“Let’s not tell anyone anything,” he said. He didn’t want to lie any more than he already had. “Let’s just go.”
twenty-three
It became obvious as soon as they exited the building that Teagan did not have a destination in mind, so Darcy set off for his condo. She’d mapped the route but had yet to go inside. His face was distant and remote as they walked, but he evidenced no surprise as Darcy brought them to the front entrance. He pulled out his keys and let them in without speaking about it.
The building was old and not tall, and Teagan’s unit was on the third floor. Darcy hadn’t really pictured what it would be like, but the smallness of it was shocking to her. It couldn’t even be five hundred square feet, and it looked smaller in light of Sloane’s luggage and boxes piled in the middle of the floor.
“Jesus, this is grim,” she said, peering out the sole window, which opened into an air shaft. If she craned her head with her nose to the glass, she could just see a rhombus-shaped wedge of sky off to the left. “I thought you were rich?”
“Manhattan real estate,” Teagan briefly explained. “I bought this place with my own money.” He stripped off his shirt and undershirt and dropped them next to the neatly made full-sized bed at one end of the room. He had a futon,a coffee table, and an entertainment console with a large TV. No other furniture besides the bed and nightstand. There were a few framed color photographs on the wall in IKEA frames: other people’s weddings, a picture of him and a teenaged Sloane smiling on a beach together.
As a place for a human to live, it obviously sucked.
She wished she had somewhere better to take him. Her own apartment, some secret spot in the woods. Now that they had reached their destination, she almost wanted to take him by the arm and start moving again.
Teagan sat down on the bed to remove his shoes. Once stripped to his trousers, he too seemed to run out of ideas for what to do. Like a tree falling in the forest, he toppled over onto his bed, then rolled on his stomach. He turned his face to the mattress.
Darcy eyed his abject figure sprawled on the bed, then went to sit next to him. Sober Sam had not covered this. She had not been briefed on this mission. She was only a petty officer third class, only a handyman, and her own family had not provided good instruction on how to love someone who was hurting.
“Do you want me to rub your back?” she asked.
“No, I’m okay,” Teagan mumbled into the plain navy duvet.
“Are you lying?” Darcy said skeptically. Who didn’t want a back rub?
Teagan’s shoulders tensed.
“Yes,” he admitted.
So Darcy stroked the palm of her hand up and down his bare back, feeling the tension run out of him by degrees. When they went to the gym, he usually swam laps, and mostof the muscle in his wiry body lay across his shoulders. Darcy liked to press her cheek there when he rolled on his stomach to sleep.
She wondered whether she could ever be good at this part. She’d never really gotten this far. She understood how things started, when she met someone at work or at a bar, and how they got going, when they went to get dinner and a movie or they went home together. She also knew how things ended, when someone stopped calling or cheated or moved away. But this part? Darcy didn’t know about this part, where someone had a bad day or a series of bad days but then things got better, instead of worse. Where someone brought you a soda and rubbed your back.
She didn’t know if she could be good at this part. She’d never had the chance to try.
After a few minutes, Teagan turned to his side and caught her hand between his own. He brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed them, breath playing out over her fingers. He looked up at her from the bed, and his expression was such a mix of sadness and care that it made her stomach flip over. She had that tiptoeing-over-the-edge-of-the-cliff feeling again.
“Thank you,” he said. “I feel better.”
It was as quiet as it ever was in the city. No footsteps from the hall or the neighbors above, and the street below was empty.
Teagan looked at her expectantly.I’m in charge, Darcy reminded herself. She was supposed to know what to do now.
“Do you have any alcohol in here?” Darcy asked, squashing her impulse to give him real estate advice or to demand answers about what had happened back at his office. First things first.
“I don’t know,” Teagan said. “I don’t remember.”
While Teagan went into the bathroom to rub his face with a wet washcloth, Darcy opened cabinets and the refrigerator. The refrigerator was full of science experiments, but none of the substances therein had begun as alcoholic beverages. The cabinets had little of interest either, but she found a bottle of Macallan 30 still in its box under the sink. It hadn’t even been opened yet.
Teagan reemerged in a new shirt, his color improved.
He winced when he saw her standing next to the sink with the bottle.
“Sorry,” she said. “I gotta.”
“My boss gave me that with my bonus three years ago,” he said. “Back when I was a bond trader. At least try it first.”
“Is it good?” she asked, eyeing the bottle. “I’ve never drunk anything older than I am.”
