Catarina

Two cups of coffee and a slice of toast with raspberry jam has me feeling more human than when I first awoke in Barrett’s bed. More details from last night come back to me throughout the day.

Me rolling over and colliding with a firm leg. Rough fingertips gliding down my arm. The soft reassurance of, “You’re okay, Kitty Cat.”

I’m coming to the bizarre conclusion that Barrett Fox is a lot better boyfriend material than North. I’m not even sure that’s the right description, but I can tell you this: North never would’ve carried me into his apartment and held my hair while I retched.

I’m not a big drinker, but once North and I attended a fundraiser and I drank a few too many champagnes. On the drive home, he sternly reminded me that I wasn’t a teenager and that I was a lady and that if I had to throw up he’d pull over so I could puke on the road rather than ruin the interior of his new car.

Gosh. I’d forgotten about that.

“Why the face?” Barrett asks. He’s on the sofa next to me, elbows on his knees, eyes on mine instead of his computer screen. I’ve been flipping idly through my phone. Okay, not idly. I was reading comments on our article from last weekend.

Rather than tell him my conclusion about Northrop (what could he tell me that I didn’t already know?), I scroll through the comments and start reading out loud. After I read five of them, I notice Barrett is making the same sour face I was earlier.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my tone teasing. “You don’t find several comments from women saying they’d like to do…well, lots of interesting things to you…flattering?”

“No.”

“I guess that makes sense. If these comments were from men saying they wanted me, I wouldn’t be flattered, either.”

“Haven’t you heard not to read the comments?”

“I read all the comments.”

“Poor form.” He shakes his head. “Don’t you want to keep your edge?”

“I like being informed.”

“Informed is one thing. Inundated in another.” He closes his laptop lid and leans over to take my phone away. Now that he’s abandoned his article, he’s prowling to me on his fists, knees on the couch, wicked intent flashing in his blue eyes.

“I have another hangover remedy you can try.”

“What’s that?” I’m grinning already.

“Me.” He kisses me and I close my eyes and kiss him back.

“You’re right,” I say when he comes up for air, “This seems to be helping.”

“I know my stuff,” he opens the button on my shorts. “Shimmy out of those and underwear, too. Want to do it on the couch or the bed?”

“Be still my heart.” I pat my chest for effect. “So romantic.”

“Fine. Would you rather make love on the veranda or in the servants’ quarters?”

The first notes of my laughter are lost when he kisses me again. He helps divest me of my burdensome clothing and I, in turn, help him as well. Soon it’s hot skin and wet mouths, and naked bodies.

We split the difference of his request. We “did it” on the couch, but it felt a lot like making love to me.

---

“Champagne?” A waiter approaches with a tray and Barrett politely shakes his head. I take one of the flutes filled with bubbly and take a sweet, delicious sip.

“You must be feeling better.” Barrett accepts a beer in a pilsner glass from a different member of the waitstaff.

“Champagne wasn’t what downed me last night.”

He leans close, hand at my waist and lips to my ear. “Champagne wasn’t what downed you a few hours ago, either. Seems your weakness for shots is equal to your weakness for me.”

I crane an eyebrow. “Wrong. I’ll never drink a shot like that one again, but you I plan on having several more times.”

The heat in his eyes mingles with mine and I wonder if anyone else has picked up on the serious eye-banging we’re doing in the center of the governor’s grand hall.

“Darlings,” Mia, in rare form tonight, glides over in a silver and black sequined sheath. Her hair is smooth and straight rather than its usual nest.

“You look great.”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Catarina. I’m not you with your nipped waist and perfect calves. Not to mention the pink apples of your cheeks.” She downs the rest of her champagne and burps under her breath, gesturing to Barrett with her empty flute glass. “If I looked as good as you, I’d fake-date him, too.”

She smiles at her own joke, then assesses us. I have the irrational worry that she can tell Fox and I had sex today.

“When you dated North you were hyper-focused on work,” Mia says. “Very serious about your job. Now you’re meeting your deadlines but with half the intensity. I’m not sure if I like it. Guess it’ll depend on the number of advertising dollars your articles earn.”

I’m not sure how to take her remarks. Was that a threat or an honest assessment?

“Tomorrow morning will be a big determining factor. If your column does well, I’ll need to post the others closer together.”

“No problem,” I agree, belatedly realizing I’ve spoken for both Fox and myself. “As long as it’s okay with Barrett. I…don’t want to rush him.”

“It’s not a problem.” He jerks his chin, his expression made of stone.

“None at all?” Mia asks with a head tilt. The challenge in her eyes doesn’t intimidate him in the least.

“No, ma’am.” He pulls me close, a possessive arm around my waist.

“Very well. I’m off to hobnob with the governor. Have you said hello yet?”

“Not yet,” I answer. “But we’ll make our way over there.”

“See that you do.” She turns on her square-heeled shoes and clicks off, leaving us alone in a sea of black and white formal wear.

“Yikes.” I let out a breath. “Either my job’s on the line, or she’s feisty tonight.”

“You’re job’s not on the line, Kitty Cat. I won’t allow it.” He glances around the room while that promise warms my belly. I can take care of myself, being the modern, capable woman I am, but damn if I don’t appreciate his support. “Dance with me?”

“Dance? Here?”

The four-piece band is playing softly in the background but no one dances. Everyone’s too busy eating or drinking or bitching about work.

“Unless you want me to sing. I know a Sinatra tune.”

At the mention of him singing again, I let out a soft hum. He notices and a low laugh rumbles through him.

“To think that you used to hate me.” He leads me to the center of the room and places his hands on my waist. My arms naturally go to his neck, draping there as I look up at him.

“I didn’t hate you. I didn’t understand you.”

“So I’m just misunderstood?”

The same man who stood on a field during a football game and made harsh, sexist remarks to a female referee is the same guy who apologized to her in private. Repeatedly. That guy is the same guy who foots his brother’s bills, cares for his nephew, loves kids, and held my hair after I drank too many Burke-bombers.

“Yes,” I tell him. “If the world knew what you were struggling with, they’d have a hard time labeling you as a bad boy. They might start referring to you as Saint Barrett Fox.”

Another laugh—deep and rough—vibrates up my arms and curls around my heart.

“You’re kind,” I tell him.

“Kind.” He says it like it’s an insult. “Sounds sexy.”

“Kindness is very sexy. You don’t find that quality in every man. Hell, I haven’t found it any man.” I think of North. He wasn’t kind. He was…what’s the word? Tolerant. Tolerance isn’t the same as kindness. Kindness is an action. It’s for the brave souls of the world. It’s for the Barrett Foxes of the world.

“I won’t let you down on the column,” he says.

“You’re proving my point. I’m complimenting you and you’re worried about my job.”

“I’m not worried. I’m setting your mind at ease.”

“That’s very considerate.”

“Now I’m considerate and kind?” He winces. “Not the best recipe for getting the girl into bed.”

“It is for this girl.”

“You’re different from any woman I’ve known, Catarina.” He turns with me on our made-up dance floor. “I never imagined I’d have a chance with a woman like you, yet here you are. Giving me one.”

“Knowing you has changed me. Is changing me.”

“You’d have dumped North without me around,” he says.

“Yes. I would’ve.”

I was putting the pieces together on why North and I didn’t fit when I met Fox. It’s clear now that North and I were on the outs. I’d begun to notice the neglect. A cobweb or two could go unnoticed. Dust settling lightly on the surface could be overlooked. But by the time one broken window turns into two, you’d have to be blind not to question if there’s a problem.

I am not blind.

“Who other than you would’ve offered to have sex with me out of pity in Marge’s former office?”

“That was not pity, honey. That was me using my strengths. I thought I could bad-boy you into sex. It’s sort of what I’m known for.”

“Now bad boy is a verb?”

“Duh.”

“Let’s not talk about it.” I squeeze my eyes shut as we sway to the music.

“You do not like to think about the women I’ve been with, do you?”

“Don’t be smug.”

“You’re jealous and it’s cute.”

“I’m not cute.”

“You’re fucking adorable. I promise you, mostly it was Beth and me. I didn’t break up with her and immediately bang every chick in a ten-mile radius. Most of the women who brag about sleeping with me haven’t.”

I make another face.

“Celebrity,” he says in explanation. “Lies are my life.”

“And yet you give me the real you at every turn.”

It might be the closest we’ve come to laying out what is really happening between us. He can be himself around me. I know his secrets. The things no one else bothers to scratch the surface to find.

“If Beth knew all these amazing things about you, why aren’t you still together?”

“Eh. Lot of water under that bridge.” He shakes his head. “Same way it didn’t happen for North and you, Beth and I had a hard time making it work. We liked each other, maybe even loved each other, but not in an enduring way.”

Hearing that he loved her isn’t unexpected. What kind of stunted male would he be if he didn’t love the girl he returned to over and over for years? I loved North, too. I thought.

“I guess I fell out of love with North as quickly as I fell in. It sort of…evaporated before either of us realized it.” I frown. “That’s not true. He realized it before I did. Way before I did.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a finisher. You finish things.”

“And you don’t?”

“Not relationships. Not careers. They end up on pause—a still screen that never changes.” He blinks a few times like he’s having an epiphany. Once his gaze is on mine, it stays there. “Until you. With you I’m in a state of becoming.”

The shock of that simple statement radiates across my chest. I’m in a state of becoming. Is there any greater compliment than knowing someone is growing and becoming someone they wouldn’t be without you?

“I don’t know what to say,” I finally mutter.

He pulls me closer and kisses my temple. “Don’t say anything. Just keep dancing with me.”