I leaned into his hand, unable to stop my body from responding the way it yearned to.
“Just let this happen, Roxie, and we’ll figure it out.”
I wanted to. Truly. But I couldn’t.
“I have to go,” I whispered, my throat raw. “With what I went through with my mother, all those broken hearts—I can’t do that to you, or to Polly.” My voice broke. I steeled myself, then looked him in the eye. “I won’t do it.”
“Your past is legitimate.” He looked back at me, pain in his eyes, but resolve as well. “But so is your present. And so am I. And what’s right in front of you. And if you’re leaving to prove a point? Then you should go—but not for the reason you think.”
His hand caressed my cheek once more, then he pulled away. And I climbed into my Jeep and drove off.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I knew if I saw him, with our hearts broken all over the dusty country road, I’d never be able to leave.
I drove to my mother’s house, stuffed some clothes into a bag, drove my car to the Poughkeepsie station, and jumped on the Metro North into Manhattan.
I needed to see my best friend.
Chapter 23
When I was a kid, everyone referred to Manhattan as the city. We never said Manhattan, and we certainly never said New York City. And though as a kid I thought I had to go to California to make a name for myself, I know now that the city was far enough away and large and fabulous enough to have been able to lose myself in it entirely.
Natalie was the city. She grew up in the Village, the daughter of a real estate developer and an art dealer. Other than dabbling in culinary school her freshman year, when we met, she stayed firmly on her island, venturing off only to head to the Hamptons . . . if she must. She had concrete running through her veins.
It surprised the hell out of her when I texted her from the train station, saying I was on my way and to cancel her Friday night plans. And now, here I sat. On a large, comfy couch in her apartment, while she mixed up a batch of margaritas in the blender. Since her father owned several townhouses in Manhattan, she was the beneficiary of a very specific kind of rent control. Occupying the ground floor of a three-story building, her apartment was the kind one might see on an episode of Million Dollar Listing. Tall ceilings, intricate millwork, flawlessly gleaming wooden floors—the apartment was stunning.
Like Natalie. She was the kind of girl you looked at, whether you were into girls or not. If you were into humans, she appealed to you. She was statuesque, at least five eight in her bare feet—and she was never in her bare feet, preferring the latest, highest teeter-tottery heels. With strawberry blond hair, she was supermodel beautiful—and had the foulest mouth ever heard on land. She could even make a sailor blush, then tie himself into knots trying to get with her. She was loud, always the first to crack a joke, or make an indecent proposal—which was never turned down.
The girl personified curves, having a natural hourglass figure with an extra hour or two at each end. I’ve actually seen men nearly crash their cars when she walked down the street—the girl was a brick house.
She owned every room she was in without even trying. She was equally at home in the fanciest restaurant, ordering wines even I’d never heard of, or in the diviest dive bar, snort-laughing and throwing peanuts on the floor.
She dated politicians and cops, artists and firemen, a butcher, a baker, and while not technically a candlestick maker, one guy she dated was the president of the largest supplier of flashlights on the East Coast. She never got her heart broken; she was the heartbreaker.
After her year as a culinary student she enrolled at Columbia University, majored in advertising, and was now blazing a trail for herself in one of the hottest boutique ad firms in the city. She worked with Fortune 500 companies, putting together campaigns that everyone knew—you’ve probably hummed the song from a commercial she created.
Plus, she made a fucking killer margarita.
“Explain to me this,” she said, peeling the lid off the blender and pouring the frothy lime wonderful into two glasses. “He’s gorgeous.”
“Off the charts.”
“And you’ve got chemistry?”
“Off the charts,” I groaned, flopping facedown in a pillow. I could hear her click clacking her way over to where I lay, starfished. I heard the clink of a glass, then the sound of her getting settled across from me.
“And the sex?”
I pumped my hips up and down. “Off. The. Charts.”
“Yeah, I don’t see the problem here.” I could hear her sip her drink. “Also, that couch was really expensive, so quit with the humping.”
I sat up and frowned at her. “He wants me to, like, be with him.”
Now, a statement like that to anyone else would have resulted in a sarcastic Oh, poor you. But she got it. She knew me. She knew my bullshit.
Like the bullshit Leo was calling you on?
“I wondered why all of a sudden you run into the city,” she said. “Not that I’m not thrilled that you’re here.”
The door buzzer sounded. “Thank God—I’m starving.” I face planted into the pillow again, unable to get rid of the vision of me leaving Leo in the middle of that road. Hopefully the extra-spicy laksa would help me purge that, and most of my taste buds, right out of my head. Only in the city could you order Indonesian take-out delivery.
“Why the hell is she suffocating herself in your couch?” I heard, in a voice that didn’t remotely belong to a delivery guy.
“Clara?” I said, lifting my head and seeing our other best friend, standing in the doorway with a small rolling suitcase and a big grin.
“She said you finally got your ass on a train, so I got on one too!”
“My mouth is burning. I think. Is my mouth still where it used to be?” Natalie asked.
“Why do you order such spicy food if you can’t handle it?” Clara asked from her perch on the arm of the sofa. She hoovered up a bowl of chicken curry that I couldn’t even get within two feet of, and I had a pretty strong palate. She tipped up the edge of her bowl and slurped the rest of the sauce, smacking her lips.
“I love it. It’s so spicy, but I love it,” Natalie replied, moving toward the kitchen and stopping to check her reflection in the mirror. “But look how puffy it made my lips! It’s like a lip plumper!”
While she preened, I rolled toward Clara on the couch. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“I needed an excuse to get out of Boston for the weekend; things are positively stale there right now.” She looked toward my bowl of laksa. “Are you going to finish that?”
“I’m stuffed. Hit it.” As I passed her my takeout, I marveled that someone could eat so much and never gain a pound.
Clara and Natalie couldn’t be more opposite, and I wondered, not for the first time, that if we hadn’t all been away from home for our first time, if we ever would’ve become friends.
Clara was petite and athletic, with an almost boyish figure. A long-distance runner since high school, she walked with a powerful stride. She had an economy of movement that served her well as she competed in marathons and triathlons all over the world. With closely cropped blond hair and caramel colored eyes, she was a quiet beauty.
The most well traveled of our trio, Clara had a job that most people envied but few can actually do. After leaving culinary school, she enrolled in Cornell’s prestigious hotel management program. Rather than spend her nights and weekends working the front desk at the Brookline Marriott, though, she parlayed her keen eye and analytical mind into a position with a branding agency in Boston. She helped failing hotels in the United States and abroad get back on their feet, specializing in older historic hotels. So she traveled almost nonstop, sometimes spending weeks on site.
“Stale? Why? What’s going on?” I asked as she shoveled in the last few bites of food.
“I don’t really know. Work just seems a bit off at the moment. There might be some changes up top, and it makes
for a weird vibe. I’m heading out of town next month, though, which will be nice.”
“And what glamorous city are you off to next? London? Amsterdam? Rio?”
“Orlando.” She sighed. Then burped slightly, which she apologized for with a sheepish grin.
“Orlando? That’s a little . . . different for you,” I replied, crinkling my eyebrows.
“It’s a little awful for me. What the hell do I know about magical mice?” she snorted, pushing the bowl away from her and patting her nonexistent tummy.
“What’s a magical mouse? Is that like a Rabbit?” Natalie asked, swooshing back in from the kitchen and depositing herself on the floor on front of me.
Clara looked at her sideways. “No, it’s—”
“Because let me tell you, nothing beats a Rabbit. Not a hand, not a dick, not even those little remote-control ones that fit right inside your panties. Nothing beats a Rabbit.” Natalie paused. “Although a tongue is a close second.”
“It has to be the right tongue, though,” Clara interjected. “Attached to the right face.”
“Not always. Some of the best sex I’ve ever had is with ugly guys. That guy I dated last year who worked on the trapeze, down at South Street Seaport? Face like a shovel, but holy shit, could he give fantastic head,” Natalie said, examining her pedicure. “I mean, some guys just get so into it—like, you’re ready to black out, it’s so good, and it’s almost too much, and you’re like, hello, I just came, like, eleven times in a row. But they keep on going; they could keep that shit up all night long. I swear, some guys just live to be facedown in it twenty-four-seven; they’re not happy unless they’ve got some girl’s thighs wrapped around their head and a tongue full of pussy. I’ve always wondered, when you clamp down around their head, y’know, lock on when you go full freeze, if it plugs their ears, kind of like when a plane reaches cruising altitude? And when you finally let go, do their ears pop?”
She looked up to find Clara and me staring at her. She’d said all of this in one breath, by the way. “What?”
Silence. Then, “Do their ears pop?” Clara repeated.
“Oh please, like you’ve never wondered that!”
“Nat, I can honestly tell you, I have never in my life wondered about that,” I said, hand on my chest.
“Oh, so Leo never made you nearly pass out? No wonder you hightailed it out of there,” Natalie said in sympathy.
“No, no, that’s not at all what I said. Leo is—”
“Is Leo the farmer she told me about?” Clara asked Natalie, who nodded.
“—amazing in bed. Incredibly amazing. No complaints there. But—”
“Yep, Farmer Leo Maxwell, who apparently paid more attention to his ee-eye-ee-eye instead of making her scream the more important oh!” Natalie replied, looking at Clara in a conspiratorial way.
“That’s not true! Leo made me very oh, all the time with the oh, nonstop ohs, and—”
“Wait wait wait, did you say Leo Maxwell? The farmer is Leo Maxwell? Blond guy? Early thirties? Drop-dead sex on a silo?” Clara asked, fumbling for her phone.
“Yes, he’s blond, and we didn’t have sex on a silo, we didn’t even have sex in the silo, but we were in a silo when he licked my spine and—”
Natalie interjected, “Atta boy, Leo! Did he keep going and lick your—”
“Okay, shut up. Is this your Leo?” Clara asked, shoving her phone in my face.
Oh yeah. That was my Leo. The picture showed a more City Leo than I was used to seeing, but even in this grainy picture you could see the gorgeous. Climbing out of a limo, wearing a black suit tailored perfectly to his strong, lean frame. Striking green eyes that were sharp, calculating, assessing. A little hard? I swiped to the next image. Another City Leo pic, this one in front of a publicity backdrop on some red carpet. Maybe some fund-raiser? This time he was dressed in a gray suit, looking all Billionaire Boys Club and Your Penthouse or Mine?
But while I could appreciate these pictures, in my mind’s eye he’d always be dressed in well-worn jeans, a vintage concert tee, two weeks’ worth of scruffy beard that felt incredible on the soft skin between my thighs, and kind green eyes. An easy grin. Peaceful and happy and so content in his world. City Leo was obviously good-looking, but I preferred Country Leo.
I came back to the conversation, where Natalie and Clara were talking animatedly.
“So wait, he left New York when—”
“Exactly, after the baby was born. She disappeared, and then he all but disappeared. He was gone, no parties, no trips—he sank everything he had into making that farm his life,” Clara said.
I blinked. “Okay, wait. So you guys both knew Leo?” I asked, confused.
“Knew him, no. Knew of him, of course. I just never put two and two together that Leo Maxwell was your Farmer Leo,” Natalie said, lying back on the floor and kicking her legs up in the air. “There was no one in this town who didn’t know Leo Maxwell. Everyone was trying to land that guy—what a fucking catch!”
“Seriously, Roxie, he was a young Mr. Big. Until he met Melissa. And once she sank her claws into him, that was it. No one ever really knew what happened; just that they were together, she was pregnant, there was a rumor they were getting married, then they weren’t together, and then once the baby was born he took his daughter and headed upstate. She bounced around town for a while, but eventually took off for Europe. I think she married some Russian guy. No idea what happened between her and Leo, though. It was just . . . over.”
I knew what had happened. Leo had told me the story. And I think some of the people in Bailey Falls knew what happened, or had guessed. Because no one really ever talked about Polly. Not that she was a secret, but they were . . .
Protective? Of both of them?
Yeah. Maybe. Small town, taking care of their own.
No wonder Leo wanted his daughter to be a country mouse.
“Please tell me you and Leo never dated,” I said, looking at Natalie.
“No, I never met him. Though I probably would have hit that, if I had. Hey, how weird would that be?” She laughed, rolling onto her side and looking at me carefully. “If I’d banged the guy you were in love with.”
“Hey, how weird would that be if I killed you until you were dead?” I replied.
Natalie and Clara dissolved into giggles, but all I could think about was Leo.
And the fact that when she called him the man I was in love with, I hadn’t corrected her.
Shit.
That night something specific kept me awake instead of the usual insomnia. I Googled Leo after the conversation with the girls, and I was swiping away at two in the morning, looking at a slice of his life that’d been captured by publicity photos.
This was a Leo I didn’t know. He seemed cool, more detached, very blue blood. I saw nothing of the Leo I knew.
Who would rather be riding in an open Jeep than in a town car. Who would rather have his hands full of sweet-smelling earth than martinis. Who was made happy by wet-with-morning-dew sugar snap peas. Who was caring sweet kind loving tender gasping panting moaning groaning rocking thrusting slipping sliding living life to the fullest, because it was a life he’d created exactly the way he wanted, and he wouldn’t live for anyone other than his daughter.
I tossed and turned most of the night, wondering if I’d made a terrible decision leaving Bailey Falls the way I did.
“Coffee. I require coffee,” I mumbled as we wove down an already crowded 17th Street.
“We’ll get it, don’t worry. We just need to get there before it gets too busy.”
“When did Natalie start getting up so early on a Saturday morning?” Clara whispered to me.
“Better question, when did she start caring so much about where her produce came from?” I whispered back.
Natalie turned around to make a face at me. “I heard that,” she singsonged.
“I meant you to,” I singsonged back.
“Seriously, Nat, what’s the rush? I don’t
remember you ever being so concerned about getting ‘farm-fresh produce’—although I understand the draw of eating local as much as possible.”
“Now, when you say eating local, I assume you’re referring to Leo enjoying a trip downtown?” Natalie replied with a grin, leading us into the fray of the Union Square Greenmarket.
Clara laughed. “You have a one-track mind.”
I didn’t laugh. I was thinking about Leo’s eyes as he watched me, when he did in fact enjoy a trip downtown. And I Kegeled right there, just thinking about it.
“I have a multitrack mind,” Natalie said. “I just make sure one of those tracks is always on sex with guys who like to take a taste.”
A very good-looking man who was heading away from the farmers’ market with a bag full of leafy greens did a double take, then a complete about-face. Was he aware that he was licking his lips?
Natalie didn’t notice; she was on a mission. She consulted a map, smoothed her already perfectly messy hair, and took off across the market.
“Hey, hey! Can we please get some coffee before stocking up on your suddenly-so-important groceries?” I asked.
She slowed. A bit. “Yes yes, there’s a stall just around the corner from where I’m going. We can get coffee afterward.”
I hadn’t been here in years, and the place was humming. Stall after stall was packed with beautiful produce, eggs, poultry, meat, flowers —everything you could ask for. Many of the stalls were from farms in the Hudson Valley, and I wondered if Maxwell Farm had a stall here. And then I wished I’d brushed my hair before we left.
“Let me see that map,” I asked, and she handed it back to me. I quickly scanned the list of producers, and breathed a sigh of relief when Leo’s farm wasn’t mentioned.
As we made it to the end of the first row, Natalie suddenly slowed down, pulled out her linen drawstring bag, and started to . . . strut.