The Fortunate Ones

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What was that?”

  He clears his throat then leans forward like he’s about to divulge state secrets. “I’m sorry.”

  The table seems too small now with him leaning toward me. While I probably smell like I just dipped myself in brown sugar butter, James smells like his woodsy cologne. I’m hyperaware of that scent and the way our legs are all but twined underneath the table.

  “I accept your apology, under one condition.”

  My smile is wicked and from the gleam in his eye, I can tell he likes it.

  “What’s that?”

  I pick up my fork and smirk. “I want another one of these. No sharing.”

  …

  After dinner, we don’t talk about where we’re headed next, but I think he’s taking me home. We head north on Lamar, away from downtown. In 10 minutes, he’ll drop me off outside the co-op and this weird exchange will be over. I wanted an apology from him, and now I have it. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s any reason for James to see me again. I don’t think we’re friends. He wanted me to be a pawn in his game, and I fulfilled my duty. Sure, I’ve wondered what would have happened that night if Celeste hadn’t slipped something into my drink. James and I might have enjoyed the party, and maybe at some point he would have admitted to inviting me to attend for reasons that didn’t include buttering up a potential hire.

  Beyond a few smoldering glances and the compliment paid to me before the party, James hasn’t made it clear that he even sees me as an attractive woman. By now, most other guys would have made their feelings toward me a bit more obvious, but it seems James does more of his thinking above the belt.

  I wonder if the age difference is too much for him. I tried to find information about his last girlfriend, the one Ellie said had a drug problem, but it didn’t look like they were anything serious. She was only pictured alongside him at one or two events before she reportedly checked herself into Passages Malibu, the luxury rehab center where all the celebrities pretend to get their life in order. I don’t get the feeling he’s lovesick over her.

  He presses the brake and I glance over. His eyes meets mine, and there’s something there—questions in his gaze that mimic my own. I think he’s going to ask me something, but instead, he turns his attention back to the road.

  So, I take matters into my own hands.

  “Are you dating anyone right now?”

  He accelerates.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t have taken you to that party if I was.”

  “But what about your last relationship? Was it a tough breakup?”

  “Not at all. I haven’t dated anyone serious in a few years.”

  Even better.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Asking for a friend.”

  “Oh, okay.” He’s willing to play along. “Is your friend cute?”

  I glance out the window so he can’t see my smile. By now, the sun has set and the bright lights of the businesses along Lamar whip past us.

  “Blindingly.”

  “Does she work at the club?”

  I chuckle. “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Is she interested in me?”

  His question catches me off guard.

  “Who knows? You’d have to ask her,” I reply tentatively.

  That surprises him. He does one of those curious huh noises like I’ve just told him something incredibly interesting.

  I turn back toward him. “She doesn’t know you very well. If she were interested in you at this point, it would be for superficial reasons, like your wealth. Hell, she might just want a membership to Twin Oaks,” I tease. “You have to be careful these days.”

  His gaze slices over me. “Maybe she finds me attractive and it has nothing to do with my country club membership.”

  I chew on my bottom lip. “Maybe.” But because I feel like I revealed too much, I add, “But she really wants that membership.”

  He laughs as he pulls up to a red light. We’re about to turn right and head into the heart of north campus; there’s only another minute or two until he drops me off. Suddenly, I want to stall, but beyond asking him to take me back to his place, I can’t think of a good reason. I could suggest that we continue our night somewhere else, a bar maybe? But he’s still dressed in his golf clothes and my jeans are pretty casual. I just threw them on to get me back home from the club.

  I tap my finger on my knee, trying to come up with something. We could take a walk somewhere or do something outside. Peter Pan Mini-Golf would be perfect for our ensembles, but it’s all the way in the opposite direction. I should have suggested it when we left the diner.

  “James? Do you want to—”

  Words are spilling out of my mouth before I even have a solid plan. I’m kind of hoping the second half of the sentence will come to me through divine intervention, but it never has the chance.

  Bright headlights expand behind us so quickly that we both twist to look back at the precise moment a car slams into James’ Tesla. I whip forward from the intensity of the impact, arms flailing to catch myself against the dashboard as we’re pushed into the intersection, right in the way of oncoming traffic.

  “JAMES!”

  I scream just before another car comes into the intersection and slams into the side of us. We spin out, fishtailing in the center of the chaos. The airbags deploy with a loud POP, so quickly that I feel nothing, see nothing. One second I’m aware of my screams, and the next my ears are ringing so loudly I can’t hear myself breathe. White powder fills the air like snow and the sharp smell of chemicals stings my nostrils. I collect parts of the scene, quickly wondering if more will come or if the crash is over.

  One of my hands grips the door. The other is on James’ arm, clinging for dear life.

  My chest rises and falls so quickly I don’t feel as if I get any air at all.

  I squeeze my eyes closed again, scared it’s not over.

  James is saying something, but I can’t listen. I blink and blink until I can focus beyond the white powder in the air. There’s wreckage sprinkled across the road in front of us, another car, badly damaged, a man stumbling out of it. His head is bleeding.

  James covers my hand with his and squeezes. It’s the first feeling that comes back to me.

  “Are you okay? BROOKE, ARE YOU OKAY?”

  He’s shouting at me now, so worried I’m hurt.

  Am I?

  I look down and assess that I still have two legs and two arms. I stare at the deflated airbag hanging limp in front of me, now useless.

  “What happened?”

  The sound of my voice surprises me. I’m crying—no, sobbing—and though I try to plug the waterworks, it’s no use.

  “Brooke. Brooke. Brooke.”

  He says my name so many times that it doesn’t sound like a word anymore. I turn and he cups my face between his hands. His dark, worried gaze darts back and forth between my eyes, desperately trying to focus.

  “I think I’m okay,” I repeat, holding my hand up to grip his. My other hand is still on his arm, stuck there. I’ve probably branded his skin, but I don’t think I could move it if I tried.

  Police sirens wail somewhere in the distance. The lights from an ambulance flicker through the front windshield, and now that the powder is starting to settle, it’s easier to see just how bad the wreck was.

  A fist raps on James’ window. It’s a paramedic asking if we’re okay, telling us not to move until they assess our injuries.

  “Check her,” James insists. “Check her. I’m fine.”

  The next hour is spent being checked out by EMS (Yes, I can feel and move all my limbs. No, I don’t have a headache.) and relaying our version of events to the police officers. There were four cars involved in the crash, and multiple witnesses who can attest to what happened. The man who slammed into us was taken to the emergency room before I got to see him. I suspect he was driving drunk, but overheard whispers from a few of the medics clarify that wasn?
??t the case, something about prescription drugs that shouldn’t have been mixed.

  After we speak with the police and James shares his insurance and contact information with the other drivers, we’re free to leave—except James’ car is totaled, along with my bike. I don’t bring it up at the moment because it’s the least of anyone’s concerns, but when the driver slammed into the back of us, he basically squashed my bike like a pancake. For the time being, if I need to get somewhere, it’s going to have to be on foot or by bus.

  While James deals with the tow truck driver, I stand off to the side, out of the way of the police officers and firefighters cleaning up the wreckage on the road. After his damaged Tesla is loaded onto the back of a truck, he comes over to get me.

  “C’mon, the driver is going to drop us off.”

  James takes my hand in his and together, we walk toward the tow truck. The cab has one long bench seat, so I scoot to the middle and look for a seatbelt, panicking that there might not be one.

  “Here.”

  James holds it out for me and I loop it across my body, hissing as it rubs the raw skin across my chest. My only injuries were abrasions from the seatbelt in James’ car as I lurched forward during the crash. The medics checked the bruising and redness along the path of the seatbelt, but there wasn’t much else they could do for it besides offering me some over-the-counter pain reliever, which I refused. Now that the adrenaline and shock are wearing off, I regret my decision.

  “Does it hurt?” James asks as he buckles up beside me.

  The driver hops in on the other side and I shake my head. “It’s not too bad.”

  “Where to, folks?”

  “Head toward Mount Bonnell Road and I’ll direct you from there,” James replies.

  I stay silent, content to let James take control of the next few minutes. When I blink, the wreck replays in my mind. The point of impact flashes again and again until I’m desperate to focus on something else, like the fact that James is still holding my hand.

  Fortunately, James and the driver carry on their own conversation for the short drive, and once we get closer, James directs him into a gated community I’ve heard whispers about at the country club: Island at Mount Bonnell Shores.

  “Huh,” the driver says, leaning forward to inspect the sprawling estates surrounding us. “I always wondered who lived here.”

  “It’s just up ahead,” James says, ignoring the man’s awestruck tone as he points to the left. “There.”

  We pull up in front of a gated estate sitting on a few oak-covered acres. The house isn’t visible from the road, but the dark-stained wooden fence running around the property and the mid-century address numbers give the property a clean, modern look.

  The driver pulls up to the curb and James hops out, reaching back for my hand so he can help me jump down. I step out onto the street and realize right away that the air smells different here—fresher—and I swear there’s a slight breeze where none existed before. I smile, because of course James would have waterfront property on Lake Austin. Every house in this exclusive community probably has its own boat dock.

  James hammers out the details about his Tesla with the tow truck driver. Cash is exchanged, the driver tips his hat, and then he leaves James and me standing on the curb in front of his house.

  “I like your fence,” I say with a small smile. I come from wealth, but James’ is a kind that exists in another stratosphere, the kind that intimidates most people—me included.

  He shakes his head and starts to head up the paved walkway.

  “C’mon. I think we could both use a drink.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  James’ house is a modern take on a traditional Texas farmhouse: a mix of dark woods, copper, glass, and cut limestone. Ahead of the entry gallery, a tall light shaft illuminates the space from above and gives it a museum aesthetic. Stone walls contrast with bright burnished plaster and concrete floors. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s been featured in Architectural Digest, or at least on a couple fancy home blogs.

  “It must have taken you forever to build this,” I say as he leads me past the foyer and into the streamlined kitchen.

  He glances back at me with a smooth smile. “I can’t take the credit. The previous owner was an architect.”

  “Well they had great taste.”

  He nods and tells me to make myself comfortable while he goes to change out of his golf clothes.

  I take a seat on one of his kitchen barstools just long enough to hear him close a door somewhere in another part of the house. Then I hop up and snoop around as much as I can. I’m not stupid enough to wander far; the place is a maze and I didn’t bring any breadcrumbs to lead me back to the kitchen. I play it safe by peeking my head into nearby rooms. There’s a formal dining room, office, some sort of sitting area, and an expansive living room—at least, I think that’s what it is. It’s hard to tell any of the rooms apart because most of them are empty.

  At first, I think it’s a fluke, or even some kind of minimalist design strategy I’m too uncultured to appreciate, but the more rooms I see, the more I realize that isn’t the case. One or two bare rooms can be written off, but they’re all bare. In one room, I stumble on a few pieces of mismatched furniture, but they aren’t arranged in any sort of thoughtful way. In fact, it looks like James just moved in and only brought a few items with him from his old place. Framed photos and paintings sit against the wall of a sitting room, waiting to be hung. A mismatched chair and end table sit in one corner underneath a floor lamp. An open paperback rests on the table, flipped on its face.

  The vignette is so depressing that I turn on my heel and book it back to the kitchen before I see anything worse, like a room full of discarded frozen dinners for one. Unfortunately, James is back before I am, pouring a finger’s worth of amber-colored liquor into a glass tumbler.

  I blush at having been caught nosing around his house and grapple for the first excuse that comes to mind. “Just looking for a bathroom.”

  His brow arches, but he doesn’t look up. “Find one?”

  “Mhmm.”

  “Good,” he says, pushing the tumbler across the gleaming white kitchen island then pouring one for himself. “I hope you like Maker’s Mark. It’s all I have.”

  I hate it, in fact, but I’m not going to admit that. I reach for the drink and down a long swallow, hissing as it burns my throat.

  He laughs. “Yeah, sorry. It was a gift, and I don’t have anything better—I don’t really drink unless I’m at the club or a social event.”

  “Or after a near-death experience,” I choke out, trying not to wheeze at the aftertaste.

  I’m sure people who enjoy drinking alcohol straight are very cool and badass, but I like my alcohol diluted and masked to oblivion. In fact, just give me the soda.

  “You okay? Do you want something else?”

  “It’s fine. I just usually mix it with something,” I admit sheepishly.

  He turns to his industrial refrigerator and pulls open the door to check inside. I, of course, pop up on my toes to peer over his shoulder. There are a few takeout cartons, a half-full bottle of white wine, and the requisite condiments like ketchup and mustard. The fare is as depressing as the art sitting on the floor in his sitting room, but at least there’s a glimmer of hope.

  “I’ll take that wine,” I say, hopeful that I won’t have to finish my drink.

  He chuckles. “Yeah, I wouldn’t drink that if I were you. I don’t even remember opening it. Looks like you’re stuck with the bourbon.”

  Why hath God forsaken me?

  He pulls the bottle out of the refrigerator and pours the contents down the sink—as sacrilegious a behavior as I’ve ever seen.

  “Did you just move in?” I ask, returning my attention back to the liquor I plan on nursing.

  “Maybe a year ago.”

  “What?!”

  My shock is out there, spilling across his kitchen along with the sip of bourbon I spit out. I wi
pe it away with the sleeve of my shirt before he turns back to me.

  “I guess it’s been a year and a few months, actually.”

  No. That doesn’t make sense.

  I turn back to the empty rooms behind me. “But what about your stuff?”

  “The furniture? Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get around to that.”

  “And the artwork…”

  “I haven’t decided where I should hang it.”

  He says it like it all makes sense, and maybe it does. Maybe I’m the weird one.

  I turn back to his kitchen and see the pieces of his life I missed before. On top of a thick slab of Carrera marble there are paper plates and solo cups. The glasses and china you might expect to find in a house like this are in the custom cabinets, but they’re still bubble wrapped.

  “Honestly, it doesn’t even look like you live here.”

  “I don’t really.” I turn in time to see him shrug. “I hardly spend any time here. I work long days, and when I’m not at the office, I’m at the club.”

  I frown. “That’s so…”

  “Depressing?” he fills in for me before he downs the rest of his drink and sets the tumbler down in the sink. “Yeah, well, I don’t bring many people here for a reason.”

  He’s being defensive, and I don’t blame him. I feel bad for poking at his life. I could have easily gone home after the wreck—we were only a few minutes away from the co-op—but instead he brought me here. I don’t want him to regret that decision.

  “Well, if it matters, I’d rather live in your empty house than my ridiculous co-op.”

  He turns back and smiles. “I think you have more furniture crammed in that tiny room than I have in this whole house.”

  That thought makes me laugh. “And most of it I found on the side of the street.”

  That surprises him. “Really? That bookshelf?”

  I beam. “Yup. I sanded it down and repainted it.”

  He nods, impressed. “Maybe I’ll commission you to furnish this place.”

  I snort. “Yeah right. This is the sort of house you fill with Eames armchairs and Rothko originals.”