I wanted to do that with Bryan. I wanted to walk down the street with him. To kiss him in public. To share a car back to his place, my place, any place. But then, I’d also take what I could get, so when my phone finally rang, I pounced on it.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Bryan.”
My heart leapt. I was the girl in high school, waiting for the quarterback to call. Fine, I’d never dated a football player, and I didn’t even care for most sports. But I bet the zing I felt was precisely the same.
“Hey. What are you up to?”
“Talking to you.”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. Now we really sounded like teenagers again.
“Same to you,” I said, as I placed the half-eaten apple on the coffee table.
“What’d you do tonight?”
I gave him the rundown, then asked the same of him.
“Work, work, and more work. I heard back from the city of Paris on the padlocks. They said they’re trying to make some arrangements for a deal, so that’s good. But the best part is this amazingly brilliant MBA student I’m working with may have saved the day for us.”
I bounced on my toes. “Really? Did Geeking Out come through?”
“They’re putting a competitive bid together tonight. I should have it first thing in the morning, but they said they could meet the timeline.”
“Damn. I rock.”
“You totally and completely rock.”
“So where are you right now?” I asked as I walked down the hall to my bedroom. I didn’t know when Jill would return with her beer, but I didn’t want to be interrupted.
“My apartment. Finally. Car just dropped me off.”
“So calling me was the first thing you did when you got home? Nice.”
“I walked in two minutes ago.”
“I don’t even know where you live.” I shut the door to my bedroom and lay down on my bed. The one luxury I afforded myself was the bedding. A shimmery purple duvet covered the bed, with pillows in rich shades of red and dark blue.
“Sixtieth and Park.”
I wanted to whistle in admiration. I pictured the block perfectly, seeing it on a rain-soaked night, the quiet street glistening, lined with beautiful brick brownstones. He probably lived in one of those buildings. Double doors, four stories, hardwood floors, white-paned windows that opened on the kind of street that romantic comedy heroines strolled down, holding hands with their lovers.
“What’s on tap the rest of the night? More work?”
“I’m calling it a night on the work front. No more email, no more reports. I’m just kicking back on my couch talking to this girl with my cell phone pressed against my head. I’m probably getting a brain tumor, but c’est la vie.”
“You’re not one of those Bluetooth people? You haven’t been walking around with the headset in your ear all evening?”
“God no. I can’t stand the Bluetooth people.”
“They do that constantly in New York. On buses, on subways. Even in stores. They leave those damn things on all the time.”
“Maybe they are waiting to receive messages from the Bluetooth Uni-mind.”
“Oh, I can so picture that.”
“So, you’ve finagled my Bluetooth secret, Kat. What else do you want to know?”
I shifted to my side, and played with the tassel on one of my purple pillows. What did I want to know about Bryan? “I got it. Shoes on airplanes. On or off?”
“On, of course. As if I would ever take shoes off on a plane.”
“Totally agree. Why do people do that? Stretch their big stinky feet out in front of them and even walk up and down the aisles without their shoes.”
“I’m telling you, that’s another thing that would be abolished should I become president. You would be forbidden from removing shoes on planes. And from clipping your nails in public.”
“You have my vote.”
“You know what I like to do on planes?”
“No. What?”
“Sometimes, I go a little wild and I leave my cell phone on.”
“It doesn’t work up there.”
“Right, but instead of turning it off when we take off, I just go crazy and leave it on silent. And then I like to see how far up we can go before it stops getting messages, and then I like to see how high we are when it starts picking them up again on the way down.”
“You renegade.”
“I know, Kat. I’m not afraid to be a bad boy like that.”
“Are you though? A bad boy?”
He didn’t answer right away. He must have been weighing the question and what I really meant. I wasn’t sure what I really meant. “Do you want me to be a bad boy?”
I rested my head on the pile of pillows. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I just want you to be yourself.”
“I am myself. With you, I am definitely myself.” If we were at a club, the music would have just shifted from a fast, poppy song to a slower number, the kind of tune that made you want to dim the lights. “If I were with you right now, I’d be myself too.”
“What would you do?”
“If I were with you right now?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“On my bed.”
He was quiet, but I could hear him breathing, and I pictured his chest rising and falling as he stared up at the ceiling of his brownstone on Sixtieth and Park, closing his eyes, imagining me so many blocks away. “What are you wearing?”
“Jeans. Black cami with a Hello Kitty design.”
“Ah, of course. I believe you once said it was a life-long love, you and Hello Kitty.”
“We’re still going strong.”
“And underneath?”
“Black bikini briefs with a light blue stripe.”
“So you want to know what I’d do if I were with you right now?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t kiss you yet. I’d touch your naked skin. I’d run my fingers down your arms, and watch as you shivered at my touch.”
I closed my eyes and listened.
“I’d kiss your belly through your shirt, and you’d wriggle a little bit, trying to tell me with your body that you wanted more.”
I murmured something about wanting more.
“Then I’d come up for a kiss, hovering over you, my arms on each side of you.”
I longed to touch his arms, to trace how toned and strong they were.