She Has Your Eyes (18 page)

“Won’t you need the whole week off?”

“I don’t see why, unless there are complications. In that case my brothers will be there.”

“Andi…” Jeff started, and his skepticism completed his sentence for him.

“I know what you’re going to say, Jeff, and this is nothing like what happened with Sam.”

“Maybe not, but you’re not going down there to babysit once a month. Do you have any idea what’s ahead of you? I’m not just talking about the physical toll, but the emotional one. Cancer sucks the life force out of everyone who comes in contact with it.”

“I know. David’s father passed away about ten years ago.” And Jeff’s uncle, one he was close to, had died of cancer a couple of years ago, I remembered.

“And he’s OK with what you’re attempting to do?”

“He hasn’t tried to talk me out of it.”

“Is he at least going to be there with you when you go?”

I hadn’t thought of this, and it bothered me that I hadn’t. Why hadn’t I even asked him? Or was it something that would come up when we talked later tonight?

“We haven’t discussed it yet,” I said. “There’s a lot going on with David right now.” I leaned in. “We haven’t told anyone outside of our own families and a few close friends, but David has a teenage daughter.”

Jeff had just taken a swig of soda as I spoke and coughed in response. “
What?
”

“We found out Labor Day weekend, day after the barbecue.”

“Holy shit, kid. Talk about a full plate.… Is it… is he sure she’s…”

“DNA test was positive. And if you saw her, Jeff, you’d know.”

“Spittin’ image?”

I nodded. “Especially the eyes.”

He slowly shook his head in disbelief.

I pressed on. “So he’s obviously trying to get to know her without totally railroading her parents, who’ve been less than enthused about all this.”

“The girl’s mother wasn’t the one who told him? How’d he find out, then?”

“Wylie found him. His daughter. The Internet is a scary, scary place.”

“Holy shit,” he said again. I understood the lack of originality. The situation rendered me speechless sometimes too. It took us both a moment to figure out what to say next.

“So, about the schedule…,” I started.

“Look, Andi. You know I’d rob a bank for you if you asked me to. Getting coverage for you is no problem. I’m going to have to take it out of your pay, though. You know, to pay the sub a stipend.”

“No problem,” I said.

“But I worry about whether you really know what you’re getting into. You misjudged things last time.” He put a hand up to block me from speaking. “I know it’s different; you’re in a better place emotionally than you were back then, but it’s not easier. And I’m going to take you off the schedule completely for next semester.”

I didn’t protest. I had foolishly believed I could handle my job responsibilities when Sam had been killed. But I also had twice as much responsibility at the time, and given that Sam had been a professor too, reminders of him lurked around every corner. Jeff was right—I had coping skills and a better support system in place now. For one thing, Maggie was physically present, as was Miranda. And I had David too. I wouldn’t be going back to a cavernous bed night after night, a thousand needles of grief prickling me every second of the day. I’d have a chance to say a proper good-bye this time. I’d have something to come home to afterward. I’d have my husband.

And a daughter, maybe? Was it too soon to think like that? Was it right to assign myself such a role?

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about our engagement sooner,” I said. “Everything’s just been so crazy.”

“No sweat, kid. When’s the wedding?”

I downed the rest of my water, wishing it were something stronger. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

chapter twenty-four

I was oblivious to the chatter and light jazz music in Perch as I pored through my manuscript with a blue felt-tip pen, pausing only to move a strand of hair away from my face but never looking up, until I felt a shadow cast over me.

“This seat taken?”

I barely moved my head with more than a nod of permission when the tease of David’s voice, accompanied by a sly smile, caught me in a double take.

He’s wearing Versace.

Before I could speak, he said, “How lucky for me,” and filled the chair as he extended his hand. “I’m Devin.”

Then he winked.

It took me a nanosecond to realize what he doing—his wink revealed all—and I took his hand and shook it politely. “Andi Vanzant.”

“So, Andi… you’re either an editor, a teacher, or a writer,” he said as he spied the manuscript. My outfit of dark jeans and flats and a burnt-orange cashmere sweater, with tortoiseshell-framed reading glasses, could’ve just as easily given me away.

“All three, actually,” I replied, and couldn’t help but enjoy the game. “But in this case, I’m an author working on my latest novel.”

“What’s it about?”

“Ahh, I never reveal my works in progress. Call me superstitious, but I think it impedes the creative process. After all, you don’t take the cake out of the oven before it’s fully baked, do you?”

“You don’t tell anyone? Not even your husband?”

“What makes you think I’m married?”

David—no,
Devin
—leaned in. “Because there’s no way a woman as beautiful as you is single. It’s just not possible.”

I laughed. “Really?
That
’s the line you’re going with? You can do better than that.”

He laughed as well. “Guess that’s what I get for trying to pick up a writer.”

“And what do
you
do for a living?”

He paused to consider his response, squinting slightly. “Let’s just say I’m in sales.”

“Well, then, sell me something.”

He raised his eyebrows, turned on by my dare, and I couldn’t help but giggle. He scanned the table and set his sights on the beverage I’d barely touched.

“So what’s this that you’re not drinking?”

“Iced vanilla chai latte.”

“Any reason why you’re not drinking it?”

“Too engrossed in this,” I said, patting the manuscript on my lap.

“In that case, I’m going to sell you that iced vanilla chai latte. In less than five minutes, you’re going to want—no,
need
—to take a sip of that chai. You’re going to crave it as if
you’ve been thirsting for it your entire life, and it’s going to be the best sip you’ve ever had. Your eyeballs will roll up into your head and you’ll resist the urge to moan in ecstasy.”

He was full-out Devin: alluring, provocative, impossibly gorgeous, electric smile, and those goddamn sienna eyes seducing me the entire time. Even the plastic cup was breaking out into a sweat. And wouldn’t you know it, my mouth began to salivate.

“And how are you going to do that?” I asked.

“Hold out your hand.”

I tentatively extended a hand, palm up, and he took it, practically caressed it, before lifting the cup and merging it with my palm, placing my fingers around it to ensure its hold. I wasn’t watching the cup.

“Now take a sip.”

“How can you be so sure it’s the best chai I’ve ever tasted? It’s been sitting here for at least twenty minutes. The odds are not in your favor, Devin.”

He leaned in even closer this time, enough for me to smell his cologne mixed with pheromones, and I fought to keep my composure. Just like the first time we sat at a booth at Junior’s in Brooklyn as he extolled the virtue of simple pleasures. Like vanilla chai lattes.

“Andi, I am so sure this will be the best chai you’ve ever tasted that I’m willing to give you a hundred dollars if you agree. No strings attached. One hundred smackers, right here, right now.”

“And if it’s not and I don’t?”

“Then you go back to my place and have sex with me.”

I laughed so loud that a couple of nearby patrons turned their heads. “Shouldn’t that proposition be the other way around?”

“How do you figure that?”

“You want to get laid, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t put it so callously, but OK.”

“So, you just insisted that this is going to be the best damn thing I’ve tasted since Junior’s cheesecake. If that were really the case, if that’s what you’re banking on, then wouldn’t it make sense to make sex a condition on
that
?” Before he could answer, I added, “Which means you
know
it’s not.”

He looked at me coyly, saying nothing.

“I could lie to you—” I started.

“You could.”

“—tell you it’s the best, and you’ll never know if I’m being honest.”

He leaned in again. “But
you’ll
know.”

Damn. He had me. He knew he had me, not because of a persuasive argument or conclusive evidence, but because of his lips spread far and wide, the accent of crow’s feet making him look sexier rather than older. His posture and body language, the way he penetrated my space, exuding confidence without arrogance. The current between us was so strong it could run the cappuccino machine. I felt as if everyone were voyeuristically watching us play out this charade. And I was so willing to play.

I brought the straw to my lips, refusing to divert my gaze from him for even a second, demonstratively puckered, positioning them just so, and sucked in the liquid.

Earlier I’d taken the first sip unconsciously, my attention already on the manuscript and pen already in hand. But now, fully mindful, I took in a mouthful, and although the melted ice had thinned the drink, the vanilla and cinnamon sweetness and whole milk caressed my tongue and glided down my throat.

It was good. It was damn good. Or maybe I was just so horny by then that a cup of crude oil would’ve tasted like a Creamsicle.

That was the magic of Devin. He could sell you anything. He could sell peace to a warmonger, sell capitalism to a communist, sell a closet to a claustrophobic.

He could sell sex to a stranger.

“Well?” he said. “What’s the verdict? Am I out a hundred bucks?”

Without saying a word, I put the cup down and packed my manuscript into my briefcase. Cleared off the table and disposed of the chai. Then I picked up my coat and bag and headed for the door. He followed me out, and I caught his perplexed expression with my peripheral vision.

“Andi?” he asked.

I turned to him. “You don’t look like a Devin.”

He didn’t respond, and I could tell he was trying to read where this was going, anticipate my next move like a chess player.

I drew in as close as I could without touching him, and tried to meet his face, hard to do given how tall he was and I wasn’t wearing heels. Once upon a time this kind of ostentatious flirtation—role-playing or real—would’ve sent me into an abyss of anxiety, of feeling as if I were under attack and needing to protect myself. Would’ve meant putting all my defenses up, and shutting him down before he even had a chance to get started. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have gotten as far as the chair. He would’ve known not to even approach me. And yet this same guy—this man for whom confidence was an instinct rather than a trait, who exuded sexuality like a superpower—had taught me to be receiving, to be unafraid and unashamed. To listen to my own instincts and let my sexuality out of its cage. To reciprocate and feel womanly as opposed to dirty. And I was eternally grateful to him for it.

How to play this?

Rising on my toes, I spoke into his ear, saying in my softest, most sultry voice: “That was the best vanilla chai I’ve ever had.” I then stepped back and held out my hand, palm open. “Pay up.”

He looked at me, agog, and took an extra second to respond, all that lust crackling between us like static electricity. If one of us touched the other at that moment, I swear we’d get a shock.

Finally, he spoke. “
You’re lying
.”

Checkmate.

I drew out the stare a bit longer before saying, “Where’s your place?”

I honestly don’t remember why we went to a nearby hotel and not the house, only that the moment we closed the door I practically ripped open his shirt the way soap opera vixens did to men in the throes of their calculated seduction, and I pulled his face to my open mouth and kissed him hard. He raised my arms over my head to remove my sweater and kept them there, preventing me from wrapping them around him as he pinned me against the wall and kissed every part of my upper body before he lifted me. I clenched my legs as he clutched my thighs, and we laughed out of pleasure and the delight of it all and kissed and panted as we moved around the room.

And that was just foreplay—the sex, God the
sex
! I don’t think we’d ever had sex like that. I don’t think Sam and I had ever had sex like that either. I’m not talking about positions (I mean, I doubt we’d bank any money on sex tapes, but we weren’t exactly going missionary), but
intensity
. Passion. Fire. Or maybe we had and I’d forgotten; at the moment I was too busy concentrating on Devin, the guy who’d just solicited me in a coffee shop—or was he David now? It had been a long time since the lines were so blurry.

No. It was Devin. The siren of multiple orgasms that erupted from me confirmed it.

When we finally finished and lay beside each other, he turned on his side, facing me, tuckered out. “So was that really the best vanilla chai you’ve ever had?”