“Come in, at least,” he said when he was half a flight in, his mouth belatedly catching up with the rest of his body.
He liked to think of himself as largely immune to the more toxic impulses of his gender, and where he wasn’t, he was working on it, but within thirty seconds of seeing Rosie for the first time in a decade, a very primal set of instincts had kicked in. Get her into his cave. Get her wet clothes off. Keep her there. All of a sudden, the world had simplified.
Tom halted when he reached his open doorway, viewing his apartment with the same gaze he assumed she’d apply to it. Shit. It wasn’t wrecked, but it wasn’t how Rosie would have kept it.
He parked Rosie’s bag next to the door, then stooped for the nearest stack of clean laundry, hurriedly pulling on a shirt before turning back to her.
“I, uh, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” he said.
“Of course not,” she said, big blue eyes still wide and anxious as she hovered in the doorway like she might bolt anyway.
She’d cut her pretty hair; when he knew her, she’d laboriously straightened it every morning until it ran smooth down her back, then used a curling iron to put it into perfect waves around her face. Now she wore it just below her shoulders in her natural wispy ringlets, though it was frizzing from the rain.
“Let me take your coat,” he said.
He’d never seen her this undone. Rosie was always so perfectly put together that all his associations with her current state of deshabille were erotic ones: times he’d smeared her lipstick down her chin or rubbed her hair into knots against his cheap pillowcase.
His knuckles brushed the soft fuzz of her white sweater as he peeled her coat off her stiff body. He wanted to press them against her to keep the small contact. She smelled like wet hair and expensive perfume, and he took a deep breath just to soak his lungs with her scent.
He propelled himself away just long enough to snatch a towel from his pile of clean laundry.
“Sit, sit, please,” he said, gesturing at his couch and pushing the towel into her hand.
He grabbed the half-empty White Claw from the floor next to the couch and tossed it in the direction of the kitchen sink. “Can I get you something to drink?”
He knew he was stalling, but he was still trying to remember his lines. Over the years he’d imagined scenarios where he saw Rosie again—bumped into her on the sidewalk in Midtown, at a friend’s engagement party, in the audience at his grand return to Broadway—but all the moving, charming, heartfelt speeches he’d composed for the occasion simply escaped him now.
“…Yes, all right,” she said from the other room, just short of a whisper.
He opened his liquor cabinet, which was also the under-the-sink cabinet.
But why do you have the palate of a fifteen-year-old girl whose parents are out of town?she used to tease him.
Better the palate than the musical taste.He always pushed right back.
Me? You’re the one who likes doing it to Kesha.He remembered kissing her mouth and tasting the red wine he wouldn’t drink.
Fifteen years later, he had only sour apple pucker and spiced rum.
He recalled that he had a bottle of Zubrówka in the freezer alongside twenty-five pounds of smoked salmon, part of Boyd’s objectively thoughtful Christmas gift. Rosie was allergic to apple juice, the mixer he had on hand, so he just poured two fingers neat and rushed it back to the living room for her.
She had taken a seat on his big denim sofa and clutched the red throw pillow he’d been sleeping on to her chest, shield-like. He paused for a moment to fill his eyes with the sight of her: the small, round body, her porcelain-doll features. He’d caught only fragments of Rosie in the years since she’d left him, spotted around the edges of photographs taken at parties he wasn’t invited to. It hadn’t been nearly enough to make a full picture.
“Here,” he said over a tight throat, offering her the drink.
She sniffed it and took an exploratory sip, her eyes widening at the burn of the alcohol.
“I could get you some ice—” he began to offer, but she shook her head. Her hand tightened on the glass before she tossed the whole thing back in one gulp. “Whoa. Easy there, killer,” he said as she coughed.
That got a faint smile out of her when she handed the empty glass to him.
She took the towel and wrapped it around her hair, then tipped her head back to regard him, her gaze finally present and direct.
“Thanks,” she said. “I needed that.”
“I’m just sorry the place is a mess,” he said ruefully, though she wouldn’t have expected anything else.
“No, it’s nice,” she protested. “You have…furniture. You have good stuff.”
