a place like this. I couldn’t even picture LM in this well-lit restaurant with its white linen tablecloths and the low murmur of wealthy people who wouldn’t raise their voices above a certain decibel level for fear of seeming uncouth. The idea was as strange and unlikely as the thought of an alien bursting through the door.