“Oh, hang on. There’s another.” I put up a fourth finger. “Stay the fuck away from her.” I stand, and he seems about half my size. “If she tells me again that you bothered her about anything not work related, I’ll come back, and I won’t be so pleasant. See, I’m in a pretty great mood at the moment, because I’ve got the prettiest fucking girl around on my arm. But if you try to take her from me, my mood will change.”
“Do I want her back?” he asks. “Yes. But that’s the only part of the story you have right. As far as anyone in this office knows, as far as anyonein her lifeknows, I’m her boyfriend. Ask her. Her dad wants us together, and he always gets what he wants.”
“Bullshit.”
“Are you coming to her house for Christmas?” he asks.
I close my mouth. Christmas is four days away. I’ve avoided the topic, which has been easy since she hasn’t brought it up, either.
“I didn’t think so,” he says. “Because I’ll be there.”
Frustration tightens my muscles. He’s just trying to get under my skin. There’s no way Halston’s spending Christmas with her ex. “I didn’t call you here to make holiday plans. I’m telling you to back off.”
“But—”
“You should go. Now.”
He looks behind me at Halston’s office. “We just want what’s best for her.”
By we, I think he’s lumping himself in with her dad. It might take some effort to win her father over, but I’m up for the task. Rich, though? He’s gotta go. “So do I,” I say with a dismissive nod.
He leaves. I wait until he’s out of sight, stand, and return into Halston’s office. She’s putting on her coat, so I help her into it. “Benny’s taking care of the roses.”
She rises onto the balls of her feet, and I bend my head to kiss her. “Thank you,” she says. “The red ones are my favorite.”
I win. Lavender-boy loses. On some level, I must’ve known that. Red roses lure you in with beauty and passion, which is why they suit Halston so well. Can they hurt you? Yes. If you don’t know how to handle them.
Beautiful things should be that way, difficult to get to, to touch.
Otherwise it’d be too easy for people to destroy them.
* * *
I’ve sprouted a human vine. I’m sprawled out on the mattress, Halston intertwined with me. Her leg must be double-jointed or something, because it seems to wrap around mine twice. Her head rests on my arm, so I do a bicep curl that brings her mouth to mine. “You good?” I ask.
She nods breathlessly. “So good.”
Sex is a drug for us, plain and simple. It’s true for me, and it’s definitely true for her. Over the last few weeks she’s stopped drinking so much coffee. I’ll put a mug in front of her, and she’ll barely look up from her phone. Or she’ll take a sip, straddle my lap at the kitchen table, and forget all about it.
I stroke her hair off her face until her panting subsides. It’s only ten o’clock at night. Before her, I read every night before bed, or my mind would keep me up into early morning hours. Luckily, great sex and great books have the same soothing effect.
She runs a hand through my chest hair. “This is nice.”
“What would you normally be doing now?” I ask. “If you were at your apartment. Before me?”
“Hmm. I can’t remember a time before you.”
I chuckle. “Twenty-five years, wiped out just like that.”
She gets up on an elbow to look down at me. “I seriously can’t remember. My apartment feels like another planet right now. I guess I’d probably be watching Netflix or playing with my phone.”
“Do you like to read?”
“Depends. I kept books at Rich’s. When I stayed there, he usually read before bed.” She grimaces. “Sorry if that’s weird.”
I shake my head, trying to be cool. It’s good for me to hear about Rich. Know your enemy and all that. I haven’t decided if I should bring up my conversation with him yesterday. There wasn’t even supposed to be a conversation. If it weren’t for his last comment about Christmas, I’d leave it. “What’s he like? Rich?”
She flops down onto her back. “He’s, I don’t know. Even-tempered. Hard-working. A little insecure. His dad ignored him a lot.”
