Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

ANTHONY

One time, a woman asked me to show her my dick within the first fifteen minutes of our dinner appointment. I’d slept with her friend in high school, it turns out, and rumors of my dick had preceded me.

This happened two weeks ago, actually, at one of the appointments Jake set up for me.

Thank you, Jake.

Her request didn’t excite anything in me except for a desire for the meeting to end. But Rosie’s request…

It feeds an appetite I didn’t realize I had—as if I’ve been starving for years, because I didn’t know what kind of food to eat.

Without thinking about it, I hold my hand out to her. With what seems like an equal lack of consideration, she takes it, her cold fingers weaving through mine, and I immediately wrap them up, wanting to give her my warmth. We start walking around the side of the building.

“It’s big,” she says, her voice breathy as she checks out the side of the warehouse tattooed with graffiti. I can’t help but think of those bright pink condoms tucked into her purse. Did she take them because she was seeking some kind of reaction, or because she’s so certain she’ll never sleep with me that she thinks nothing of flaunting her sex life?

The thought makes me grit my teeth. Up until now, I’d thought jealousy was one more emotion I wasn’t capable of. Because Nina was supposed to be my wife, but I hadn’t felt jealous when I’d found out she was fucking Wilson and probably had been for months. I’d felt betrayed and rejected, but not jealous. Not even angry. I’d felt—

Blank. Stuck in a void with no beginning or end. More statue than man, like Nina had called me when she was feeling particularly petty.

I can feel jealousy, apparently, but I’d prefer to go back to being made of stone.

“Why’s it all empty?” Rosie asks, tugging at my hand.

“It’s not,” I say, bringing myself back as we walk along the trampled weeds at the side of the building. There should be a sidewalk here, lined with the dahlias my mother grows in her garden. There should be more of those oversized windows, looking out at the city lights. “We use it to store stuff for some of the developers we work with here. There’s equipment and building supplies inside.”

The face she pulls makes me laugh.

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“It seems like a waste is all,” she says as we move around the dirty, out-of-date building.

In my head, I see something different.

I see my unicorn.

“You’re right,” I agree. “But other people wonder why I keep renewing the bar’s lease when the space could be used for more storage.”

“And why do you?” she asks, her eyes a glimmer in the night.

“I like it,” I say simply.

“But it’s terrible,” she blurts, making me laugh. She lifts her free hand. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I adore terrible things—can’t get enough of them—but you don’t seem like a man who’d appreciate the joys of dank weed and flat beer.”

“I feel like I should thank you for saying that,” I say, sneaking a look at her as we walk along the side of the building.

“You shouldn’t. I’m not entirely sure it was a compliment.”

But I still haven’t answered her, and I can tell she’s waiting. It’s there in the heavy air between us. So as we continue walking, passing beneath my favorite piece of graffiti art, I say, “I guess there’s something I enjoy about the imperfection. It’s straightforward. Honest. There are no pretenses.”

“You’ve been around a lot of liars,” she says, cutting right to the heart of the thing. That’s something else she has a talent for—collapsing artifice as if it’s a faulty box.

I think of Nina, telling me that I could leave the past behind—we’d be each other’s family—and assuring me that even if the wedding wasn’t on the time table we’d chosen, she would have wanted to marry me anyway.

I think of my father, whispering insults in a voice too low for anyone else to hear.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” she says with a sigh. “My uncle was one of those guys who could talk anyone into anything. He probably cared about my brothers and me as much as he was capable of caring about anyone, but he still used us. He didn’t know how to love people, I guess. And every man I’ve ever fallen for has turned out to be exactly like him.” Then she surprises me by stopping me there, by the side of my building. The moon glimmers on her as she squeezes my hand and peers into my eyes. Some forgotten instinct inside of me says this is going to be an important moment, one I’ll always look back on. “Let’s make a pact never to lie to each other, Anthony.”

“I’ll never lie to you,” I promise, feeling it burn through me as if there’s magic attached to the words.

“And I’ll never lie to you,” she says firmly. “Now tell me about your unicorn. What does this building look like in your mind?”

So I tell her.

I show her where the apartment units would be, and where we’d build the community garden. I share my idea about arranging for the city buses to stop here so the residents would have reliable transportation. And I tell her about the skylight in the middle of the warehouse. I’d like to keep it as is, so the hallway is always bathed in light.

“How could you make money on them if they’re low-cost units?” she asks.

“I got the building for next to nothing,” I say, feeling the old excitement spark to life again. “And you can apply for incentives if you offer low-cost housing. We’d be building a community. I thought I’d call it The Ware.”

I realize I’ve stopped walking—that I’m talking too loudly, too passionately, and to someone who probably doesn’t give a shit about housing or real estate.

I can see Simon giving me a sympathetic look when I told him about my plan—as if I was some dumb kid who didn’t get it.

“It’s okay,” he’d told me. “It’s good that you told me first. That’s never going to fly, and here’s why…”

I hadn’t just given up on the spot. I’d revised my proposal. I’d wined and dined members of the board to try to get someone else sweet on it. But it was like Simon had constructed a box for me, with walls he’d borrowed from my father, and the box had only windows and no doors.

I couldn’t find a way out.

So I’d sat on The Ware, and on this building…and I’d kept the dream to myself, withering inside of me.

I clear my throat, embarrassed. “Sorry. I…it’s easy to talk to you.”

“It’s that gift of the gab,” she says, touching my arm. “And I’m glad. I like hearing you talk about it. It makes it feel real to me. I paint pictures in my head.” I meet her eyes, and to my surprise, she doesn’t look bored or indifferent. She really means what she’s saying.

“I’d like to see those pictures,” I say, before I can stop myself. “You know, I’ve always thought I’d enjoy painting. Maybe that’ll be on my bucket list.”

“Good,” she says, squeezing my arm slightly. “You arrange the unicorn riding, and I’ll arrange a painting outing for us afterward. Do you really think we can get everything done before New Year’s?”

“Yes.” We haven’t finished writing our lists yet, much less working through them, but I want it to be true.

“Good. We should get started now.” And then she tugs me toward a side door leading into the warehouse.

I take a step before I realize what’s going on.

“I want to go inside and see the skylight,” she says.

“But it’s pitch dark in there.”

“Not pitch dark. I’ll bet we can see the stars through the skylight.” There’s excitement in her voice. The fact that it’s for this, my unicorn, has me pulling out my keyring. Or maybe I’m just incapable of saying no to her tonight.

I’m not worried about squatters. People move supplies in and out pretty regularly.

I unlock the door and reach for the light switch just inside, but Rosie stays my hand.

“I want to see the stars, Anthony.”

There’s something in her voice…

I really can’t say no. I’m more powerless against her charm than Dom was last week. If it had been someone else’s building, and she’d asked me to break in, I would have found a way to do it.

I lead her inside, skirting around tarp-covered supplies and large equipment, and even though the skylight is dirty and dim, not really all that impressive, she gasps and twirls in a circle. It smells of damp and dirt and there are suspicious dark spots on the floor, but if she’s noticed, she doesn’t care.

“This is it,” she says, her eyes shining in the dark, the dim glow from the moon and stars barely filtering through the dirty glass. “We’re going to dance to ‘Time after Time’ under the skylight in the dark. We have to. It’s the first item on my bucket list.”

My logical side tries to object, and my petulant side wants to object to her song choice, but I’m pulled in by her request. This is on my list. Dancing with me, in my shitty warehouse, is on her bucket list.

This woman, who could charm anyone, wants to be charmed by me.

Normally, the irony would make me laugh—I’m not a man who’s been in the business of charming anyone. Certainly, not lately. But I want to charm her. I want her to see something in me that I struggle to see in myself. I want to be the man who makes her happy.

“Far be it from me to object to your bucket list,” I say as I draw the song up on my phone and set it on top of a pile of bricks. She said she wanted to dance, so I sweep her into a waltz as the song starts, achingly aware of every place my body is touching hers.

It’s woken up, and now it wants .

“ Of course you can dance,” she says, grinning at me with delight as we sweep across the floor. One of my hands is wrapped firmly around her waist—underneath her coat, because I wanted to soak in her warmth—and the other is holding her hand as we soar across the floor, dodging bricks and piles of tarp-covered supplies. She nestles her head into my shoulder for a second, and I breathe her in.

“You can blame preparatory school for that too,” I say, only then realizing that I’m having fun. It’s a miracle that it’s happening here in this warehouse, which has always felt like physical proof of my failures.

I, Anthony Rosings Smith, am dancing in the dark. And I’m having the time of my life.

I’ve broken rules before.

I’ve smoked pot at the Biltmore.

Snuck booze into the dormitory at prep school.

Held a party at Smith House so epic that people still talk about it.

But it always felt like I was trying something on for size and finding it too tight—same as I did when I attempted to fill my father’s shoes.

I don’t feel that way tonight.

I feel…joyful.

Joyful .

I don’t like this song, I typically prefer to be inside of places that don’t smell, and it’s cumbersome to dance in our coats, and yet…

Rosie’s in my arms, and she’s looking up at me in a way that makes me believe a horse really can become a unicorn, and this building could be something more than a symbol of everything I’ve failed to become.

I believe because of her.

I dip her, and she laughs, her whole body shaking with it.

And I want to kiss her. I want it more than I can remember wanting anything. But if I do it, it might ruin this moment, and it’s a perfect moment—the kind that shouldn’t be touched or tarnished. So I pull her up from the dip, my dick aching and my heart straining to grow or break at her command. And in that moment it’s hard to care about any of it—about the New Year’s threat or my trust fund or even the job of walking in my father’s too-tight shoes.

All I want is to live in this moment.

And then the song ends, and I’m speechless, as if all the words inside of me have been dried up by the magnitude of what I’m feeling. Of what I want.

She’s still wrapped up in my arms, staring up at me, her expression surprised. Her pink lips part, showing me a flash of white teeth.

Probably because I’m gaping at her like a man who just experienced a miracle for the first time.

“That felt like a bucket list moment, didn’t it, Anthony?” she asks, her voice breathless.

She still hasn’t moved, and even though we’re both wearing our outdoors things, I can feel her warmth pulsing through me—a promise that won’t be kept. My hand flexes around her hip, wanting to draw her to me, held back only by the knowledge that she’s not mine and has spent the majority of the night encouraging me to marry another woman.

I clear my throat. “It did.”

“Yours did too, in a way,” she tells me, her eyes a bright gleam even in the dark, as if the light within her is so desperate to find a way out it’s seeping through. “I liked watching you take control at the bar. It was hot.”

A groan escapes me before I collect myself enough to say, “You implied I have no talent for bartending.”

“You don’t,” she says with a smile. “But you have a real talent for taking control of a situation.”

One of my hands lifts to trace her smile, her lips soft beneath my thumb, and a gasp escapes her as I cup her cheek. “You shouldn’t talk that way,” I say, leaning in slightly even though I’m not going to kiss her unless she signals the situation has changed. “Not if you want me to marry Leigh. Not if you plan on using those condoms in your bag with someone else.”

She watches me for a long moment, her pupils dilated, her lips still parted. I don’t think. I run my thumb over her soft bottom lip again because I need to feel it under my touch. She shakes her head slightly, hair brushing my arm, and all of my nerve endings roar to life. It’s like my body was slumbering with the rest of me, and she awakened it. “I took them to see how you’d react. It was stupid.”

“Thank God.” I have the pleasure of watching her smile for me, but the smile falls half a second later.

“I don’t know what I want, Anthony,” she says in a fervent whisper. “Or what would even be possible. I don’t want to ruin your life.”

“There’s not much to ruin.”

“Bullshit. Losing that trust fund would ruin your life. Or at least you’d think it did, which would be almost as bad.”

So marry me , I think.

It would probably be a disaster, but if I married Rosie, it would mean something. I would feel something when I said those words…

“Maybe that’s what this is about,” she continues, leaning in closer. “Our lists, I mean. Maybe we have to do them, both of us, to figure out what we want next.”

“ I want to kiss you,” I admit, because we agreed to be honest with each other, and I’m sick of covering up everything I do and say with gilded wrapping paper and hidden meanings. This need I have won’t be contained so easily. So properly. “I know that much. I’ve been thinking about it all night. All week.”

A gasp escapes her, but she’s quick to collect herself. She doesn’t pull away, but I feel something inside of her changing. A resolve hardening.

“I’ve thought about it too,” she admits. “I think it should be on our list. The last on mine, and the last on yours. I think…when we do it, we’ll know if this thing—” she motions her hand between us as if she knows I’ll understand, and I do . “If it means something.”

“So why not move it up the list?”

She surprises me by getting onto her toes and kissing my cheek, her lips leaving a mark on my soul. When she lowers back down, she gives me a sly smile. “Maybe I really want to ride a unicorn and paint with you.”

I’m more wounded by this than I want to show her. “I would do that for you anyway,” I say, moving my thumb over her soft cheek one final time before releasing her. “I’d do it for you even if it was the worst kiss of both of our lives, and we agreed we never wanted to see each other again for fear of reliving it.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” she says, smiling up at me.

“ Yes ,” I all but growl.

She holds my gaze, her hands lifting to grip my arms. “You’ve got to understand. That’s not what I’m used to. I’ve always…I’ve been the cherry on top, not the whole sundae.”

I grab my phone from the pile of bricks and pocket it. Then I take one of her hands in mine and lift it to my lips, pressing a kiss above her knuckles while I look at her. Her eyes widen and warm, and an answering warmth blooms in my chest as I weave my fingers through hers and lead her toward the door.

Only three bucket list items to get through…

“We’re leaving?” she asks, probably the only person other than me who’s ever regretted leaving this place in its current form.

“We’re getting ice cream sundaes.”

“At midnight?”

“At midnight. It’s happening. I’ll churn the ice cream myself if I have to.”

Her sweet laugh is music to my ears, but we’ve barely made it a couple of steps before the door bursts open, and someone shouts, “Police, put your hands in the air!”