She Has Your Eyes (29 page)

“
What are you doing?
” I yelled, drawing attention to us.

“Andi, I—”

“What part of ‘I’m engaged’ did you not understand?”

“Come on, Andi—we were good together. I screwed up before but I’m different now.”

“Oh, really? So instead of breaking up your own relationship by cheating, you’re breaking up someone else’s by getting them to do it? Yeah, that’s really evolved.” I pulled on my coat and stood up. “I am such a fool.”

“If you’re so committed, then where is he? Where’s your precious David? And don’t tell me he wasn’t feeling well. I spotted that lie a mile away the first time you said it.”

“So you decided to take his place. Some friend.”

“I made a little bet with myself. If David showed, then I’d walk away, fair and square. But if he didn’t, then it would be your way of telling me that there was still a chance. Are you seriously telling me I misread this?”

A myriad of options flashed before me: slapping him in dramatic fashion; throwing what was left of my drink in his face; going up and smashing his guitar the way I had imagined David doing. I opened my mouth, but nothing happened. I froze.

Turn into the skid.

“You…
asshole
,” I said through clenched teeth.

And then, in another second that warped into slow motion, David came into focus. At first, I thought he was a mirage. But then he grabbed me by the waist, turned and
dipped
me, and planted a kiss on me so smooth it practically tasted like chocolate. It even drew applause and woots.

I opened my eyes slowly, reluctantly. And when I did all I could see in the dim light were David’s eyes—dappled, electric, transfixed. He pulled me to my feet. And he smiled his most dazzling smile. Devin’s smile.

“Let’s go,
cara
,” he said.

From my peripheral vision I caught Maggie break into a grin of approval as she grabbed my purse for me and headed out the door.

Andrew, who had been rendered into a statue, watched us, gawking at David as if he were a celebrity or superhero or something. Which, of course, he was.

David stopped short and turned to him, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill. “Oh, hey. Good set, man. Next time throw something in there by the Killers.” He held out the bill as if to show Andrew it was for him before dropping it on the table, then escorted me out, his hand barely touching my back in that sexy way.

chapter thirty-seven

Since Maggie had picked me up on the way to the pub, she and I said good-bye in the parking lot and I went home with David, who smelled of leather and secondhand cologne and beer and smoke.

“How long were you there?” I asked once we were in the car.

“Not long. About halfway through the set.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I didn’t want to be seen.”

We were almost to the house when I asked, “Why did you change your mind and come?”

“I guess I really am that asshole,” he said, and I recalled one of our earlier fights.

“You didn’t trust me?”

“I didn’t trust
him
,” he said, staring straight ahead at the road. Another minute of silence passed before he confessed. “And I didn’t trust you.”

My heart sank. He still wouldn’t look at me, although he held my hand.

“I don’t mean that I actually thought you would do something,” he said. “I was afraid that you wanted to. I was afraid I was going to see it on your face.”

“And what did you see?” Even though I asked him the question, I tried to go back in time, step outside of myself and see me from David’s point of view. What would he have seen? Maggie and I were chatting a bit—would he think we were having a good time? Would he have seen how tense I was with each song? Would he have misinterpreted that as my being nervous because it made me feel tenderness rather than tension?

“You looked like you didn’t want to be there,” he answered.

“I didn’t. At least not in the way you think.”

“You looked like you were missing someone.”

“I was,” I said, and squeezed his hand.

“But when he came to your table, Andi…,” he started and trailed off.

“I was a fool to think Andrew could be a friend. To think that’s all he wanted.”

“Maybe that was all he wanted at first,” said David in a surprising act of deference. “Maybe he took one look at you and decided to give it a shot. Not sure I can blame the guy for that. Happened to me, after all.” This time he squeezed my hand.

“You never pursued me when I was with Sam,” I pointed out.

He conceded. “I knew better. But in Italy…”

I flashed back to my trip to Rome, my first time abroad, on what was supposed to have been a second honeymoon with Sam, and seeing David for the first time in years.… I blushed at the memory of accidentally walking in on him in the men’s room, and a smile escaped, as if having a mind of its own.

“I’m surprised you didn’t punch him out,” I said of Andrew.

“I could say the same of you,” he said. “Besides, the alternative was better, don’t you think? The way you called him an asshole… Suddenly you were the hottest, sexiest, feistiest
version of yourself I’d ever seen. And I thought,
Holy shit, that deserves a kiss
.”

“It was a very Devin thing to do. Come to think of it, a very Devin way to
think
too.”

He said nothing more until we were home and in the kitchen. I filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove.

“So we still haven’t made a schedule for the painting-for-pizza arrangement,” said David, out of the blue, as if trying to find something normal to discuss.

“Yeah,” I replied, and added, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.”

He stiffened. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “There’s just too much going on. Plus, do we really want to keep trying to be something we’re not anymore?”

“What do you mean?”

“David. Please. Lessons for painting in exchange for lessons in pizza? Are we gonna do it naked, too? A little Etta James in the background?”

“Andi, if I recall, it was your idea.”

I leaned against the butcher-block table to face him. “No, it was
your
idea to do an exchange, propose an arrangement.”

“So? What’s wrong with that?”

“Look, you can’t have it both ways. One minute you’re soliciting sex from me in coffee shops; the next minute you’re biting my head off for using our past against you. You insist on being David, but lately you’ve been taking Devin out for a walk. Like tonight, for instance. What was that really all about?”

“Sometimes I think you still prefer him to me.”

I shook my head. “That’s unfair. Don’t lay it all on me.”

“Why not? You’re the one e-mailing,
seeing
your ex-fiancé.…”

“You make it sound like I was meeting him for sex on a regular basis.”

“You might as well have. How do you think it made me feel knowing you were confiding in another man?”

“I confide in Jeff all the time.”

“You know that’s different. You weren’t engaged to Jeff at one time. Jeff never cheated on you and then suddenly came back into your life.”

“Dev, I wasn’t pouring my heart out to Andrew. But he offered to listen, and no one else seemed to be doing that.”

“Not even Maggie? Not
me
?” he said, wounded.

I wiped a tear from my cheek. “Especially not you.”

He stared straight ahead at nothing, letting the weight of the reality sink in.

“My God, I practically drove you straight into his arms,” he said after a long pause.

“No, Dev—it was
never
going to come to that. You know I wanted nothing but friendship with Andrew.”

He shook his head. “Yes, it would’ve. If things kept up the way they have been between us, it would have. I’m not saying it would’ve been premeditated—at least not on your part—but the odds of it were likely.”

“How could you think I would ever betray you like that? David, I want
you
. I’ve always wanted you.”

“Not always,” he said, and Sam’s face appeared before my mind’s eye. “God, I fucked up,” he said more to himself than to me. “I fucked up ten years ago. Even before that. I fucked up the day I thought being an escort was a good idea.”

I brought my hand to his cheek and caressed it. “David, no. You saved my life. You and Devin.”

“And by the way, you’ve been happy to play along with our little game. Hell, Andi, you were salivating for it. You think I
didn’t take note of the way you so voraciously looked at me? You haven’t looked at me that way since—” He stopped short.

“Since we lived in New York, when I wanted and couldn’t have you?” I finished for him. “Like
that
was so good?”

“On some level, it was. Face it. Some part of you liked having your nose pressed up against the glass. It meant no one could get to you.”

“And what about
you
?” I zapped. “The glass my nose was pressed up against was yours.”

He paced to the other side of the kitchen. “Fine. I admit it. I’ve been missing that guy lately. You know why? Because being Devin was the bomb. I was fucking Superman. I had women begging to get a piece of me, men begging to be me for a day, an endless flow of cash, and I was doing it all in the greatest city in the world. On top of that, I could stick it to my old man day after day.”

In an instant, the fire in his eyes faded. He paused to collect himself. “Devin was fearless. But David is vulnerable. David’s a mortal. He has weaknesses. He bleeds. He hurts.”

And suddenly, it hit me: It was the
fearlessness
I’d been craving. We both were. That’s why I—we—had been wanting Devin. That’s what had drawn me to him back then, and now, why I ravished him that day he picked me up at Perch. Why the game was so invigorating. That craving for fearlessness, for control, started the day Wylie showed up, and it got progressively worse: first with my mother’s illness, and then Andrew. Andrew set off David’s fear of losing me to him, and my fear that I could possibly go. Strange, David never felt that way where Sam was concerned. But what if I was wrong? What if all this time Sam posed the same threat to David that Andrew did, and that Wylie posed to me despite my caring for her? And wasn’t that what Andrew’s resurgence meant to
me
?
Wasn’t it more than just the attention he was giving me, more than a chance for healing and forgiveness? Wasn’t his
not
being attached to anyone else appealing to me, now that David had someone else in his life, someone I’d have to share him with from now on?

Yes, it was.

I went to David, stood on my toes, and put my hand to his cheek.

“You don’t have to be that guy to win me over. You don’t have to sweep me off my feet to save the day. You do that just by being you.
David
. All those years ago, in your best moments, it wasn’t Devin I was in love with, but
you
. The best of Devin was always you, inside and out. That goes for now, too.”

He took hold of my hand, put it to his lips, and kissed it.

“I was wrong to go tonight, and I’m so sorry. My behavior was inexcusable. I gave you every reason not to trust me,” I said.

He wrapped his arms around me.

“Will you forgive me?” I asked, my voice muffled.

He kissed the top of my head. “Of course,” he said. “If you’ll forgive me.”

I kissed him, more intimately than I had in a while. We walked up the stairs, arm in arm, to our bedroom.

“So is it wrong of me to say I’ve never been so turned on by you in that oversized, rumpled up hoodie?” said David when we reached the top.

“You know,” I said in a sly voice, “I still have that wig from when I went shopping with my mother.”

He turned slick and cool and take-charge. And yet, not a trace of Devin to be found. “
Get it
.”

chapter thirty-eight

Thanksgiving week

“I cannot believe you told your mother about my past,” said David, more mortified than mad at me, as we packed to spend Thanksgiving week on Long Island. I'd finally spilled the beans to him. “For chrissakes, Andi, what possessed you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the chemo has vapors and they went into my brain or something.”