He swallowed hard, feeling wretched. He shoved the check into his pocket, telling himself he didn’t have to deposit it, he just needed the conversation to be over.
Caroline slowly let go of his hand, face still creased with worry. The tip of her tongue wet her lips again.
“If it’s not too much travel though,” she added slowly, “can we still go somewhere over Christmas?”
He hesitated to make her any promises, because he didn’t want to commit to taking her money and going to Art Basel without her, much less going on a second trip overseas. Traveling to Europe on Caroline’s money was going to be difficult to erase from his internal hagiography.
“I don’t have any other plans,” she said in a softer voice.
Adrian pressed his teeth together as it abruptly occurred to him that she’d never said anything about her family except for her grandmother, and there were a lot of bad reasons why she could have a lot of money and no family to speak of. The uncertainty in her expression jolted him out of his self-absorbed paralysis. He found himself wrapping his arms around her for the second time in a week, nose full of the sweet smell of her hair.
“Of course,” he said softly, lips against the side of her head. “Anywhere you want to go.”
He heard her swallow.
“Okay.” She didn’t move for a second, and then she wrapped her arms around his waist hard, just short of a painful squeeze. Her heart beat fast against his chest. She squeezed tighter.
God, he was fucked. He was terrible.
He let her go as soon as he thought it wouldn’t make him look insincere. Even if he was insincere, even if he wasn’t the upright and diligent artist she believed he was, even if he wasn’t a good person due to the thoughts rattling in his head, he could act like one for her sake.
“Should we pick an artist to plan a trip around?” he asked, inclining his head further down the European hall, head buzzing with the wine and her presence. “Italy is nice in the winter. So is Spain,” he added, aware he sounded completely inane.
Caroline nodded, brushing her hair back behind her ears with both hands. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “That’s a good plan.”
They discussed the relative merits of Velázquez and Botticelli until the security guard came to tell them that the museum was closing. Most of the other young professionals had already trickled out in search of better wine and a more intimate atmosphere. When they emerged into the night air, a few white flakes were drifting down from the low, dark sky. Caroline looked up, face softening into delight as they approached the taxi line.
“It’s snowing,” she said. “It hardly ever snows back home.”
Adrian closed his mouth over the automatic rejoinder of born Northeasterners—that it was only pretty in the sky, not on the ground, and she’d be sick of it by February besides.
“I’ll have them drop you off first on my way,” Carolinesaid confidently, her speech a little slurred from all the wine they’d been drinking. “You can’t walk home in this.”
Adrian should have pointed out that he was better at walking in the snow than their cabbie probably was at driving in it, but he again hesitated to speak, because Caroline had wrapped both hands around his arm and huddled in against him as they waited in line. It was getting colder, he supposed. He ought to tell her to buy a hat and gloves, if she didn’t already have them.
They stood there in the snow, watching the thick, wet flakes melt on the street and on the tips of their shoes. Caroline’s hair was quickly soaked with it. She bent her head until it rested on his shoulder, cheek pressed trustingly into the lapel of his coat.
“This was a good birthday,” she mumbled into the black wool. “Thank you.”
Adrian jolted, only stilling himself for fear of dislodging her.
“It’s your birthday today?”
“Uh-huh. I’m twenty-three.”
Guilt struck him again that he hadn’t known. He’d seen her driver’s license, hadn’t he? But he hadn’t taken note of the date, and she hadn’t mentioned it again.
“You should have told me. I could have... I don’t know. Baked a cake.”
“You know how to bake?”
It took him a moment to pull the memory up. Tom had turned twenty-three a week after Rose kicked him out. Adrian had baked him a cake using the oven in his Back Bay apartment for the first time. It had been terrible—Adrian thought he’d forgotten the sugar—but Tom had eaten half of it, cried, and then insisted they go out to get very, very drunk.
He could have been a better friend since then, Adrian thought. He could have been a better person. He could have been good for someone, anyone in his life. When had he stopped being the person people came to with their problems and started being the person who needed so much help?
“For you, I would havetried,” he said.
Caroline huffed in amusement, not letting go of his arm. “You’re sweet,” she said. “But this is what I wanted to do tonight.”
