Logan shakes his head and motions to me. He’ll have what I’m having. “Two pieces of apple pie and two root beers.” I say.
She nods and cracks her gum at me. “You look awfully familiar,” she says, her eyes narrowing at me.
Logan takes a napkin and pulls a Sharpie from his pocket. He’s never without something to write with. He very slowly writes the words my girlfriend. It’s slow enough and the letters are spaced far enough apart that I can read them. Then he points to me.
Annie’s eyebrows lift. She twists her mouth into a look of incredulity, but then she shrugs and walks away.
“Why didn’t you talk to her?” I ask. “You do have a voice.”
“I don’t talk to everyone.”
“Mmm hmm,” I hum. “Sometimes I think you like your silent world.”
“I like it just fine as long as you’re in it.” He takes my hand in his and swipes his thumb across my skin. He flips my arm over and looks closely at my tattoo. He looks up at me. “You already knew you were going to leave when you got this.”
I knew these questions were coming. And they have to be answered. “I had already called my Dad and told him I would come home if he would take care of Matt. Yes.”
He drags his finger from my wrist to my inner elbow, and the hairs on my arms stand up as he traces the letters of his name. It’s not a dainty tattoo. It takes up my entire inner forearm. “You called your dad from the hospital that day when they said there was no hope for Matt.”
I nod. “They said he could have a chance if he had enough money. And I had access to enough money.”
His brow crinkles. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You let me wake up alone, and you were gone.”
“Would you have let me leave?”
He drags a hand down his face as though he’s tired. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t want to argue with you about it. It was Matt’s life or my freedom.” I shrug. “I chose Matt’s life.”
His blue eyes bore intently into mine as he leans forward and cups my neck in his hand. He pulls me toward him. His breath touches my lips ever so gently, and then his mouth slides across mine. I don’t know what I expected, but this isn’t it. He licks across the seam of my lips, and I lift up to press myself closer to him, hopping up on my knees so I can lean across the table. His tongue is a velvet rasp against mine. When he pulls back, I’m breathless.
“Don’t leave me again,” he says.
“I won’t.”
He squeezes my neck, kisses me really quickly, and sits back. I want to go and sit on his side of the table so I can touch him, but he won’t be able to see my lips if I do that. I tap his arm so he’ll look at me. “I want to show you something.”
He raises his eyebrows, and he waggles them playfully. “You had better be ready to show me everything.”
I choke. I’ll show him that later. “Ask me something in sign language.”
When I left, I was a novice at speaking his language. I could follow some things, but not everything. I took a class while I was gone. Now I’m pretty good at it.
He narrows his eyes at me and starts to sign. I started classes at NYU on Monday, he says.
I start Julliard next Monday.
He grins.
Not bad. You practiced?
I took a class.
His mouth falls open. For me?
No, dummy. For me. He grins at that. “Dummy” is a term of endearment in his family. There are a lot more words they use, and none of them flattering, but they love one another like crazy.
My brothers want to see you, especially Matt.
I nod. I want to see them, too.
I take his hand in mine and flip his wrist over so I can see my tattoo on his skin. It’s something I’d drawn when I’d felt hopeless and lost. He put it on the inside of his wrist, and then he added a keyhole so I’d have a way out. It sort of goes with the key on my arm. I drag my finger across the one he wears. It’s beautiful. Just like him.
He shifts in his seat, adjusting his fly. I raise my eyebrows at him. “Something wrong?” I ask. I use my voice because I don’t want to let his hand go.
“Aside from the fact that I’m horny as hell, no.” He laughs as heat creeps up my face. “Let’s talk about the snow or the frozen river or I’ll never be able to get up from here.”
Annie sets two plates of pie and two root beers between us. Logan grins at her. I tell her thanks, trying to distract myself. There’s something I need to ask Logan. I don’t have any right to the answer, and I shouldn’t even care, but I need to know.
He tilts my chin up with a crooked finger. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Logan,” I begin. I take a deep breath. “I left you. And I’ll understand if you moved on. I just want to be sure that you want me now, from this moment forward. Whatever you did or whoever you saw when I was gone is none of my business.” Tears sting in my eyes. I’m forgiving him for whatever he may have done and doing a really poor job of it.
“What the fuck, Emily?” he says. He throws his napkin down on the table. “Ask me the question.” His gaze is intense, and I shrink inside a little bit. “Ask me if I f**ked someone else while you were gone. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
“No. What I’m saying is that…” Shit. I don’t know what I’m saying. “If you did, I drove you to it.” I heave a sigh and close my eyes. His gaze is too passionate for me.
His voice is quiet but clear, and it reaches me through my closed eyelids. “I haven’t f**ked anybody since the night I made love to you.” He slaps a heavy hand down on the table. “You really think I could stop loving you like that?”
“Was sex ever about love for you before, Logan?” I open my eyes, and he looks startled.
“Not until I met you,” he admits. His shoulders relax a little. “The last person I was inside was you, Em,” he says. “You. Only you.”
My heart skips a beat. “There hasn’t been anyone else for you? That whole time?”
“How could there be, you brilliant little dummy?” he asks. He softens the blow of the word “dummy” because he hurt my feelings with it once. My dyslexia makes reading hard, and people can be cruel.
“Just dummy will do,” I say quietly, and a smile breaks through my waterworks.
“What about you?” he asks. His gaze is intense.
My heart is so light that I can barely follow what we were talking about. “What about me?” I ask.
“You asked me if I was faithful to you,” he reminds me.
“I wasn’t really asking. I was just telling you that I could understand it if you weren’t. You didn’t even know if I was coming back.”
“I knew. But I would have done the same thing even if I hadn’t known.” His eyes narrow. “Are you avoiding my question?”
“What question?”
“Dammit, Emily.” He slaps his hand on the table again. “Did you or did you not f**k someone else?”
People in the nearby booths look in our direction, and I place a finger over my lips. “Turn your voice down,” I say.
He says it more quietly. “Did you?”
I lay a hand on my chest. “Oh, God, no,” I breathe. How could he even think that?
“I’ve seen your picture in the tabloids with the old boyfriend. A lot.” His gaze is intense again.
“My father’s publicity people set that up. They want the world to think we’re still happily engaged.” I wasn’t even aware it was happening when I attended the first event and Trip approached me. The photogs went mad taking shots of us. “I’m sorry you had to see that and wonder about it.”
“You’re not engaged to him, are you?” Worry furrows his brow, and I feel bad for all I’ve put him through.
“No. Not since before I left California the first time.”
“And he’s well aware of this?” Logan asks.
“Very well aware.” He knows. I’m not sure he cares, but he knows. “He knows I’m in love with you.”
Logan smiles innocently. “He knows about me?”
“He knows all about you.” I take his hand. “I love you, Logan.”
“Good. Because I plan to put a ring on this as soon as you’ll let me.” He draws my ring finger to his lips and kisses it gently.
My heart thuds. “A ring?”
He nods. “A ring.”
“Can you tattoo one on me?” I ask impulsively. “Because I don’t plan to ever take it off.”
He smiles. “I’ll think about it.” He points to my pie. “Eat,” he says. “I can hear your stomach growling and I’m deaf. Imagine how much you’re offending the other people. They just want to eat their soup, and your stomach sounds like an F-350.”
“How do you know what an F-350 sounds like?” I laugh. I have missed him like crazy.
“Tell me something that’s loud and groaning, then?” he asks.
“You will be later.”
He freezes. “Eat your f**king pie.”
I lift a forkful of apple pie to my lips.
I’m home.
Logan
Emily’s hand is tucked securely into mine, and that’s a good thing because I don’t want to ever let her go.
“Can you come home with me?” she asks for the second time. The snow is falling heavily now, and her hair is covered in white flakes as soon as we step out the diner door. I take my hoodie off and put it on her, pulling the fabric over her hair. I wrap a lock of it around my finger, letting the silk slide against my fingertip. I’m wearing a long-sleeve thermal shirt and jeans, but nothing else. I hunch my back against the wind.
Emily lifts my hoodie up to her nose so she can smell it. “You might not get this back,” she warns.
“I don’t care.” I’m just so happy she’s here.
“So, do you want to come home with me?” she asks. Her head is tilted to the side like an inquisitive puppy. There’s a question in her gaze, one that’s full of misunderstanding.
“Where’s home?” I ask.
“I have an apartment a few miles from here.”
“Why so far away?” I ask.
She shrugs. “My mother chose it. It’s near campus.”
“Would you rather go home with me?” I ask. I know my brothers want to see her. They’ve missed her almost as much as I did.
She shakes her head. “I’d rather have you all to myself.”
“You live alone?” I’m not sure that’s safe.
She nods and tugs on my fingers. “Come with me.” She holds up a hand to hail a cab. It stops, and she looks at me with a question in her gaze.
“All right,” I say. I help her into the cab with a hand at the small of her back and slide in behind her. She rattles off an address, but I can’t see her lips in the darkness.
Her few miles feel like twenty, and I watch the cab rate go up and up and up. I am not sure how much money I have in my wallet. Shit. This is bad.
“Next time, let’s take the subway,” I toss out. I scrub a hand down my face.
“Not at this time of the night,” she scoffs.
“I’d keep you safe.” I tip her chin up. “The Emily who left here was fearless. What happened?”
“The Emily that left here was dirt poor. I didn’t have any choice but to ride the subway at all hours of the night. Now I don’t have to.” She looks into my eyes.
I nod my head. I forget sometimes that she comes from privilege. And I don’t. We used to be equal, and now we’re not.
She reaches up and flattens the space between my eyebrows with the pad of her thumb, and I realize I was scowling at her. I squeeze her hand in reassurance.
Her scent wraps around me, and I want to bury my face in her hair and drink her in. She looks so damn pretty and smells so f**king good that I can’t help but pull her legs across mine so that she’s almost in my lap. She lays her head on my chest and snuggles into me, her head beneath my chin. I take in the scent of her again and revel in the feel of her in my arms.
I lift the hem of her shirt and slide my hands against her skin. She squeals and grabs for my hand, clutching it still against her belly. “Your hands are freezing,” she says over a laugh.
“I know,” I admit. “And you’re warm. So, warm me up.”
Truth be told, I’m so hot right now I could explode. Her bottom is resting on my thigh, and I want so badly to be inside her that I can taste it. She lets my hand go and presses it flat against her stomach, then hitches it higher. I see the cab driver watching us in the rearview mirror and pull my hand back down. She groans. I can feel the vibration of the noise in her belly.
“Patience,” I tease.
The cab finally stops, and I pull out a twenty, handing it to the driver. Sorry, no tip. My wallet is now empty since I paid for the pie and for the cab. I’m just glad I had enough.
I stop and look up through the falling snow at her apartment building. It’s nothing like where I live. The walls are shiny glass, and there’s a doorman who rushes from the front of the building with an umbrella. “Good evening, Miss Madison,” he says, as he covers her head to protect her from the snow.
“Good evening, Henry,” she replies. She smiles at him, and the old man grins even wider. “Did you have a good day?” she asks.
His smile grows even larger and he says, “It’s even better now that I’ve seen you again.”