I need to strategize this, but I don’t even know what this is.
Being more than friends?
Feeling something real?
Finding out if she feels the same?
What is the word for this feeling? It’s like my chest is a trampoline, and my heart is doing backflips on it. Only, I’ve never practiced them before, and if I do them again I could land on my head.
Or my ass.
Or even my face.
So yeah. With a packed bar on a Friday night, I’m not so sure I can figure out what to do with the pesto mayo feelings.
During the evening rush, I alternate between catching up on purchase orders on my laptop, telling Charlotte about the train attack, and helping out behind the bar, while in the back office Charlotte works on ideas for a new marketing campaign.
“Out of Belvedere,” Jenny remarks from the counter as she waggles an empty bottle.
“I’ll grab one,” I say and head to the office, where Charlotte is perched on a reclining chair, wearing jeans, and a white strappy top. When I see her, I freeze-frame through images—the photo of us, the moment on the corner of Forty-third, the pesto mayo, the toothpaste, the words she said to Abe the other night. My heart slams against my rib cage, and I wonder if this crazy overtime beating is why there are books, movies, songs, poetry about people falling—
“Hey you,” she says, and the softness in her tone wafts over me. But it’s the sweetness that hooks me. That sweetness feels personal, and just for me.
Yes.
This is why there are books, movies, songs and poetry about falling for someone. I roam my eyes over her, and even though we haven’t christened this office or the bar yet, and even though I want to, my thoughts aren’t on sex. They’re on her, and on this jumble of words like alphabet soup inside my head.
“Hey you back,” I say softly. I point at the cabinet behind her. “I need a Belvedere.”
“I’ll grab it.” She sets her iPad on the chair, stands, and reaches for the cabinet handle. As she stretches, her shirt rides up, revealing a small sliver of her back.
“You look gorgeous,” I say.
She glances back at me and smiles. “So do you. Your house later? Mine?”
Maybe this is just sex for her. Maybe that’s all she wants. But even so, I need to know.
“Yes. Either,” I say as she opens the cupboard, and I inch closer to plant a kiss on her bare neck.
Then pain slices through me with a thunk as the cabinet door connects with my skull. It reverberates. It takes over my head, my body, every single cell.
I curse up a motherfucking storm, because this hurts like hell.
“Oh my God, oh my God. Are you okay?” she says in a panic, her hands on my shoulder.
My right palm covers my eye, my head roaring as the thump echoes in my skull, epicentered in my temple.
“I think you hit my head,” I say, because the whack has turned me into Captain Obvious.
“Oh God.” This time she whispers the words, and she’s staring at me like I’ve lost an eye.
“What is it?” I ask, and while I’m pretty sure I’m not down to one eye, since I can still see, I suspect my face isn’t pretty.
“That’s the biggest goose egg I’ve ever seen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Things I learned tonight.
First, I checked the calendar. Turns out it is Abuse Spencer Day, and abuse occurs in threes. But it’s past midnight now, so I’d like to think the threat level has downgraded to green.
But you never know.
Second, the goose egg is the largest known bump in recorded human history, but three hours of continuous ice have not only frozen my temple but reduced the swelling to pretty much nothing. However, the bruise on the side of my face is what’s referred to as a “whoa, dude, that’s a big-ass bruise.”
That’s what the guy at Duane Reade said when I picked up ibuprofen.
Third, ibuprofen has worked wonders.
But the real test comes now. There’s a buzzing near the door, and it’s Charlotte, since she texted me she was on her way with supplies. I turn to Fido. He’s sound asleep on the couch pillow, his tongue sticking out of his mouth. “Can you answer it?”
He doesn’t respond, so I drag myself off the sofa and head to the door. I press the buzzer. “Hello? Is it the world’s hottest nurse that I ordered from the temp nursing agency?”
Her laugher bounces through the intercom.
“Why yes, it is, and I’m here to give you a sponge bath.”
I buzz Charlotte in, open the door, and wait till the elevator creaks up the six flights then lets her off. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” I watch her walk toward me.
“Don’t tell me your eyes hurt, too,” she teases.
“No, just this,” I say, lightly brushing near my temple.
She’s holding several bags, and I shut the door behind her and return to my couch. She sets the bags down on the coffee table, and studies me. Raising her fingers, she moves them close to the bruise, but doesn’t touch. “Does it hurt?”
I nod.
She leans over me and dusts a kiss on my forehead.
I moan for effect. “So much. It hurts so much.”
She shakes her head, then pulls back to look at me. “Seriously. How do you feel?”
I scrunch up the corner of my mouth, torn with whether to tell her the truth—getting better—or to go for sympathy and sex. My decision-making process lasts all of a nanosecond. “Awful,” I mutter, and that earns me one more kiss.