Around noon my mom calls diverting my thoughts away from Ian. “Hey sexy momma, what’s cooking?” I say brightly.
“This place is so beautiful, dear. I swear I can see all the way across the park.” She exclaims.
“That Ian boy is so nice.” Leave it to my mom to call him a boy. Shit. I don’t even know how old he is or what his middle name is, yet I’m living in an apartment that he’s paying for and my clothes are sharing the same closet as some of his clothes. I wonder what goes on at the fuckpad down in the Meatpacking District—the one with the cameras that look like live creatures.
“Yeah, don’t get too comfortable,” I warn.
“Did you know that there is a concierge for the apartments? As if we were staying in a swanky hotel!” She continues on gushing about it as if my warning never happened. With each compliment increases my concern about taking her out of there back to the walk up. It’s my own pride that makes me want to leave.
“It’s a nice place,” I say begrudgingly.
“I can’t believe he’s having trouble moving this place. I wonder if there’s been a crime in the building.” Mom speculates on all the ways that the apartment building may have lost value. “It’s also very cold except for my room, and the bed in your room is far too big. It makes the room look crowded. He should have a stager in.”
“I’ll mention it to him the next time I see him.” When she hangs up, I stare at the phone for a moment. There’s no way I can move out now. Part of me feels elated but that’s the dumb, foolish part of me. The part of me that’s going to not understand when he loses interest. The part of me that will be crying into the pillow for weeks after he’s moved on.
Chapter 17
I’M IN THE MIDST OF patching a tire when “Room at the Top” by Tom Petty starts to play.
“Hello?” I answer tentatively, wiping the residual tar off my fingers. Thank god for Bluetooth headphones.
“Bunny.” Ian’s low baritone slides down my ear and right into my belly.
“Is this call for work or pleasure?”
“Do you spend the entire time brooding on that bike? You should quit and do something else that occupies your quick mind.”
“I don’t have time to brood. I’m too busy trying to avoid the taxicabs who treat bikes as the enemy.” In truth, I daydream. I dream about my mother being cancer free. About having a family. About reading to my own kids. They would be whip-smart and go to Harvard or Princeton, and I’d beam proudly in the crowd when they graduated. They’d be scientists or lawyers or writers. They wouldn’t be me. They wouldn’t be locked into a job that doesn’t require reading or writing skills. I say none of this to Ian.
“Thanks for reassuring me,” he says dryly. “Unfortunately, I can’t be there to watch over you this week. I have to go to Seattle and look over a possible venture. Wearable military tech. What do you think?”
“Would Tony Stark buy it?”
He chuckles. “Should that be my investment measuring stick from now on?”
“I think so. You aren’t as successful as he is. I haven’t seen you in anything but those old cloth suits. So twenty-first century.”
“I’ve already admitted that my sense of fashion is pretty poor and I pay someone to shop for me.”
“Like the lingerie?”
“That is some of the best money I’ve spent.” His voice is husky and the weak and vulnerable part of me responds with a swifter heartbeat and a throb between my legs.
In the background I hear rustling and a pleasant voice indicating that a flight is about to take off. “I need to go, Tiny. I should be back on Friday. I trust you’ll still be at Central Towers when I return?”
“Probably. I can’t move my mom right now.”
“Don’t sound so glum. I have a task for you. Friday night you’ll need to get yourself to the Red Door Spa on Fifth Avenue at seven p.m. Can you make it?"
“Sure, but why?”
“I’ll need you to get properly armored at the Red Door at seven, and I’ll pick you up there at ten to go to your assignment. The Aquarium is,” he pauses, searching for a word, “a shark tank. I want you to be properly armored.”
“Okay. Is this for the project?”
“Yes. I was going to explain it to you this evening, but obviously that’s not possible, and it’s not something I want to do over the phone.” He says something indistinguishable to another person and then returns. “Where are you going next?”
“I have deliveries in midtown and then on the east side. I’m at Tenth and Fifty-Second Street. I’ll be going crosstown because I have a delivery over on Designers’ Way. Probably dropping off fabric samples.”