Chapter Twelve
AUSTIN
“No way! That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m so happy for you.” Frankie practically squealed in excitement after I filled him in on my new job.
“Yeah? So you think I was smart to take it, right?”
We were in my apartment, having stopped on our way to Frankie’s parents’ place in Howard Beach for Sunday dinner. I needed to drop my stuff off from our SoHo shopping expedition.
I hadn’t been able to catch Frankie in person, and except for some quick texts, we hadn’t had a good talk in a while. With his increased school load plus designing, he’d cut back his dancing to three days a week instead of five, and I hadn’t made it to Man Up at all these past two weeks. I’d worried about telling James I needed to cut back my time as well, but he understood once I explained my reason, and assured me I always had a place with him.
“Are you fucking nuts? Of course. And”—a cunning expression lit up his big brown eyes—“this way you can get closer to Mr. Rich and Sexy and make your move.”
“Stop calling him that,” I said, my irritation rising. “His name is Rhoades, and that’s not why I took the job.”
“Yeah, but is it why he gave it to you? I mean, he can have the best in the world; why would he choose you if he didn’t only want to get in your pants? Not that you’re not a great designer. My mom loves how you helped her with her house. But staging an apartment like that?” Frankie whistled. “That’s the big-time.”
“We hashed everything out. I made it clear my working for him didn’t include fucking him.” I picked up my keys from the bowl I threw them in when I entered the apartment and opened the door. “Let’s go. You know the A train sucks like shit on the weekend. It’s gonna take forever, and I don’t want to be late to your parents’.”
“I’m ready.” We walked out and took the stairs down two flights since the elevator had been acting up for the past two days. The last thing I wanted to do was get stuck for hours when Frankie’s mom had made me meatballs and spaghetti. I’d been craving comfort food lately, and I realized why. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and that meal was the one we always made together.
When we passed by the bodega, I saw Chanan through the window. With all the work lately on the penthouse and my dance lessons, I hadn’t had nearly the same time as before to go and hang out there.
“Mind if we stop in here for a sec? I want to say hello and get some gum.”
“Not a problem. I could use a coffee.” As if to prove his point, Frankie let out a huge yawn and stretched. “I stayed up way too late last night.”
“Oh?” I hated my suspicions, but over the past weeks Frankie and I had drifted somewhat, and I could pinpoint the exact time it occurred: Aaron, out of jail and back in Frankie’s life. I knew Aaron didn’t want me influencing Frankie, but if I got the chance, I’d tell him to go straight to hell. No stopping for second chances. No get out of jail free.
“You’re my best friend, but that don’t mean you get to tell me how to live my life. Especially when you won’t take advice on how to live yours. Not from me or any of the guys.”
He kicked the ground with his sneaker, and I wanted to shake him. I could predict in days—weeks—months, he’d be hiding bruises and making excuses. My inner voice raged and screamed, and I amazed myself with how calm I sounded when I answered him.
“I worry. That’s all. Because I saw, Frankie. I was there with you in that hospital room and saw what he did to you.”
“And I say I know what I’m doing. I’m twenty-eight, not a kid. I told you he didn’t hurt me. He’s getting help for his anger and stuff—he sees a doctor once a month in group sessions, and he asked me to come with him for his one-on-one with the doctor. Plus he’s still looking for work, but it isn’t easy when you got a record. No one wants to hire you.”
Those who misjudged Frankie because of his outspoken personality and outlandish behavior were the foolish ones. He was smart and savvy, and once he gave you his heart, it was yours for life. Even if you abused it.
“I only want you to be careful.”
“And I want you to start living again. Not everyone wants something from you.”
I pushed open the door to the bodega. “Everyone wants something from someone. It’s a jungle. Eat or be eaten.”
Chanan greeted me from behind the counter with a smile. “That’s a harsh statement from such a young person.”
I ignored his remark. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, thank you. I’ve decided not to worry about things I cannot change. What will happen will happen.”
I nodded. “I guess it doesn’t pay to stress. Chanan, remember my friend Frankie? Can he have a regular coffee, and I’m taking two packs of gum.”
Chanan busied himself behind the counter, then handed Frankie a cup.
“Nice to see you again, Frankie. New York is not what it used to be. There’s precious little left for the ones like us. People trying to make it. If they make this building into luxury condos, we’ll probably move somewhere warmer.”
I got it. My father’s law firm specialized in real estate, and he’d made his millions by taking buildings like this and squeezing the little guy until he couldn’t breathe; then when they left, their real-estate holding company would knock it down and build overpriced apartments for all the people flooding into the city.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. You guys have been here forever.”
Chanan’s smile faded. “Nothing lasts forever, Austin.”
Truer words never spoken. “Say hi to Vijay for me. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Bye.”
Frankie smiled his goodbye, and we walked outside and down the block to the train station, each lost in our own thoughts. It wasn’t until we were on the train to Queens that Frankie nudged me.
“How come you waited to tell me anything about your new job? You know I’d go with you to the showrooms and help you choose stuff.”
I winced at the hurt in Frankie’s voice, and I didn’t have an answer for him. Maybe it was because this was something of my own…mine alone…and I wanted so badly to prove I could do it.
The train jerked and squealed going around the curve, giving me time to search for the words to make Frankie understand.
“I’m not hiding anything.” I traced the dirty drip of someone’s spilled drink on the floor of the car with my sneaker. “I don’t want to fail, but at the same time I think if I don’t try and do this on my own, I’ll never know if I’ve got what it takes. Does that make sense?” The other stuff, stuff about my father and failure and me needing to prove to him I wasn’t the parasite he called me, I’d keep to myself. No one needed to know that.
Frankie finished taking a drink from his coffee cup before answering. “Yeah. I get it. ’Cause this is your dream and it’s scary as shit that it’s right there in front of you but it could disappear.”
Relieved, I smiled. I knew Frankie would understand. “Yeah. I just don’t want to fuck it up.”
“You couldn’t,” Frankie said. My loyal best friend. “You’re gonna kill it. And you’ll show Rhoades you’re more than a sexy piece of ass.”
Almost my exact words to him. I elbowed Frankie at his emphasis on Rhoades’s name. “I don’t care what he thinks of me as long as he likes what I’m doing.”
The train pulled into the Howard Beach station, and we stood to get off. Frankie slung his arm around my neck. “He’s gonna love it.”
All my good feelings vanished the moment Frankie and I stepped into his parents’ house and I saw Aaron sitting in the living room. I stopped short in the entrance hall, unable to believe Frankie’s mom, Jeannie, would let the man who hurt her son step into her house. As if she read my mind, she linked her arm through mine and walked me into the kitchen.
“Now before you say something, I gotta talk.” If I could have chosen another mother, it would be Jeannie, who was never anything less than brutally honest. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Is she fucking crazy to let him back in this house?’ And you may be right. But”—she nervously adjusted the chain of the small gold cross she never took off from around her neck—“it was either that or not see Frankie no more. And I’m not willing to give up my son. But I told Aaron. I got a direct line to the precinct now, and Pauly, our new next-door neighbor? He’s a cop.” A satisfied smile curved her lips. “So we got our eyes open now. That man out there got a lot to prove. One thing. One little thing and he’s out.”
“Good. I tried talking to Frankie, but he’s not listening to me.”
“Oh, honey, he don’t listen to me either. You know how he is. But if he wants to come here with that man, he gotta play by our rules.”
“Frankie’s lucky he has you.” We walked back out to join the others in the living room but not before she stopped and faced me.
“You can tell me anything. You’re like my son too. If you need someone to talk to”—she gave me a quick fierce hug that sent a rush of warmth through me—“you call me. Anytime.”
“Thanks, Jeannie.”
“Promise?” She fixed me with her big brown eyes, so much like Frankie’s.
“I promise.”
Because Frankie had decided to spend the night at his parents’ and not go back with me, I had the train ride to myself. Dinner had been a bit awkward with Aaron sitting across from me, attempting to initiate conversation. Having no desire to listen to his bullshit, I shut him down immediately and ignored Frankie’s angry glares. Frankie confronted me when he walked me back to the train station.
“You’re not even gonna give him a chance, are you?”
“I’m not the one he owes anything to. It’s you. I’m watching and waiting.”
“Waiting for him to fail, right? Because you want him to. Sometimes I think you want everyone to be miserable, Austin, because you’re so unhappy. But I don’t want to be like that. I’m happy. Right now. In the moment. That’s what life is about. Enjoying what’s in front of you instead of thinking something bad is always gonna happen and being miserable. You could be happy too. Think about it.”
He walked away without saying goodbye, and I stared after him. Confused, I swiped my MetroCard and sat on the bench, waiting for the train. Frankie was wrong. He was too trusting, too naive. Most people wanted something from you, and when they didn’t get it, they either hurt you or left you.
After waiting almost twenty minutes for a train, it finally pulled into the station. I took a two-seater in the corner and stared unseeing at the advertisements as we traveled into the night. I took out my phone to check my emails and gave a small fist-pump to myself when a designer emailed me back to say he had all the pieces I’d inquired about and asked if I would like to come by tomorrow to place an order.
This is really happening. I was designing for a luxury building all on my own. Rhoades popped into my head, and I wondered what he’d been doing for the past several weeks. With me not dancing at the club, I hadn’t seen him, and true to his word, he didn’t text or call me. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to text him that I was making progress. He’d asked for status reports and given me his work and personal emails.
Choosing the work email first, I typed out a list of all the places I’d visited, the pieces I’d put in requests for, and the corresponding charges from the different showrooms. I made sure to keep it business-like and hit Send.
I received an auto response only a moment later.
I am out of the office and will respond as soon as possible. If this is an emergency, please contact my assistant, Clare White, at 212-555-0923.
Hmm. He never mentioned going out of town. Then I laughed at my stupidity. Why would he tell me his schedule? Keeping to the rules I’d set out the night he brought me to dinner at his home, we hadn’t spoken. I rubbed the back of my neck, a bit put out that he didn’t at least text me to ask how the work was progressing, especially since he was the one who’d insisted on weekly status updates.
Jerk, I thought to myself. He’s following your rules, and you’re pissed off.
The train slowed to a halt at my stop, and I hurried out the door of the subway car. I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets, put my head down, and took the stairs two at a time. It wasn’t late enough for the sky to be black, and the streets were filled with people. I studied them as I walked home. Couples strolled by hand-in-hand, holding bags with takeout food for a cozy dinner together before they watched their Netflix movies, then fooled around. Teenagers hung out on the stoops, checking out their phones, waiting for an Instagram or Snapchat worthy moment.
Irritated with myself and how I’d left things with Frankie, the first thing I did after entering my apartment was take out my phone and text him.
Sorry. I don’t want this to ruin our friendship.
Then don’t let it, he texted back.
Dammit, what was happening? We used to laugh and joke, and now he was short-tempered and uncompromising. I blamed Aaron, but was I willing to lose Frankie over it? The answer was obvious.
I promise I won’t. Dancing tomorrow night?
Yeah. U?
Yeah. Pizza before?
I waited for an answer, letting out a breath of relief at the thumbs-up emoji that popped up.
I shut the screen down, took off my jacket, and tossed it over the short, squat cracked-leather chair I’d found on the street and wrestled up the steps when I first moved in three years ago. Chris had always refused to sit in it, wrinkling his nose at what he called my “junkyard decorating.”
I stretched out on the sofa, another product of the street, that I’d reupholstered in a soft blue velvet. How could I have been so miserably wrong about Chris, and why had I allowed myself to even think about him again? But I knew. It was seeing Frankie laugh with Aaron and hang on his every word tonight that did it.
When I met Chris, I fell hard and fast for him. He’d treated me like a prince: home-cooked meals, calling to check on me a few times a day, and buying me clothes. But when it turned controlling, when the calls became check-ins as to where I was and who I was with, when I had to get off the computer the moment he walked through the door or get called a lying bitch, a whore, and a cocksucker because Chris thought I was talking to other men, when he told me he wouldn’t let me dance anymore—he wouldn’t let me—that was when I knew it was over.
Only Chris didn’t agree and used every trick in the book to keep me. Once it became apparent that all the sweet-talking, presents, and sex wouldn’t work, he moved on first to verbal abuse, then to physical assault when I told him I was done. After I left the hospital, Frankie invited me to stay with him at his parents’ house, where his mother took care of both of us, and we forged a true bond of brotherhood. I knew I’d never go back to Chris. We hadn’t been together all that long, and I’d clung to him as a safe place, but Frankie and Aaron had that history.
Fuck it. I rubbed my face with my hands and shook my head as if to dislodge all thoughts of Chris from my mind. No. Not going backward when I’m this close to achieving my goal. My phone vibrated and the screen flashed.
Rhoades.
I snatched it up, my fingers fumbling in their haste to unlock it and answer.
“Hello. Hello?”
The low, slightly cultured tones of Rhoades’s voice greeted me. “Austin. Is everything well?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?” I couldn’t say why the sound of his voice made my heart slam in fast beats.
“Because you emailed me, and we agreed not to talk until the project was finished. Is it? Finished, I mean?”
“Hell, no.” I swung my legs off the sofa and sat up. “And I didn’t think we weren’t talking at all. You wanted status reports, right?”
“That’s true.”
“So, um, I wanted to tell you what I did these past couple of weeks.” I glanced at the screen and saw it was after nine p.m. I had no idea where he was, what time zone he might be in. It irritated me, and I couldn’t understand why. “Is this a good time to talk?”
“I called you, so yes.”
At the undercurrent of laughter in his voice, my irritation grew. “It’s all spelled out in my email. You didn’t need to call me.”
“But I wanted to. I read through this, and I’m amazed at all you accomplished in two weeks when you had other commitments.”
Stupidly thrilled at his praise, I tucked my feet under me. “I didn’t dance at Man Up. It would’ve been too much with this work and my lessons at the studio. Something had to give.”
“I’m sure James understood.”
“I hope so. I mean, he said he was fine with it when I called him, but he’s always so easygoing. You don’t think he’d be upset that I cut back some of my hours, do you?”
“James doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.”
The tone of the conversation shifted, and in that one sentence, Rhoades sounded melancholy and withdrawn.
“How do you know each other? Were you friends growing up?” I knew I was breaking my own rules, but I couldn’t help it. He was so intriguing…so mysterious. Not to mention so damn sexy that two weeks later, I still felt his tongue in my mouth from that one kiss. A kiss that left me reeling. A kiss that incinerated the memory of any of my previous kisses. I had to know more. So to hell with the rules tonight.
“No. We didn’t know each other when we were children. We met as teenagers. When do you think you’ll begin ordering the furniture?”
If that wasn’t a signal to change the subject, I didn’t know what was. But then, I was never good at taking hints.
“College, then?” I persisted. I had to know. Why I had to, I couldn’t say. “You went to school in England. Did James go there with you too? Were you roommates?” I wondered if they were lovers at one point and why that thought sent a white-hot stab of jealousy through my gut.
“Austin, why all the questions? What are you doing?”
“Just making conversation. I don’t understand why you want to keep your relationship with James a secret. If you were lovers or something, what’s the big deal? At least you stayed friends. Most people never want to see an ex again.”
“Do you? Still see your exes?”
My good mood fled. “No.” Every once in a while, I’d catch a glimpse of someone on the street or at the club who looked like Chris or hear laughter that sounded like him, and my stomach would tense with a combination of pain and fear. “I haven’t had many relationships, and the last one I did have didn’t end well.”
Uhhhh…what the fuck was I doing? I didn’t talk about things…feelings…with anyone. Only Frankie and his mother knew about Chris, and even with them, I couldn’t reveal all that twisted ugliness. I was too embarrassed at letting myself get caught up in that situation. Maybe questioning Rhoades wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Abandoning the talk of James and him, I returned to the purpose of our discussion, rushing to fill the silence with words. “Anyway, um, things are going great, and I should start getting some pieces by next week. Once the big items are settled, it’ll be easier to choose the smaller ones.”
“Thank you for emailing me with an update. I appreciate it.”
This was a Rhoades I hadn’t seen before. Distant. Aloof. Disconnected. I didn’t like it. And I didn’t like how I felt because of it.
“Sure, uh, okay.”
“Good night, Austin.”
“Good—”
Before I could finish, he’d disconnected the call, leaving me talking to dead air. Angry at Rhoades for behaving like an ass, and at myself for feeling like one, I threw the phone to the opposite end of the sofa.
If that was how he wanted to do this, fine by me.