Текст книги "A Little Too Much"

Автор книги: Lisa Desrochers

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Nine

“JUST REMEMBER, YOU’RE the one who said anywhere,” I tell Alessandro as we slide into seats at Argo Tea in Columbus Circle.

He gazes at me with cautious eyes from his seat across the table. “I’m intrigued to see what you’ve chosen.”

“I heard it was reopening and I haven’t been there and I’ve been wanting to go, so . . .” I shrug.

He nods. “Then it’s the perfect place.”

“How long are you staying?” The question comes to me totally out of the blue and I have to take a second to figure out exactly what I mean by it.

Alessandro’s eyes scrunch in confusion. “In New York?” he asks after a second.

Yep, I realize when he asks. That’s what I meant. “Yeah.”

“As long as it takes to sort things out.”

“Your ghosts,” I say.

He lowers his gaze to his coffee cup. “I shouldn’t have called you a ghost, but you have to understand, I’ve been haunted by my past for so long . . . by what I’ve done to innocent people . . .” His eyes lift to me again. “ . . . including you.”

“So why would you want to come back here, then? Wouldn’t it be easier to just stay away?”

He breathes deeply and swirls his coffee. “I came to New York for a lot of reasons. I’ve spent some time at the World Trade Center memorial, finally grieving my father. His name is on the north-tower pool.” His distant gaze drifts back to mine. “But I also needed to sort fact from fiction in my head. I’ve walked this city—from our house, to the lot where Lorenzo’s gang squatted, to my old school, where I dealt to kids—hoping if I saw it through the eyes of an adult, it would put things in better perspective and I could lay some demons to rest.”

“And have you?”

His eyes find mine and there’s despair in their depths. “Some of them didn’t turn out to be as easy to put to rest as I’d hoped.”

Is that me? Or his family?

“You never really told me about your father. Just that he worked at the World Trade Center.”

He nods. “He was assistant chef at Windows on the World, at the top of the north tower.”

“So he was at work that morning?” I was only nine, but I remember. We lived in Alphabet City, so not super close to the World Trade Center, but close enough. I remember how everything shut down, like a ghost town, except for the military. There were some people in the streets during the day, but at night, it was quiet. Too quiet. It felt like a war zone, and in some ways it was, I guess. Mallory was sixteen then—a junior in high school. She wouldn’t let me leave the house for the first week. The truth is, I didn’t want to. I’d never been so scared. I spent the week sleeping in her double bed with her. Mom spent that week drunk on the couch, watching the news and mumbling that we should bomb the fuckers. Little by little, stores and schools started reopening and we ventured out again. And little by little, everyone got back to their lives. But I’ve never gone to the WTC site. Even still.

Alessandro takes a deep breath and blows it out. I can tell it’s still hard for him to talk about. “He always went in early to oversee the prep work. He walked with Lorenzo and me to the subway when we left for school that morning, and that was the last we ever saw of him.”

“Wow . . . I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s really nothing to say.” He gives his head a small shake. “He was just gone. They never recovered his body.”

“That must have been pretty rough.”

He swirls his coffee again and I’m deciding that’s his new tell. “My father was the cement that held our family together. When he died, it devastated our mother. She spent weeks posting signs and scouring the city, thinking maybe he was injured or unconscious—that he had been taken to a hospital or . . .” He trails off, his jaw tight. “It took a long time for her to accept he was gone, and then she just curled up in bed and stopped living.”

So it was both of our mothers vanishing that landed us in the group home together, mine to jail and his into her own mind. “I’m really sorry, Alessandro.”

He looks up at me. “You know the rest. Lorenzo and I started getting into trouble and ended up in juvie, then in the group home.”

“Where you found more ghosts.”

He winces a little. “Please, Hilary, forget I said that. You were the only ray of sunshine in that whole nightmare.”

My stomach kicks. I’ve been called a lot of things, but I’m pretty sure a ray of sunshine isn’t one of them. I down the last of my tea in one shot. This is getting way too uncomfortable. “You ready?”

He finishes his coffee and stands, pulling out my chair.

We hop on the F train and transfer at Fourteenth Street to the L, and the whole time Alessandro keeps cutting me glances, like he thinks I might give something away. But he doesn’t ask where we’re going. I stand at the first Williamsburg stop and he follows me off the train. We come up out of the subway into bright winter sun and I spin a circle to get my bearings, then head down North Seventh. Alessandro keeps stride. His eyes flick around as if he’s trying to spot where we’re going, but he still doesn’t ask. It’s like he wants to be surprised.

I’m pretty sure he’ll be surprised.

We turn right and finally come to Metropolitan Avenue, and on the side of a yellow awning on a storefront half a block up on the right, I see it. Museum.

It’s a red brick building with glass display windows on either side of a white door. City Reliquary is in white script across the front of the awning. I stop in front of the building and Alessandro looks at me curiously, like he’s still waiting to see where we’re going.

But we’re here.

I tip my head at the storefront window next to us and he follows my gaze. He turns and looks over the vintage lunch-box display there.

A smile breaks across his face—the first one I’ve seen actually reach his eyes—as he realizes what this is. “This is brilliant.”

He reaches for the door handle and opens it, giving me an “after you” wave of his hand. I’ll never admit it out loud, but I kind of like all this chivalry. No one else has ever helped me on with my coat, or held doors, or pulled out chairs for me before.

We step under a two-foot-long model of the Staten Island Ferry over the door into a gift shop at the front of the museum. I smile as I walk past a shelf of whoopee cushions, marbles, and jacks. I love this vintage stuff.

Alessandro stops me at a mound of rubber cockroaches, picking one up and wiggling it in my face, and it’s as though eight years have slipped away. He’s grinning ear to ear, and in that boyish gesture, I see the boy I knew so long ago.

“Get that thing out of my face,” I say, swatting it away.

He laughs and drops it back in the mound, moving to the rack of old-fashioned hard candy. “This place is a gold mine.”

I step up to the counter. “Two for the museum,” I tell the older woman standing there.

“You can just place your donation here,” she says, laying a hand on a wooden box with a sign that says, “suggested donation $5.” I slip a ten into the box and she hands me a folded brochure. “It’s all pretty self explanatory, but this will tell you all you need to know,” she says.

I take it from her and spread it open. “Thanks.”

I grab Alessandro by the arm on the way to the turnstile that leads to the museum, and he bends his elbow to keep me from letting go. I don’t try. Something’s shifted between us. It’s like him telling me everything over coffee has freed something inside him. The dark curtain isn’t gone, but it’s thinner. I can almost start to see through it.

We step into the museum and to the left is an entire newsstand, just like it would look on the street.

“This is so cool,” I say swinging us that direction to get a closer look. I peek at the brochure. “This stand was in Chinatown for thirty years. Those are hand-drawn advertisements on the wooden walls,” I tell Alessandro, pointing at them. “And the guy who owned this stand called that the ‘guest of honor chair,’ ” I say, indicating the chair in the middle, “because that’s where people would sit while he sketched them.”

Alessandro leans in to get a closer look at the drawings, and I wonder if he misses drawing himself.

After a few minutes of gawking, we move up the wall to the World’s Fair exhibit. There are knickknacks from both the 1939 and the 1964 World’s Fairs. I pull out a drawer in the display under a Jim Beam bottle from the 1964 fair and find a few tickets under glass. “This is so cool,” I say, and realized I said that at the last booth. I look up to find an amused glint in Alessandro’s eyes. “Well, it is!”

“That it is,” he agrees, pulling open the next drawer and revealing an old license plate.

I glance at my brochure. “That’s off an old World’s Fair fire truck.”

We move slowly past a wall of Brooklyn Dodgers paraphernalia to a vintage barbershop.

“This is so cool,” Alessandro says, only barely containing the chuckle in his voice.

I rip my hand off his arm and smack him with it. “Shut up.”

We continue to move around the room, examining every exhibit, finally spilling back into the gift shop.

“This is a mandatory purchase,” he says, plucking up a cockroach from the stack.

I pick one up and look at it. “This could be useful if I want to close the bar down early.”

We move to the woman at the counter, and Alessandro reaches for my cockroach as he steps up to the register.

I yank it back. “You are not buying this bug for me. This is my day. My turn to pay.” I shove him aside. “Two cockroaches,” I say to the woman.

She smiles as she keys them into the old-fashioned register. “They’re actually Croton bugs.”

“What’s a Croton bug?” I ask, handing her a crumpled bill from the bottom of my bag.

She looks up at me and grins. “A cockroach.”

She makes my change, and as she’s handing it back, I feel something tickle my neck. I lift my hand, then scream and slap at it when I feel a giant bug.

Alessandro laughs out loud as his cockroach flies off me onto the floor.

“You bastard,” I growl, shoving him.

He picks his cockroach up and grins at me. “If I knew that’s all it took to get a rise out of you, I’d have stuck one in your tea a long time ago.”

“If I find that fucking thing in my tea,” I grumble, pushing him toward the door, “I swear to God, I will cram it up your nose.”

He smiles and drops his bug in my hair.

I claw it out as we stumble through the door onto the sidewalk. “You’re worse than my nephews. You’re not getting it back if all you’re going to do is torment me with it.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “You paid for it. It’s yours anyway.”

I spin on him, pocketing his cockroach. “So I’m never allowed to buy you anything? Isn’t that sort of sexist?”

“Au contraire. I let you buy my ticket to this fine establishment,” he says with a semi-smirk, waving his hand at the museum.

“It wasn’t a ticket. I made a donation in your name. And you’re going to let me buy you dinner too,” I say, turning my back on him and starting toward the pizza place in the next storefront over.

“Let me cook for you,” he says from behind me.

I turn and find him right where I left him, near the door of the museum.

“You cook?”

“I do. Let me show you.”

This, I’ve got to see. I catch myself wondering if his cooking is like Brett’s: mac and cheese out of a box, or spaghetti with sauce from a jar. He said his dad was a chef, but he was young then. I doubt that’s where he learned.

“Fine,” I say, marching back past him and the museum, toward the subway.

I DROP HIS cockroach down the front of his button-down as we’re sitting on the train back to Manhattan, and catch a glimpse of his abs when he opens his jacket and shakes his shirt to let it drop out.

And . . . wow.

Brett has a great body, which he works at constantly. When he’s not at rehearsal or a performance, he’s at the gym. I wonder if Alessandro is a gym rat too.

We ride the L to Eighth Avenue and climb the stairs to the street. But we’re not halfway up the stairs when I feel something fall into my cleavage from my shoulder. I press my hand between my boobs to keep it from falling farther down my shirt and fish his cockroach out of my bra.

He stops and watches with a grin plastered to his face. “Well, that worked out better than I could have hoped.”

“Very mature.” I pinch the bug between my thumb and finger and shake it in his face. “When you least expect it . . .” I shove it in my pocket and run up the last few stairs. But then I don’t know where I’m going, so I have to wait.

Alessandro knows this, of course, and emerges from the pit a few seconds later with a smirk. “By all means, after you,” he says, sweeping his hand toward Eighth.

I glare and turn back for the subway. “You know what? I changed my mind.”

He has a handful of my jacket sleeve before I reach the stairs and spins me to face him, grasping both my upper arms.

My heart thumps hard as he catches me in his smoldering gaze. I can feel the heat of his body, even through all our layers of winter wear, and I shudder with the sudden mind-flash of how it would feel to be this close without all those layers. His lips part, as if he’s feeling the same rush I am, and I decide right in this heartbeat that if he kisses me, I’m going to kiss him back. I picture our lips meeting—imagine how his would feel as they moved on mine, how they would taste. His eyes flare as he dips his head, his lips pausing just inches from mine. I stop breathing again, caught between wanting to close those last few inches, and wanting to bolt.

But I can’t bolt.

Chapter Ten

I TIP MY face up and gaze into his eyes, bright in the dark night. But just as a tiny moan escapes my throat, he steps back, breaking the spell.

“Tell me about your boyfriend,” he says. “How long have you been together?”

It takes me longer than it should to get my head together. “Boyfriend,” I say a little breathlessly. “Um . . . a year.”

Alessandro’s expression clears and he lets go of my arms. “Do you love him?”

A laugh explodes out of my chest.

His eyebrows arch. “I didn’t know I was making a joke.”

I shake my head. “I don’t do love.”

He tips his head in a way I’m starting to recognize as him questioning me.

“You think I’m lying?”

He stares down at me for a long moment, his eyes storming as he wages some internal war. “I didn’t say that,” he finally says.

“Then what are you saying?”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts up the sidewalk. “Nothing.”

We walk along Eighth until it ends on Hudson, then make the turn onto Perry, the whole time never coming within three feet of each other. Alessandro fishes in his pocket as we take the corner and comes out with a key, which he sticks in the first door past the restaurant on the corner. “Home sweet home,” he says, moving aside for me to pass.

I slide by him, careful not to brush against him, and move to the elevator. He presses the call button and just as the door opens, an old woman with curly white hair steps through the front door.

We load in and Alessandro holds the elevator for her. “Mrs. Burke. How are you this evening?”

She punches three. “Wonderful, Alessandro. And who is this lovely young lady?” she asks turning to me.

Alessandro smiles at her as he hits five. “This is Hilary McIntyre. Hilary, Mrs. Burke.”

Mrs. Burke leans toward me and whispers, “He’s a good boy.” The door opens on three and she winks at me and steps out.

I stare at her with wide eyes as the elevator door closes. There’s no way Alessandro didn’t hear that. Does she think we’re on a date? Does he? Do I?

A minute later, the door opens on five. We spill out into a four-by-four landing with three doors. I’m too mortified to look at Alessandro as he sticks his key into the door toward the front of the building, marked 51, but the second I walk in, I’m totally coveting his apartment.

It’s small, but they didn’t wreck its character with a big remodel like so many other old apartments. It’s still got old-school radiators and the pipes are exposed in places. There are gouges in the hardwood floor and nicks in the white wooden door and window frames. There are even a few places where the crown moldings on the high ceilings are missing.

I love it.

In the middle of the room, next to a big blue chair, is a black leather sofa, and off to the right is the kitchen, with a black granite countertop separating it from the living room. On the left is the only door in the place, probably to the bathroom, since his double bed and a clunky antique dresser are in an alcove just past it, next to the window.

“This place is—”

“—so cool,” he finishes for me with a smile. “I do rather like it.”

“Just for that, I take it back.” But really I don’t. I start around the room, inspecting his prints. Most of them look an awful lot like some of the stuff we saw at the Met last week, so I guess he really likes that stuff.

“Can I offer you something to drink? Water? Wine?”

“What are you opening?” I turn back and look at him, where he’s moved behind the kitchen counter. He presses his iPhone into a small round speaker, and the music that starts isn’t what I expected. I was thinking some classical piano piece, or maybe something operatic, but it’s rock: Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.”

There’s a flash of a memory—Alessandro tuning the radio in the rec room from the hip-hop station Trish left it on to something rockish.

“I was thinking about a chardonnay because I need something white to cook with,” he answers, lifting a bottle off the counter, “but I’m open to suggestions.”

I stroll toward the kitchen. “That sounds good.”

He uncorks the bottle, then waves the neck under his nose and sniffs at the end, nodding appreciatively.

“I forgot you like Creed,” I say with a nod at the speakers.

He glances that way as he pulls down two glasses. “Always have.”

“Thought you might have outgrown grunge,” I say with a smirk.

“Post-grunge,” he corrects, arching an eyebrow at me as he pours the wine. “My tastes are eclectic.”

I laugh. I can’t help it.

“I’m glad I amuse you,” he says with a secret smile, and something kicks in my chest.

“You do.” I move to the window because I suddenly feel in need of more distance between us. On the street below, I spy Mrs. Burke, picking up her pug’s poop with a baggy over her hand. A young couple with a baby in a stroller stops to talk to her. They all seem so friendly.

I haven’t known my neighbors since I was thirteen.

I feel something touch the back of my arm and I jump, swatting at the rubber bug I imagine there.

But it’s just Alessandro’s fingers. “Sorry. Your wine,” he says holding the glass out to me.

I sip it and it’s really good. “This is a great spot. Do you like it here?”

“I do,” he says, stepping up next to me in the window. “My family lived near here. I was hoping to find something in the neighborhood.”

I turn back to the apartment. “Studios are hard to find.”

His elbow brushes mine as he turns. I try to ignore the tightening in my belly at even that touch. “I was fortunate. Someone’s application had just fallen through when I was looking.”

I sip my wine and look out the window.

He steps back and looks at me. “Would you let me teach you how to throw a proper punch?”

The question surprises me. “Is that a skill I’m going to need in the next few minutes?”

An amused smile flashes over his face, but then his expression turns more serious. “I worry about you out there by yourself,” he says with a wave of his hand toward the window.

I shrug. “I’ve got the knee-to-the-balls and the finger-to-the-eye maneuvers down, so I think I’m probably okay.”

“And God forbid you should ever need to defend yourself against an attacker again, those will probably be more useful to you, but it can’t hurt to know how to deliver a solid blow.”

I nod. “All right.”

We step into a small open area between his couch and the kitchen counter and he takes my glass and sets it down. “Boxing is all about balance and leverage. You need to feel your base of support and stay on top of it. That gives you mobility and strength.” He lays his strong hands on my hips. “Don’t let me move you.”

I spread my legs slightly, and when he presses on one hip, pushing me to the side, I resist.

“Good,” he says.

He presses harder on my other hip and barely moves me, then raises his hands to my shoulders, and I hold my ground as pushes me in several directions in quick succession.

“Once you have your base of support,” he tells me, pressing his rolled-up sleeves higher on his forearms and drawing my attention to the lines of his muscles there, “you can either move or attack.” I lift my gaze to his face and know I’ve been caught looking when he raises an eyebrow. “Moving is definitely the better option. If you can run, always do. But if you’re cornered and you need to throw a punch, leverage your upper body off your solid base of support.”

“Meaning?”

He steps around behind me and gently grasps my forearms just below the elbow. “Meaning,” he says, lifting my arms, so my fisted hands are just under my chin and my bent elbows are against my ribs, “you need to keep everything close to the core until you’re ready to strike. They call it ‘throwing’ a punch for a reason. Stay balanced, then leverage off your base and throw your fist forward.”

I shoot my right fist out as fast as I can, jerking my arm out of his hand.

“Good,” he says. He draws my arm back to my side and I realize he’s pressed up against me, his whole front in contact with my whole back. I loose focus for a second when he lowers his hands to my hips. “Same thing, but snap your arm faster, then bring it right back to your core.”

I do as I’m told.

“Did you feel that?” he asks, laying his other hand flat and firm on my stomach. “If you’re strong here, in your core, that gives you a solid base to leverage off of.”

What I feel is his toned arms around me. What I feel is the irresistible urge to run my fingers over them and memorize the contours of the veins and muscles. What I feel is a tingle that zings out from my groin to his hand, low on my belly. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s talking about. “Yeah.”

A shudder ripples over my skin at the feel of his breath in my hair, as if he’s lowered his face. His hands shift to my hips and his grip on me tightens. In that second, the urge to turn in his arms and stare into those dark, tortured eyes is almost unbearable. I hold my breath and wait for him to let me go. Finally, he takes a shuddering breath and steps back, clearing his throat. I watch as he reaches over the back of the couch and comes out with a throw pillow. He stands in front of me with it bunched in his hands. “Again.”

I get myself balanced and snap a punch into the center of the pillow.

“Now with the left. Same thing.”

I try with my left and it feels slower and clumsier. “Guess I’ll have to hope he doesn’t grab me by the right arm, huh?”

“You’re right-handed, so using the left will take some practice, but it’s the same thing. Solid base, tight core, and snap.”

I try again with my left and it feels a little less awkward.

“Now stagger your stance,” he says, stepping closer and drawing my left foot forward with a scorching hand on my thigh, just below the hip. I fight to keep my breathing even. “As you snap, stay over your base of support, but step quickly from your back foot to your front foot.” His fingertips stroke up my leg as he releases me, causing my breath to catch. He holds the pillow again. “That will put some momentum behind the punch.”

I snap my right arm out, shifting onto my left leg as I do it, and my fist makes a solid-sounding thud into the pillow and pushes Alessandro back a half step.

He tips his head at me and his eyes flare. “You’re a natural. I want you in my ring.”

At the image of Alessandro, sweaty in a boxing ring, my heart skips. “Better be careful what you wish for.”

There’s something sexily cynical in his smile as he holds the pillow up. “Again.”

After half an hour, I finally feel like I have it to where I might actually do some damage to something other than my fist if it was to connect with someone.

“You’re a quick learner,” he tells me, handing me the throw pillow. He gestures to the couch. “Relax. I’ll start dinner.”

I toss the pillow on the couch and follow him to the kitchen, where he ducks into the fridge and comes out with two boneless chicken breasts. He pulls down a cutting board from where two are stacked on end against the fridge and proceeds to pound the crap out of the chicken with a mallet.

“There has to be something I can do to help.”

He opens the fridge again and comes out with a bundle of asparagus, which he sets on the counter. “If you insist, you can wash and trim these.”

I wash the asparagus and snap off the ends, then stack it and the two cockroaches on a plate next to the stove as Alessandro drops a cube of butter in a cast-iron skillet, where it sizzles. He rubs salt and pepper into the chicken, then flours it.

“Anything else I can do?” I ask as he drops the chicken breasts into the skillet and browns them.

“Sit and drink your wine,” he says with a wave of his arm at the couch.

I go into the main room, taking my wine with me, and sink into the sofa. I take a long sip. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

He turns and flashes me that smile again. “Are you questioning my motives?”

“Maybe.” My heart is pounding. Why am I flirting?

I’m sipping my wine a few minutes later when he picks up the plate of asparagus and starts dumping the spears into the skillet. He stops and smiles over his shoulder at me as he picks out the cockroaches. “Touché.”

I smile sweetly back at him.

He turns to the stove and I sip my wine again, but whatever he just poured in the pot smells good, drawing me off the couch and back into the kitchen. “What are you making? I ask, looking into the skillet.

“It’s a traditional Italian chicken dish.”

“What’s in there?”

“So far, just chicken, artichoke hearts, asparagus, cream, chicken broth, and wine.” He picks a jar off the rack over the stove and when he shakes it into the pot, I smell oregano.

He moves around the kitchen like a pro as he prepares the pasta and spoons the sauce over it.

“Is wine okay for dinner, or would you like something else?” he asks as he takes our plates to the small table near the window on the kitchen side of the room.

“Wine is good, but I need a refill,” I say, holding up my empty glass.

He grabs my glass as he sweeps past on his way back to the kitchen. “Have a seat. I’ll be right there.”

I slide into one of the chairs at the table and pick up my fork. I know enough about manners not to start before Alessandro’s back, but that doesn’t keep me from dipping the tines of my fork in the sauce and tasting it.

“Holy Christ, that’s good.”

Alessandro picks up our glasses and moves back to the table. “I’m glad you approve.” He lowers himself into the seat across from me and nods at my plate, indicating I should go ahead. He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

I cut off a hunk of chicken and cram it in my mouth. “Oh, God,” I moan. “Who taught you to do this?”

“My grandmother.”

“Well, the woman deserves a medal.”

I dig back into my food, but just as I cut through a stalk of asparagus, an antenna flips out of my sauce. “Shit!” I scream, dropping my fork with a clank.

But then I hear Alessandro chuckling. He’s staring at me out from under his long, dark lashes, and in that look, I see the boy he was so long ago.

“You son of a bitch!” I say, but I’m laughing. How did I not see this coming? “I warned you.”

I grab the bug out of my sauce and charge at him, but he leaps out of his chair, laughing. “You warned me about cockroaches in your tea. I didn’t put the cockroach in your tea.”

“Close enough.”

He moves around to the front of the couch, but what he doesn’t expect is the direct, take-no-prisoners attack. I leap over the back of the couch and take him down, tackling him onto the throw pillows at the end and cramming the bug in his face.

And then I realize where I am: lying on top of Alessandro on a couch.

We’re leaving, Hilary.

Everything stops. Me. Him. Time.

I’m plunged backward in time to the rec room. Creed sang “My Sacrifice” from the radio and it was just us, which meant I could do this. I could touch him. He was on the couch in his T-shirt and jeans, and I was on top of him. He was kissing me, but he stopped.

“We’re leaving, Hilary.”

I shake the memory away, my heart beating in my throat.

Please. Don’t.

I climb off him and just stand here for a second, not sure if I should go.

Alessandro pulls himself up and looks at me a moment with wide eyes. His whole body is tense, his shoulders stiff and his hands bunched into fists at his sides.

I smooth my hair back. “I—sorry. I should go.”

He rubs his forehead, then looks at me. “You haven’t eaten yet. Come back to the table.”

We stand here staring at each other for another tense minute, then settle back into our seats.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he fishes the other cockroach out of his food. “It was stupid of me.”

But seeing him sitting there, sucking sauce off a rubber cockroach, is more than I can take. I crack up.

He smiles, unsure, but so soft and so beautiful. “We’re okay?”

“We’re okay.” As I say it, I realize I want it to be true. I want to spend time with him—get to know him again. I want to know what happened to him after he left New York. I need to know how he felt back then—and even now.

I need these things for my sanity. It’s just closure.

I’m not totally playing with fire.