In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2) (17 page)

Kat was grateful for the opportunity to get away from this boring job. “Thanks.”

Tiptoeing, she set about locating Alex. From whatever she’d overheard earlier, he was meeting one of the kids. Being naturally curious, she wanted to know why. The coordinator had explicitly stated earlier that volunteers were not supposed to have any personal contact with the kids outside of volunteering activities.

The hallway was confusing to navigate, but her ears picked up muted sounds from the east. Following the trail, she ended up a few feet away from a secluded alcove, where Alex was talking to one of the boys she’d seen earlier at the movie and pizza party. Jayden, she assumed.

“Thanks for helping me with the applications, man. I was stressed about it because I was late with the forms and everything, but it’s official now. I, Jayden fucking Johnson, am going to college.” Jayden did a spin and jump, which put a smile on Kat’s lips. The boy’s excitement was viral.

Alex smirked. “Easy, buddy.”

“Sorry. Anyways, I spoke to people over at the college and they told me I’d have no problem getting a need-based scholarship, so looks like tuition’s covered.” Pride twinkled in Jayden’s determined smile.

“My offer for help still stands, if you want to take it,” Alex emphasized. Kat started putting the pieces together.

“I want to do this on my own,” Jayden asserted and for a split second, Kat detected the same hard determination she often saw in Alex. “I’ve already leeched off you enough. Still have no idea how I’m gonna pay you back.”

“You’re not paying me back,” Alex said.

“It’s funny. When you started chattering about how we were alike and that shit when you first saw me, I didn’t believe you.” Jayden gleamed with puppy-like admiration. “But you know what? I believe you now. You were right. I can do anything I put my mind to. Holy shit. I still have to pinch myself. I’m going to college.”

Another childlike burst of energy came through, shaking the air with its force.

Alex’s grin broadened. He was probably as excited as Jayden. Kat kneaded the flesh over her chest, which was growing flushed. The thundering of her heartbeat swelled in her ears. When he’d taken her to the hospital and endured her irritability, she’d wondered if he was always nice to people. Well, she had an answer.

“I feel like I’m in a dream,” Jayden went on, bubbling with hope.

Alex pressed the heel of his hand against the wall. “Did you tell your mom about it yet?”

“Nope, she’s still in rehab.” The baritone had traces of distress. “Seems like she’ll be there for awhile.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. For whatever it’s worth, I think she’ll be incredibly proud of you once she finds out that you’re going to college,” Alex said.

“Yeah.” A dreamy sentimentality flickered in Jayden’s expression. “When she was sober, she used to tell me that she wanted to be a teacher before she dropped out of school. When she hears that I’m gonna be a teacher, she’ll...”

Tears glistened in Jayden’s own eyes, framed by his dark lashes. Alex’s hand patted his shoulder paternally.

Fifteen feet away the emotion gripped Kat with the force of an iron fist. Inexplicable as it was, it made her unbelievably happy that a kid she’d met five seconds ago was going to college. Go figure.

Alex was barely reining in his happiness by compressing his mouth into a thin line that grew thinner with every hiccup of Jayden’s.

“Thanks,” Jayden sobbed. “I didn’t think I could do it.”

Alex maintained his passivity somehow. Kat was hardly the emotional type, but right this instant, she wanted to give them both a giant hug.

A fraction of a second later, Jayden peeled himself away. “You’ll be comin’ around?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll catch you next Sunday, then.”

Jayden gave Alex a friendly fist bump on the shoulder before making a hasty retreat to the party room. He whisked past Kat, but caught up in a cloud of euphoria, he didn’t notice her presence.

Composing herself, Kat advanced towards Alex, who was rooted to the spot Jayden had left him at, filling his chest with lung-deep breaths.

“That was emotional,” she remarked, pretending to flick away tears from her lash line.

His spine became erect and mild irritation knit his brows together. “You were watching?”

“Uh-huh. I was bored standing around and someone offered to take over for me.” Kat stroked his temples with her lips. “So I thought I’d see what you were up to.”

Placing his hand on the curve of her hip, Alex steered her away from the alcove. “Let’s get back.”

They made their stroll down the hallway deliberately slow. “I think I understand you a little now,” she said.

“What exactly do you understand about me?”

“That you have a savior complex.” Her heels got stuck in a crack on the flooring and as expected Alex’s hands were on her upper arm, breaking her fall before she could yelp. “See? Maybe it’s the fact that you were helpless as a child, so you feel compelled to help anyone who’s helpless.”

An annoyed shadow fell over the planes of his face. “Don’t psychoanalyze.”

“That’s how it is. Otherwise, why would you try to help someone you don’t know?” Kat argued.

“Because I don’t want him to waste his youth like I wasted mine. I want him to have the opportunity I didn’t have—to get an education on time and go on with his life.”

The passion pervading his voice took Kat back to 2005, when she’d first heard him give a speech as a congressional candidate. She’d been so captivated by his zeal that despite her heavy course load and the plethora of club activities she was part of, she’d volunteered for his campaign.

She’d believed in this man.

Still believed in him. But this time as a person, not as a candidate.

There was something about a guy who was compassionate. She’d taken it for granted that his politeness, his kindness was fake, but she was happy to be proved wrong.

“I want to hear about your childhood someday.” It must’ve been a pretty difficult period, and not knowing such a vital part of his history irked the reporter in her.

“It’s not worth talking about.” His jaw stiffened and so did his hand on her back. Sensing something deeper than unwillingness, Kat didn’t poke for more.

The next hour flew by like a dream. Instead of yawning and serving ice cream, she chatted with the kids, snuggling up into their intimate circle around the table. They were suspicious of her at first, but then she told them about her sister who was in school and that opened them up. They talked about their parents, about the teachers at the group home, about how much it sucked to be them and she found herself sympathizing with all that.

Between them, they had quite a few issues—sexual abuse, parents who couldn’t afford to care for them, drug use, anger—but what she saw in them was how hard they were working to battle their problems. They were all warriors, who refused to be victimized by circumstances.

When it was time to leave, Kat couldn’t bring herself to go. She wanted to stay and continue sharing their stories.

And just like that, without realizing, one of the most boring experiences of her life metamorphosed into something else. Into something that made her feel energized and enriched.

Not least because she was with Alex, whose hand entwined with hers on the way out.

She’d not given it much thought before, but Alex, too, must have gone through everything that the children in the group home had. He’d dealt with the same uncertainty, the same struggle, the same despair. The realization yanked her heartstrings with violent force. It was too late to heal his past, but she wanted to try so much.

“I’d not mind volunteering here again. Maybe we should do it every week,” Kat whispered into Alex’s ear, their feet crunching on the gravel path leading out of Golden Age Group Home.

A smile, caught between quizzical and confused, graced his lips. “Really? That’s not what you said earlier. To quote you, you’d rather watch paint dry.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“What changed it?”

“You.”

Before he could blink, she was on her tiptoes, kissing him.

C
had’s daughter’s wedding reception was a glitzy affair. With sunny Tuscan arrangements, a smothering buffet of canapés and crudités, a setting that was out of the world and a Top Forty artist performing instead of the run-of-the-mill wedding band, it was a swankier version of Alex’s wedding that had never been.

Gotham Hall was one of the most exclusive venues in the city, and he could understand why. It married imposing size with romantic architecture.

The vaulted ceiling above his head domed and rose more than seven stories high. Corinthian columns danced up and long threads of lights were suspended down from the grand chandelier overhead, illuminating the grandiosity of the flower arrangements on the lilac cloth-draped tables below.

Mingling in the packed hall, Alex made the best of his time by renewing old acquaintances and meeting new faces. Some of the men and women here were faces he’d seen in Capitol Hill, but never had the chance to talk to. Most were a little tipsy—an effect of the free-flowing wine and open bar— hence willing to talk about almost anything.

Procuring a second glass of wine, Alex proceeded to sip it slowly, drifting along. There must be at least five hundred people here this evening.

A golden slipper tripped him. He managed to avoid hitting the ground, but turned back to see who it belonged to. And who should it be but Jane?

Socializing was not his favorite hobby and Jane was not very high up on the list of people he wanted to socialize with, anyway. But since acting like he hadn’t seen her was not polite, he bit the bullet and acknowledged her.

“Jane,” Alex said, slipping a gulp of rosé down his throat, which had gone dry.

“Alex. Hi.” Her joy was even more superficial than his.

The thigh-high split of her black off-the-shoulder dress revealed legs that had retained their shape even after a pregnancy and years of marriage. Twisted up into a fancy knot, her hair looked like a blonde dome. Yellow-orange light threw her aging, blush-dusted cheekbones into relief.

She was an elegant ice sculpture, carved to perfection. He couldn’t believe marriage had changed her so much.

There was no adventurousness, warmth or humor left in her. She lived by the rules that David had compiled for her. Smile, be professional, lie, hide, dress like a doll, attend social functions, smile, repeat.

In some part of him, it hurt to see this shell of his former lover.

“What a surprise to see you here,” David, who was sticking to Jane’s side, remarked through gritted teeth. His square palms, dusted with gray hair, enclosed her waist in a protective semi-circle.

Relax. I’m not going to kidnap your wife,
Alex wanted to say
.

Since that day at Jane’s office, David’s belligerence towards him had stayed and was growing. Every time he met David, the man liked him less.

“Good to see you both.” Alex groped for more words to add to the potpourri of meaningless conversation.

Weather, work, the state of the economy… his choices were infinite but the discomfort of being around his ex-fiancée and her husband made it difficult to say much more.

Jane passed the champagne flute in her hand to David and unhooked his arm from her midsection. “I want to have a word with Alex about his PR situation.”

Flicking his gaze from Jane to David, Alex couldn’t make out the conversation they were trying to have through their eyes.

“Sure,” Alex squeaked, stuck in a cold war between a husband and wife.

“Can I talk to Alex alone?” Jane arched an eyebrow at her husband.

“Okay. I’ll get a refill.” David retreated, sticking a menacing scowl into Alex’s face before going.

“Your husband looks like he wants to murder me,” Alex remarked.

Jane cleared her throat, then tried to maneuver away from the spot they were in. “That’s because he thinks you dumped me on my wedding day and left me pregnant.” She said the words quickly as they skimmed the perimeter of the humongous hall.

They zipped through the eons of smiles, further and further away from the crowd, until they could find an empty area.