Caught Up in Us (12 page)

“I would love that. And, you may
want to try Geeking Out in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Great guys, and super speedy with parts.”

He shook his head appreciatively.
“Do you have any idea how hot it is that you are so damn business
savvy?”

“No. Are we talking broiling,
boiling, or scorching?”

“Smoking.” Then he pulled me
against him for a moment, and I could tell exactly how hot I’d made
him.

We left the theater a few minutes
later, and when we turned the corner Bryan bumped into a balding
man wearing a pinstriped suit that reeked of old money.

“Hello, Mr.
Caldwell,” Bryan said. I noticed this was the first time Bryan had
addressed someone by the honorific
Mr.

Mr. Caldwell gave him a strange
look. “Seeing a movie?”

I tensed, and Bryan straightened
his spine too. Crap. This was exactly what he was trying to
avoid.

“Actually, I just finished a run,
and bumped into Kat outside the theater. Kat, this is James
Caldwell, who’s on our board.” His eyes widened as he said the last
few words, but he didn’t need to worry – I got it.

I shook hands with James Caldwell
and assumed a most proper and poised look, as I said, “It’s a
pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Mr. Caldwell, Kat is working with
Made Here through NYU this semester.”

Caldwell raised a thick gray
eyebrow. “NYU?”

“She’s in the graduate business
school,” Bryan added quickly.

What? Did I look seventeen like
the intern?

Caldwell nodded. “Glad to hear
this is all business.”

Seventeen or twenty-three, the
message was clear. There was to be no hanky-panky.

Chapter Twelve

My phone was mocking me. It was
sneering, as I carried it around like a lifeline leashed to me, a
hard brick reminder that I was waiting for a call. I curled deeper
into the dented corner of the mustard-colored couch, laptop on my
thighs as I worked. Jill and I were mirror images, as she sat
cross-legged on the other end, tapping away on her computer too.
Her hair was twisted up in a red chopstick and a few dark blond
strands framed her face. “Do you have any idea how many technical
white papers I authored today on nuclear fusion?”

I gave her a look. “Let me guess.
Zero?”

She nodded. “Yup. That is exactly
right. But I am, in fact, almost done with this list of
recommendations for my group of Upper East mommies on their
training and diet for the next few weeks before the New York City
marathon.” Jill was making headway as a young actress, but she
still took on jobs on the side as a running coach. She operated a
few running clinics and clubs, especially for men and women who
wanted to tackle marathons for the first time, as well as 5Ks and
10Ks. “If I’m going to finally finish this book-length email, I’m
going to need a beer. But we have none in this apartment, and it
should be considered a crime to be beer-less.”

“Then you should make sure no one
carts you away to the pen, Jill.”

I stretched my arm to the coffee
table, grabbed Jill’s wallet and tossed it to her. She caught it in
one hand, placed her laptop on the couch, and went in search of the
nearest six-pack at ten o’clock at night.

I wandered into the kitchen and
reached for an apple inside the three-tiered, silver-looking wire
basket that hung by the side of my kitchen sink. I needed to throw
the crappy contraption out. But it reminded me of my parents. They
had one of those baskets too, towering with fruit – apples,
oranges, nectarines, lemons that threatened to spill out – in our
home in Connecticut. I washed the apple and then headed into the
living room. I sat on the window sill and took a bite.

This probably
sounded crazy but my parents really are
those people
. As in those people you
can’t believe still love each other madly after all those years.
They’ve been together for thirty years and my mom still makes
breakfast for him every morning. She’ll set the table with the same
green and white checked plates, and the same matching cloth napkins
that we’ve had since I was in high school. Then he’ll come
downstairs, give her a kiss on the cheek, and they’ll have
breakfast together. He’ll do the dishes and clean up and they’ll
walk to the store holding hands. When the workday ends, they’ll
return home and repeat the same routine for dinner, with him taking
out the garbage or mowing the lawn as she cooks. After dinner,
she’ll reach for a bar of dark chocolate from the kitchen cupboard,
breaking off a section. He’ll have bought either Scharffenberger or
some fabulous Belgian chocolate bar. “I never want you to run out
of chocolate,” I overheard him whisper to her once after he’d
picked some up from the grocery store.

It was almost enough to make you
gag, if it weren’t totally 100 percent legitimate.

So when my mom admitted earlier
tonight on the phone that the online daily deal had bombed, my
heart withered a bit for them. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

“Well, you know, you’ll just have
to keep me stocked in chocolate, my Katerina.”

“I will. I promise. Even though I
know it won’t come to that.”

I took another bite of the apple,
as I raised the shades halfway to look out onto Twenty-Second
Street. A cab pulled up outside the building. A slim man emerged.
He had a strong jawline and a regal, Yul Brynner-esque bald head. A
woman with a pixie cut stepped out next. She laughed at something
he said. Then he reached for her waist and pulled her close,
because he simply had to kiss her right then and there. Soon, they
walked into the building, holding hands.

I wanted to do that with Bryan. I
wanted to walk down the street with him. To kiss him in public. To
share a car back to his place, my place, any place. But then, I’d
also take what I could get, so when my phone finally rang, I
pounced on it.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Bryan.”

My heart leapt. I was the girl in
high school, waiting for the quarterback to call. Fine, I’d never
dated a football player, and I didn’t even care for most sports.
But I bet the zing I felt was precisely the same.

“Hey. What are you up
to?”

“Talking to you.”

I rolled my eyes even though he
couldn’t see me. Now we really sounded like teenagers
again.

“Same to you,” I said, as I placed
the half-eaten apple on the coffee table.

“What’d you do
tonight?”

I gave him the rundown, then asked
the same of him.

“Work, work, and more work. I
heard back from the city of Paris on the padlocks. They said
they’re trying to make some arrangements for a deal, so that’s
good. But the best part is this amazingly brilliant MBA student I’m
working with may have saved the day for us.”

I bounced on my toes. “Really? Did
Geeking Out come through?”

“They’re putting a competitive bid
together tonight. I should have it first thing in the morning, but
they said they could meet the timeline.”

“Damn. I rock.”

“You totally and completely
rock.”

“So where are you right now?” I
asked as I walked down the hall to my bedroom. I didn’t know when
Jill would return with her beer, but I didn’t want to be
interrupted.

“My apartment. Finally. Car just
dropped me off.”

“So calling me was the first thing
you did when you got home? Nice.”

“I walked in two minutes
ago.”

“I don’t even know where you
live.” I shut the door to my bedroom and lay down on my bed. The
one luxury I afforded myself was the bedding. A shimmery purple
duvet covered the bed, with pillows in rich shades of red and dark
blue.

“Sixtieth and Park.”

I wanted to whistle in admiration.
I pictured the block perfectly, seeing it on a rain-soaked night,
the quiet street glistening, lined with beautiful brick
brownstones. He probably lived in one of those buildings. Double
doors, four stories, hardwood floors, white-paned windows that
opened on the kind of street that romantic comedy heroines strolled
down, holding hands with their lovers.

“What’s on tap the rest of the
night? More work?”

“I’m calling it a night on the
work front. No more email, no more reports. I’m just kicking back
on my couch talking to this girl with my cell phone pressed against
my head. I’m probably getting a brain tumor, but c’est la
vie.”

“You’re not one of those Bluetooth
people? You haven’t been walking around with the headset in your
ear all evening?”

“God no. I can’t stand the
Bluetooth people.”

“They do that constantly in New
York. On buses, on subways. Even in stores. They leave those damn
things on all the time.”

“Maybe they are waiting to receive
messages from the Bluetooth Uni-mind.”

“Oh, I can so picture
that.”

“So, you’ve finagled my Bluetooth
secret, Kat. What else do you want to know?”

I shifted to my side, and played
with the tassel on one of my purple pillows. What did I want to
know about Bryan? “I got it. Shoes on airplanes. On or
off?”

“On, of course.
As if I would ever take shoes off on a plane.”

“Totally agree. Why do people do
that? Stretch their big stinky feet out in front of them and even
walk up and down the aisles without their shoes.”

“I’m telling you, that’s another
thing that would be abolished should I become president. You would
be forbidden from removing shoes on planes. And from clipping your
nails in public.”

“You have my vote.”

“You know what I
like to do on planes?”

“No. What?”

“Sometimes, I go a little wild and
I leave my cell phone on.”

“It doesn’t work up
there.”

“Right, but instead of turning it
off when we take off, I just go crazy and leave it on silent. And
then I like to see how far up we can go before it stops getting
messages, and then I like to see how high we are when it starts
picking them up again on the way down.”

“You renegade.”

“I know, Kat. I’m not afraid to be
a bad boy like that.”

“Are you though? A bad
boy?”

He didn’t answer right away. He
must have been weighing the question and what I really meant. I
wasn’t sure what I really meant. “Do you want me to be a bad
boy?”

I rested my head on the pile of
pillows. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I just want you to
be yourself.”

“I am myself. With you, I am
definitely myself.” If we were at a club, the music would have just
shifted from a fast, poppy song to a slower number, the kind of
tune that made you want to dim the lights. “If I were with you
right now, I’d be myself too.”

“What would you do?”

“If I were with you right
now?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“On my bed.”

He was quiet, but I could hear him
breathing, and I pictured his chest rising and falling as he stared
up at the ceiling of his brownstone on Sixtieth and Park, closing
his eyes, imagining me so many blocks away. “What are you
wearing?”

“Jeans. Black cami with a Hello
Kitty design.”

“Ah, of course. I believe you once
said it was a life-long love, you and Hello Kitty.”

“We’re still going
strong.”

“And underneath?”

“Black bikini briefs with a light
blue stripe.”

“So you want to know what I’d do
if I were with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t kiss you yet. I’d
touch your naked skin. I’d run my fingers down your arms, and watch
as you shivered at my touch.”

I closed my eyes and
listened.

“I’d kiss your belly through your
shirt, and you’d wriggle a little bit, trying to tell me with your
body that you wanted more.”

I murmured something about wanting
more.

“Then I’d come up for a kiss,
hovering over you, my arms on each side of you.”

I longed to touch his arms, to
trace how toned and strong they were.

“I’d kiss you for the longest
time, and you’d be pressing your hands against my back, wanting
more.”

“I would,” I managed to say, as I
started to unbutton my jeans.

“And when I was sure, absolutely,
totally, completely sure that you were turned on beyond a shadow of
a doubt —”

“—
Which I would
be.”

“Which you would be. I’d return to
your stomach, and I’d start to lift up your cami thing. And I’d run
my tongue across your belly, and I’d take off your top. And I’d
finally be able to see those gorgeous breasts of yours in the
flesh.”

“And touch them.”