You Are Here (18 page)

“I need to, ah, go upstate tomorrow for work,” he said, and I noticed his eyes avoiding me. “Next day?”

“Okay,” I conceded, hiding my concern. “I’ll cook!”

His smirk was a killer. “Are you a good cook?”

~

Grey disarmed the smoke alarm after it’d gone off for the third time.

“I guess I’m not a good cook.” Forlorn, I looked up.

He coughed and smiled. “Let’s take a look at the recipe,” he said, picking up the book and scanning the lists. “Holy shit. Lucie, celebrity chefs would have trouble with this.”

“It seemed easy enough. And it looks delicious.”

“So do you.”

I smiled wide but I felt my face flame. I looked down. “I just wanted to make you dinner. I missed you the past couple of days. You didn’t call.”

“I thought about you the entire time.” The back of his fingers brushed over my cheek reverently. I looked up and his eyes were dark. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “How about I make you dinner?”

I leaned into his hand and shrugged, feeling a smile warm me all the way through. “Okay.”

He kissed my forehead, turned away, and opened the refrigerator. I tried to help, but he shook his head and blocked me from doing anything. I settled onto a stool by the kitchen island and watched my man work. He was so focused and sometimes, I wasn’t sure he remembered I was there. But there was a beauty in his concentration that was mesmerizing. I felt as if I were looking beneath his skin and muscle. It was amazing.

Twenty minutes passed in a blink.

“Oh, my God, Grey,” I moaned through a mouthful of spinach and mushroom quesadilla. “This is my new favorite thing.”

He sucked sour cream off his thumb and jumped his eyebrows. “Maybe they were always a favorite.”

I laughed, noting I didn’t care if I’d had them before or not. I probably made an embarrassing spectacle of myself as I inhaled the rest of it, but I didn’t care because Grey’s amusement was worth the price of admission. I set down my plate on the living room floor next to me and leaned into him. I suggested we do “something normal” like watch a movie.

He looked slightly perplexed. “I can’t remember the last time I watched anything but news.”

“That sounds horribly boring.” I pulled up a list of movies. “And crazy depressing. I think I’d rather not watch anything.”

He simpered, but the humor was thin. “I just need to be aware of what’s going on.”

I picked a comedy after Grey refused to offer an opinion. With the two of us, I figured drama was overrated.

After stacking our plates, he got up and put them in the sink. He stopped to look out the windows on his way back, and I followed his line of sight. The sun dipped below the horizon, and the orange glow cast across the sky gave it a red hue.

“Red sky at night,” he murmured.

“What? Oh, wait, I know this one!” I got excited—Nash was always teasing me when I missed pop culture cues. “Um, sailors take flight?”

“Sailor’s delight,” he corrected with a laugh. “Tomorrow should be a nice day.” He walked around and paused at the windows.

I wished I knew what he was looking at, but before I could ask, he closed the curtains and returned to the sofa. We settled in and chatted very little as the movie started. I’d ask inane questions about the characters while he’d call out horrible acting or bad writing. Halfway into the movie, we’d taken to responding in blatant lies.

“Why’d she do that?” I asked once.

“Schizophrenia,” he deadpanned. “The voices told her to.”

“Which ones?”

“Third and fourth ones to the left. They’re conjoined.”

“Smartass.”

When I started making jokes about awkward background actors and their non sequitur actions, Grey started laughing. “‘Hey, what was your part in the movie?’ ‘I was that guy pretending to choke in the background and enjoy it.’”

I threw my head back to laugh as well, probably more entertained by him enjoying himself than at the joke itself. I was so in over my head. Despite seeing him in previews—essentially prophetic daydreams, my expectations were proving wholly different than falling for the real thing. Case in point, the pulling sensation in my stomach. It was so strong, it made me gulp.

His laughter ceased, save the smile that came with it. “You okay?” he asked. “Don’t choke now. That’s his part.” He winked and I felt his eyes all over me.

I giggled, genuinely. “You’re so ridiculous,” I said, but he didn’t join me in my amusement this time. Instead, I turned to see him watching me, an unusual look on his face. One I couldn’t quite place yet. “What?”

He remained silent, but a smile tugged at his mouth. “If only you knew,” he said cryptically.

“Well, I would if you told me,” I shot back and ribbed him with my elbow.

He grinned. “How amazing you are,” he said.

“Oh, I know,” I joked, winking exaggeratedly.

He chuckled, but the smile and humor faded, slipping off his face to reveal something else. “Thank you,” he said.

Moving nothing but my eyes, I looked everywhere around us but his face. “You’re welcome?” I laughed awkwardly, which apparently gave him invitation to grip my sides and tickle me. I hadn’t even realized I was ticklish.

“So generous of you, ma’am,” he teased without letting up. “What’s the matter? What’s making you so restless? Don’t you care for my affections?”

As my laughter changed from awkward to “dear God don’t let me pee myself,” he shifted yet again, stopping suddenly.

“Perhaps I should do what that extra guy sitting in the back booth did,” he suggested as I turned to glance at the TV. Before I knew it, he had latched on to my neck with his mouth, biting hard and then nipping along the more sensitive skin there.

A loud guffaw burst out of me. “He wasn’t a vampire!”

Grey might have been goofing around, but for some reason it made me so hot. My breathing amped up as his nibbles turned to sucking, and licking. Thirty seconds later, we were full-on making out like teenagers. Or, what I imagine typical teenagers would do. The second half of the movie went to waste, not that either of us cared.

Eventually, he worked his way down my neck and my chest. He pushed my shirt up to lick a circle around a nipple, watching it pebble before flicking it with his tongue and continuing lower. My skirt was soon around my waist and my underwear discarded. My Grey, however, was making me see stars with his mouth. I couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because my eyes had rolled back in my skull and my spirit might have left my body when I came.

“I take it back,
that
is my new favorite thing,” I declared, damn sure no one had ever that done to me before. “Feel free to do that again. Whenever you like.”

He laughed. “Maybe we’ll go to a movie theater next time.”

“Good call. Let’s shoot for getting arrested.”

We gave up on watching anything else, and I went to change clothes and wash up. When I came back, Grey was peeking out the corner of the window.

“What is it?” Goose pimples broke out over my arms.

“Nothing.” But he didn’t move. His eyes tracked something, but he remained in place.

“Grey?”

“I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” he said casually, tearing himself away from the window.

“Just like that?”

He furrowed his brow. “I don’t know what that means.”

“We must be morons, we say that a lot.”

“What?”

“The ‘I don’t know what that means’ response,” I said with a chuckle.

He actually cackled. “Okay, well … I’m going to check my work messages and get some sleep, I guess.”

I glared, glancing over at the clock. “It’s early.”

“It’s after midnight.”

“This is New York. Midnight is when the kids go to bed.”

He shook his head, but grinned. “I insist.”

I hated the idea and my expression clearly told him so.

“Lucie, it’s normal for people to go home after a date … or whatever.”

“Fuck normal people.”

“Nah,” he said, winking. “Boring.”

I laughed. “Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go with Vivi and Charlotte for a spa weekend. I won’t see you …”

“Until you get back. Enjoy yourself, and … your friends.”

“They’re your friends, too,” I said, aware that it was a bit of a stretch at this point.

He chuckled. “Nice try.”

I huffed. “Regardless! You’re spending the day being a tourist with me when I get back. We’re going to walk around the city and check out the stuff I’ve been meaning to see.”

His body tensed and his eyes seemed to cloud over for a moment, but a deep breath brought him back to the relaxed Grey from moments ago. “Okay.”

“Will you call me?” I watched his chest rise and fall, his face placid.

“How about you call me, or text when you have time,” he suggested, pulling his phone out and typing something.

“Your number is blocked,” I reminded him. Just thinking of it made me wonder … and doubt him. I took a deep breath and wiped it away. Lots of people have private numbers.

“Yeah,” he mumbled as he tapped away. “But not for you.”

My skin tingled all over with a bit of triumph when I heard my text alert sound on the kitchen counter. I looked up at him and grinned madly. “Thank you.”

He winked and hooked my arm, “forcing” me to walk him to the door. I kissed and groped him as if it were my last conjugal visit before the electric chair. Then I smacked his ass as I shoved him into the hall.

“Have fun walking back with a hard-on!”

Grey

Break

While Lucie was gone, I’d been constantly tempted to call. Yesterday I’d texted her “good morning, angel” because I could no longer resist. The barrage of subsequent selfies she sent started at goofy and happy, quickly descending into flirty and dirty.

This morning I got word from my DC contact. No red flags on Lucie or my family. I was annoyed, and relieved. And then annoyed at being relieved. Aside from my growing feelings on the subject, there was something missing from the facts and I didn’t know how to find it. If Lucie didn’t remember, I couldn’t make her.

When she called me a few hours ago, I immediately agreed to follow through on her tourist agenda. I missed her close to me. As much as I knew how I felt with her, I could not turn off the need to question it all.

~

“I love that sound,” she said.

I looked at her as we walked, remnants of the last hilarity still evident in her smile and happy sighing.

“Sirens?” I joked, speaking over the approaching fire engine.

She jabbed a finger in my side. “Your laugh, sweet lips.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes. Something was wrong with me. She made me laugh and legitimately enjoy the most inane things against my will.

“I
do
,” she insisted. “It makes my heart beat faster.”

“That could be dangerous. I won’t do it again.”

With an adorably outraged expression, she stepped in front of me and stretched up to kiss me soundly. “Like hell, you won’t.”

So far she had avoided bringing up the topic of my family in these quasi-dates, for which I was thankful. It made it easier to focus on just being with Lucie, though my sensors were on high alert ever since she told me what happened to her and her parents. It was clearly a professional hit—even without Lucie’s memory of it. I could practically smell it in the details. Was she safe now? I doubted it, and that made me very uneasy.

As we walked into Washington Square Park, we passed the resident piano at the east end. A scruffy-looking man sat at the bench, tinkling away at a languid, romantic tune that sounded familiar.

I continued walking past, but Lucie stopped. Our tightly entwined hands anchored me and I jerked backward.

“Oh, I always wanted to learn,” she said, staring at the keys. “Especially after Roman told me about how my mother used to play my grandmother’s baby grand. It had to stay behind in Moscow.”

I pivoted on one foot to face her head on. “Who? Wait, do you remember something?”

“What?” She looked at me.

“Did you not hear yourself?”

Her eyes unfocused as she retreated into her mind, sifting. As breath filled her, her face tight with shock, maybe fear. “Oh, my God!” Her eyes filled with tears while her hands gripped my shirt.

“It’s okay, baby.” I pulled her into me. “Just breathe.”

I walked us over to a bench, scanned the immediate area, and settled on the seat.

“I … I can’t,” she stuttered, overwhelmed. “I thought of him talking about the piano and then … I remember my mother!”

“That’s good, right?”

She trained her gaze on my chest, her expression nervous. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Is it?”

“Well—”

“Of course it is,” she continued. Perhaps the awkward look on my face was all the response she’d needed. “It should be, right? I’m remembering
something
. But it’s wrong. These pieces don’t fit together.” Lucie’s hands flew around her face briefly, her fingers twisting in her hair in frustration. She needed comfort and support—neither of which I was qualified to offer.

Fake it.

“Uh, okay.”

Asshole.

“I mean,” I continued, fidgeting, “why don’t you tell me what you saw?”

Her slow deep breath disconcerted me, though I wasn’t sure why. “Okay,” she said. She took my hand in hers and set the pair on her lap. “I saw … a woman with dark green eyes, and she was crying. It wasn’t the one they told me was my mother, Jude? She wasn’t. And Roman wasn’t my dad.”

Her eyes darted around. I held her hand, my thumb reflexively smoothing over her skin and occasionally squeezing. That was comforting, right?

“
Moy angelochek
,” she mumbled and the hairs on my neck stood on end.

The phrase was a Russian endearment, “my little angel.” I was a little rusty, but I remembered enough. I’d been able to learn a few languages thanks to the military and … after. Once I’d mastered one new language, the others had come easily. Regardless, this new information did nothing to alleviate the bad feeling I had about the attack.

“So who were Jude and Roman?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “It’s so incomplete.”