The drive to his place was quiet. The sound of his car’s engine was louder than they were. Teddy took glances over, but he couldn’t tell if Nikki was happy, sad, overwhelmed, angry. It was hard to tell with her. She was probably so used to keeping her own counsel, he presumed, that she kept her feelings to herself too. But he was dying to know.
“What did you think?” he asked her.
Nikki didn’t try to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. She knew. “Your stepmother is awesome,” she said. “She really made me feel at ease. Which isn’t easy to do, by the way.”
“Yeah, she’s great. My dad lucked out when he hooked up with her.”
Nikki looked at him. “He didn’t luck out when he hooked up with your mother?”
“Hell no! Their relationship, like the rest of my Dad’s baby mamas, was toxic. He’s closest to Gloria’s mother, and they’ve had some hard times too.”
“Gloria’s mother?” Nikki asked. “I thought Roz was Gloria’s mother?”
“Why would you think that?” Then Teddy realized why: their ethnicity. “No. Glo’s mother is Bella Caine. And she’s a handful, believe me. She’s nothing like Roz.”
Nikki smiled. “So, your dad’s down with the swirl for real,” she said jokingly.
“Not like my Uncle Tommy Gabrini, who dated black women exclusively, but yeah. He’s been known to be an equal opportunity destroyer of women. Not to mention the children they hatch for his ass.”
Nikki looked at Teddy. “That’s harsh.”
Teddy stared into the black night in front of them. “I know,” he said.
“Are you telling me he wouldn’t win any father, or husband of the year awards?” Nikki asked.
“He might now. He’s great with his two younger kids Roz had for him. But when me, Glo, and Joey were kids? No way. He was never around. And when he did come around all he did was argue with our mothers. My mother, to this day, does all she can to stay away from him.” Then Teddy looked at Nikki. “What about you? What was your impression of him? Is he as scary as you thought he would be before you met him?”
“As scary as I thought? No,” Nikki admitted as she, too, looked out of the car’s window at the long, dark road ahead of them. “Scarier,” she added.
Teddy smiled. And then laughed. “Don’t worry. The one thing about my father? He gets better with age. And then you’ll love him more than life itself.”
Nikki smiled too, wondered if Teddy was really talking about his evolution with his father, but didn’t dare go there. She wouldn’t win any daughter of the year awards either, and her father sure as hell wasn’t anybody’s father of the year. Better, she thought, to move on.
And both of them did, as quietness returned.
The Corvette turned onto the long, sweeping driveway that led, deep back, to Teddy’s modern-chic, contemporary house on the lake. From its angled rooflines to the clerestory windows everywhere, this was the image Nikki had in her mind when she pictured Teddy’s home.
And when they stepped out of the car and entered the bachelor pad, she wasn’t disappointed inside either. There were glossy floors, log beams on the vaulted ceiling, and gorgeous lake views seemingly from every room of the house. Nikki loved it!
And while Teddy made them drinks, she even settled on one of the many sofas in the wide-open floor plan, the one that sat right in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking a sweeping water view. It might be, Nikki thought, the most gorgeous view she had ever seen. She even removed her heels, tucked in her feet on the sofa, and enjoyed every second of that view.
Teddy handed her a glass of wine and, with his own glass, sat beside her. It felt strange having someone in his home who wasn’t related to him. But because it was Nikki, it felt good and right. He sat beside her and enjoyed the view too.
“I’d bet this is your favorite spot in this house,” Nikki said.
“I don’t know if it’s my favorite,” Teddy admitted, “but it’s one of my favorites for sure.”
“It’s a far cry from your father’s colonial-style mansion. I love it.”
“You do? Great! Because this is where you’re going to be staying until--”
Nikki smiled, but it wasn’t a joyous smile. “Until I go back to my great life in L.A.?”
Teddy didn’t smile at all. “You didn’t tell me you got demoted.”
Nikki looked at him. “How did you know?” she asked him. Then she realized whom she was dealing with. She looked out of the window again. “You had stopped calling me by the time that happened.”
Teddy leaned forward. “About that,” he said. Then he looked back at her. “I shouldn’t have just dropped it like that. I apologize. You deserved an explanation.”
“Which was?”
“Too much work. That’s always the reason. I had too much responsibility. I had too much going on.”
Nikki took a sip from her glass to shield her level of interest. “And I was thinking there was a female involved.”
“There was,” Teddy said, “and her name was Work.”
Nikki smiled. Then she asked a question she had a feeling she’d never get a straight answer to: “What kind of work do you do, Teddy?”
“It’s just work,” Teddy said. “But enough about that,” he added, as he sat his glass of wine on the side table. “What about you? How do you feel here in the city of brotherly love?”
“Adrift,” Nikki said. “Lost. Strange.” Then she looked at Teddy. “I’ve gone from a terribly acrimonious divorce, to a job demotion, to attempted rape, to what you saved me from this morning.”
A distressed look appeared on her face. “If you wouldn’t have come to L.A. to get me, and to help me, I don’t know what I would have done. I had nobody I could turn to. And when I say nobody, I mean nobody! I realized, after I did what I did to Louie, just how alone in this world I am. It was like waking up from a fog. From a pretend life. It’s a real scary feeling. It’s a really--”
Teddy leaned back, placed one arm around her body and rested his hand on the side of her long, soft hair. He laid her head on his broad shoulder.
Nikki closed her eyes. “I’m okay,” she said.
“No, you aren’t,” Teddy said.
Tears appeared in Nikki’s eyes. “No, I’m not,” she admitted. And Teddy held her even tighter.
And they sat there, in that same spot in Teddy’s home, for hours.
Until Nikki was asleep, and Teddy carried her upstairs to bed.