Manhattan Muse: A Contemporary Romance (7 page)

I couldn’t dance after everything that had just happened, so I ended up going home. I was becoming too emotional invested and that was the last thing that I had wanted to happen. These feelings led to me to do the next thing that I ended up regretting as soon as I had hit send.

Hey Nate, I know you said you were going to call me later, but I wanted to apologize for being so vulnerable earlier. That’s not me and I don’t want you to think of me as weak.

When I didn’t receive a response after thirty minutes, I sent another one.

Just ignore that text. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think it’s my mood. You caught me on a bad day.

The vicious cycle continued for three more texts.

Not that you are the problem. That came out wrong. I’m the problem.

Because I am acting needy.
I mean, you are free to do whatever you want. I’m not trying to control you. I just want to know that we are on the same page.

You know
what, it’s OK if we aren’t. I’m fine with that. The last thing I want to do is hold you back.

I read and re-read everything I had sent. I felt horrible for blowing up his phone with my stupid thoughts. They probably weren’t even relevant and probably didn’t even make any sense. When my phone rang six hours later, I waited until the last ring to pick it up.

“Hello?” I said, praying that it came off nonchalant.

“Hey,”
Nate said sternly. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, just ignore all of that. I don’t know what came over me.
Hormones or whatever. You riled me up. Not that it’s your fault but-”

“No, I’m not going to ignore it,”
Nate said. “It struck me deep. I’m coming to get you.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you-” I said but was cut off by the click of the phone. Looking at my screen, I saw our call
had ended.

For the next fifteen minutes, I tried to pull myself into a presentable manner before he arrived.
However, that didn’t happen.

“Just let
yourself in,” I called to the door. When he refused to enter without a welcome, I was left to shield my face from view while I opened the door before retreating back into the bathroom.

“Sorry,”
Nate said. “That’s one of my things.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I just need a little more time.”

“Take all you need,” Nate said. He hunkered down on the couch and waited the thirty minutes it took for me to get ready. I crept back out into the living room, feeling ashamed as I sat on the edge of the couch.

“Sorry,” I said, not able to look him in the eye.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Nate said, sitting up and tipping my chin towards him.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

Nate gazed deep into my eyes before surrendering.

“Come on,”
Nate said, leading me to the doorway. “We have a reservation. I will buy you a glass of wine. That will get it out of you eventually.”

From then on, the night was perfect. Despite my reserved nature,
Nate’s patience never once faltered. He ushered me into the cab. He held my hand all of the way to the restaurant. He pulled out my seat for me and, just like old times, ordered a complimentary bottle of wine to our meals.

He never once pressed the issue with prying questions and didn’t let the awkward silences drag on for too long. He was the perfect gentlemen, and it made me relax by the time dessert was served.

“So, what were you doing at the gym?” I said. This was the last question I had on deck before I dove into the daunting ones about his co-star.

“I am training for a sequel,”
Nate said. “It requires me to be buff and manly, so I am back to eating boiled chicken and brown rice.”

I gasped a little too hard, and it was then that we both realized the wine was kicking in.

“That’s no way for a man to eat,” I said, trying to recover.

“It gives me something to look forward to, knowing I will splurge with you,”
Nate said, smiling. I flashed him one back before tipping my glass to my lips once again. I knew he was referring to my drinking as well as his plate that housed neither chicken nor rice.

“I saw you at the Grammys,” I said. “You looked good in your suit. So did your co-star.”

“Oh, Minka, yeah she did look stunning,” Nate said while polishing off his plate. “I, however, have a little known secret. I actually wear the same suit to every award ceremony. Gucci.”

“You wouldn’t say,” I said, my eyes dancing with jealousy at the sound of her name. He recalled it so fast. I tried to tell my brain that it was overanalyzing everything as it usually does. He worked with her for months on end. Of course he remembered her name.

Nate excused himself from the table and, in his absence, I did the only thing I could think to do to calm my breaking heart. I asked the waiter to pour me another glass. It escaped the glass as fast as it met it.

By the time
Nate returned, I was finishing off the last few bites of my dessert.

“It’s really chilly,” I said in discomfort. By the look cast across
Nate’s face, he knew I was lying, but he played along. “Can we go?”

“Of course,”
Nate said, grasping my hand in his before paying the bill.

He led me down the lobby to the cab, held me in silence the entire way home, and walked me to my door. It was only then that I broke the silence.

“I think you should come inside,” I said, grabbing his face and thrusting it into my own. I met his lips and dispelled immense passion on impact. I could sense Nate turning alternative solutions over in his mind as my hand caressed the side of his face over and over again with even strokes. “Please? I need you.”

“I think it’s best if we wait until we are both sober,”
Nate said, trying to stop the cut of each word from breaking my heart.

“No,” I whined. I couldn’t help the way I was acting. Despite being one of the strongest, independent women, I had been reduced to a co-dependent mess. All I needed right now was a warm body next to me. “All I need right now is to express myself, and say all of the things that I haven’t gotten to say for six months. And, if I’m right, you wanted to as well. Unless talking about
Minka and your weight training was your way of expressing your feelings?”

Nate
sighed. “I’m scared.”

“I am too,” I whispered. A tear rolled down my cheek and I instantly hated myself because I knew it was taking the makeup I had painted across my imperfections down with it.

“No, you don’t know what I did while you were gone,” Nate said. My heart sank as I assumed what he was referring to.

“Yes, I do,” I said. Those three words were the most painful in all of my lifetime. “Come inside, please.”

I led him up the stairs to my apartment and stumbled onto the couch with two glasses of water. It didn’t take long for my gaze to make Nate’s body engulf mine. He positioned me on his lap and ran his nails gently down my back as I planted light kisses along his neck.

“I
’ve missed you so much,” Nate said. His voice was shaking the most it ever had. “But don’t hate me when I ask you to stop.” I drew away from his earlobe. “I want to keep my word with you and take things slow.”

“Why?” I said. “I’m here now. I’m right here. What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” Nate said, sighing as if he knew this was where the conversation was going to go. “I just don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and regret anything.”

“I’m not going to,” I said. “Honestly, this is probably the only way we will be able to.”

“That’s not a good excuse,” Nate said. “I love your body. I want you to love it, too.”

“Well then, love it!” I yelled. I scared myself more than I scared
Nate, who looked at me somberly.

“I can’t,”
Nate said. “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t?” I yelled. “Why?”

“Because-”

“Because you fucked someone else?”
I yelled. I got up after he didn’t defend himself. “That’s fine, Nate, believe me, I understand how it happens because of Adam.”

“Do not compare me to Adam,”
Nate said, becoming heated. “Do you know how much of an insult that is?”

“I know h
ow lonely it gets, OK? I wasn’t there. Plus, we weren’t really together.”

“We were together. How can you even say that?”

“Because I don’t want to need you.” I turned around and saw that Nate had gotten up. “I don’t need anyone.”

“That’s not true,”
Nate said, walking towards me.

“You didn’t need me,” I
said, still cutting jabs at him. I watched as each open wound formed on his heart.

“I did need you,”
Nate said, starting to weep. “I still do. And whatever you heard is not true. You can’t imagine how painful it is to hear that you believed what you were told without asking me first.”

Nate
started towards the door.

“I saw the texts,” I said, following him. “I saw what she wrote.”

That stopped him in his tracks. When he turned around, his face literally killed me inside. Despite being drunk, I felt like an awful person.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe that wasn’t her number?”
Nate said. “Or that maybe there was more to the story than what
Adam
told you?”

I was left speechless. I had never seen
Nate so angered.

“Wait, let’s start over,” I said, panicking. “This isn’t how I wanted the night to end.”

“No, you wanted to glaze over everything with your body,” Nate said. “I don’t want that type of relationship. I’m too old for that deja vu. Maybe this is where we part ways.”

His hand reached for the door and I crumbled.

“No,” I said, sobbing harder. “No, wait, no. You can’t leave. Stop! Stop it, please.”

“I will talk to you tomorrow,”
Nate said, gently unclasping my hand from his wrist.

“No, let’s talk now,” I said. “We have to talk now, or you will never come back.”

He didn’t listen though. Nate walked through the door and shut it gently. I felt each of his footsteps echo down the stairwell dauntingly before the front door shut.

I couldn’t help but fall to the floor.

I
lay on the floor in an emotional heap, not knowing what had just unfolded in front of my eyes. I remembered being fine outside, caressing his face – his soft, freshly shaven face – and wanting him to be mine tonight. And the next thing I remembered was his figure making its way out of my front door infuriated.

I couldn’t remember a time where I had made someone so angry. Likewise, I couldn’t remember a time in which I was so emotionally invested, so needy of someone else’s affection. It was as if I had become a girl in the movies the moment I had woken up from my treatments.

I wasn’t independent, self-proclaimed, confident Molly Sharpiro anymore, with a dance career and a knack for cooking good enough to land a gig in Hell’s Kitchen. I was the needy antagonist, who thought having cancer gave her a chip on her shoulder and a reason to treat everyone around her as mere pawns instead of human being’s with feelings.

Grabbing my coat once more, I fled down the steps and out the door. I had tried to sleep, I really had, but I couldn’t squelch my tears. My sobs shook my body right down to its core, jolting me awake from any possible slumber. I had to make this right. The guilt forming in my chest was too overbearing.

Taking my credit card out of my wallet, I gently slipped it in between the lock and the door. Quietly, I shimmied it back and forth until it clicked. However, I soon found out that it wasn’t from my doing.

The door swung opened and I met a puffy-eyed, exhausted
Nate on the other side of the door.

“You know, a knock would have sufficed,” he said, standing in nothing but briefs.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said, already becoming defensive out of embarrassment. I knew what I was doing was wrong and totally inappropriate, but I couldn’t help myself.

Nate
’s body gravitated towards mine as I broke down. His strong arms snatched me up and held me close as I wrapped my legs around his waist.

“I don’t chase boys,” I said
, letting the tingling of his fingernail trails sink into my skin. “I make them chase me. But you are different. I feel so guilty. All I wanted to do was hold you and say I was sorry.”

Nate
shut the door and let his back slide down the wall. Sitting together on the hardwood floor, I felt his abs flex underneath my heat as his lips found mine in the darkness. They calmed my being as they trapped mine between their soft exterior.

“It’s OK,”
Nate whispered in my ear before nibbling its edge. “You don’t have to be.”

“You always say that,” I said breathlessly. I felt my loins churn and I began to beg for his to meet mine. Pressing my breasts to his chest, I surrender
ed in his embrace.

“Because it’s true,”
Nate said. He rose with little effort and carried both of our weight to the bed.

“Everyone deserves to hear an apology,” I said, kissing his naked chest. “You are no exception.”

And with that, I felt him crumble beneath my fingertips. I let them linger in all the right places as I sat on top of his member, ever so gently rocking my warmth into his own.

“Molly,”
Nate said, sighing in satisfaction. “I am head over heels in love with you.”

“
Sh,” I said, running my fingers across his soft lips. “You can tell me all the words you need to with your body.”

His torso rose to meet mine before burying his face into the nook of my neck.

“I want to do both,” Nate said. He flipped me over with one arm and laid me on my back softly. He met my splayed body with his own and continued to whisper in my ear. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you more. The truth is I’m a coward. I told you everything I wanted to tell you while you were asleep in that bed, so that I didn’t have to fear your reaction. But I realize now that it was a horrible mistake – that you needed to hear those words more than ever.”

The way his breath hit my skin was so arousing. I was becoming lost in his embrace. Between each new word, a kiss met a new inch of my skin. Just like the last time, I found his lips exploring places no others had dared to venture.

“This is so new to me. Despite what you have envisioned, I have been out of the game for years. I have been hurt so many times that I didn’t want to let anyone in. But then I saw you, and I knew that there was more to you than what met the eye.”

His
mouth finished its loop around my body and drew close to mine. I felt his hand glide up my stomach and cup my right breast. Running a finger around its contour, it grazed the sides before escaping to sweep over my bare erect nipple over my shirt. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t even cared to throw on my undergarments before calling to him and, by the looks of it, it excited him even more.

“I know you feel self-conscious and vulnerable right now,”
Nate said, giving my breast a light squeeze before kissing it through my shirt’s fabric. “But just know that with me, there is no need. I haven’t seen anything that compares to how gorgeous you are, and that’s because nothing can compare to the strength I see when I look at you. No woman I have met has been so brave, so strong, so determined to take back what is rightfully hers.”

Those words trickled across my skin like liquid sin.
Nate knew all of the right things to say, and I didn’t know whether it’s because he wanted me to feel better or he believed them himself. They worked all the same. I didn’t have to lie to myself or ignore certain details like I did when I was with Adam.

I met
Nate’s lips with another passionate kiss. It turned into another, and another, and soon I had lost myself as his tongue found mine.

“You know all of the right things to say,” I whispered as I took his hand in mine. “I think you get me.”

“That,” Nate said, kissing me once again. “Or I am just one lucky bastard.”

I laughed before blacking out in ecstasy.

I woke up beside
Nate fully clothed the next morning. Running my hand across his five o’clock shadow, I smiled to myself as I recalled how we had played all night with each other innocently. He never once crossed a boundary or tried to push a limit. He was merely content with being next to me, and I next to him.

As he awakened underneath my sweeping hand,
I nuzzled my head into the definitions of his chest.

“I have to get going,” I said. He stretched underneath me before complying
with my wishes. We both knew I had no place to go, but I didn’t want him to be the first to suggest that I leave.

Nate
’s hand met the small of my back.

“I guess now would be a good time to tell you all of the things I didn’t say because it might have ruined the night,”
Nate said with a chuckle. “First, I’m leaving for LA tonight after we finishing shooting.” I met that disappointment with a whine before it was hushed by one of his kisses. “I miss my dog, and my friends. Second, Minka and I have a rough past. She was one of the girls that broke my heart. She messed me up pretty bad, but I don’t want that to come in between us. I went to an after party with her, and ended up letting her crash in my spare bedroom, but nothing happened.”

“It’
s the past,” I said, becoming coy. “And frankly, it should stay there regardless. Like you said, we should take things slowly.”

“Agreed,”
Nate said, kissing my forehead. “I really enjoyed last night. I’m glad you showed up at my doorstep for a change. I now know that we are on the same level because I was about to show up at yours uninvited for the second time.”

I gave him one last kiss before turning towards the elevator.

“I’m flying you out west the first chance I get,” Nate called down the hallway.

“Keep me posted,” I said.
“Because I’ve never been.”