The Beginning of Always (23 page)

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Alistair.” I willed my voice to have a sharp scolding edge, but all I could muster up was a soft plea.

“It’s just me, Florence. I’m just me and you’re just Florence. Don’t worry too much about later.”

That was easy; it was completely instinctual for me to do. It was always just him and just me. Even when we were younger, it was the most natural thing for us to be together, as if we were inevitable. It was frustrating to have my resolve fluctuate and be manipulated so easily, but here, in the gilded room surrounded by all manners of nonsensical fantastical illustrations … everything seemed simpler.

As if we weren’t part of the city, part of reality, and all we were was two people living in a fantasyland, to a soundtrack of jazz and piano. We were hidden away from all the strife and turmoil deep within the rabbit hole of wonder.

We were deep in our forest, under moving, breathing, living lights, sharing promises and magic between our private souls.

Because of that, it was easier to do this with Alistair, to speak with him and to touch him. We didn’t exist, this moment didn’t exist, and therefore I was allowed to be weak; I could give in.

Fantasy supplanted the lives waiting outside the turnstile doors.

So I gave in, at least for now. I softened my body and allowed Alistair to wrap his arm around my shoulders to pull me closer. I allowed myself to lean onto him. And I allowed Alistair to press his cheek against the side of my head and to rest his fingers in my hair.

His arm was so strong around me, all hard muscle. It felt good to be held. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had held me like this. Or really, the last time I’d allowed someone to.

Alistair slowly combed his fingers through my tangled strands, and my throat seized with the familiarity of this moment. How gently he played with my hair.

We remained like this for several moments, neither of us talking as both of us were processing the moment. Enjoying it. Allowing it.

Finally, I made a comment.

“I love Billy Strayhorn,” I said. The pianist was playing a mournful ballad.

“‘Lush Life,’” Alistair said.

“‘Lush Life,’” I answered in turn.

We listened the pianist croon about Paris and his desire to forget.

“Been to Paris?”

I turned my face to smile lightly at him. “Yes, but never stayed a week.”

“Pity,” he answered with a small grin.

“Tell me,” I asked, “where have you traveled to?”

A slight furrow formed on Alistair’s brow. “I haven’t really traveled much. I fly to California a couple times a year since we’re setting up a West Coast outpost. Been around the country for meetings at various company headquarters, but I mostly see the inside of conference rooms instead of landmarks.”

A finger trailed down from my ear to trace my jawline. I stopped breathing.

“But Thailand is definitely on the list now,” he added in a husky undertone. That rough scratch of his callused palm contrasted with the soft pliable give of my throat. His fingers lingered, reading the curves of my neck.

I was floating. I wasn’t of this world. This moment didn’t exist; it never happened, all was a dream.

Couldn’t a girl be allowed to dream?

My fingers began caressing Alistair’s thigh, my hand moving of its own accord. Alistair’s muscles were hard and unyielding beneath that smooth, rich fabric. His body tightened slightly. I dug my nails into his flesh.

He felt so good.

“This is nice.” I leaned my head fully against him, completely at his mercy.

“Yeah?” His answer shook beneath me, that deep timbre that emerged from his chest.

“Yeah, I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to talk to you normally.”

“What’s normal?”

“You know, normal like before. I was getting … I was thinking we wouldn’t ever be able to speak …”

“Florence, there’s nothing normal about any of this, of us.”

My fingers stilled on his leg. My attention slipped around and took in the eerie emptiness of the bar, the single pianist playing jazz tunes, the solitude that Alistair’s money had bought and that his reputation had demanded. We had just come from a meeting discussion concerning nearly a half-billion-dollar buyout of a key Manhattan building. Out in the city, Alistair’s name sat atop some of the highest property values in the world.

“No. It’s not.” I paused. “When did life become this complicated?”

Alistair’s grip on me grew slightly tighter, his fingers digging into the small of my back. His smell overwhelmed me, and for a moment, I existed in a haze of painful memories and sad longing.

My heart clenched and I lowered my eyes, savoring every sensation, every second.

Soon we’d leave, and all this would dry up with the rain by morning. For now, I could disconnect from what I knew I shouldn’t want.

The pianist transitioned into playing Paul McCartney’s “My Valentine” and the words seeped into my flesh and a pronounced warmth radiated. A song of rain. I was aware of every stroke of Alistair’s fingers, his every soft inhale and exhale near my ear. The areas where our exposed flesh rubbed against each other began humming, almost in anticipation.

“I thought of you on that beach,” I murmured.

Was it my imagination, or did Alistair’s breath hitch? Did his heart pulsate a bit faster?

“I thought of us,” the alcohol in me said. The wine and cocktails burned through my veins and emboldened me.

I leaned my face into his hard chest, cherishing his woodsy musk. I brought my hands up and splayed them against his body, right on top of his heart. My pale hand was small, contrasting with his dark shirt. I pressed down slightly. I wanted to feel that deep beat, that reminder he was here with me, sharing this moment with me.

Once upon a time, that heart had been mine.

This was all a dream.

“I never stopped thinking of us,” I whispered.

Alistair pressed his lips against my hair and his touch heated me from the inside out. He gave a soft, weary sigh that tore down to the recesses of my soul.

In his voice rang a note of sorrow. “Me neither.”

Alistair kept his promise. We stayed for one drink. We didn’t say much the rest of the time we were there. We remained in that position by the bar, entwined with each other, listening to the ever-changing soundtrack and feeling each other’s pulsating rhythm. His arms around me, his hands stroking up and down my arms, his lips resting against my hair, these were all that I allowed myself.

Finally, Alistair murmured in my ear that we had to go. He sounded almost regretful, as though he didn’t want to leave. But I didn’t argue with him, and we left.

Alistair wrapped an arm around my shoulders as he guided me down the hallway towards the front doors. We were different people from the ones who had entered, or at least I was. The dining room seemed different. The velvet was plusher and the marble shimmered with the sparkle of a million lights.

The hallway to the exit looked different. The sidewalk felt heavier. The rain was softer. Life shined with something mysterious and distinct that it had lacked even an hour ago.

As if allowing Alistair to hold me so intimately, even in a golden rabbit hole of wonder, hadn’t changed everything.

It was the promise of breath. Of salvation.

The drive back to my apartment was a haze. The alcohol burned through my veins and clouded my vision, disrupting my thoughts.

We arrived to Nicolas’s building in no time, but I was in no hurry to leave. I didn’t clamor out of the car to put distance between us, like I had imagined myself doing at the beginning of this night.

What had changed in this storm? How had I entered this night as one person, determined and cold, and exited as another, confused and pining?

Alistair turned off the engine and leaned back in his seat, his eyes forward. He gazed out the windshield, to the yellow burn of the streetlights broken up with the now-misting rain. A silence hung in between us, comfortable yet laden with the gravity of the evening. I was in no hurry to break it. I took in Alistair, really considered him for perhaps the first time since we’d reconnected.

Alistair’s face still had those intense biting eyes that lent him almost an angry appearance, but I could tell now there were lines feathering out from the edges. Stress? Age? His lips were relaxed but there was a hard line to them, as if smiles rarely graced them.

His bottom lip was a bit thicker than the top. I used to nip at it, reveling in the reaction I got from him.

Now, I resisted the urge to smooth that harsh expression, to run my thumb over it, soothing his angry angles.

He’d always had a stoic personality, a person who barely cracked a grin, but my memories of him were nothing but warm afternoons shared laughing in the fields, his relentless teasing driving me mad.

We can’t possibly start over again, so we need to stop whatever is going on between us before it all goes wrong.

I’ve never been so happy as I was with you.

The wine whispered to me,
Tell him
.

Instead, I said, “Thank you for taking me to that bar. I really enjoyed it.”

Alistair sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re welcome, Florence.” His voice was weary.

“Next time, you don’t have to shut down the entire place.”

Next time? There won’t be a next time
. I tried to remind myself of that.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Seriously. It was ridiculous,” I insisted.

“I’m just happy you enjoyed it.”

The wine and whiskey caught up with me. “Are you happy, Alistair?” My question sat between us, heavy with implicit yearning.

Alistair gazed at me, the shadows of the outside world throwing darkness over his features. He stretched one arm out. He touched me gently, but that first contact struck me as hard as a train. Alistair’s rough palms ran over the curve of my neck and shoulder. His eyes dropped and I knew he was reading my neck, my collarbone. He used to rest his lips over them and kiss that shallow dip in between my clavicles. He’d told me his lips fit perfectly in them, almost like a keyhole. I fought the urge to hold my fingers up to them, to touch them myself as my skin burned from want of him. His thumb gently edged that space, that intimate secret of the past that we both were thinking about.

His fingers moved upwards and tucked the strand of hair behind my ear, his touch lightly grazing the edge.

“Yes, Florence. I’m happy,” he said quietly.

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

“Okay,” I offered blandly. “Okay.” I couldn’t stick around. I couldn’t remain here any longer; nothing good would occur.

I pulled away and Alistair dropped his arm.

I opened the car door and stepped out onto the curb, away from him, away from possibilities and hopes, away from the night.

Alistair leaned towards me and placed his left forearm against the back of the passenger-side seat.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” I said.

Alistair’s gaze roved over my face, taking it in, processing it. His eyes met mine and he said, “I’ll come pick you up.”

My rational mind pushed past my inebriation. “No, don’t. I can take the subway.”

I couldn’t risk my job, my career, my reputation for these fleeting moments. I could barely process myself what he was to me. All I knew was that leaving him now felt as if a piece of soul was being ripped away from me.

Yet again.

“Then I’ll send a car.” I opened my mouth in protest, but he interrupted. “Florence, allow me this.”

I sighed. He wasn’t going to concede. “Okay.”

I hesitated for a moment, then added, “Thank you. That’s way too nice of you.”

Alistair’s expression turned guarded. “I’m not doing it because I’m nice. I’m doing it because I’m still selfish.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t question. I pushed the thoughts away and backed up a step, signaling my retreat.

“Good night, Florence,” Alistair said. His voice was intimate, his gaze soft, communicating something to me that I didn’t want to accept.

I took another step back. “Good night, Alistair.”

I pushed the questions aside and slammed the car door shut. I didn’t wait for him to drive away. Instead I walked up the steps to the lobby without a backwards glance.

I cradled my cell phone in one hand, contemplating the black screen. Alistair had been back in my life for exactly one week and he’d managed, in six days, to claw his way back into my heart, my soul. I couldn’t breathe without his breath in every inhale, the essence of him permeating me even more potently. Even more completely.

Had it really been this intense back then? Even more?

I’d been starved for more than ten years and this sudden gorging would be the end of me.

I shook my head, then put down my phone and proceeded to get ready for bed. I took a shower. I brushed my teeth. I put on my pajamas. I slipped into bed and turned off the lights.

I went through the motions. I concentrated on the tasks at hand.

And the entire time, I felt his presence on me.

I rolled over and stared again at the blank screen. Then, before I lost my nerve, I turned it on and sent Alistair a text message.

Thank you again …

It was several minutes before my phone pinged. The vibration of the phone was like the shudder of my soul.

Always
, came his response.

I stared dumbly at his message while trying to process the significance.

Always.

I fell asleep with an uneasy sensation in my chest, as if my blackened heart was slowly beating back to life once more. As if hope dared to defrost, wondering …

Chapter 13