My hands shook as I took a sip. There was so much hurt in her eyes and in her slumped shoulders, wounds on display. In that moment I couldn’t explain what I felt about her. Attraction, yes, but mostly: kinship.
“I feel like we haven’t been properly introduced.” I rubbed my hands against my jeans, getting rid of the dampness from the glass. “Hi, I’m Olivier. I just moved here.”
I held out my hand.
She rolled her eyes. “I think you already know everything there is to know about me.”
“On the contrary, it seems I don’t know anything at all. Tell me, whatdo you do for fun around here?”
She grunted.
I didn’t touch my glass, couldn’t take my eyes off her. “You don’t like it here?”
At that, she laughed. It was deep and cool and sexy. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it before. That laugh was going to derail my life even further. I think deep down I already knew that.
“It wouldn’t have been my first choice.”
“Where would you go? If the sky was the limit.”
Her eyes narrowed. “The sky is never, ever, ever the limit.”
“What if it were? Can’t we dream for one night?”
She took a deep breath, then slowly unscrewed the cap on the gin bottle again. “I guess so.”
So that’s what we did.
We dreamed aloud.
That’s how it started between us anyway.
I immediately felt comfortable around her. With Cassie I always had to be on my best behavior, to watch myself. But Reese saw me for who I was from the start. At least that’s how I felt as she leaned over the counter, resting on her bare forearms, her eyes firmly on mine.
I talked about my childhood in the suburbs outside Paris where, every day, I dreamed of a different life. I explained how I started making money, how quickly things got away from me. I opened up about how I alienated everyone I knew, how low I fell, how desperate. And then, the job at Bhotel, the opportunity to come to New York. How alive I’d felt there, a most thrilling second chance. I told her things I’d never said to anyone else.
Reese listened. I asked about her, too, eager to uncover her secrets. When she talked, it felt like the words took a lot out of her. She alluded to her deadbeat parents—my word, not hers—how lonely she’d been growing up. How weighed down she was by that feeling of unbalance, of knowing from a very young age that she was always on the brink of somethingeven more terrible than what she had already gone through.
Tears filled her eyes, and without thinking, I reached over the bar to rub my hand against her cheek. She flinched and I started reversing course, but the look in her eyes showed surprise more than anything else. She didn’t expect kindness, especially not from me. She didn’t actually share what her dreams might be, and after pressing her on it to no avail, it occurred to me that even thinking about your dreams is a luxury for some. It broke my heart a little. I put my hand on hers again and this time she didn’t react. Her skin was smooth. So soft. Next, I ran my thumb against her bottom lip. She flinched again but not as hard, and a current coursed through me.
“I wish I knew you before,” I said. I hoped she heard what I meant: I wished I’d met you before I met Cassie.
“You don’t even know me now,” she replied, taking my hand and placing it back on the sticky counter.
“What if I want to?”
“Oh, because wanting something is enough to make it happen?”
What first came to mind: I want you.
“Quite the opposite,” I said. “I thought if I just put my mind to it…but look at me.” I glanced around the room and then down at myself. “Nothing has worked out how I wanted it to.”
Part of me felt pathetic, admitting that to her. But it was freeing, too. I couldn’t remember ever letting my guard down like this.
We didn’t even drink that much; I can’t blame it on the alcohol. Over the next few hours, she poured us two more gin and tonics and only stepped away a handful of times when a patron came to order a drink. It was past midnight on a Tuesday, and the bar had emptied fast. Even her colleague had gone. I couldn’t tell how long we’d been alone. Since we’d started talking, it had felt like there was no one else in the room.
“I have to close up,” she said when the clock ticked over to 1:00 a.m.
Her voice was laced with sadness. At least that’s how I heard it. How I wanted it to be. Right then I wasn’t in a smelly bar drinking cheap gin,beholden to a shitty wife, who at this point seemed to care so little about our marriage that it felt like I’d made it up in my head. I needed this night. Couldn’t let it end.
