Second Hearts

  “Hello?” I tentatively called, making my way through the unlocked blue door. I got no response.

  Ignoring my unease, I walked across the wide-open space, flicked on the light switch and peered up at the chandelier.

  I quickly determined that the best vantage point was from the mezzanine level. The only access was via a rickety-looking ladder propped against the edge of the open top level. It was worth the climb. From the top, the beautiful light fitting looked twice as big, and even more out of place in the construction zone surrounding it.

  The trouble with magic is that it’s usually an ephemeral moment. My moment disappeared the second the blue door opened. Two men walked in, and I recognised one as the nervous man Ryan had dealt with when we were there a few days earlier. He didn’t seem so fidgety this time round. His composure was ironclad when he spotted me upstairs, accused me of being a thief and threatened to call the police. I wondered if he was expecting me to pocket the chandelier. It was the only thing I could see worth stealing.

  “I’m just here taking pictures,” I explained.

  Hardhat man was unconvinced. He marched to the ladder and lowered it to the floor, stranding me. “You’ve no business being here. You’re trespassing.”

  “So you’re just going to keep me prisoner?”

  He nodded. “Until the police get here.”

  All sorts of horrible thoughts flashed through my mind as he reached for his phone – mainly about being rounded up by the NYPD and deported. Arriving back in Australia wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs wasn’t appealing, so I fought a bit harder for my freedom.

  “Call Ryan Décarie, the guy I was here with on Wednesday.” I wanted to see him cower at the mention of his name but he didn’t. “He’ll vouch for me.”

  He shook his head. “No dice. I don’t deal with that man unless I absolutely have to.”

  Mercifully, the other man chimed in with another suggestion. “You could call the other one. What’s his name? Aaron?”

  It took me a second to work it out. Ryan often referred to a business partner but had never once mentioned that it was his younger brother. “Adam,” I corrected. “Yes, call him.”

  I could see hardhat man was at least considering it. “Does he know you?”

  “Yes. You should call him. He’ll go much easier on you than his brother. If Ryan finds out you’re holding me here he’s going to flip out.”

  It was a completely hollow threat. For all I knew, Ryan would wash his hands of me and tell them to call the police anyway. The bigger fear was that Adam would do the same thing.

  It was still a relief that he called him. I cringed hearing him telling Adam that he’d cornered some foreign girl stealing from the building site. There was no way it was going to end well.

  “He’s on his way. Stay put until he gets here.” It wasn’t like I had a choice. The ladder lay on the floor many metres below me and as far as I knew, I hadn’t yet learned to fly.

  It was a long half hour. I used the time to take the pictures I’d come for in the first place, but by the time Adam walked through the door I was ready to call the police and surrender.

  Both men jumped to attention when the blue door opened. Adam marched over to them, looking every bit as annoyed as I expected him to.

  “Where is she?”

  Hardhat man pointed up. “She’s probably here for the copper wire.”

  Adam looked up and stiffly threw out his arms. “Trust me,” he said dryly. “If she were here to steal copper wire it would only be to make a charm bracelet.”

  Both workmen laughed, albeit uneasily. Adam shook their hands, praised them for their vigilance and suggested they take the rest of the afternoon off. The men didn’t argue, quickly packing their tools and disappearing out the door.

  “What are you doing here, Charli?” Adam asked, pacing around and looking anywhere but up.

  “Taking pictures.”

  He stopped pacing. “Trouble just finds you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, Adam. Like magic,” I replied, matching his snippy tone. “Just put the ladder back for me so I can get down, please.”

  He reinstated my escape route and I backed down the wobbly ladder. Adam reached up, taking the camera from me as I neared the bottom rung.

  “Just so you know, I didn’t break in,” I said, stepping safely back on the floor. “Ryan knew I was coming to take pictures.”

  “Your new BFF should have had more sense.” He hooked my bag over my shoulder. “You could have fallen and broken your neck.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, trying to work out whether he was angry or concerned. I decided it didn’t matter either way. Ryan had been my saving grace more than once since I’d arrived in New York. I wasn’t going to apologise for that.

  “I’m fine,” I told him, stating the obvious.

  “Are you heading home?” he asked, changing the subject. “We could share a cab.”

  “No, thank you. I’m going to walk. I haven’t found a café that makes a decent cup of tea yet. Today might be my lucky day.”

  “You’ve just spent an hour being held hostage and you think today might be your lucky day?” I nodded, returning his small smile. “Look, there’s a tea house not far from here. It’s supposed to be pretty good. I’ll take you there.”

  Perhaps I wasn’t as immune to the Décarie effect as I claimed to be. I agreed to go.

  10. Five Minute Rule

  In all my travels, I’d never once been to a tea house. I expected it to be eccentric and hippy, with burning incense and panpipe music. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Pink Rose Tea House was English themed, and understandably, Adam was out of his element from the get-go. If the lacy tablecloths, bone china cups and my company hadn’t already unnerved him, the menu certainly would have. He was strictly a coffee drinking New Yorker.

  “You’ll have to help me out here, Charli,” he whispered, peeking over the top the menu. When the waitress appeared at our table I let him off the hook by ordering for him. Fidgeting with the edge of the tablecloth while we waited for our order to arrive compensated for the lack of conversation. It also reduced the risk of me doing the airhead hair twirl thing.

  “Do you wish you hadn’t come here?” he asked, finally breaking the lull.

  I shook my head, glancing only briefly at him. “No. I like tea.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” he replied, huffing out a hard breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

  “I’m glad I came to New York,” I relented. “I wish I hadn’t come looking for you, though. I wish I’d kept you up here instead.” I tapped the side of my head with my finger. “In my mind, the reunion was much better.”

  Adam leaned back in his chair, staring at me for too long for it to be anything other than strategic. He had a few more seconds to consider my words while the waitress delivered our tea. We both straightened up as she set the table.

  “Enjoy,” she said, smiling brightly before walking away.

  There was no way Adam was going to enjoy it. Most men would struggle when it came to sipping tea out of a delicate china cup – except perhaps my neighbour Oliver. I’d once seen him wearing a shirt with a pink floral pattern very similar to the one on the teacups.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” Adam declared, pushing his cup to the centre of the table. It was an unfair thing to say. “But things change.”

  “Because of the horrible way I ended it?”

  He shook his head. “I knew you were lying.”

  “You lied to me too. You never told me about dim Whit.”

  Playing the Whitney card was the only thing I could think of to even up the score sheet. My moral compass was askew, but I wasn’t the only liar at the table.

  “I wanted to,” he insisted, softening his expression only slightly, “a hundred times. I just couldn’t figure out how.”

  “I. Have. A. Girlfriend.” I ticked the words off on my fingers. “Not so tricky.”

  “I wish I
had been the one to tell you about her. I hate that you heard it from Ryan.”

  “What makes you think I’ve been speaking to Ryan about it?”

  He smirked at my attempt to play innocent. “He’s the only person who refers to her as dim Whit – besides you, apparently.”

  “You should have told me about her, Adam. From the beginning.” I drummed my finger on the table with each word. My annoyance was false, designed purely to mask the chagrin of being caught grilling Ryan for information. “It wouldn’t have changed how I felt.”

  “What does it matter, Charli? What’s done is done.”

  Hearing him sound so defeated wasn’t something I was used to, and for the first time I wondered if the damage we’d done to each other was permanent.

  “Why are we here then, pretending to drink tea?”

  He almost smiled. “Because I’m having trouble staying away from you.”

  “That’s because you love me.”

  “Yes,” he conceded. “But I’d rather do it from a distance.”

  “Why?”

  Hearing the answer would feel like emotional suicide but I needed to know. I promised myself that I’d consider it closure. If I had answers, perhaps I’d no longer think about him.

  Adam exhaled a long, unsteady breath. “I don’t know how it would work out long term. I couldn’t endure another ending, Charli. I’m not brave enough.”

  I sat mindlessly stirring my tea as I mulled over his words. As much as I hated to admit it, his answer was perfectly understandable. It just wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “I get it, Adam. I do.” I wished I’d sounded stronger but the lump in my throat made me sound as if I was about to burst into tears at any second. “But for the record, I would’ve risked it.”

  He smiled. “You always were braver than me.”

  “You and I were guaranteed a happy ending. I’ve known that from the very beginning. I’m sorry I made you forget that.”

  I placed my teaspoon down on the saucer and reached for my bag from under the table, preparing to make a quick exit.

  Adam didn’t protest.

  “Thanks for the tea,” I said, smiling as normally as I could.

  He nodded stiffly. “Any time.”

  Ever polite, Adam stood up as I did. I put on my coat, thanked him again for the tea that neither of us drank, and slipped out the door into the freezing December afternoon.

  I took my time getting home, stopping along the way to window-shop and check out the over-the-top Christmas decorations. It was after six by the time I finally moseyed though the front door of my apartment building.

  Marvin had already left for the day and the night doorman, whose name I didn’t know, stood in his place. A quick hello was the only conversation I’d ever been able to drag out of him. Today, I was perfectly happy with that. I was done talking.

  I stepped out of the elevator into my tiny foyer to find Adam sitting on the sofa that could no longer be referred to as never-been-sat-in.

  “I was beginning to worry that you weren’t coming back,” he said.

  “I live here. Why are you here?”

  He stepped in front of me as I opened the door, blocking the doorway.

  “Because I’m having trouble staying away from you.” He spoke slowly, as if it was a hard question to answer.

  I leaned forward, whispering my words as if we weren’t alone. “It’s because you love me.”

  I brushed past him, leaving him to close the door.

  He followed me to the kitchen. “What if you’re wrong about the happy ending, Charlotte?”

  I dumped my bag on the counter. “It’s still worth the risk. I’m playing by the five minute rule.”

  “Which is?”

  I rushed the words, expecting him to make a bolt for the door at any second. “Give every opportunity five minutes. If that’s all it’s good for, so be it. But I’m not going to miss out on something amazing because I was too scared to take a chance.”

  He smiled but it was tinged with sadness. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve missed hanging out in La La land.”

  I couldn’t pinpoint the moment his arm slipped around my waist, nor did I try to fight it. I was too focused on making sense of his turnaround. I put my hands on his chest to keep him at bay while I steadied myself. I’d become so used to emptiness that the rush of warmth was overwhelming.

  “You’re welcome back any time.”

  Whether he’d planned it or not, his hold on me was the only thing keeping me upright.

  “You revoked my membership, remember?”

  “A girl can change her mind.”

  Brushing my hair off my shoulder with his free hand, he smiled, brighter than before. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “I’ve never changed my mind about you, Adam. That’s why I’m here. Why are you here?”

  I still wasn’t entirely sure which direction we were headed. Two hours earlier he was cutting me loose. I was done chasing the impossible.

  “Because I love you.”

  I avoided his eyes, but felt his warm gaze. My focus was solely on his mouth. I could feel his kiss before it happened. And when he crushed his lips against mine and I could finally be sure that his touch was real, I was cast back to a time that just a few hours earlier, I thought was gone forever. Nothing had changed. Not his touch, nor his taste. Even his annoying knack for breaking our embrace just before my heart thumped out of my chest remained the same.

  “What happens now, Charlotte?” he breathed, resting his forehead on mine. “Tell me what you want.”

  Oh, where to begin? If I’d had more time to think, I could probably have come up with something maudlin and sweet. “I just want to feel you in my bones again.”

  Despite my lack of refinement, the power of my words was huge. And when he lifted me off my feet and carried me out of the kitchen, I wondered why I’d waited so long to say it.

  A few steps into the next room, he lowered me to the ground, distracted by something other than my bones.

  “Charli,” he said ominously. “There’s no furniture.”

  I giggled. “I have a bed.”

  He turned back to me. “That’s it?”

  “I have a frying pan, too.” He looked appalled. He probably would have been even more outraged if he knew I’d stolen it from his restaurant. “And a laundry basket,” I added, proudly.

  “Some things never change.”

  He leaned forward, kissing a long line down my neck as he unbuttoned my coat.

  “Some things have changed but I’ll save them for another day,” I murmured.

  I couldn’t claim to be the same girl he knew a year ago. My life had altered hugely. I wanted to tell him everything, and I wanted to know everything – just not at that very minute.

  “Do you still believe in magic, Charlotte?” he asked, pushing my coat off my shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heavy heap.

  “Of course.” In a million lifetimes, that would never change. “Do you?”

  “Absolutely.” He murmured the word against my mouth. “I look for magic every day.”

  On the brink of giving in, I pulled myself together enough to ask one last question. “Do you ever find it?”

  “Today I did,” he told me, sliding his warm hand up the back of my shirt. “And she’s still beautiful.”

  11. Set In Stone

  Waking up alone wasn’t exactly how I pictured our first morning together.

  I sat up, wrapping myself in the sheet. Through the doorway, I could see Adam in the empty lounge, clad only in a pair of jeans, talking on his phone. If it was supposed to be a private conversation, he had no chance. The acoustics in the small, empty apartment rivalled any good concert hall.

  Love is inherently selfish. I didn’t want him to talk to anyone. As far as I was concerned, we should have been left alone to live out the rest of our days in my tiny apartment. For me, it was an obtainable goal. Thanks to my inability to maintain employment,
I had nowhere else to be. Adam, however, would fail miserably as a recluse. It was just after seven in the morning and someone was already trying to track him down. After eavesdropping for a minute, I realised it was Whitney.

  “No, Whit. There’s nothing to work out.”

  She obviously didn’t agree. It was at least ten seconds before he got another word in. “Look, I’m not discussing this right now.”

  There was another long pause, presumably to accommodate more ranting. That was the only concession he made for her. His tone was granitic and curt and it summed up exactly why eavesdropping was a very bad idea.

  I didn’t even pretend that I hadn’t been listening when Adam returned to the room. I tried to keep my voice casual. “How is Whitney?”

  He pushed me back on to the bed with his whole body, burying his head in the crook of my neck. “It’s not a problem, Charli.”

  “Ryan told me that you dumped her at Nellie’s, the day you saw me.”

  Adam rolled to one side. “She doesn’t even know about you,” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling. “It had nothing to do with you.”

  I believed him – to a point. Adam hadn’t ended their relationship to be with me. A short while after, I’d stood in front of him, begging him to stay with me to no avail. I had no idea what his reasons were – then wondered if Whitney did.

  “Why did you break up with her?”

  He turned to catch my eye, frowning. “Because I don’t love her.”

  “Why string her along for four years then?”

  “Ryan really did give you the scoop didn’t he?” he asked. “I stayed with her because it was convenient – for both of us. We have the same circle of friends. We hang out at the same places. My parents like her.” He rattled of the reasons as if he was reading from a list. “It worked for a while.”

  “I wonder how Whitney would feel about being used like that. She’s probably heartbroken.”

  “Not over the loss of me,” he said bitterly. “It was a two way arrangement.”