Call Me Saffron (Greenpoint Pleasures) (17 page)

My body responded instantly to the idea. So easy. Shut off my brain and fuck him senseless.

So easy to sabotage a fragile, precious friendship in a single stupid maneuver.
 

I retreated to the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of water. Holding the blue-rimmed Mexican tumbler, I walked back out through the dining area to the living room area. There should be an arch separating the two spaces.
 

Sure enough, when I went to the spot, I saw a patchwork of short floorboards where the half-wall must have been. An arch with built-ins, painted cream with darker colors in the nooks to make a few well-chosen small sculptures stand out. Yes, that would work. I grabbed a pen from the kitchen counter and the only paper I could find—a takeout menu from the local Japanese restaurant—and started sketching. If the arch went here and the wall dividing the crying-out-for-a-remodel kitchen from the dining room were gone, then…

Yes, that could work, and then…
 

The sky lightened, which was good, because I could see my work better.
 

The fireplace was a problem. Someone had blocked it up somewhere along the way, though you could see the original ornate woodwork running up the sides. But it had no mantel.
 

I set my pen down and went over to investigate. It was behind Dylan’s carved wood chair, so I tugged on that to move it out of the way. The chair was heavier than it looked. I had to pick it up to get it past the edge of the carpet. It dropped back down with a loud thunk.
 

Ah yes. I ran my hand along the fireplace. The mantel had been along the wall here. The current wall would have to be reinforced, but if you used a lighter wood for a new mantel…

“Decided to rearrange my furniture in the middle of the night?” Dylan stood by the couch, blinking sleepily as he rubbed a hand over his stubble.
 

I hastily pulled my hand away from the plaster, as if I’d been caught caressing his skin. “Thinking about what could be done with this place if you wanted to put in the money.”

“You can’t exactly move that wall, you know. It’s an outside wall. Might get chilly. And wet, when it rains.”
 

I frowned at him. “I was trying to see how hard it would be to add a new mantel. If you want to restore this fireplace, which maybe you don’t.”

“Hmm.” He headed toward the kitchen but paused when he saw the takeout menu with my scribbles all over it. He picked it up. “You’ve been at this awhile. Did you get any sleep?”

I suppressed a yawn. “Some. I think.”
 

He glanced over at the open cardboard box. “Too many ghosts?”

“Something like that.”

He went into the kitchen and started up the coffeemaker.
 

I followed him in. “I should get out of your hair. Let you get on with your day.” The coffeemaker gurgled, and the dark, rich scent wafted up. “Is there enough for me to have a cup before I go?”

“Of course.” He picked up the former takeout menu and looked from it to the space around us. “Can you explain this? What does this mean?” He pointed to the lines I’d made sketching in the arch.

So I explained. We sat in the breakfast nook, coffee mugs in hand and toasted bagels slathered with cream cheese on plates in front of us, and I gestured around the room and talked about the history of architecture design on the Upper West Side and what this place must have looked like a hundred years ago. Dylan leaned forward, his coffee forgotten. He asked intelligent questions. I answered as best I could, hoping my memory from grad school classes was accurate, and talked more. I felt dizzy with exhaustion, my eyes sticky from lack of sleep. The room was hazy and soft, but his face was sharply in focus.
 

At some point, I realized I’d stopped talking and was staring at him. His eyes. So brown. So perceptive. So deep. His eyebrows. So fuzzy. So dark. His refined nose. Aquiline, that was the word. Roman. A strong nose.

“Samantha?”
 

I startled. I’d been drifting. Half-asleep. Dreaming of Dylan’s nose. “Yes. I’m here.” I rubbed my face vigorously. “I need more coffee.” I took a big gulp of the now-lukewarm liquid.
 

“What you need is a nap.”
 

“Yeah. I’ll go home and crash. Get out of your way.”

“What do you think I’m planning to do today that’s so important you have to leave?” He picked up the dishes and took them to the sink.
 

“Businessman stuff. Big fancy entrepreneur stuff. Or maybe you’ll call that hot chick from high school if she’s still in town.”

“Should I? Do you want to meet her?”

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “We’re friends. You won’t sleep with me. You should get laid.”

“Maybe I don’t want to simply get laid. Maybe I want more.”
 

“You’re the marrying kind, aren’t you? Not fling material. Too bad. You don’t know better. It’s in your DNA.”

He did something that surprised me then. He came over and kissed my forehead. “It’s in yours too, if you’d only stop fighting it.” He took me by the hand and tugged me to a standing position. “I have a proposition for you.”

“
Do
you?” I raised my eyebrows suggestively.
 

He shook his head at me. “I want to hire you.”

“Didn’t we do that already?” I leaned against him. Tired. So. Very. Tired. But if he wanted me, I’d drink more coffee and make a go of it. I’d do that for him. And for me, admittedly. He was great in bed, after all. And oh boy, I was delirious with fatigue.

“No, to remodel my apartment. To supervise the work. Draw up the plans. A side project. We can clear it with your boss, if you like.”

“Seriously?” I pulled back to look at him.
 

“I like your ideas. And maybe I like the idea of having you around more.” He tucked me firmly into his side and walked me to the bedroom. “First, though, you need to sleep. I’ll stay fully clothed, I promise.”
 

“No sex?”

“No sex.”
 

“Bummer.” But I went with him.
 

He made a surprisingly good bolster. He leaned back against the headboard, paging through his tablet computer while I curled up under that lovely comforter. Listening to his breathing, feeling the radiant warmth of his body, I fell asleep and slept soundly for the first time in ages. If this was friendship, I could live with that.

~*~

When I woke up, I was alone in the big bed. Cold winter sunlight bathed the room in shades of bluish white. I should get up. Should thank Dylan and head home. Instead, I snuggled deeper under the comforter and fell into a light doze.
 

The door opened, and Dylan came in with a tray of food. An extravagant tray, with pâté and strawberries and stinky cheese. I sat up. This was worth waking up for.
 

He set the tray on the bed and sat next to me. “I thought you might be hungry.” He picked up a strawberry and bit into it. “Okay, I confess, I was hungry and thought it would be rude to eat alone.” He grinned at me and picked up another strawberry, proffering it.
 

I took a bite, savoring the juicy tartness. “Mmm.” I sliced off a piece of pâté and slathered it on a cracker. “You’re spoiling me. How can I go back to my mundane apartment with my psych-grad-student call-girl roommate after this?”
 

“I’m a bad influence.” His dimples popped. Such a delicious smile.
 

Something had shifted between us yet again. I leaned across the tray and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth, then pulled away, embarrassed. “Uh, was that okay? Friends kiss each other, don’t they?”

His mouth twitched. “Not my friends. We play racquetball.”
 

We ate and flirted until the tray was nothing but crumbs and balled-up napkins, then Dylan set it aside and flicked on the TV, leaning back against the headboard to watch. I should go. I should get up, put my shoes on, and leave.

I snuggled against his warmth. He smelled like clean laundry and clean skin. My heart felt as full as my stomach. I felt warm and comfortable and like I belonged. Like I fit. I sighed and said the first thing that popped into my head, entirely uncensored. “I love you.”
 

He stiffened.
 

Panic flooded my body, sharp and painful. I sprang away from him. “I mean, I love
this
. This is awesome. You’ve been great, a real friend, and I appreciate it.”
 

I bolted into the living room. The words, those words. Dylan had frozen, no response, and oh God, I couldn’t— Love was—I couldn’t go there. Couldn’t mean it. The churning in my stomach said
but you did, you meant it
. My head pounded, my chest hurt. I couldn’t think straight. I had to go. Right now.
 

My stuff. Where was my stuff?
 

I grabbed a pair of jeans out of my suitcase, zipped it shut, shoved my feet into my shoes, grabbed my coat…

Dylan came out of the bedroom. “Do you mean it?”

I shrugged my coat on. “Sure, I meant it. I love everything you’ve done for me.”

“Samantha.”

“I overslept. I have to get going. Get ready for work tomorrow. I’ve got a list of chores a mile long. Thanks for everything, you’re a good friend, see you around.”

And I fled, my heart pounding like the bass line at a rave, a pure shot of fear racing through me.
 

Love him? Had I said that? Did I mean it?
Could
I mean it?

Chapter Fourteen

I snagged a seat on the subway despite the Sunday crowd heading downtown. My unkempt hair and wild-eyed expression probably made people wary. Give the crazy lady a seat so she doesn’t fall apart and smash into us.

I love you.

The cadence in my head, those three words over and over, acted as a counterpoint to the grind and rush of the subway through the tunnel.
 

My mother, crying for a year nonstop. Gramps, stone silent in the wake of her death.
 

The voice in my head was Dylan’s.
It’s who you are, deep down.
 

The voice in my head was mine, over and over.
I love you I love you I love you.

I stumbled off the B, up the steps and back down, changing platforms. Changing trains. Changing my life story. Heading where?
 

An E was waiting, thankfully. No seat this time. I hugged the pole tight. Images flashed through my brain like a slide show of photographs I couldn’t block out. And they were all of the same man.
 

Dylan, the first time I saw him, toweling himself dry after a shower. That dark hungry gaze that I now knew was part pain, part yearning for something better. Something mutual and real.
 

Dylan, after the first time we’d made love, because that was what it was even then. When I’d hung up on Persephone and focused entirely on him. His look of surprised revelation, of openness and delight.
 

Dylan when he’d stopped at my desk, the moment he found out that Saffron was Samantha, his shock scaldingly potent. And yet he didn’t tear me to shreds in front of my boss, didn’t make me feel small and stupid. Instead, he showed me with his body how much I meant to him. Showed me with his passion. I just couldn’t see it. Not then.
 

The burly guy next to me started singing. Random words, blurted aloud. Singing along to words only he could hear. “Oh baby,” and then silence. “I miss you like a gunshot wound, yeah, baby,” and then he quieted again, nodding to the beat emanating from his tiny white earbuds.
 

Miss you like a gunshot wound.
 

Yesterday at the funeral, Dylan was the one I’d called. The only one I’d wanted to hear from.
 

I bowed my head so far down it almost hit my knees. Beside me, Singing Guy rapped, “Baby, you’re my heart on a string,” which didn’t even make sense, but it still resonated in my clenched gut.

Across from me, a tiny kid stood on the long blue bench, peering out the window. Her braids tumbled past her hoodie. Her mother put her hand out to prevent her daughter from falling, though the woman never looked up from her book. She sensed the need and reacted.
 

A visceral memory: my mother buckling me into a car seat. Handing me a candy bar, half-unwrapped. Taking care of me.
 

By the next pole, a teenage boy with scruff that was trying too hard to be a goatee chatted up a pretty girl who swung her school backpack by one shoulder strap. She smiled shyly up at him, her heart in her eyes.
 

My heart on a string. My heart as a pull toy.
Dylan had my heart, dammit. But I’d walked away from him so many times now, he’d be an idiot to believe me. And I’d walked away this morning—no, I’d run away, I’d fled, I’d bolted like he was about to devour me, engulf me, demolish me, and—

The train lurched to a halt, and the doors slid open. Greenpoint Avenue. My stop.

I walked off the train and headed down the platform, pulling my heart—or rather, my rolling suitcase. When I emerged from the station, I found myself among the bodegas and dry cleaners and little Polish bakeries of central Greenpoint. Home had never looked so dreary.
 

At some point, I must have started to cry, but I didn’t know it until I tasted the salt on my lips. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and kept going. Down the street, turn right, down the next block, cross the street, keep going. No longer numb. My heart on a string. My love floating in the East River, the gulf between us.
 

Dylan had rebuffed my kiss. He’d stiffened when I said the words. He might be the marrying kind, but would he trust his heart to me? Could he trust me?
 

And what then, if he did?
 

My mother, looking at my father like he was the center of her universe. My mother the zombie after his death.
 

That wasn’t me. Couldn’t be me.