CHAPTER TWENTY

The usher seats us.

Charlotte crosses her arms, and heaves a sigh.

“You doing okay?”

She nods. Her lips form a straight line.

“You sure? Because if I were a betting man I’d say you’re pissed.”

“I’m fine.”

I arch an eyebrow skeptically. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She uncrosses her arms, grabs my shirt sleeve, and shifts gears instantly. “When are we going to make a voodoo doll for that reporter?”

I pretend to stare thoughtfully in the distance. “Let’s see. I’ve got that on the calendar for tomorrow at three. That still work?”

She nods vigorously. “You bring the pins; I’ll get the cloth.”

“Excellent. I’ll find an instructional video on YouTube so we can do it up right.”

She beams, then whispers to me as the overture begins, “I hated those questions.”

“He was trying to play hardball, and it’s such a pointless topic. You did great though.”

“They were embarrassing,” she says, then beckons me closer as fiddle notes carry across the audience. “Do you think he’s onto us?”

“It felt that way, but I think he was just lobbing questions to see which stuck.”

“Did you like my final answer, though?”

Like it? I loved what she said about things happening quickly. More than I should. “It was fantastic.”

“I did good with that one, didn’t I?” she says, blowing on her fingers like she’s too hot to handle.

My heart plummets, then craters to the floor. That sinking feeling comes with the recognition that I wanted some truth to what she said. I wanted something in it to be real.

“It was thoroughly believable,” I say, managing a smile that is fake, and her answer is a reminder that even though for some unknown reason I don’t want this to end, Charlotte is over and out in four more days.

She’ll be done, but I’ll want to keep this up.

The first number begins, and I think—no, I’m sure—that this is officially my least favorite time at a musical, ever. Watching it hurts.

* * *

Charlotte is quiet as we wander through Times Square, having said good night to my parents and the Offermans. We thread our way through the crazy crowds in the glitzy neon of Manhattan’s famous sardine tin, sort of a mosh pit meets a zoo of people in a city of millions. A man painted as a silver robot makes jerky gestures next to a top hat collecting a few coins. A guy peddling Statue of Liberty key chains bumps into Charlotte and knocks her with his elbow.

“Ow,” she mutters.

“You okay?” I ask, and reach my hand to rub. Instinct, I suppose—to take care of her. But I pull my hand back. She doesn’t want it, or need it. She can take care of herself.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she says, shrugging it off. “And hey, we survived another performance.”

“Of Fiddler?”

She shakes her head. “No.” She adopts the tone of a radio announcer. “And tonight at eight p.m., we have another rendition of Happily Engaged Couple.”

I wince. “Right. That one.”

This is when I should make a joke. When I should reassure her. When I should tell her thanks once again.

I say nothing. I have nothing to say. A bald man with two gold teeth barks out offers to a half-nude comedy act. “Half nude, half off.”

Someone shouts back, “All nude, all off?”

We pass a theater, then a T-shirt shop, and sidestep a couple in khaki shorts, white sneakers, and FDNY T-shirts. I have no idea where we’re going. Honestly, I’m not even sure why we were walking on Broadway in the first place. I think we just went in a U. What is wrong with me? I can’t even navigate my own city anymore.

We reach the corner of Forty-third and stop on the concrete. A bus crawls up Eighth Avenue. Tourists circle us as we stand awkwardly, facing each other. My whole life I’ve known what to do, how to move forward, how to meet life at every curve and bend. Tonight, I’m thrown, and I barely understand how to put one foot in front of the other.

I scratch my head.

“Um, where are we going, Spencer?”

I shrug. “Hadn’t thought about it.”

“What do you want to do?” she asks, clasping her hands together as if she’s looking for something to do with them.

“Whatever works for you,” I say, jamming my thumbs into the pockets of my jeans.

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“If you do.”

She sighs. “Should I just get a cab home?”

“Do you want to get a cab?” I ask, and I’d like to kick myself. I can’t stand me right now, this indecisive, uncertain dude in a funk who is trying to take over my body. I don’t know him. I don’t care for him. And I didn’t give him squatter’s rights in my body. I’m going to have to muscle him out of the way. I hold up a hand. “Scratch that,” I say with drummed-up confidence. This fake affair might be ending in a few more days, but I’m not going to mope my way through the best sex of my life. I’m going to rise to the occasion.

“Scratch what? Getting a cab?”

I shake my head and park my hands on her shoulders. “This is what I want to do right now. I want to take you back to my place. Strip you naked. Run my tongue across every inch of your skin, and then do that thing I told you I would do to you when we were in Katharine’s.”

Her eyes sparkle, then shine with desire. She nods eagerly. “Yes.”

There. Beautiful. I grab my phone from my back pocket to order up an Uber, since catching a cab here is impossible. As I tap my details into the app, she places her hand on my arm.

“But, um, there’s something I wanted to tell you first.”

Oh shit. My heart pounds. She’s going to end this. She’s had enough. She’s gotten her fill. She’s saddling up for one last ride tonight, and then she’s putting me to pasture.

“What is it?” I ask, and my heart feels like it’s in my throat.

“Remember when we said no lying?”

“Yes.” I swallow, bracing myself. The tension ties itself into knots in my chest, and I don’t like this feeling. I don’t want to ever feel this way. It feels like need and dependency. Like something I barely know. “Are you going to?” I spit out.

“Going to what?”

“End this?” I ask, because I can’t take it anymore.

She laughs.

“It’s not funny,” I insist.

“It is funny.”

“Why?”

She shakes her head. “You idiot.” She grabs my shirt and brings me closer to her. My heart throws itself against my ribs. “This is what I wanted to tell you. When you asked me what was wrong before the show started, and I said nothing? That was a lie. I was jealous. Terribly jealous.”

I rewind to Charlotte crossing her arms, to her making jokes about the reporter, to her being proud of pulling off the act. “You were jealous?”

“I was trying desperately not to be. That’s why I let it go and made the joke about the voodoo doll.”

“Why were you jealous?”

She rolls her eyes. “All those women the reporter was naming. Hearing about them made me jealous.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you get it?”

“No. But we’ve already established you need to use the ABCs with me. So go ahead. Spell it out,” I say, tapping my temple and mouthing dense.

She blushes, then speaks softly. Her voice is barely audible above the noise of the street, the sound of the crowds, the roar of traffic. But every word is music. “Because they were with you.”

My lips quirk up. “Like how I felt about Bradley when you were with him,” I admit, and it feels freeing to say that. More so, to give voice to something I’d felt but barely understood at the time.

“You felt that way when I was with him?”

“Sometimes I did,” I say, flashing back to those days when she was with the supreme douche. There were nights when she left The Lucky Spot early and went home with him, and my mind wandered to her. Sure, I had women to keep me busy, but now and then the green-eyed monster paid me a visit. I’d be a sap, though, to tell her all of that. I’ve got to protect some of my secrets. I hold up my hands. “Go figure.”

“Spencer?” she whispers.

“Yes?”

“I think we broke another rule tonight.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Which one? Lying?”

“Yes, but also—”

We speak at the same time. “Weirdness.”

Then we laugh. Together.

“From the way you asked me to the show, to me being jealous, to the reporter being a wiener. It was all weird,” she says. She gives me a knowing look. “There’s only one cure for weirdness.”

“Anal?”

She swats me on the shoulder. “We’re not breaking that rule. Ever,” she says, her eyes drifting to my crotch. “I was thinking more like doggie style.”

“That’s what I meant to say.” I kiss her until the car arrives.

Then the rest of the way downtown.

All the way up in my elevator.

As I open the door.

And then as I strip her naked and lay her on her stomach on my bed.