Never Say Never, page 8
The things he said…
The way he made me feel…
His determination…
“Skylar?”
I turn around to face my date.
Cory.
He’s a walking, talking Tag Heuer billboard. New England preppy at its finest. His eyes crinkle behind tortoise shell glasses, and his hair is perfectly combed and parted on the side. Cory looks slightly older than his pictures but about how I expected. Average in the best of ways. Harmlessly attractive. Everything I want on paper.
His expression is tender, approachable. I pull in a soft sigh and warmth radiates throughout me. It takes three full seconds to know we’re headed in the right direction.
“Yes,” I say, standing up. He’s not shy about offering me a hug. He cloaks his arms around my shoulders like a blanket, not too tight, and I breathe him in. A scent radiates off of him; a mixture of the city and a spicy cologne I can’t place.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he says. So far his eyes haven’t ventured down to my chest, so there’s that.
“Of course,” I say. “So sorry I couldn’t make it last night.”
I’m lying. I’m not entirely sorry.
Cory stares at me as if he’s trying to imagine what our framed wedding photos might look like resting atop a reclaimed wood mantle. Our eyes lock, and I swear he’s watching our future play out in his mind.
“It worked out,” he says, dialing down the intensity of his gaze. “I had a few business items I needed to tend to.”
I reach for my coffee cup. I’d ordered it while I waited, unsure of when he’d be arriving. Twenty minutes late in this city is considered on time to most. I take a careful sip.
I’m not feeling a damn thing.
I’m going to give it time though.
Not all happily ever afters begin with instant fireworks.
“So what all has Nina told you about me?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I think she’s hoping we get to know each other better the old-fashioned way.”
“She does like to brag that she and Charlie have been together since before social media,” Cory laughs. “I can hardly remember what that’s like.”
“I know,” I agree. “You can find out anything about anyone anymore. Kind of takes the fun out of getting to know people.”
“We’ll just have to make it fun,” he proposes. His eyes glint. Flint gray fills his irises, or maybe it’s a shade of dusty violet. I can’t tell for sure. All I know is they’re exotic and too pretty for a man, but he wears them well.
A server stops by to grab Cory’s order. He’s kind, saying please and thank you and not treating her like some lowly servant. I pull in another sip of coffee and view him in a whole new light. The little things matter to me more than they should.
“So.” Cory leans into me, placing his hand over mine on the table. “What’d you do last night?”
“I had a client call me up with an emergency,” I say. “He’s new in town and I’m trying to help him get acquainted with the city as we search for his apartment. He’s from L.A.”
Cory winces. “I never could get into the West Coast lifestyle. I’m East Coast all the way. Born and bred.”
“I like New York, but sometimes I think warm weather would be a welcome change,” I say. Our server deposits two waters in front of us, and I reach for mine without pause. “The winters here remind me a lot of Iowa, but at least I don’t have to drive out here.”
Our small talk is painful, but it’s a part of the process. I suffer through it because Cory seems like someone worth getting to know.
“So where’d you go to school?” I ask after he finishes talking about his favorite hockey team.
“Will you excuse me one second, Skylar? I’m sorry.” His lips turn down at the corners as he presses his phone against his chest. His brows meet in the middle and his entire demeanor has darkened. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”
The minutes drip slowly like honey as he stands outside. I observe from my perch at our table as his hands cut through the air as he talks. He paces the pavement slightly. Three steps to the left and then three to the right. His back is to me, so I can’t make out what he’s saying.
I wipe away a water ring on the table as my mind wanders to Theo. I try to picture him sitting up in his hotel room sketching out ideas and formulas. It’s kind of cute. If he weren’t so damn arrogant and entitled, I might give him a chance.
“So sorry about that, Skylar.” Cory returns. His hand presses into my shoulder before he sits down. “I promise you, this is not my style. There are some important matters I need to tend to, and I’d been waiting on that call all day.”
“It’s okay.” I nod for extra reassurance.
We order our food and eat. The small talk continues. I’m missing the fireworks, but I swear there’s a hint of a spark. I feel it every time our eyes catch from across the table.
There’s something there.
I think.
Cory gets the check and escorts me outside with his hand on my lower back, the way Theo does sometimes. His fingertips graze my skin as if I’m as delicate as a china doll. We stand against the brick of the restaurant, the space above us lit by streetlamps that come on the second the sun recedes.
“It was nice meeting you tonight.” His tone is low, vibrating slightly in his chest, and his gaze is soft and genuine, creating an instant intimacy that’s comfortably natural. “I hate to cut this night short, but I want you to know I’m not going anywhere. I want to get to know you, even if it has to be tomorrow night and the next night and the next night.”
The space between us tightens. I know what happens next. My breathing picks up, only I pray he doesn’t notice. Kisses make me all kinds of nervous. They always have.
“Is it okay if I kiss you?” His good breeding come into play. He’s a bonafide, card-carrying member of a rare breed of gentleman who are impossible to find these days.
I appreciate him asking, but I don’t want to kiss him yet. Not when my lips are still tingling from the way Theo kissed me the night before. It feels…wrong. It shouldn’t but it does, and I’m still trying to figure out why.
“Not tonight.” I let him down gently, offering him a consoling smile as if to assure him it’s nothing personal. “It’s cute that you asked. Most guys don’t do that anymore.”
“I’m not like most guys,” he says, shifting on his feet and aligning our hips. His hand brushes the side of my cheek. “You should know that about me, Skylar. I’m not like any guy you’ve ever met before.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Cory’s ego is slightly bruised, no doubt from my rejection of his kiss. I can’t blame him for shamelessly self-promoting himself.
“I’m going to call you tomorrow,” he says. “And just so you know, when I say I’m going to call, I always do.”
I slip out of his space and offer him a wave as I head back to my apartment. I feel his eyes on me, and I turn back around out of instinct to see him standing with his hands slipped casually into his pockets. His shoulders are relaxed, his head tilted to the side as if he’s got me in the bag.
On anyone else I’d find it insulting, but with Cory, it’s slightly endearing – the kind of thing you tell your grandchildren about while enjoying Sunday suppers at your beach house in Nantucket.
I saunter home under the evening sky. I should be buzzing with livewire energy. I should be reeling. There should be an extra little pep in my step. Instead it feels ordinary. I may as well be walking home from work.
I brace myself for Nina’s interrogation, which I’m quite certain will begin the second I slip my key into the lock of our door.
My entire date with Cory can be summed up in a handful of words: it was extraordinarily okay.
The mattress of my hotel bed is stiff. I miss my bed back in L.A. – the one sitting in some storage unit in Denver, Colorado waiting to be shipped to New York the second I make the call.
A knock on the door sends me springing up, pulling me out of my foggy state and toward the peephole. It’s the concierge returning my laundry.
I pull the door open and grab the bag before handing the dead-eyed young man a handful of small bills. “Thank you.”
My clothes, the five or six outfits I’ve been rotating since I got back last week, are getting old. The rest of my wardrobe is still in storage, and I need to shop for more things before I’m threadbare.
“Hey.” I’m calling Skylar. I don’t even think about it, I pick up my phone and dial her number as if we’re a couple of old friends. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?”
“Just got back,” she says. I hear the jingling of keys in the background. “Why are you calling me? It’s ten o’clock. Shouldn’t you be resting that big beautiful brain of yours?”
“Just calling to see how your date went,” I lie.
“So you’re lying in bed thinking about my date,” she says. “Interesting.”
“Yep.” There’s a laugh in my voice.
“If you must know, it went wonderfully,” she says, though her voice is so monotonous I don’t believe her for one second. Skylar sure as hell doesn’t sound like a girl coming down from a date night high. She sounds tired.
And bored.
“Good for him,” I say. “Did he walk you home? Kiss you goodnight?”
“I wouldn’t let him,” she says.
My left brow lifts. She let me kiss her, but not her date? “You going to see him again?”
“Probably.”
A sharp dash of pain sears through my chest, but I recover quickly and move forward undeterred. “Look, the reason I called was because I’m going shopping tomorrow. My clothes are still halfway across the country, and I need help picking out some new ones.”
“I’m surprised you don’t want to hire someone to shop for you,” she says, diverting my question. “There are people all over the city who do that for a living. A man of your means and-”
“I’m old fashioned,” I interject. “Do you want to go shopping with me tomorrow or not?”
I’m expecting her to say she has showings or appointments, anything to get out of it, but instead she pulls in a deep breath and pauses long enough that I press the phone hard against my ear in anticipation of her answer. “Yeah. I can help.”
“Meet me at Barneys at ten. We’ll start there.”
***
Skylar floats across the white tile as she makes her way toward my perch in the men’s department. Her blonde hair cascades down her shoulders and she’s wearing lipstick.
She cares.
She totally fucking cares.
I bite a grin away and stand to greet her, leaning in for a cheek kiss and simultaneously breathing in her intoxicating scent – a mix of perfume, hairspray, and mystique.
The sour-faced sales associate who was helping me since before Skylar’s arrival watches intently, her posture frozen as she tries to decipher whether or not we’re together.
“If you and your girlfriend would follow me,” the associate says, her words directed my way, “I’ve gone ahead and pulled some clothes. I’ve got a dressing room all ready for you.”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Skylar says, though her words are clearly directed at me. I think she’s half messing with me because there’s no way she hasn’t entertained the thought, and she knows how I feel about her.
“She’d be so lucky,” I dig back. Our eyes meet and then she cracks a slow grin that lasts for two seconds. There’s no way in hell she’s remotely thinking about the jackass who took her out the night before.
Still, I’m locked in a race against time, my opponent some faceless douchebag who has her number and will probably let go of her with about as much willingness as a dog chewing on a bone.
Two men. One winner. The prize? Her heart.
My hand glides behind her low back as we follow the associate who keeps turning back every few steps to flash me what I can only assume she thinks is a sexy smile. Her hips sway as she walks, and I’m quite sure she is hoping my eyes are on her.
They’re not.
“You seem well rested,” Skylar says as we rifle through racks of Helmut Lang and Armani garments clinging from thick wooden hangers. She pulls out a navy blue shirt, pressing it against my chest like I’m some paper doll. “These would go with your eyes.”
I take the piece from her and slip it under my arm. I know my style, and I know what works on me. I had a stylist back in L.A. But I’ll wear anything Skylar tells me to wear because I trust her.
She looks amazing herself. All of her clothes are tailored, melding to her body tight and with intention, like a finely made cigar. Everything about her style is graceful and elegant and feminine. She wears her exquisite beauty quietly, like a soft whisper.
“How do you feel about V-necks?” She holds up a gray shirt. The fabric is almost sheer but it’s soft and worn, like a lived in t-shirt. “This would go well with a pair of jeans. But I’ve never seen you in anything other than a suit or slacks, so I don’t know if this is your style.”
I glance down at my outfit. Even today I’m dressed to the nines, but it’s all I have to wear. “This is why we’re shopping. My clothes are in storage, remember?”
“So what is your style?” she asks, flipping through more garments. “You know, when you’re not parading around here in three-piece custom suits like you’re better than everyone else?”
I smirk. “I’m going to do you a favor and ignore the last half of your comment.”
“Gracious of you.”
“Underneath this fine façade, I’m a regular jeans and t-shirt kind of guy,” I say, accepting two more shirts she picks out for me. The sales associate is standing ahead, her arms folded as she watches Skylar do her job. “Just a regular Joe.”
Skylar’s full lips part as she lets out a hearty laugh. “Right. And’s why you’re shopping at Barneys for three-hundred-dollar jeans and two-hundred-dollar t-shirts.”
“It’s all relative,” I defend myself. She could blame my pseudo-mom, the woman who raised me during my high school years, for this. She had too much money and a penchant for the finer things, and having come from nothing, I began to appreciate a tailored fit or a well-picked fabric. I just happened to be fortunate enough to afford such luxuries at this point in my life. At the root of it all, I came from nothing. I spent most of my formative years wearing faded hand-me-downs until they fell apart at the seams. “I was actually going to let you pick out an outfit today, you know, as a way to show my appreciation for your assistance. But if you’re not into Barneys, I’ll understand. I think I saw a guy down the street selling I Love New York t-shirts for five bucks.”
She flashes me an expression swirling with contempt and amusement, her brown eyes darkening as she stifles a grin. “I’d call you some choice names, Theo, but I’m pretty sure you know what you are.”
I follow her to a rack of denims, pulling out a pair of Balmain jeans with a thirty-four-inch inseam. The tag hanging from them reads $1300.
“You’re not seriously going to buy those, are you?” She squints as her left hand catches the hollow above her hip.
“You might think I’m an arrogant asshole,” I say, slipping them back on the rack. “And maybe I am. But I’m not that big of an arrogant asshole.”
I see her mutter “thank God” under her breath as she ambles toward the next garment rack.
“Dressing room’s all ready,” the associate pipes up. “I can take those back for you if you want to follow me.”
She grabs the armful of clothes Skylar has pulled, and I walk away with her, leaving Skylar to sit atop a nearby leather armchair chair until I come back.
“What do you think?” I emerge minutes later dressed in one of the t-shirts Skylar picked along with a sensible pair of non-$1300 jeans.
Her eyes are fixed on the screen of her phone, and she finishes composing a text before sweeping hair from her face and looking up. I hope to hell she wasn’t texting that other asshole. She’s not wearing a stupid giddy smile, so that’s a good sign.
Her eyes widen as she drinks me in from head to toe. “Nice.”
“Just…nice?”
“Very nice?”
“Are you asking or making a statement?”
The sales associate stands back, tapping her toe and watching our exchange. I bet she’s thinking we should just fuck and get it over with already.
I don’t disagree.
“You look amazing, Theo. Really. You should be a model. And I mean that. You’re almost too good looking, and you really need to rein it in a little.”
“And now you’re being sarcastic.” I shake my head and turn on my heel, heading back to try on the next outfit.
We go several more rounds, and I walk up to the register with everything Skylar chose and nothing the sales associate pulled.
“I meant it when I said I’d get you something,” I say as I’m being rung up. The number on the cash register climbs proportionately higher with each item, reaching embarrassing heights. That number might give some people a heart attack, but I’ve grown accustomed to it over the years. You have to spend money to make money, and that holds true when it comes to the kind of image you projected. “You’re taking time out of your Saturday morning to help me pick out clothes. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me.” She shakes her head and stares off, scanning the perimeter. “You said we’re friends, and this is what friends do.”
“Oh, so we’re only friends because I say we are?”
The right corner of her full lips pulls up shyly. “That’s not how I meant it and you know it.”
“That’s too bad because I liked your logic there for a second.”
She scrunches her nose, and for a moment she reminds me of an adorable, sexy little bunny.
“Five thousand, three-hundred seventy-five dollars and nine cents,” the sales associate says. “Will that be VISA or Discover?”
I pay for my new wardrobe of obnoxiously overpriced jeans and t-shirts and emerge from the store with Skylar. My arm brushes against hers as we walk. “The fact that you don’t want me to get you anything makes me want to get you a shit ton of things. You know that, right?”
