Slip of the Tongue (23 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said again, picking up my bag.

He handed me his coffee cup. “Take it. For her.”

I shot him a grateful glance as Becky hurried me out the door. I went back the next day around the same time. For months, I mistook other tall, honey-blond men around the East Village for him. I’d checked his coffee cup for a scribbled name with no luck. I thought of him often. But I never saw him again—until now.

I look back at Gisele, as if she has some magical answer to the storm brewing inside me. She’s restocking the pastries. She wasn’t even old enough to work here ten years ago.

“Hello again.”

We shared sips of coffee, flirtatious glances, and a dark chocolate pistachio croissant. Finn and I have met before . . . and he’s known it all along.

NINETEEN

In one hand, I balance a drink tray and Ginger’s leash. Between glances down the hall at my apartment, I quietly knock at Finn’s door.

He opens it shirtless. Mussed. His hair is one unruly wave over his head. He smiles widely. “Morning, beautiful.”

It’s been ten years. Now, he has crow’s feet that remain even after he’s stopped smiling. His shorter hair is darker, closer to the color of the beard he didn’t used to have. But his honeyed-green artist’s eyes, and his expressive lips—those are the same.

“Hello
again
,” I say.

He opens the door a little wider. “Come in.”

“I can’t. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Ah,” he says with a slight nod. He crosses his arms over his chest. His sweats, missing the drawstring, slip a little. “You’re feeling guilty about yesterday.”

“No.” I scratch under my chin. Because of the hair fringing his waistband, and the unmistakably long, ridged outline of his crotch, I don’t think he’s wearing underwear. I probably caught him naked in bed. “I mean, I don’t know.”

He follows my gaze down and adjusts himself. “Sorry. Morning wood.”

I’m suddenly hot in my coat and scarf. I look anywhere but at him. “Sorry.”

“Want to tell me why you’re here?”

“Right. Yes.” I straighten my shoulders, remembering myself. Finn has kept yet another crucial piece of information from me. Our conversation at Quench a lifetime ago was short but promising. Electric. I know he felt what I did that day. “Why didn’t you tell me about Quench?”

He looks from my face to the coffee and back. “You remember? Since when?”

“Just now.” Ginger sighs loudly and lies down next to us. “You should’ve said something, Finn.”

“Why?”

“Because—” My feet in socks and shoes, my neck wrapped in cashmere, I sweat. “You lied.”

“When? How?”

“You made me think we were strangers.”

“We were.” His cheek dents with one dimple. “I wanted you to remember on your own.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

He takes the tray from me. “Come inside.”

“I can’t. That’s for Nathan.”

“Sadie—” He sets it on the ground next to Ginger. “Do you believe in fate?”

“Not really.”

“No? Not even a possibility it could exist?” With his tilted head and small smile, it’s as if he knows something I don’t. “Maybe we have to go through certain experiences in order to get where we’re supposed to be.”

“And that place we’re supposed to be is predetermined? By who?”

“I don’t really think fate has to mean we have no control. Our decisions lead us along a path, and that’s a kind of fate. Isn’t it?”

I look down. His bare feet are inches from the toes of my sneakers. I can’t tell if he means what he says, or if he’s justifying what we did.

“Why did I choose Quench that morning when I could’ve gone to Starbucks by my place?” he asks. “I don’t know. But I did. Why’d you let me sit with you?”

I shift feet. “You know why.”

“You were attracted to me?” he asks, and then answers himself, “Yes. As was I to you.” He nudges his toe against the sliver of exposed ankle between my sock and jeans. It tickles in a hair-raising way that makes me want to peel his sweatpants off. “Were you with him back then?”

I raise my eyes to his. “Not yet.”

“I wasn’t with Kendra. You and I—we met first.”

We share a moment of quiet while I let myself get caught up the same eyes and lips that mesmerized me back then. Finn and I, we did meet first. If we hadn’t been interrupted, where would we be today? “I went back the next day to find you.”

“So did I.” He shrugs. “I guess our timing was off back then. But now . . .”

He has me on his hook. I want to know what happens next. He’s had two weeks to think this over to my twenty minutes. “Now?”

“Now, we get to make things right. I know it seems like I’ve been pushing, but it’s because that moment in the hallway struck me like lightning. I wanted you to experience that on your own.”

I frown. “Is getting struck by lightning good?”

He adjusts his stance and gestures between us. “Isn’t it possible that Kendra and,” he looks past me, “Nathan were simply instruments to bring us together? That we’re supposed to be having this conversation?”

Do I believe an otherworldly force has led Finn and me to each other at the expense of Nate and Kendra? No. I can almost see, though, the poetry of how we got here, standing in front of each other, when we have good reason to be elsewhere. I’m afraid to think I could’ve loved him the way I do Nathan if only Becky hadn’t overslept and botched our presentation.

I take a step backward. “I have to go.”

“Come back later?” he asks hopefully.

“I can’t.”

He blinks directly to the pastry bags sticking out of my purse, as if he’s been trying not to look. “Pistachio?”

I hesitate and nod. “My favorite.”

“I know,” he says softly. He takes a strand of my hair in his thumb and forefinger. “Come back here.”

It’s hard to say no. Because I’d like to snuggle into his warmth. Because his built body is divine-like. I want to learn to sculpt so I can put him on my dresser. Heat billows from behind him. I get closer. He slips a crinkled bag out, reaches inside, and holds up the croissant. “Open for me.”

I’ve heard those words before, in this same apartment. He’s so sure I’m opening more than my mouth to him. He feeds me some of the pastry, then takes his own bite. We lock eyes and chew. With an “
mmm
” he kisses my cheek. I should pull away. I can feel each of his beard hairs on my cheek, stiff but soft, tickling but sharp. And last night’s musk sticks to him. And his pants are tented. I put my hand on his chest and push. He’s immovable.

“Your hair’s still curly,” he notices.

“I haven’t . . .” I sigh, frustrated that words don’t come out like I want. That my hands and feet don’t act how they should. “Last night, I didn’t—and this morning, I just ran out for a minute . . .”

He slips an arm around my waist and hides me in the doorway. He brushes his lips over my temple. Ginger’s sleeping, but it feels like she knows everything.

“I’m still everywhere on you then,” he says, grazing the tip of his nose along my jaw, under my ear. “I haven’t showered, either. I want you in my bed. I want my sheets to smell like us.”

I’m overheating. I push for real this time. “Nathan’s waiting.”

He backs off, his body noticeably tense. “
I’m
waiting, Sadie. Ten years I’ve been hoping to turn a corner and run into you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He puts the heel of one hand to his forehead. “I’m not trying to come off as a creep. It’s not like I thought I’d ever see you again.” He massages his temples with long, strong fingers. “But I kept my eyes open whenever I was in this neighborhood. I’ve spent more money at Quench than one person should. I hoped. I watched. For you.”

“Me?” I ask. “Or anyone who isn’t Kendra?”

He sets his jaw. “What kind of a question is that? Kendra and I have our own shit. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Fine.” I don’t want to get into it with him. If I know Nathan, he’s still dead to the world. His hangover remedy is to sleep the next day away. I want to be there when he wakes up. I want to be there if he reaches for me again. “I’ll see you, Finn.”

“When?”

“Whenever I see you. I can’t make any promises.”

He’s hurt. I’m going to walk away. I am. But ten years ago, I would’ve dropped Ethics and Media for another chance with the golden boy I’d let get away. For an irresistibly sexy, shirtless Finn, asking me to stay. When I’d thought of him after that day, it was with regret. I’d walked out on something special. The way Finn believes we’re meant to be, I’d believed myself a fool to go with Becky.

My heart softens a little. “You really looked for me after that day?”

He takes my hand and kisses my palm. “I did. You are not just anyone to me. You’re the one who got away.”

He begins wrapping up my croissant. I sigh, not with longing, but with a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Keep it. I don’t think I’ll be around today,” I say, as though a pastry is a consolation prize. The truth is, I could stay here. It scares me that I want to just as much as I want Nathan to pull me back under the covers. It scares me that I don’t know if Nathan would care beyond missing his coffee fix. Finn looks like he’s going to be as sick as Nathan, but at least he’d accept my comfort. I glance down the hall. “I’ll walk Ginger before work tomorrow,” I tell Finn.

He frowns. “I’ll be there.”

I pick up the coffee, wake Ginger, and enter my apartment with as little noise as possible, slipping off my tennies. Ginger wraps me in her leash trying to get to Nathan. Her tail goes a mile a minute.

“Hush,” I whisper when she whines. “Daddy’s sleeping.”

We’ve been gone less than an hour, but when I let her go, she bounds into the other room.

It doesn’t matter that I tried not to wake him, though. Nathan’s not on the couch anymore.

I look around the quiet apartment. Has he left? When? I swallow thickly. It’s disarming to think he was somewhere out there while I canoodled Finn, and not fast asleep as I’d blindly assumed. “Nate?”

“Got coffee?” he answers from our bedroom.

I breathe out, relieved that he’s still here. After this morning’s breakthrough, I have a shred of hope this could be a good day for us. I find him in front of our closet, freshly showered with a towel around his waist.

I lean against the doorway and take in the scene before me. “Are you going somewhere?”

He avoids eye contact as he takes his coffee from the tray and tastes it. “It’s almost cold.”

“Blame it on Ginger,” I say. “She wants to smell everything. It’s not easy walking her while balancing two coffees.”

He turns back to surveying the closet. When he takes another sip from his cup, his towel loosens. He catches it with lightning speed. Nathan hasn’t undressed in front of me since I sucked him off in the doorway. I think about Finn’s morning wood. Did Nathan jerk off in the shower? It’s been almost two weeks. It seems ridiculous to hope for a glimpse of my husband’s cock.

For a brief second, he has the decency to look sheepish about it. It passes. “Is there food?” he asks.

“I’ll get it.” I push off the doorway and go get the pastry from my purse. It’s the least I can do, considering the real reason his coffee is cold.

In the ten seconds I was gone, Nathan has changed into his underwear and hung the towel in the bathroom. I can see the push and pull of his muscles when he moves. He’s chiseled, but lean, thanks to his six-foot-three frame.

Nate takes the bag from me, looks inside, and groans. “How’d you know exactly what I wanted?”

I warm with pride. “Gisele picked it out.”

He cuts his gaze to me, sharp as a knife, as if I just admitted to tossing his laptop out the window. “Gisele,” he says, deadpan.

“Yeah.” I scrunch my eyebrows. “From Quench.”

His jaw is clenched like he’s trying to snap it. Her name has set him off. Why? She’s been a friend since she started at Quench last Christmas. She’s young. And beautiful—there’s no denying that. Nathan once defended her from a handsy businessman. It was sweet. She kissed him on the cheek. I hugged his waist and did the same.

I tilt my head.
Gisele
. Is it her? I blanch. Gisele makes more sense than Joan. She’s younger than me, and prettier too. Nathan and I have joked that her French boss is in love with her, and that’s why she basically does what she wants during her shifts. Like give my husband free pastries.

“Why are you pissed now?” I ask him.

He relaxes his expression and moves on to the donut, unperturbed. He takes a large bite. “I’m not. I just think it’s funny.”

I taste bile in the form of chocolate and pistachio. The man thinks it’s fucking funny to jerk me around. “What is?”

“Forget it.” He swallows the food in his mouth. “I’m going to volunteer.”

“Again? You just did that.”

He plucks a t-shirt from a shelf. “You say that like it’s a strip club. It’s a soup kitchen.”

I hold my coffee to my chest and feel nothing. I wish it were hot. I’m losing this conversation, and I don’t know if the way to get answers is to rage or submit. His nonchalance makes me think the conversation is over.

“I know, and I love that you’re so generous, but . . . I miss having you around here,” I say gently, trying for kindness. “I thought maybe we could chill today. Sleep off that hangover.”

He looks puzzled as he pulls on his shirt. “Are you hungover?”

It’d be easy to blame last night on the Kahlúa, but it only loosened me up. “No.”

“How’d it go yesterday with the photos?”

I’m surprised by the question. It’s maybe the only topic I don’t want to discuss, yet that’s what he finally decides to ask about. “Fine . . .” I glance away. “I think we got what we needed.”

“Good. Are we paying for it?”

I shake my head. “Amelia is.”

“Even better.” He stands in his shirt and boxer briefs, watching me. I wonder, since he makes no move to put pants on—is he debating staying in?

“We can watch whatever you want,” I tempt him. I meant what I said. I miss him. “I’ll make sandwiches. With bacon.”

“I know you don’t get the volunteering thing,” he says, “but to me, it’s worthwhile.”