Nicolas nodded with that little smirk still on his face. I was starting to second-guess whether I wanted to talk about Alistair at all if that was the kind of reaction I was going to get. But Nicolas continued and asked, “So how did you feel?”
I sighed and shook my head. Then I shrugged. “It felt good. It felt good to have someone hold me. It’s been a long time.”
Nicolas took a long sip of his coffee, an index finger tapping the side of the cup. “Do you still love him?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I get confused around him. I don’t know what to think or how to respond. It’s scary to be completely out of control of my emotions.”
“If you’re confused, it’s probably because you still feel something for him.”
“I do. I feel something, but it’s a mixture of a lot of things. I’m still angry at him, but I’ve missed him. Seeing him screws me up like nothing else. It plays on and destroys everything I’ve been working on for myself. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t trust him.” I shook my head. “This is annoying.”
“This is probably worth exploring. Maybe you guys should start dating again, see where it takes you.”
“No,” I said firmly. “Regardless of anything I think or feel, I can’t. I’m on assignment. A journalist can’t get involved with her subject.”
“I don’t know, it happens. I mean—”
I interrupted. “I know it happens. Hell, I spent almost every assignment with a male figure trying to avoid that like the plague. Politicians, celebrities, even ordinary people—if they believe they can seduce you, they try.”
“Gross, Flo.” Nicolas stuck out his tongue in disgust. “I don’t want to hear my sister talking about this stuff.”
I clicked my tongue impatiently. “It happens, get your head out of your butt. That’s the way the world is—sex, power, money. I might be trying to figure out two of them, but I refuse to cash out the remaining one for access.”
I never had any intention of being the kind of journalist who slept with their subject. I don’t even appreciate the hint or whisper of possible indiscretion. It wouldn’t hurt my job prospects, but it would affect my reputation. People would wonder. Editors would consider that while assigning projects.
No. I had worked too hard on my career to be diluted into that type of professional. Men did it all the time; depending on the publication they could write titillating articles that hinted at sexual tension between himself and the female subject. It attracted eyeballs, got people talking, put the writer’s name out there.
I continued. “I don’t want people to question the sincerity of my journalism, the objectivity. Plenty of writers insert themselves in the narrative, but I’m not writing about how Alistair is with me or how our relationship is. Because what we have is flawed and frankly it’s none of anyone’s business. I want people to see Alistair for who he is, the business he leads and the type of professional he is. I want to dissect him and lay him out to dry to the readership, but only the public side of things. I love my career and I’m not going to sacrifice myself on the edge of a maybe.”
Nicolas turned pensive, fiddling with the cardboard sleeve around his coffee cup.
“I saw him, actually, when I moved to the city.”
I jerked back, my heart skipping a beat. “What?”
Nicolas gave me his patented ‘don’t freak out’ look. “Well, when I moved here for med school, he called me up. I think Dad told Sandra and she told him or … well, anyway, he called me to ask if I needed any help.”
I stuttered around my words. “You’re joking.”
“Totally serious. The apartment? He hooked me up. He worked with the developer before and once I dropped his name, that guy couldn’t suck up fast enough.” Nicolas gave a low whistle. “That’s power right there.”
I shook my head. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re saying your casting couch sexy apartment was Alistair’s doing?”
“Well, the one before. I got a one-bedroom at an insane price and as soon as I graduated, the developer contacted me again and told me he’d upgrade me to the two-bedroom. It’s definitely because he knows I know Alistair.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d been bugging you for ages for you to fess up, and now it’s all due to Alistair? Do all roads lead to that guy or something?”
“Well, I knew you’d have a coronary over it, so I didn’t see the point of telling you. I love you, but you’re more of a drama queen than you give yourself credit for.”
I gritted my teeth in an effort not to have a meltdown in front of Nicolas. “I’d have appreciated some consideration over that.”
“Just because you broke up with him doesn’t mean I couldn’t talk to him anymore. He was around a lot when I was growing up. Besides, you were ten thousand miles away, I figured it wouldn’t hurt. We just went to dinner. He gave me some contacts at the university, helped me get my apartment. Then he gave me his card and told me to let me know if I ever needed anything. I haven’t called him since.”
My hands went up in the air in a decidedly dramatic fashion, but before I could say anything, Nicolas added, “People break up, it’s not the end of the world. Doesn’t mean you have to hate the guy.”
I began flinging my arms around even more wildly in protest. “I don’t hate him. I don’t … you just don’t get it. It’s complicated. As if you ever had any serious relationships to know about it.”
“Ouch.” Nicolas clutched his chest with his free hand. “Low blow.”
“You deserve it. You can’t just go meeting with my exes behind my back.”
“Ex. Singular. Ex. You don’t have exes.”
The fact that Nicolas had seen Alistair wasn’t a big deal. I couldn’t fault Nicolas for wanting to catch up with him. Alistair had practically raised him alongside me, and Nicolas had always looked up to him. But that disarming sensation of Alistair slowly clawing his way back into my life, into every part and every portion of a life that I’d worked hard to scrub him from … it didn’t sit well.
“I wish you’d told me earlier.”
“I didn’t know how you’d react. I didn’t want to bring up his name and have you get upset. When you first got into my apartment, I saw what happened when you accidentally caught sight of that picture. You practically passed out. I didn’t want to dredge up old shit and risk it.”
An uncomfortable tingling sensation crawled up the back of my neck. Nicolas was right. “Things got tense that final year,” I said quietly.
Nicolas nodded. “No joke.”
“So you’ll understand that seeing him now is strange.”
Nicolas scratched the back of his neck and looked over my shoulder down the street, as if to give himself time to think. When his gaze snapped back and he made eye contact with me, the determined gleam in his eyes gave me pause. Nothing good was coming. “You have to let that go. You have to forgive him,” Nicolas said.
My emotions flared, and my answer was quick and harsh. “There’s nothing to forgive. I just don’t trust him.”
Nicolas tightened his lips but didn’t look away. His eyes practically drilled holes into mine. “Then you have to forgive yourself. It wasn’t your fault. You know things like that happen all the time.”
The beginning edge of a boiling panic began churning in me, and I fidgeted, uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about that.” I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. I knew it was inevitable that any conversation revolving around Alistair would lead to that, but it didn’t mean I’d indulge the topic. I refused to revisit it. It was gone. Buried.
Forgotten.
Nicolas wouldn’t shake it. “You have to bring it up sometime. I’m sick of pretending that s—”
“Stop.” The word came out rushed and hard and angry, but in contrast my heart was twisting and contorting and beating wildly. We never brought that up. We never talked about that.
We did pretend. All of us.
Memories, vicious remembrance and those old, familiar, angry, terrible crippling emotions clawed at the seams of my soul, fighting to get loose.
I blinked quickly, not wanting to cry, needing to pretend once again.
Sum zero.
Nothingness.
Blank slate.
I inhaled a shaky breath and despite my best efforts, my words came out with equally shaky tone. “Just … don’t. Nicolas. Please.” A single tear escaped and trickled down my cheek.
Nicolas’s expression immediately turned concerned, and he draped an arm around my shoulder. “Hey. Sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you.”
I nodded quickly, my throat too choked up to respond. Nicolas wasn’t trying to be cruel; he had been hurt as much as I was and he wanted a small measure of closure. But I couldn’t give it to him. I didn’t even have it myself.
Not everything in the world was afforded the luxury of closure.
“It’s okay,” I said as I pulled the sleeve of my sweater across my face. “You didn’t mean to.”
Silence fell and Nicolas’s arm was beginning to feel like a prison. My emotions were firing on all cylinders and there was nothing I wanted to do more than to run. Far and fast, to be alone and to escape.
A shrill female voice pierced the street. “Flores Reynaldo! Reynaldo! Party of two. Reynaldo!”
Nicolas and I looked at each other, and within that single moment, the tension cleared and we both burst out laughing in unison.
* * *
Nicolas and I crammed into a short-sided bar table and ordered pancakes and toast and eggs and biscuits with jam, all the good stuff. We didn’t really talk while waiting for the food. I still needed to cool down from that sudden anvil from the past that had been dropped on me outside.
Nicolas, astute for once, was on his phone as if he knew he needed to give me space. I fiddled with the place setting and resisted my own urge to check my phone. Would Alistair text me again in the morning? Would he ask me how my day was going, or confirm Monday’s pickup?
I pressed down on the prongs of my fork, rocking it back and forth.
“It’s rude to play with your silverware,” Nicolas said as he pocketed his phone.
I glanced up. “Who made you Miss Manners?”
Nicolas grinned at me. “I got chewed out by Alistair that time I saw him. Thought I’d pass the lesson along.”
Well, wasn’t today just full of Alistair surprises? “Alistair schooled you on table manners?”
“Yeah, and made me feel like a country bumpkin. He took me to this upscale yuppie burger joint. My cheeseburger had liver in it or something. ‘Welcome to New York City—everything you’ve known and loved is dead.’ That guy went and got all cosmopolitan on us.”
I gave a slight smile. “Must be his big city New Orleans upbringing.”
“Or all that fancy U of M cheese.”
I used my fork to point at him. Terrible manners. “You went to U of M too.”
Nicolas shrugged. “Yeah, but I never much—”
“Dr. Reynolds!” a voice cried.
Nicolas and I both jumped a mile high, and I whipped my head around to the source of the sound. A pretty brunette with olive skin and a tight dress floated up to our table. My eyes widened into saucers at her appearance; she was gorgeous and wholly unexpected.
“Dr. Reynolds! How funny! I can’t believe I’d run into you here. How are you?”
Nicolas stood up and gave the girl a quick embrace and she pecked him lightly on the cheek. Since when did Nicolas hug random women? Random modelesque women? And air-kiss them?
“Hey, Maureen. Just getting pancakes with my sister. It was a brutal shift last night so I thought I’d reward myself.”
Maureen laughed behind a graceful palm. “Right? You were still there when I left last night. I can’t believe you’re still standing.”
Nicolas grinned sheepishly and shrugged, and at that moment I could have sworn I saw Maureen’s face light up even more.
“This place has the most amazing pancakes,” she said. Nicolas nodded and at that moment, Maureen’s gaze shifted sideways and caught me sitting on the stool, gaping slightly.
“Oh! You must be Dr. Reynolds’s sister! He talks so much about you!”
“
Do
you, now?” I cast Nicolas an amused look and he rolled his eyes. I stood up before Maureen, who towered at least four inches above me. “I’m Florence, Nicolas’s older sister. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi! My name is Maureen, it’s lovely to finally meet you.” She curled her hand with mine and when we shook, she cupped her free hand over my knuckles.
Her palm was cool and soft, and she smiled broadly at me.
“I see the family resemblance. Your parents must have been a gorgeous couple to create such beautiful siblings.”
I laughed uncomfortably, at a loss for words. Maureen exuded an easy, comforting warmth; it rolled off her in waves.
Just as I struggled to find a response to her compliment, a voice next to us said loudly, “Ahem.” All three of our heads turned. Our waitress was carrying large white plates heavily laden with our food, her expression a little annoyed that we were in our way in a crowded dining room.
We scrambled to give her space and I let go of Maureen’s hand. Maureen ended up off to the side of where we were standing and called out from behind the waitress’s back, “Oh! I should be going. It was wonderful meeting you, Florence. I’ll see you on Tuesday, Doctor!”
“See you,” Nicolas said with a casual wave of his hand.
“Bye,” I said as I sat down.
And Maureen melted into the crowds, only to emerge momentarily to the other side of the room, situating herself at a large booth with a group of girls all sipping mimosas.
“Anything else I can get you guys?” the waitress said in a rushed manner. She was already one foot along on her way away from us, so we both declined and faced our food to tuck in.
“Maureen is an RN on the psych floor at the hospital,” Nicolas explained as he picked up his fork.
“You work with her?”
“From time to time. Depends if I have business in her unit and if our schedules match up.”
“I see.” I reached over and picked up a biscuit and spread some butter and jam on it. I studied Nicolas as I did so, but he was oblivious. He was unscrewing the top of the syrup bottle and totally invested in his task.
My nosiness peeked through. “Well?” I said as I put down my knife.
Nicolas was preoccupied with pouring maple syrup over his pancakes. He answered without looking up. “Well, what?”