Authors: Deborah Bladon
Nolan
J'ai envie de t'embrasser.
The words themselves weren't meant to impress Ellie. I wrote them on her palm because I have yet to meet a woman who wasn't enamored with the fact that I can speak rudimentary French.
I had to learn the basics of the language when I went to Paris after my sophomore year in college so I could fuck around France with Crew. His family has an estate there, and when he invited me, I packed one bag and renewed my passport.
I'm not fluent, but I know enough to get by, including how to tell a woman I would like to kiss her. When I wrote it on Ellie's palm, I fully expected her to ask me what it meant. I didn't expect her to press her gorgeous lips to mine in response.
She knows French. She also now knows that my family loves to sail.
Loved to sail.
It's been years since I've been on the water, but when I looked at that picture, the memories rushed back. It was taken on a day I'd waited weeks for and promised myself I'd never forget. The image is about more than a particular moment in time. It's a capture of the last time we were all together.
It hangs here now, in this apartment, the frame collecting dust, the pure beauty of that scene unappreciated. No one sees it. I rarely look at it, but I keep it hung on the wall because I've kept every promise I ever made to my grandfather.
I want to ask Ellie where she learned French, but that treads on ground I don't have a place on. I have no right to ask her anything when I have something to tell her that could alter her entire perception of me.
I have to savor tonight. I need her again. The first time I held back, trying desperately to get her off not once, but twice, before I let the thirst that was burning inside me take control. I fucked her recklessly on a leather couch. It's not what I envisioned when I planned tonight, but when she kissed me with those full lips and I felt the heat radiating from her body, I was gone.
Lost in her.
Drowning in a need that consumed every part of me.
"Nolan?"
I hear her hushed voice from the other side of the bedroom door. I'd pushed it almost shut when I entered the room so I could make a quick call. Then I toed off my shoes, removed my socks and my shirt and stood by the open window hoping to catch a breeze that would cool me down. It didn't happen.
My phone rings. I try to ignore it. I want to ignore it, but I can't.
I tug it out of the front pocket of my pants.
I pull open the door as the phone continues to ring.
"I need to take this, Ellie." I look down at her. Her lips are plumped and bruised from the roughness of my kiss. Her skin is glowing from the rush of her orgasm. She looks ready for another round, but first, I need to tell someone to fuck the hell off.
"I'll wait." She stands in place, her eyes skimming over my bare chest.
I nod, inching around her to cross the hall to the home office. I flick the switch and the overhead light flickers on.
"Nolan Black," I say into my phone. "It's late. Start talking and make it quick."
The man on the other end of the call delivers bad news. My gaze is still locked on Ellie and where she's now standing at the entrance to the office. I don't turn my back or shoo her away. I don't give a fuck if she overhears this conversation. I just want to stare into her eyes.
She breaks the connection when her gaze travels around the room.
"The shipment is already overdue." I even my tone, cutting the man I'm speaking to off mid-sentence. "Unless it's delivered by noon tomorrow, you'll be facing a hefty fine per our original contract."
I listen half-heartedly as he tries to excuse away the delay. Ellie smiles before she turns her attention to a calendar hung on the wall. The image on display is familiar to me, but judging by the way Ellie's staring at it, she's never seen anything like it before.
It's a beach in Hawaii. Maui, I believe. I picked the calendar up from a youth group. They were selling them in the parking lot at the airport in Honolulu. I had just finished a business trip in Lahaina and when a guy approached wearing board shorts and a ripped T-shirt with a message summoning for a change in the world, I handed over a twenty dollar bill and shoved the calendar into my carry-on. I hung it up when I got home as a reminder of the tranquility of the islands.
"I'm putting this on my bucket list," Ellie murmurs before she snaps a picture with her phone of the calendar. "I'm going to Hawaii before I die."
I tuck my phone next to my chest, blocking my voice from the guy who is now telling me that they lost track of the truck carrying the first shipment of our new products. That's a quarter of a million dollars worth of missing lipstick, eye shadow, and mascara. "If you pack that bikini you were wearing last night, I'll go with you."
She looks as surprised as I feel by my words. Why the fuck would I invite myself along on a future trip to Hawaii with her?
I bring the phone back up and catch the tail end of the guy explaining that they are sending out several men to track the truck down since the driver isn't picking up when they call. I don't give a shit if they send out a full-on search party. The product needs to be at our warehouse when promised. Simple.
"Find him and call Crew Benton," I grumble. "Do not call me back. Your contact is Crew for the rest of the night. Not me."
I end the call and immediately direct my attention to Ellie.
"I have an emergency too." She sighs. "My friend locked herself out of our apartment. I need to go home so I can let her in."
"Can't she call someone else?"
She shrugs her shoulders, her hair falling away from them. "I told her to call the building manager, but she just sent me a text telling me she couldn't reach him. I can't leave her locked out. I need to go help."
"I'll call Crew." My gaze drops to my phone. "I'll get him to call the manager. He'll have him at your place with a key in hand within minutes."
"Are you sure?" She takes a step toward me. "Because I can run down there and be back here in no time."
"You live miles from here," I point out. "Even if my driver catches every green light, it's not a quick trip."
She studies my face before her eyes sweep over my desk. "I guess it's not that close."
My phone starts ringing again. "No, it's not close at all."
"You should get that." She shifts restlessly on her feet. "I'm going to text Adley."
"I'm not getting it," I say just as I see the incoming number. "Shit. I have to take this, Ellie. I'm sorry."
Silence hangs in the air between us before I breeze out of the room and cross the hall back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind me.
Ellie
"You don't want me to come back?" I ask to clarify what he just said. "You think I should go home, let Adley in and stay there?"
Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling right now. It's there in my voice. I can hear it. Nolan sure as hell can too. I don't care.
I was prepared to tell him to him go ahead and call Crew so he could help Adley before he came walking back into the office. I could sense immediately just by the expression on his face that our date was over. I had known it before he explained that the last call was a pressing matter that had to be dealt with immediately. In simple terms, it means I need to haul ass out of his apartment right the fuck now, even if I'm not ready to.
"I'm sorry, Ellie."
You'd think he'd have the decency to at least tear himself away from his phone while he half-heartedly apologizes for ending our night early. He doesn't though. He types away, sending someone a text message or an email. For all I fucking know, it's a sext message.
I skim my fingers over the screen of my phone. "I'll take off now. I have an Uber coming to get me. He's only six blocks away."
"I could have called for my driver."
He could have, but he didn't. Instead, he focused on something on his phone the same way he is now. I want to talk to him. I have questions that I need answers to.
To begin with, I want to know why he said he lives near Cremza when he obviously doesn't. I'm assuming he said it as a way to break the ice when we saw each other there. I'd like to hear him clarify it for me.
I'd also love to know why he has a yellowing copy of the New York Times from a day in May five years ago open on his desk. The calendar on the wall is stuck back at that month too. I noticed the date when I was drooling over the picture of a sandy beach displayed for that particular month.
The dust-covered, open packaging from a smartphone sits atop his desk. The model is obsolete. The only value it would have to anyone at this point would be as a paperweight, even though it was in high demand a few years ago. It's been replaced several times over by newer, more streamlined versions.
The phone Nolan is holding is the same model as mine. It's just two months old and already there's a promise from the tech company that produces it, that a better phone is on the horizon.
It's as if we stepped into a time machine when we crossed the threshold and entered this room.
Maybe I'm paranoid because of what happened with Tad. Maybe I'm just reading more into Nolan's home office than is there. I can't tell. I just know that something feels off and my intuition rarely fails me.
"I'll call you in the morning, Ellie."
Again, his eyes are glued to his phone's screen.
Seriously?
"Sure, whatever works," I say because, at this point, I just want to leave.
I wait for him to offer to walk me out, but that would require some attention being thrown my way and that's obviously not happening.
"I'll get my purse and my shoes and then I'll go," I grumble as I step to the side. "I can find my way back to the lobby on my own. Can I ask you something first?"
As if on cue, his phone rings again. He stiffens, his hand reaching to scrub the back of his neck. "Fuck, just fuck."
It's enough of an answer to send me toward the office door. "Good night, Nolan."
He catches me by the elbow, his chest pressing into my back, his voice thick in my ear. "If this were anything else, I would bury it until tomorrow. I would completely ignore it and take you to bed."
But… I wait for it.
"But, I can't. I fucking can't."
I turn back to look at him. "I'll catch up with you soon."
He kisses me softly on my forehead as his phone continues its cruel reminder that his attention is no longer mine. "Tonight was amazing. It's just the beginning."
Of what, I want to ask, but I don't. I can't. He brings the phone to his ear and he brusquely tells the person on the other end to hold as he waits for me to leave the room.
***
"Ellie Madden?" he literally screams my name at me. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"
I wish I were. There are a lot of Uber drivers in Manhattan. What are the chances that the one that I get is the boy I used to sit behind in eighth-grade geometry class? It's the same boy who was in virtually every one of my calculus classes in high school. He's not a boy now. He's a man with thinning light brown hair and hazel eyes. "It's me."
"You remember me, right? Rick Jones. You don't look the same."
"Neither do you," I counter. From what I can remember he does look the same, except for the hair that is trying to grow on his chin. Those few whiskers are determined, but they're apparently losing their battle. Rick is still the same hairless wonder he was when we graduated high school.
"I drive an Uber for a living."
"Really?" I scratch the top of my cheek. Of course, he drives an Uber. It's the only reason we're having this mini high school reunion in his car outside of Nolan's apartment.
If he takes twelve minutes to pick up every customer he has waiting for him, he might not be driving people around for money much longer. I got so frustrated after waiting on the sidewalk for ten minutes that I almost canceled the ride so I could flag down a taxi. That's when I saw him finally creep around the corner at a speed I could beat while hopping on one foot.
"It's a temp thing. My goal is to be a surgeon."
"Are you studying for that?"
"I'm pacing myself," he begins, and then it ends. He doesn't add to that. I don't ask because I don't care. "So you're headed uptown?"
I glance at the GPS unit of his car. The address for my building is already programmed into the screen. I look carefully at the red line that is charting the technology calculated route Rick will take. "It's faster if you go through the park."
"There's only one filly I follow and it's this beauty." He taps his finger on the corner of the GPS monitor. "We'll take her lead."
I type out a quick text message to Adley telling her I'm finally on my way. When I look up, we still haven't moved.
"Are we heading out soon, Rick?"
"You could have sat up front with me, Ellie." He cranes his neck so he can stare at me. "It would make it easier for us to talk."
"I'm in the middle of an emergency right now." I gaze out the car's window at Nolan's building. "I'm not all that talkative."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asks with actual emotion in his tone. "I've had it rough at times too. I get that we all need a friend once in a while."
I smile at the offer. It's kind, even if the look in his eye is making me uncomfortable. "If you could just get me to that address as soon as possible, that would help a lot."
"That I can do." He waves his left hand in the air. "Consider this your chariot, Princess Ellie and I'm your trusty stead."
Um, no thanks.
I look back at my phone and the message Adley just sent telling me to hurry. Since I can only travel as fast as this chariot moves, I don't text her back. Instead, I open my phone's camera wondering how I can snap a stealth picture of Rick to send to her. I know she'd remember him but the last thing I want to do right now is prompt him to say cheese and smile for me.
I sigh as the car finally starts to pull away and he focuses on the road.
We don't make it three feet before he slams the brakes on. Luckily we were moving at a snail's pace, so the abrupt stop barely registered.
"Is something wrong?" My head snaps up in time to see a black Mercedes Benz pulling up to the curb directly in front of us.
"New York traffic," Rick mutters. "That idiot cut me off."
The driver side door of the Benz opens and a man in a dark suit steps out. I know him even though we've never met. I wasn't introduced but I recognize him immediately. He's Nolan's driver and just as he rounds the back of the car, Nolan Black himself comes out of his building, dressed just as he was when we went in hours ago.