I knew her kind.
It was like looking in a mirror, and I had no doubt that everything she’d told me was true. She was too brave to lie.
But I also knew she was trying to distract me. She didn’t want to open up too much or take off the mask.
Easton Bradbury was a survivor, and she’d ride me to kingdom come if it would get me to stop asking questions.
I’d love every minute, but I didn’t like how she kept me at arm’s length.
I’d always set the boundaries, not the other way around.
She’d gone upstairs, without argument surprisingly, and came back down dressed in a pleated black miniskirt.
It was sexy but tasteful. Her top was off-white and off the shoulder, and it felt like water when I placed my hand on her back and guided her to the car, beneath an umbrella I’d found right beside her door.
Every bar in the Vieux Carre was open, and the streets were flooded with people, despite the heavy rain.
The French Quarter was the highest point in New Orleans, so it rarely flooded, not that flooding would stop the residents. The electric charge in the air only incited the already thick lust for life that flowed in their veins.
Just give them an excuse and there was a party.
Patrick dropped us off at Père Antoine on Royal Street, a block off Bourbon, and I rushed her inside, doing a piss-poor job of not ogling her beautiful legs, decorated with drops of rain, as she followed the hostess to a table and I followed behind.
I sipped my Jameson neat and watched her trail her fingers along the edge of the tablecloth in front of her, her lips moving slightly. The cloth was white with small flowers sewn into the design.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She looked up, her eyes wide.
“I . . .” She closed her mouth and then opened it again. “I was counting,” she admitted. “It’s kind of a habit I’ve been working on stopping, but sometimes I still find myself doing it.”
“What do you count?”
Her head turned, her eyes scanning the room as she spoke, as if she was afraid to look at me. “I count my steps as I walk sometimes.” She looked down, smoothing her clothes as she went on. “My strokes when I brush my teeth. The number of turns when I use a faucet. Everything has to be an even number.”
I set my drink down. “What if it only takes three turns to get your desired temperature with the faucet?”
She glanced up. “Then I do shorter turns to get to four,” she shot back, a hint of a smile on her face.
I narrowed my eyes, studying her.
She blushed, looking embarrassed as she leaned her elbows on the table and took a drink of her gin and tonic.
Why couldn’t I get a reading on her?
Her face was oval shaped with high cheekbones, and she had big blue eyes that always seemed covered by some kind of filter. I couldn’t look at her and tell what she was thinking.
Her top lip curved downward, making her bottom lip look pouty, both the color of a sullied pink that I wanted to feed on.
Her shoulders were squared, and her jaw was strong, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes, and her breathing was shaky.
So much like a strong woman, but the vulnerability and temper were that of someone who worked very hard to never really face the world.
She wanted me but acted like I could easily be replaced.
I thought about her when we were apart, and I wanted to know that she thought about me too.
“So why do you do it?” I pressed.
She shook her head, shrugging slightly. “It’s soothing, I guess,” she placated.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
She met my eyes, holding the glass in her hand as she leaned on the table. “I have. Sporadically,” she added. “Most people like me function just fine, and when I’m busy, I forget about it. But at certain times”—she paused, watching me—“I regress.”
Certain times? Did I make her nervous?
“It just makes me feel better,” she explained. “And sometimes, it’s just a habit.”
I nodded, understanding. “So you count things. What’s your favorite number?”
“Eight.”
I laughed a little. “Didn’t have to think about that, huh?”
She blushed, giving me a timid smile.
Licking her lips, she reached for the container of sweeteners and pulled some out, setting them side by side on the table.
“Can’t have two,” she told me, looking at me with amusement as she explained, “because if they separate, then they’re alone.” She slid the packets apart, proving her point.
Then she grabbed two more, lining them up with the others. “Can’t have four, because even if there’s two in each group, it’s still only one couple in each group.”
Her voice turned playful, and she seemed to relax as she got caught up in explaining her secret obsession.
She took out more packets, making two groups of three. “And you can’t have six, because if you separate them into two groups of three like this, then there’s three in each group, and that’s an odd number.”
Her eyes widened, looking like that would be the worst thing ever, and I laughed.
She took out two more packets, making two groups of four each. Eight packets total.
“Eight is perfect.” She grinned, fingering the packets to make sure they were straight. “Two groups. Four in each group making two couples in each group.”
And she looked up, nodding once as if everything were perfect with the world.
I couldn’t help it. My lips curled into a smile because she was the fucking epitome of intriguing. So sexy, but if you blinked too long, she was transformed and you realized everything you thought you knew about her barely touched the surface.
She hooded her eyes and looked away, smiling to herself. “I’m crazy,” she admitted. “That’s what you’re thinking.”
I let my eyes rake down her bare neck to where her shirt fell off her shoulder. The hardened point of her nipple poked through the thin fabric, and I knew she wasn’t wearing a bra.
The shirt was the only barrier, and that turned me on more than the idea of her naked did.
I raised my eyes to her. “I’m thinking you’re beautiful,” I said in a low voice. “And if you need everything in eights, it could be a long night.”
She held my eyes, not moving, but I could see the excitement trying to break out across her face. Her hitched breathing, her stillness . . . I loved that I’d shut her up for once. She was fun, and I enjoyed peeling away her layers.
The waiter came over, setting down the crawfish étouffée for Easton and my blackened catfish and left to get us another round of drinks.
She took her spoon and pushed it through her stew of rice and peeled crawfish tails. I grabbed my fork and knife, ready to cut into a meal I wasn’t the least bit hungry for, but I stopped, seeing her take a small piece of bread and dip it into the stew. She brought the bread up, dripping with creole sauce, and caught it with her mouth, sucking the tip of her thumb before starting to chew.
Glancing up, she caught me staring. “What?” she asked more as an accusation.
I cut into my food. “You’re only allowed finger foods when we go out to eat,” I deemed.
I heard her snort. “If we go out again,” she corrected.
She picked up her spoon and we both started eating. I ate the fish with the sauce and all of the rice, quickly realizing I was hungrier than I’d thought. I rarely just sat and ate, unless it was with Christian, and more often than not, we were both interrupted by phone calls or texts at the dinner table.
Business dinners were a lot of talking and drinking, so Mrs. Giroux’s home-cooked meals were much appreciated. It was my fault I chose to eat them at my desk as I worked.
I raised my eyes, watching her eat and loving the sight of her sitting there: her dark hair spilling over her shoulder, her skin glowing in the light of the ostentatious chandelier hanging above her, her downcast eyes as she licked her lips after taking a drink.
I wasn’t thinking about work or home. At the moment I wondered only what she was thinking.
“Why do you want to go into politics?”
I stopped, looking up. She watched me silently, waiting.
I shrugged slightly, setting down my silverware and relaxing into my seat.
“I have money,” I pointed out, picking up my drink. “Now I’m bored, and I want power.”
She set her spoon down, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. She cocked her head, unamused.
My chest shook with a laugh before I took a sip and set down my drink. She didn’t take any bullshit, did she?
“I’ve been on top of the world my whole life,” I told her, fingering the glass. “I grew up attending private schools, and my father made sure I had everything I could ever want. College was a blast. Being on my own, money I didn’t earn or question where it came from sitting in my pocket . . .” I trailed off, staring at the table and narrowing my eyes.
“I didn’t concern myself with anything that brought me down,” I confessed. “I was arrogant.”
I stopped and smirked at her. “Well, more arrogant than I am now,” I added. “I was self-serving and selfish.”
The waiter stopped and set down the drinks, leaving just as quietly when neither of us looked at him.
I raised my eyes, meeting hers. “When I was nineteen I got a girl pregnant.” I swallowed the lump, remembering that day I’d wished so many times I could go back and redo. “She wasn’t even really my girlfriend,” I added. “It was new, and it was casual, and then all of a sudden my connection to her was permanent.”
Easton’s expression was emotionless as she listened.
“And you know what?” I continued. “I still didn’t change. I threw money at her so she’d go away, and after a year or so, she married someone else.”
I looked away, feeling ashamed. “A great guy who wanted her even though she had another man’s kid, a guy who was there for my son.”
My throat tightened, and I forced my breathing to slow. I’d worked very hard over the years not to think about Christian waking up in the middle of the night or having stories read to him by someone else. Times when he was small and helpless and needed me and I was nowhere around.
I was never there.
“I thought I was a man.” I spoke quietly. “I wasn’t even close.”
She dropped her eyes, looking saddened, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Did she think less of me now?
Of course she did.
“When I was twenty-two,” I went on, “I was in my last semester of college and ready to be done. I had to take this social science course to fulfill a requirement. I forget what it was called,” I told her, “but I remember, very well, arguing with the professor one day. He was giving us some prison statistics. Percentages of the inmates’ races, percentages of repeat offenders . . .”
I tipped back the drink, finishing it off, setting the glass down, and clearing my throat.
“Everyone thought that the inequalities in prison culture were shocking, but I didn’t care. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
A smile escaped me as I remembered that day. “The professor got in my face and told me to look harder.” I looked at her point-blank, imitating his deep, gruffly voice. “‘Mr. Marek, if you’re not angry, then you’re not paying attention.’ And I shot back with ‘Well, I don’t want to be angry all the time. Ignorance is bliss, and I don’t care about fuckups who got sent to prison for their own mistakes’ and all that bullshit. I thought I was so smart.”
I felt utterly ridiculous, quoting my twenty-two-year-old self. Back when I thought I knew everything.
I continued to explain. “He wanted us to question the how and why, and I couldn’t have cared less. I wanted to make money”—I shrugged my shoulders—“go to parties, and have fun.”
She continued listening, not moving a muscle.
“And then,” I continued. “I remember like it was yesterday. He looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘Tyler, if you’re going to be a burden on the world, then just die now. We don’t need you.’”
She blinked, looking a little shocked. “Wow,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “He shut me up. And he made me open my eyes,” I added, remembering the moment my outlook on life changed.
“I was a nobody,” I explained. “Expendable and useless . . . I was a loser who took and never gave.”
I glanced up, seeing the waiter approach, and waited for him to take the plates away.
“Would you like coffee?” he asked.
I shook my head, waving him off.
“And so”—I looked at her again after he’d gone—“in my last year of college, I finally started studying. I read books about prisons, poverty, religion, war, gangs, economics, even agriculture,” I explained, “and the following fall I went back to school for my graduate degree, because I wanted to make more than just money. I wanted to make a difference and be remembered.”
Her eyes dropped, and a small, thoughtful smile peeked out as if she understood just what I was talking about.
“I realized that if I wanted to effect change,” I told her, “and be a person others could count on, then I needed to start with my own kid. He was two years old at that point and had seen me . . .” I shook my head. “Very rarely,” I confessed. “Brynne, his mother, didn’t want to have anything to do with me, though.”
I took in a hard breath, the weight of regret making it hard to talk. “She took the money my father sent every month for Christian’s sake, but I’d burned my bridges with her. She told me that our son had a father who loved him already and I’d only confuse him.”
“And you agreed with her,” Easton ascertained.
I nodded. “I was scared off,” I admitted. “I was working hard to contribute to the rest of the world, but when it came to my kid . . .” I dropped my eyes, shaking my head at how easily I’d talked myself out of his life back then. “I was too afraid of failing.” I raised my eyes, meeting hers. “So I didn’t even try. I saw her husband with my kid, and I didn’t know how the hell I was going to compete with that. I wanted to be in his life, but I’d still just be the weekend daddy.”
At the time, it had made sense.
I’d wanted him to know me, but what if I didn’t live up to his expectations? He’d already had a full-time father and a life that was familiar.
What if he still hated me?
No, there was time. Later. When he’d grown up enough to understand. Then I could be his father.
“As he grew, I tried to keep in contact with him,” I consoled myself out loud. “I never pressed for any kind of custody, because my traveling was sporadic and unpredictable, and Brynne let Christian go with me from time to time as long as that’s what he wanted,” I explained. “But he started having friends, sports, extracurricular activities, and so I let him have his life. We grew even further apart.”
“But he’s with you now,” she pointed out, sounding hopeful.
But I couldn’t summon her optimism. Under the same roof, I felt more distanced from my son than when he wasn’t there.
“I was supposed to pick him up for dinner one night last June,” I explained, “and he stood me up. He went to a baseball game with his other father.” I accentuated the word “other.”
“I got pissed and went to collect him, and Brynne started yelling at me on the phone to leave them alone,” I went on. “I was just making everyone unhappy, she told me, but he was my son, and I wanted him with me that night.”
I blinked away the burn in my eyes, remembering how fucking sick I’d gotten of her telling me he wasn’t mine.
“And I was pissed, because I had no right to be pissed,” I told Easton. “Brynne was right. I was the outsider. I’d given him up. And I was making everyone unhappy.”
The waiter brought the bill, and I dug my wallet out of my breast pocket and handed him a couple bills.
“Keep the change,” I said, and didn’t watch him leave.
Easton leaned her chin on her hand, her eyes never leaving me.
I picked my napkin off my lap and dropped it on the table.
“When she said they were going to Egypt for a year,” I continued, “and that she was taking Christian, I said no. I told her I wasn’t letting my son leave the country, and we fought. A lot.
“But I was done being a coward. I wanted my son with me.” I didn’t know why, but I wanted Easton to understand that. “I thought it was too late when he was two. I thought it was too late when he was ten. And now that he’s fourteen I’ve finally fucking realized that it’s never too late,” I told her.
I swirled the brown liquid I had yet to drink, knowing that I was still failing with my son and wondering what Easton was thinking of me. Maybe she’d learned too much, and I’d fucked up.
I’d gone to her apartment tonight because, after what I’d seen online, I didn’t want to bring her any unhappiness. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to think I could make her life better—she seemed to be doing pretty well—but I was reminded that what others let us see is very little. There’s a lot I didn’t know about her, but I did know she was hiding something.
She deserved to smile, and for some reason, I wanted to give her that.
But telling her my own shit might’ve pushed her away.
Women didn’t tend to like weakness and mistakes in men, but when she’d looked so interested, something compelled me to spill everything.
I guess I hadn’t really told anyone all of that before.
She sat there, watching me, and I tipped my drink at her, blowing off the whole thing with a smile and suddenly feeling like I’d made a huge mistake in telling her.
“Anyway,” I joked. “That’s why I want to be in politics.”
