“She knows him?” Hardin asks me, knowing that I have no idea what the hell is going on.
Nora’s eyes dart to me, but she doesn’t respond.
“I was looking for my friend’s place. He just moved into the building,” this Cliff says.
Nora stares at him for a few seconds, and I watch them exchange communication without any words.
Who the hell is this guy?
“He’s leaving; it’s fine,” Nora says at last, pointing toward the door. She’s so calm and casual about all of this. So calm it’s disconcerting.
Cliff rubs his neck and stands in the doorway. He doesn’t say another word before disappearing into the hallway.
Hardin turns to Nora and raises his hands. “You just let him leave? You didn’t find out why the fuck he was here in the first place!”
Nora walks farther into the living room, her eyes on Hardin. “Yes, I did. You heard his reason for being here.” She rests her hands on her hips, and I consider walking up and pulling the hem of the briefs she’s wearing down a little, just to cover a little more of her luscious body.
We just had a scene from a Fast and Furious movie go down in the living room, and I can only focus on the curve of Nora’s thighs. I need help.
“He was lying!” Hardin shouts.
Nora moves closer to him. “First off, don’t yell at me again,” she says through her teeth, challenging him. “And second, you don’t know that he was lying. You don’t know him.”
Hardin tilts his head back. “Oh, that’s right. You do. How about you explain that little gem?”
“Guys.” I walk between them. “Hardin, he’s gone. Nora, go to my room.” I feel like a dad with two temper-fueled children. Nora turns around and opens her mouth. Before she speaks, she closes it and turns to walk past me and down the hallway. I expected a fight from at least one of them.
“You better make her tell you who the fuck he is,” Hardin demands.
And here we go . . . “Shut up and get the broom.” I point to the closet next to the entrance to the kitchen. “I’ll figure it out. You just clean that glass up.”
Hardin glares at me. “I mean it. This isn’t just about you. Tessa lives here, and if anything happens to her—”
The oven beeps from the kitchen, and I remember Nora’s cupcakes. I had completely forgotten about them. Has it only been twenty minutes since we went into my room?
Heading into the kitchen, I grab an oven mitt and pull the pan from the oven. The tiny cakes smell delicious and are perfectly browned at the top. My mouth waters, and I rest them on top of the stove and go back into the living room with Hardin.
So many questions are running through my mind. Is the intruder Nora’s last boyfriend, whom she refuses to talk about? Is he just some regular thief, the one who broke into my apartment before? What would he have done if no one was home or if Hardin hadn’t shown up when he did?
I need to get the mess the brawl made cleaned up so I can get back to my room and talk to Nora. Hardin’s sweeping without complaint, and I grab one side of my late grandma’s table and turn it upright. I’m going to have to fix this before my mom comes to visit again. She would be heartbroken if she saw it like this.
“I know,” I reply to Hardin’s silent reproach. I’m going to find out who he is and whether Nora really believes that he was just looking for his friend.
Hardin gripes at me while sweeping the rest of the broken glass into the dustpan. Just before I open my bedroom door, his voice trails down my hallway: “Don’t tell Tessa about this. There’s enough going on.”
I let him assume my silence means that I’m agreeing with him and step into my bedroom. Nora is sitting on my bed, still wearing my clothes. I push my back against the door and wait for it to click shut. To be safe, I lock the door behind me and stride toward her. Her phone is in her hand, and when she looks at me, her eyes stare into mine but they don’t connect. She’s withdrawn already.
I keep my voice timid. “You know we have to talk about who that guy is.”
Nora looks down and shifts, pulling her legs beneath her body. “Do we?”
I’m not letting her shoot this down. “Yes. We do.”
I walk over to the bed, sit down next to her, and listen for sounds from the living room. It’s quiet. Hardin either left or is being nosy, listening to our conversation from the hall, just like this Cliff guy.
“Is he your ex-boyfriend?”
Her body jerks at my question, and she shakes her head. “No. No, he’s not.”
I scoot closer to her and take her hands in mine. “Then who is he? This isn’t a small thing, Nora.” I gently squeeze her hands. “The guy was listening at my door. Do you know him well enough to believe that this is all a big misunderstanding? Truly?” I look into her eyes and wordlessly beg her for the truth.
I would like to believe that the last hour we’ve spent together has taken us to a new level of trust. I need her to trust me enough to be honest with me about this. The voice in my head is shouting doubt at her, but my mouth stays silent.
“Yes” is all she says.
I scratch my hand over the stubble on my chin, and she stands up from my bed. “Where are you going?”
She reaches the door before she responds. “I’m going to go grab my work clothes and come back. I have to work early in the morning.”
I move off my bed, but I stay across the room from her. “I’ll come with you.”
Nora shakes her head. “I’ll come back. I promise. I’ll be back, and I’ll stay the night with you. In your bed.” Her voice is shaky, uncertain.
She walks back to me and reaches for my hands. I pull her into me.
“I will come back.” Nora presses her lips to mine. I kiss her back, wrapping my arms around her as she melts into me.
I stay quiet, and her tongue feels so good on mine. I love the way she kisses me: slowly and thoroughly, full of cautious passion. Her fingers bury themselves in the fabric of my T-shirt.
After a few seconds, she pulls away from my embrace. “I’ll be back in a little while.” She kisses my cheek. “I’ll hurry.” Her words sound so certain.
I feel as if I’m in a trance. I nod and drop my arms to my side. “Your clothes are in the kitchen,” I remind her.
Heat fills my cheeks, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I’ll change in the bathroom.” Nora eyes me. “You don’t like these on me?” A gleam of mischief is sparkling in her eyes.
“I like them a little too much.”
“I’ll come back to you,” she promises, although it sounds awfully ominous.
When she walks out of my room, I lie back on my bed and close my eyes. What the hell did I get myself into with this woman?
chapter
Fifteen
Nora
THE SIDEWALK IS HARD under my feet, and each step on the pavement brings another memory of Landon. The crinkle by his eyes when he smiles that sweet, shy smile. The way his hands feel on me.
I’ve made such a mess. Why do I always make a mess everywhere I go?
The last few weeks have made me feel things I’d forgotten how to feel. I’ve felt happy. It sounds simple, to feel happy, but it’s an accomplishment for someone like me. Living my life for other people, living in a prison of worry and deference, made me forget how it feels to be simply happy.
“Hey!” a woman’s voice shouts behind me. The familiarity of the voice creeps through me, and my scalp prickles.
I turn around to see Dakota near the window of an art-supply store. Her curly hair is pulled back from her face, and she’s dressed like she’s going to a funeral. Her black skirt hits just above her knees, and her navy blazer is too big on her small frame. It’s odd to see her in these clothes when I’m used to seeing her in gym or ballet clothes.
I don’t have time to deal with her, not today. I don’t have the energy to waste on her. “I’m on my way somewhere,” I say as she approaches me. I look up to Landon’s building, to
be sure he didn’t follow me. The idiotic part of my heart wanted him to, even though it wouldn’t have ended well if he did.
“So am I. We need to talk.”
I shake my head and push past her. We definitely don’t need to do that. “We have nothing to talk about, Dakota.”
“You know that’s not true.” A hint of a threat is in her tone.
I whirl around to face her. I raise my hands in the air in frustration. “What? What do you want to talk about?”
“You just came from Landon’s apartment. I thought we had an agreement.”
I roll my eyes and drop my head back. She can’t be serious. I’m too old to play this game with an immature brat who wants to dominate a toy she’s already thrown away.
“Are you kidding me? We are fucking grown, Dakota. I’m twenty-five years old. I’m too old to play these games with you. Landon is old enough to make his own choices, in life and love.” The last word tastes weird in my mouth.
I should have just walked away from her when I saw her, yet I couldn’t.
“Love?” she chokes out. “Love? You think that Landon loves you?”
I shake my head. No, I don’t think that. I know he doesn’t love me. We won’t get that far before everything explodes in my face.
“Good. Because he doesn’t. You can’t come into his life and weasel your way in. He’s too good for you.” Dakota pushes her hand out and rests it on her hip.
I step toward her, keeping my face neutral. “I don’t care.”
If she thinks I don’t care, maybe she will go away?
Dakota’s lips turn into a fake smile. She’s tiny, but she scares me a little sometimes. Like the night she came back to the apartment with liquor on her breath and wild eyes. She kept asking for my phone to call her brother, saying she needed to see him. She never opened up to me enough to tell me how he died, but that night I knew better than she did that he wouldn’t be answering that call. She was out of it. Gone. She cried and cried in the kitchen, hiding under the table. She screamed at me when I tried to give her a glass of water and threw the glass across the kitchen. She didn’t even flinch when it shattered against the wall.
The next morning I pulled her from the floor, and Maggy helped me carry her into her bedroom. From that day on, I knew something inside her was broken.
Dakota’s eyes are feral on me. “Good. Neither does he. He likes to fix things and people.” Her eyes take me in, try to swallow me whole. “And he saw you—”
“I get it. Now leave me alone.” We don’t have time for her to list all the ways I need saving.
I begin to walk away from Dakota, but she grabs my arm and jerks me back. I take a deep breath, shake her off, and keep walking. My fingers itch to lash out at her, but I keep them at my side.
She follows. “Why did you do it? Can you at least tell me why you pretended to be my friend to get close to my boyfriend?”
“That wasn’t a part of it. I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did. Stop the lies, Nora. Does Landon know that you knew the whole time?”
I grit my teeth. “Shut up.”
It’s much more complicated than this. This is all too complicated to discuss on the sidewalk. Of course he doesn’t know. I led him to believe Dakota didn’t talk about her feelings for him or even mention him. He knows nothing, about anything. I feel so close to him, even though he doesn’t know anything.
Dakota is still walking with me, but at least I’m almost to the subway station now. She won’t follow me all the way to Scarsdale. She’s not that bold.
“I think if he knew how calculated this whole thing was, he would run from you. He doesn’t like liars, or stalkers. And I’m assuming he has no idea what’s in Scarsdale.” Dakota’s words cut little slashes into me, and the air burns them as we walk. “I trusted you, Sophia. I thought we were friends. We let you live with us.”
I glare at her. I don’t do well with threats, a little fact about me that Dakota will learn very, very quickly if she keeps talking to me the way she is. “I posted an ad on a website and ended up living with you. You weren’t doing me any favors.”
Dakota lifts her purse higher onto her shoulder.
What am I doing arguing with her? Still?
“Yes, and when we met, I saw you hold that picture frame for a few seconds too long. You knew the entire time who he was.” Dakota blinks, and her eyes focus on the building next to us. “All those questions you asked about him, about our relationship. I was nice to you, Sophia. So was Maggy.”
Maggy, who would spend two hours putting on her makeup in our small bathroom, but pleasantly talk to me all the while, was the nicer of the two. Still, from the day I arrived at the apartment, I felt the division between the three of us. Me versus them.
“What is it that you want, Dakota?” I finally ask. I take the steps down to the subway slowly, and she’s right behind me.
It briefly crosses my mind that she could push me down the stairs.
“I want to know what’s happening with you and Landon, and I want to ask you—well, beg you—to leave him be. He’s the only thing I have.” Her words float around me, envelop me from behind. I wish Brooklyn subways were more crowded so I could slip into the crowd and disappear.
I wait until we reach the bottom of the stairs before I respond. Dakota wants me to stay away from Landon, something I can’t do. Even when I tried, I couldn’t.
She doesn’t stop talking. “Don’t you have enough? Your rich family, your big houses all over the country. The money you get every month from—”
“Look, Dakota.” She has no idea what she’s saying. My family’s being wealthy has nothing to do with my wanting Landon. That she sees the two as parallel says a lot about how she sees him. I can’t tell if she views him as an object or equivalent to riches. “I don’t know what to tell you. You broke up with Landon months ago, and you’ve been seeing—”
Dakota shakes her head vigorously at this. “I was confused. I see that now. I needed attention, and Landon wasn’t here. I felt lonely, and Maggy said I should be single my first year of college. Everyone always says that. All those stupid movies say it, too.”
I never understood this idea of being single during college. Yes, it’s important to be independent, and college is when you figure out who you are, and what you want. But if you already have an amazing man, why would you ruin that just to party and hook up with random guys?
“So you want me to stay away from Landon so you can get back with him?” I ask finally.
“If he will take me back, yes. He was mine from the beginning. Since before he even knew you. Before you saw that picture of him.”
“I met him before that. My parents know his, remember?” Dakota is good at making me feel crazier than I am.
She nods slowly. “Yes, I remember. But I also remember the hours we spent talking about him, the many, many times I told you how much I love him and miss him—and I also remember about that time you told me to sleep with Aiden.”
“I was trying to help you, as a friend. You kept saying you wanted to experience life in the big city!” I try to keep my voice down, but I’m doing a horrible job at it. “You told me how hot Aiden was, that you wanted to sleep with him.” I narrow my eyes at her. “You already had your mind made up—I was just giving you that extra push to make you feel like less of an asshole when you fucked him.”
Dakota’s nostrils flare, and for a very, very short moment, I’m almost afraid of her.
“Are you kidding? I had my mind made up? And who the hell are you to judge me anyway, mis-sus?” she says, exaggerating the last word.
My entire body is covered in small slashes now. With every word, I feel more and more like a monster. Dakota may as well be pouring salt water into the cuts. Hearing her say she loves Landon is the equivalent of that to me, and her blaming all of this on me—possibly rightfully so—makes it much, much worse.
“Can you stop walking and just talk to me, please?” Her voice is soft, sad even. br />
I face her. “What will make you happy? If I stay one hundred feet away from him at all times? Tessa is my friend, too, and he lives with her. And Landon is happy with me. Dakota, let him be happy.”
Her lip quivers, and she swallows. “How do you know he’s happy?”
What a loaded question. Because I can feel it, I want to tell her, but I won’t.
“How do you know he’s happy, Nora?”
So now it’s back to Nora. Tears prick my eyes. “I just know he is. Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know him like you do.”
Her eyes stay on mine. “No. No, you don’t.”
I sigh and look around the station. A man and a woman are holding hands while they wait for the train. They have to be at least sixty, and when he leans down and kisses the top of her gray hair, my heart feels heavy. How is it possible for my heart to feel so heavy when it’s so empty?
Dakota stops and frowns. “I don’t have anyone, Nora. I thought I had you, but a friend wouldn’t do what you did.”
She’s right. I was never a friend to her. I never wanted to be. I only wanted him. I should feel guilty, but it’s hard to do so when I know how she treats him: like a lapdog. He’s not a fucking lapdog. He’s so much more than that. More than either of us deserve.
“I’m sorry for how things went down,” I tell her, half meaning it. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Things just happened this way.”
Dakota regards me, and I see a tear roll down her cheek before she can wipe it away. I know it will kill her that I saw her vulnerability, so I choose to show her kindness and ignore it.
“Landon and I have something real, Nora. We’ve loved each other since we were kids. He’s been there for me through everything. Through my dad’s abuse, my brother’s death—we’ve suffered together in ways you would never understand. He’s my person, Nora. He’s my person, my only person, and I know I haven’t treated him the way he deserves, but I was being stupid, and now I see that. Now I know that I have to do everything I can to make sure he knows how much I love him and appreciate him.”
Her words make me shudder. I’m going to throw up, I can feel it coming. Acid burns the base of my throat. I can’t listen to her talk about him like this. I physically can’t handle listening to her say his name or explain the depth of their connection.