“I didn’t mean to make things awkward,” he says. “Although, I suppose that is our specialty.”
“Your specialty.” I smile at him. “Not mine.”
“Mmm. I won’t ask for examples.”
His palm is warm against my forefinger. And somehow, it’s simple to slide my fingers down his palm to his wrist and then trace them back.
“Actually,” I say, looking at him, dropping my voice and doing my best to imitate his accent, “have you noticed that we get along really well?”
He laughs. “Don’t remind me. That was…not me at my best.”
My fingers slide back to his wrist; his fingers curve up to tickle my palm, sending a shiver of anticipation up my arm. Our hands interlock.
“Oh?”
“Oh.” He half-smiles and looks at me. “Or I’ll remind you that two can play at that game.”
“Oh?”
“In fact,” he says, “let’s talk about my accent.”
I look at him.
“My pretentious, holier-than-thou, godforsaken British accent.” He tilts his head at me. “Did I miss an adjective?”
“Oooh.” I try to pull away, but he closes his hand around my wrist.
“I see how it is. It’s all fun and games until I start teasing you.” His forefinger is gentle, stroking my arm, and somehow, being able to smile about what we’ve said to each other… It doesn’t make it better. It just makes it more manageable.
“Fake,” I tell him. “Don’t forget that I called it fake.”
He looks at me. “Admit it. You love my accent.”
Heat builds in my inner core. “Maybe. I mean, sure. Everyone does. So explain. I know you went to Cambridge, but that’s rather late in life to develop an accent and have it stick.”
“It’s not from Cambridge.” His finger traces my wrist. “It’s simple, really. My mom went to a fancy-pants British school in Hong Kong when she was growing up. So she has something of an accent.”
“Okay.”
“Then when I was five, my mother was given charge of Cyclone’s European software localization team, headquartered in London. So I went to a fancy-pants British school, too.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“I lived in London until I was eleven, when Mom was put in charge of the entire programming and applications division. We came back here. By that time, my accent was firmly in place. I tried to lose it in high school, with mixed success.”
“Oh,” I say faintly. “I see. It’s all very simple.”
“Precisely.” He smiles. “It sounds put-on at this point because it’s a bit of posh London, a sprinkle of Silicon Valley, two summers in Thailand with my dad, a visit to India where my uncle lives, a month in Hong Kong—the usual.” He shrugs.
The usual. “I’ve left California exactly twice,” I admit. “Once was to go to Gabe’s hooding at Harvard. The other was for an interview a few weeks ago, where I learned I hate New York City. My parents are from California. My grandparents are from California. My great-great-great-great grandparents, at least the ones we know about, are from Mexico, but only in the sense that they’re from the part of California that used to be Mexico.”
“Now that is complicated.” His fingers tickle my palm, gently first and then with increasing pressure. “All those people, all coming from one place? What are the odds of that? Were they descended from the original Spanish settlers in California?”
I shake my head. “Who can actually trace their family back that far?”
“Uh.” He grimaces. “Me? On my dad’s side, at least, we’re descended from one of the long-lost branches that’s related to former Thai royalty.”
I blink at him. “Does that mean you’re in line for the throne?”
“Now you see why I never give out my name online. That’s not remotely how the succession works. Only in a novel does the nineteenth cousin of a long-ago king, fifteen times removed, who renounced Thai citizenship at eighteen—”
“Wait, how were you a Thai citizen?”
“My mom was born in Thailand, although she’s ethnically Chinese.”
“Right,” I say. “I should have known. The simplest possible answer.”
“It only looks complicated from the outside. This is what normal looks like in my family. I haven’t really delved into half of it. I should also mention that while my mother is Muslim, my father is Buddhist.”
“And you?”
He shrugs. “I’m flexible.”
I blow out my breath. “So what I’m hearing is that your mother is Cyclone royalty and your father is actual royalty. I’m a peasant by comparison.”
One of his eyebrows goes up. But before he can say anything, the food comes.
I look at our hands, entwined on the table, my left hand locked with his right. We’re different. We’re so different, but our hands fit together. And they will, as long as we don’t have to eat.
“Em,” he says in a low voice, “it really is simple. I’m going to let go of your hand now because I have to eat. But I’m taking it again when I am done, and I’m not letting go until you tell me I have to.”
I want to believe it is that simple. That every complicated thing in our past can be wiped away with dinner and the look he gives me. I want to believe that this is a start.
I look into his eyes. He hurt me before, inch by inch, piece by piece. He didn’t see me. He pushed me away.
But I didn’t come here to nurse my hurt. I came here to be brave. I came here to admit what I want, and to take it. There’s no place for my fear except deeper inside me.
And so I push my worries into a little ball and let go of his hand.
* * *
MARIA
* * *
Jay helps me into my coat when we’re leaving, which—let’s face it—is basically an opportunity for him to put his hands all over me, and for me to discover that he is utterly confused by the concept of a structured coat with a belt.
I helpfully pop the lapels back into place, untwist the fabric strip of a belt, and let him pretend that he can actually tie it in something like a bow.
He takes my hand just outside the restaurant. If this weren’t the middle of winter, I’d be up for walking aimlessly. But my breath freezes with every exhalation, and three inches of my thigh—between my coat and my boots—are bare to the wind.
What would be a meander turns into a forced march. I’m not sure where we’re going, or what we’re doing. I’m shifting from foot to foot on a street corner, waiting for a light to change, when he finally speaks.
“What is the opposite of rose-colored glasses?”
I blink and look at him. The red from the signal paints his hair in stripes of burgundy. It gives his eyes a deep, heavy-set feel.
“You mean glasses of pessimism? Ones that make anything look worse? Why do you want to know?”
His hand is warm in mine even though it’s cold out. He looks at me. “Just trying to figure out what I was wearing before. Somehow, I knew you for months before I noticed you were the most beautiful woman in the world.”
I turn to him. The line should be cheesy. But he delivers it in a tone of confusion, as if he’s just coming to the realization. As if he didn’t know he believed it until he spoke out loud.
I laugh in response. It sounds fake. “Wow,” I say instead. “That was smooth. Nice setup. Great execution.”
His nose wrinkles and he looks away.
My emotions are like a knife in my stomach. They’re confused by the waft of pheromones, the tight, tingling physical awareness between my legs, and the sparkle of nerve endings coming to life in his presence.
My mental state feels like the afterimage of a hundred little jabs burned on my eyelids, assailing me every time I shut my eyes.
The light changes, and we start across the street. Our hands clench together tightly. He squeezes my fingers as if I might disappear.
I want him. I want him to make me laugh. I want him to interrupt me in the middle of my
day with a funny message. I want to not flinch when he tells me I’m beautiful. I want to trust him.
The thick branches of an oak tree hang over the sidewalk. It casts us into darkness when we pass under it.
I tug him to a halt.
His eyes catch the reflection of a passing car: bright one second, dark the next.
“What is it?”
I take my hand from his. “You have something on your chin.” His jaw is smooth and defined under my fingers.
“Oh.” He stands still under my exploration. His sigh warms my thumb.
“Here.” I reach up. I bracket his face with my hands.
“Oh,” he says. His voice drops a half-octave.
Before I lose my nerve, I lean in. His breath is warm. I hesitate—one tiny second—and he wraps his arm around me, fingers pressing into the small of my back, and kisses me.
My eyes flutter shut. Those searing afterimages—memories of what we’ve done to each other, every time we’ve hurt each other—skip across my vision.
I kiss them away. Nibble by nibble. Exhalation by exhalation. The tentative touch of our tongues is a burst of forgetfulness. We kiss with the lingering sweetness of the dessert we skipped at the restaurant.
“It’s not the rose-colored glasses,” I say when he pulls away slightly. “It’s the light source.”
“Trust you to pick an analogy I can understand.”
I know Jay the way I know shadows cast on a wall. Move the light, and the shadows change. I’ve seen him in sunlight and in the harsh glare of traffic signals. Now, we kiss in time to the intermittent headlights of passing cars—a long, slow melding of mouth and body, breaking away, and starting all over again.
We pass heat back and forth between us. His chest is a hard plane beneath my hand. I can feel his erection coming to life against my hips.
I pull away an inch. “So why do we always kiss in the dark?”
His eyes bore into mine. “I have lights at my house.”
This time, when I laugh, it doesn’t feel forced at all. “Wow,” I say. “That was smooth.”
He just removes his hand from the small of my back and holds it out, palm up. “Are you coming?”
Hurt or no, memory or no, I know myself. Jay has been my friend for ages, and despite what has happened, I know the truth. I want him. I want this. Nothing else I feel changes that.
I take his hand. “How far away are you?”
“Four blocks.”
Now that we’ve embraced once, we don’t want to stop. We don’t just hold hands; our fingers explore. Our bodies brush, hip to hip.
Our eyes meet when we cross the street, and I feel myself flush from my face down to my thighs. That wash of heat lingers halfway down the block.
“Are you okay to walk in those heels?” he asks. “I should have asked before.”
These heels are short—a mere inch, which on knee-high black leather boots is nothing.
“I’m fine.”
“So what do these shoes mean?”
The meaning of these shoes is pretty standard. I just smile and shake my head. “Guess.”
“You wore them for good luck on an exam.”
My smile broadens. “Nope.”
We cross a street, and he looks down, as if he’s genuinely puzzled.
“Huh.” His thumb strokes mine. “I don’t want to be so self-centered that I imagine they’re intended for me.”
I return the caress of his thumb. The cracks in the sidewalk sprout bits of grass, golden-orange in the streetlight. “Be self-centered,” I say. “I wore them for you.”
His gaze jerks down again, lingering. His breath stutters a moment.
“They’re ‘let this not be a horribly awkward date’ shoes,” he guesses.
My laughter gurgles out. “No.”
“They’re generalized first date shoes,” he guesses.
I laugh again. “Generalized first date shoes? How do you generalize first dates? Is this even a first date?”
His gaze sweeps me from head to toe in a lengthy, searing glance. “It’s a first date, unless you’re counting the time I drove you down from LBL and we snapped at each other.”
“What about the time you walked me up to LBL and we yelled at each other?” I point out.
“There was a somewhat provocative rendezvous in my parents’ mudroom.”
“I bought you drinks and sent you insults.” My cheeks flame. “I want a rematch. I was half-drunk at the time.”
“Well.” His fingers run up my arm. “That’s what you get for not being prepared to engage in mortal combat at the drop of a napkin. You can’t defend against a takeover of the realm like that.”
Our eyes meet. And I laugh. Laughter loosens that tight tenseness inside me. Being able to laugh about everything that came before gives me hope. Tingling, aching, breath-holding hope.
“Let’s just put brackets around all those,” Jay says, “and call them date zero. One spectacularly terrible date. And we’re here.”
We’ve stopped in front of a house. I’m not sure what I was expecting. An apartment, maybe. If I’d really thought about it, I would have envisioned his parents’ palatial estate in the hills ten miles from the heart of Silicon Valley. Instead, Jay’s house is small and cozy, painted wood beams in multiple colors framing the windows. A yellow light by the door is on.
He leads me up the steps to a wooden front porch, and drops my hand long enough to unlock the door. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”
It’s the kind of older craftsman home that nobody makes any longer. The carving on the door, the wood beams bracketing the windows, suggest careful attention to detail. The porch is swept and leafless.
Jay sets his shoes on a shelf and opens the door.
“Should I take my boots off?” I ask.
He ushers me in and flips the inside light on. I get a glimpse of golden wood floors, walls in cream and light green.
“That depends.” When his voice deepens, his accent seems more prominent.
“On how long I’m staying?”
Slowly he shakes his head. “On whether you’d prefer me to take them off instead.”
My nerves coalesce in my stomach into a heated boil. I can’t look away from him. “Well.” My throat seems a little hoarse. “That would be the entire point of wearing these.”
He looks down. I’m aware of the pressure of my boots against my skin—a palpable presence, soft and warm and safe. He’s about to strip that away.
He undoes my coat, button by button. His hands linger on the belt. “You never did tell me what the shoes meant.”
“You never did guess.”
“They’re take-me-off shoes.” His hands slide the belt ring out, then glide lightly up my sides. I’ve never been so aware of my own body. Of the heat of his.
I shake my head. “Close. Not quite.”
He slides the coat off me. I’m not sure what I was expecting—maybe for him to toss it to one side and kiss me. Instead he opens a closet and puts it on a hanger. He hangs up his own jacket before he turns back to me.
“You put things away.”
There’s no mail on the side table. No cups strewn about the living room.
He shrugs and gestures me to a chair. “Sit.”
I do.
He kneels in front of me. His hands skim up my boots. I can feel the soft leather give slightly against that gentle pressure. He looks up into my eyes, and warmth washes over me.
He finds the zipper at my left knee and slowly, slowly pulls it down.
“In common parlance,” he says, “one would call these fuck-me boots.” His fingers touch the sensitive flesh at my knees, and an electric current arcs through me. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me. “The thought occurred to me…possibly the moment I laid eyes on you at the restaurant.” His finger travels down my leg, down the silky black stocking I am wearing, to my ankle. He shakes the boot loose. “But here’s the thing—if they are fuck-me boots, I want you to say it.”
&nb
sp; I can scarcely speak. “They are fuck-me boots.”
He exhales. Finds the zipper of the other boot. “I would hate to be presumptuous. After all, you would have wanted to make up your mind sometime after you put your boots on.”
“No.” He unzips my other boot, and my voice skitters up a few notes as cool air hits my thigh. “Not at all.”
“No, you haven’t made up your mind?”
I shake my head. “No. I intended to do my best to fuck you when I put on the shoes.” It was the only simple truth in this whole mess. This will likely come crashing down. But since it’s inevitable, I might as well enjoy myself. And him.
Slowly, he peels back the leather. “Maria.” His fingers slide down my leg. His eyes meet mine. “Do you think I’m the sort to put out on a first date?” There’s a glint of humor in his expression. His thumb brushes my knee, telling me that he is exactly that sort.
I reach out and run my hand down his jaw. His eyes flutter shut when I brush my thumb along his lips. “Jay,” I whisper, “I have always known—deep down—that I could bring you to your knees. It was just a matter of wanting to do it.”
He’s on them now. He doesn’t protest. His hands come to the tops of my thighs. “Fair enough. I’ve always known what I would do if I ended up here.” His voice is like rich, dark chocolate. “Anything off-limits here?”
I exhale and let go. “Touch everything.” He slides my legs apart. Leans down. That first touch of his mouth against my kneecap… My eyes shut, and I give in to the sensation. His palms burn hot against my thighs. His mouth slowly kisses up my inner thigh. His fingers crawl up my hips and hook in my underwear.
“Tell me you love it,” he growls.
My voice is trembling as I speak. “I like it.”
He lifts his head to look into my eyes. “Careful. I enjoy a challenge.”
I run my hands through his hair. “I know.”
He exhales in a rush and pulls my panties down. But instead of tossing them to the side, he deliberately shakes them out. Folds them. Sets them next to my boots.
When he returns his full attention to me, I want to shiver. He always did tell me he was focused, and having him look at me like that…
My throat feels dry. My fingers curve against his scalp.