Another tickled laugh, only this one is answered by a deeper, gruffer laugh. One that’s too familiar to ignore, even if I’ve only recently been hearing it again.
I lean into Helen’s apartment and find Hank at her kitchen table, a plate of cookies and a glass of milk in front of him as she turns the pages of one of her countless photo albums.
Hank rocks back in his seat, giving Helen one of those deeply masculine once-overs and a mischievous smile.
“Helen, you little devil.” He shakes his head, looking from the photo album back to his beaming host. “That dress is giving me ideas, woman.”
Oh my God, he’s flirting Helen up and she’s blushing like a schoolgirl. It’s so sweet I almost want to stand there and watch, but then Hank’s eyes find mine like I’ve called his name.
His impish smile spreads wider.
“I’m trying to convince Helen to run away with me.”
“Well, she’s quite the catch,” I agree, and from the looks of it, he isn’t going to have to try too hard.
“You two.” Helen giggles, returning the book to its shelf. “I found this nice young man lost, wandering the halls when I got home from hot yoga.”
Replacing the crinkled cellophane on the plate, Hank shrugs. “I heard all the most beautiful women lived in this building and wanted to see for myself. Turns out the rumors are true.”
He gives Helen a kiss on the cheek and, pulling on his leather jacket, thanks her for the hospitality before leading me into the hall.
Hands stuffed in the pockets of his dark jeans, he props a solid shoulder against the wall as I unlock my apartment. No man should look as good as he does.
“Didn’t realize you had plans tonight. Out with Wilson?”
I fight a smile, liking that he’s asking—almost as much as liking this sort of rugged thing he’s got going on dress-wise.
“What brings you out to Bearings, Hank? Since we already established it wouldn’t be dinner.”
“Already ate.” He plants his hand on the door past my head so he can hold it open even though I’m letting myself in. He always had the best manners. “Seemed like a nice night for a ride and I figured maybe you’d enjoy one too.”
My heart does a little hiccup as I set my purse on the table by the closet and turn. “A motorcycle?”
“You ever been on one?”
He’s walking through my apartment, and I’m trying to see it with his eyes. The taupe microfiber couches that are in good shape, but years old. The knitted throw my mom made me, and the secondhand glass-top coffee table with a shelf for my board games beneath. The floors are hardwood but scuffed with age and the walls are a buttery yellow, hung with black and white posters of Paris and Prague, Venice and Barcelona. Hank’s probably been to them all.
“Abby?”
I haven’t answered him about the bike.
“I’ve never been on one. I mean they look very exciting, but I’ve always been a little scared. When did you learn to ride?”
“College.”
When everything changed. For him at least.
“You should come with me, just give it a try. I’m a good rider. Safe. I bet you’d love it.”
There is nothing safe about being with this man. But the idea of the wind in my hair seems too seductive to pass up.
“You know what? I’d love to go.”
HANK
HAVING ABBY ON the back of my bike is better than I could’ve imagined. Her hold on me is hard, her body soft and the hug of her thighs around my ass so hot that I’m losing it just a little. She clings tighter through each turn and her laughter slips into my head, making me wonder just what I was thinking seeking her out.
Because I’m a guy who likes control and with every mile we ride, more slips away.
Which means it’s time to change things up. Leaving the main streets of Bearings, I head toward the far side of town, crossing the bridge over the river and then skirting around to the back side of the preserve where there’s parking by the lagoon.
Abby crawls off the back of the bike and hands me her helmet before walking toward the water’s edge. I rock the bike up on its stand and follow her to where the water meets the reeds. Not much of a lake by Chicago standards, but back in high school this was one of the places we spent our summer nights.
Now it’s October and the parking lot is deserted, leaving us alone in the relative quiet, the only noise the hum of cars from the road beyond the turning trees.
Abby pulls her low ponytail from her denim jacket and it streams down her back, taunting me to come closer and lose my fingers in it.
She looks back, our eyes holding. “I haven’t been out here since the last time I was with you.”
It was before everything went to hell, back when she’d still been mine to bring to the deserted little lake for the privacy that had been harder and harder to come by.
“Same.”
She laughs quietly, looking out over the water that seemed bigger in my memories.
“What are we doing out here? I mean you just got home from spending the better part of a month away. I’m surprised you aren’t rolling around on your apartment carpets, singing to the ceilings that you’re back.”
I laugh into my hand, then come to stand beside her. “Sometimes it takes me a few days to re-acclimate. I walk through the space that ought to be a comfort, but it’s been so long since I’ve been there, my apartment feels less familiar than whatever hotel room I’ve just left. It’s the reason I don’t always bother stopping back at my place when I’ll only be in the city for a night or so before leaving again.”
“That sounds miserable. Like some kind of hospitality-based Stockholm syndrome.”
Jesus, she’s priceless. “I suppose it does.”
Those eyes are searching mine again, seeing all the things I stopped showing people years ago. “Do you ever feel at home?”
I clear my throat and shove my hands into my pockets so I don’t reach out and touch her face or play with her hair. “Yeah, sure.” Just not like I do when I’m around her.
I don’t know what it is, or how it could be the case after all this time, but being around Abby still feels like the closest thing to home I can get. I moved my parents down to Florida about seven years ago, and even before that I’d only been back to Bearings a few times since I left for school. Maybe that’s all this is. A hankering for home and being around Abby, here, meets that need.
It makes sense if I ignore the fact that I live two floors beneath the guy who’s been my best friend since I was six years old. But being around Jack doesn’t feel like being around Abby. And for more than the obvious reason that Jack doesn’t get me hard.
There’s a short dock off to the right, and I watch Abby walk down to the end, crouch low, and run her fingers through the water. We borrowed a canoe once and took it out from here. Looking at the lagoon now, I wonder what we were thinking. Where we thought we could actually go with the borders of the shore pressing in so close. But at the time, I thought there was nothing better than cutting through the water, paddling around from one shore to the other and back again. Going nowhere without even realizing it. Loving every minute of it.
Abby stands and turns back to me, the pale moonlight playing with the shadows of her face. “Why do you keep calling me?”
I knew the question was coming. Hell, I’ve been asking myself the same thing, but I still don’t have an answer. Maybe that’s what I’m doing here, trying to figure it out. Or maybe I’m making bullshit excuses to justify something that hasn’t changed since the first day I saw Abby Mitchel hugging her books to her chest outside Novak’s office. I just want to be closer to her.
“Because you like it,” I offer instead, flashing a grin that promises I know what an ass I sound like.
She laughs, her fingers trailing over one of the worn pylons, and then because she deserves it, I give her the truth.
“Because I like it.”
“I like it too,” she says quietly, wal
king the rest of the way up from the dock, and I want to give her more. An answer or explanation. Hell, maybe she’d like a new car. Something.
But all I can think of is the way the night breeze is playing with those few strands of hair that slipped free of the band. How I want to be the one stroking across the creamy contours of her cheeks and making those long, dark lashes flutter.
I walk over to her and, giving in to those base needs, brush the soft flyaway strands behind her ears. My fingers curve around the back of her neck and my thumbs find the line of her jaw to gently tip her head back. Her lips part and all I want is to get lost in the soft press of her mouth, the catch of her breath, the clutch of her hands in my clothes. I want to taste her, feel her body melting against mine.
But then her eyes close and she pulls away. “I like it… but I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
I watch as she walks toward the gravel lot, giving us both a second before I follow her.
“What is it you want from me, Hank? You keep calling, flirting. And I know my actions after the reunion might have given you the idea that I was game for anything, but I’m not. Not with you.”
“What does that even mean? And what exactly do you think I’m expecting? I mean, I showed up on a bike, not driving some full-sized van with a mattress in the back.”
She cuts an apologetic look over her shoulder. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know.” I feel like shit. I’m the man who always has the answers, who has the vision and sees it through. But with Abby, I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I can’t stop.
“I’m over you. I am. I have been for a long time.” She looks at me with shimmering eyes that cut at my soul, and I can see her need for me to understand what she’s saying, to believe her. “But being around you again, like you are now? It confuses me.”
I take a step closer, my hand out. “I don’t know what’s happening. I just know I like being with you. You make me laugh. Hell, you make me feel like the guy I used to be.”
She nods, her smile soft. “That’s the problem, Hank. That guy doesn’t exist anymore and neither one of us can afford to pretend he does.”
ABBY
I KNOW I’M right about this situation with Hank and hold tight to my convictions as he drops me back at my apartment and tells me he hopes he doesn’t have to wait another ten years before our paths cross again. I hold tighter still as I stand by the window in my living room, watching as he throws a leg over his bike and looks up at me one last time before driving off. But with each hour that ticks by, that conviction feels thinner and thinner, like no matter how tightly I hold, it’s already slipped through my fingers.
Sleep becomes an evasive thing, the ache in my heart a persistent reminder of why I should have kept my distance in the first place. Days pass and then a week, and one morning I walk in to find my classroom equipped with a new Smart Board. When I finally break down and go to Novak’s office to ask if Hank sent a note or happened to stop by during the delivery or installation, he looks at me like I’m nuts.
Right.
Of course not.
And it’s good he wasn’t here.
Good. Good. Good.
This is what I wanted.
I tell myself it’s good that Hank is letting things go between us enough times, I almost believe it now.
“Knock, knock?”
“Wilson, what’s up?” I wave him in as I cross back to my chair.
He perches on the opposite side of my desk and starts fiddling with my knickknacks. “You still good for tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.” I haven’t forgotten about the awards banquet, and while there’s a part of me that just wants to hole up in my apartment with a sleeve of cookie dough and my disintegrating copy of Wuthering Heights, getting out with a friend is probably a good idea. “Where and when do you want me to meet you?”
Wilson doesn’t meet my eyes right away. “Actually, it’s in the city. So it makes more sense to ride in together, if you don’t mind. I could pick you up at four thirty?”
“I’ll be ready.”
His next breath sounds relieved and then he’s grinning, heading for the door. Before he leaves, he shoves his hands into his pockets and turns back to me. “I think it’ll be fun, Abs. I’m looking forward to this.”
“You should be.” I’m so excited for him and couldn’t be happier that his hard work is being recognized. “This award is a real honor.”
He looks like he’s about to say something else but my first student arrives, so Wilson shakes his head and smiles. “Four thirty.”
HANK
I’M RESTLESS AND irritable, and even a twelve-hour stint in my favorite lab hasn’t been enough to get my head back on straight. Which is nuts. I love the lab, and I almost never get a chance to play in one anymore. But thanks to it being a Saturday, I’ve had this one mostly to myself for the better part of a day… and I still can’t shake this shitty mood.
It’s been a week and a half since I saw or talked to Abby and I’m as frustrated and edgy as I was pulling away from her place. More so.
I keep thinking about what she said. About the guy I used to be not existing anymore. She’s right. The days of seeing a future that involved a couple of kids and yard big enough to toss a ball in are behind me. The guy who couldn’t wait to marry his girl vanished within a year of losing her. And even if I could bring him back, there isn’t room for that guy in my life the way it is now. My plans aren’t about settling down—they’re about taking off. About making change. About leaving a legacy. It’s why I haven’t called or stopped by her place again. Why I parked down the block from BHS like an ass when those Smart Boards were delivered, debating over and over whether I should just go inside and say hi… before driving back to headquarters and burying myself in my favorite pastime.
Only nothing feels right, and I’m about to put my fist through a wall.
“Mr. Wagner?”
It’s one of the guys from security. I don’t know his name yet and he seems nervous, flustered to be talking to me, so he must be new.
“What can I do for you?”
“There’s a woman here for you, sir. She doesn’t have an appointment but”—he shifts from foot to foot—“she asked if you weren’t too busy, if you might be able to see her anyway.”
I’m always too busy. Free time that doesn’t require a conscious sacrifice hasn’t been a part of my life since my second year at MIT. Only I find myself stepping toward this guy, brow raised, my pulse starting to jump.
“You have a name for her?” I ask, looking back to Jordan who’s working on another machine in the lab. He nods and steps over to the FTIR where I’ve been running a sample.
The guard looks like he’s about to have a heart attack, but he spits it out. “She said it was… A-Annie, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t catch her last name, but she said you know her.”
Didn’t get her last name? This kid is a piece of work, but I’m too busy brushing past him to worry about it. Because if he missed her last name… chances are good he didn’t get the first one right either.
Abby is in my building.
She changed her mind.
I’m shrugging out of my lab coat as I take the corner fast. Visualizing the woman waiting for me. How she’ll have her hair. If she’ll be wearing jeans or a dress. Whether she’s going to let me kiss her right there in the reception area or if I’m going to have to wait until I get her to my office and black the windows. One way or another, I’ll have her mouth beneath mine in a matter of minutes.
Christ, I’m half hard just thinking of her—
The hall spills out into reception and I pull up short, looking back at the guard who’s been double-stepping behind me to keep up, like maybe he’s got a fucking explanation.
Only he’s already told me.
Annie is waiting for me. Not Abby. And the reason he doesn’t know her last name is because it’s Rozhdestvenskij and she doesn’t use it when she models,
going instead by Anastasia alone.
“Hank,” she flutters, unfolding from the chair she’s made her small office and drifting toward me wearing that hint of a smile she’s famous for. “My luck, I’ve found you working.”
I wrestle down my disappointment before Annie has a chance to see it and step forward to drop a kiss on her cheek. “Annie, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I hope you don’t mind, I drop in without call,” she murmurs, her accent as light as her angles are sharp. “You told me to get in touch next time I am in Chicago, and thank you to canceled connection, I am here until tomorrow morning.”
Annie is a beautiful woman and we’ve had fun together in the past. I haven’t taken her to bed, but in truth, I assumed I would. And based on the way she’s nibbling her bottom lip and peeking at me through her lashes as she lets her fingers trail down my arm from shoulder to wrist, I’m guessing she assumed the same.
Most guys would be creaming their jeans at the prospect, but all I’ve got is this weighty sense of disappointment. Annie’s not the woman I thought was waiting for me, and the idea of seeing her in my bed doesn’t hold much appeal.
“So what do you say, Hank?” She’s stepped closer, her fingers now working their way back up my arm. “Will you let me distract you from all this work for an evening?”
Will I let her distract me? I don’t want to.
I want to go put my fist through my office wall.
I want to call Abby.
I want to get on my bike, take it up to ninety, and pound on her door until—
“Hank?” she asks again, her kohl-lined eyes shifting between mine.
Shit. “I say you’re just the distraction I need, Annie.”
ABBY
I’VE MADE IT nearly four hours without checking my notifications, but now the banquet is over, Wilson’s acceptance speech has been given, and we’re waiting at the intersection for the walk signal so we can cross to the parking garage down the block. Wilson is talking and I’m half listening, but the greater part of me is focused on not taking this moment to reach for my phone and just have a look.