“Can I help you?”
I blink, frozen. My stomach is plunging and I can’t find any words. I just gape at her, willing this not to be true.
But it is. There’s a woman answering his door. There’s a half-naked woman answering his door, early in the morning.
Oh my God.
I manage to get some air into my lungs and it burns. I can’t believe he would—
“Are you looking for Luke?” she asks. “I’m Andrea, his house-sitter. He’s out of town.”
Andrea. House-sitter.
It takes a second for this information to slot into my brain, then relief floods through me in such great torrents that I have to lean against the wall.
Her brows flick together. “Are you okay?”
I nod, breathing out a small laugh. “Yes. I’m… yes. You’re the turtle lady.”
“I guess you could call me that.”
Okay, alright. Luke isn’t sleeping with someone else. He’s just out of town.
Oh. Fuck.
“Um—” I rub my nose, trying to catch up with this unexpected turn of events. “Did Luke say when he’d be back?”
“No. He called me in the middle of the night and left in quite a rush, so I didn’t get much out of him. But you could call him?”
“Right,” I say, absorbing this. Maybe he got contacted by that company in Houston he was looking to partner with and had to fly back there. “Okay… thanks.”
“No problem.” She smiles, one hand on the door. “I’m going to head back to bed.”
“Yes,” I mumble, straightening my bag on my shoulder and stepping away. “Sorry. And thanks again.”
The door closes and I stare at it for a minute, as if Luke will somehow materialize in front of me.
He doesn’t, of course.
With a sigh, I turn for the stairs and head down. When I step out onto the street, I feel a little lost. This is very inconvenient, to say the least. I don’t often fly halfway across the world to tell men I love them, but when I do I kind of expect them to be home. Talk about an anticlimax.
I survey the streets around me, shivering as the cold air bites through my thin jacket. I’m not really sure what to do now. Luke could be back at any time, so… I should stay, right? I did fly all the way over here and it’s not like I have a job to rush back to. I guess I could call him, but the thought of telling him over the phone that I flew to New York to see him somehow makes me more nervous than doing this face to face. Maybe I should go back to the hotel, have a cup of tea, and decide on a plan of action.
I find a taxi down the street and climb inside. We head towards the hotel and I gaze out the window, watching the city slowly wake and sparkle in the morning light. A smile sneaks onto my lips at how beautiful it looks, and at how it actually feels good to be back here on my own terms. While this isn’t exactly how I wanted this to go, I’m glad I took the leap, even if I haven’t quite landed safely yet. There’s a powerful sensation buzzing through me, one that’s familiar from my last visit. It’s like muscle memory; I’ve slipped back into the way I was when I was in New York before. Not fearless, but definitely more bold than I gave myself credit for.
After everything that happened with the wedding, I somehow let myself forget all the ways I had grown during my time here. But I did grow—I grew a lot. I think back over Steph’s list: the hair, the trapeze, the skinny-dipping, the orgasm, and Luke—Luke who helped me see the inner strength I didn’t even know was there, who helped me connect with my sexuality, who made me feel so full of life and possibility.
Yes, coming back here was the right thing to do. As soon as Luke is back in town, I’m going to tell him the truth about Harriet 2.0, and I’m going to show him that we belong together. I’m done living in fear, and I’m not going to let it rule anymore of my decisions. In fact, the next opportunity I have to challenge my fears, I’m going to dive in head-first. It doesn’t matter if—
The cab turns a sharp corner and my bag slides off the seat, the contents scattering along the floor, my thoughts halted.
Bloody hell.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and scramble to gather my things from the floor of the cab, stopping as something catches my eye. My heart does a tiny hiccup as I reach to pick up Isaac’s card, the one he gave me when Luke showed me the empty shop. It almost feels like a sign. Wasn’t I just thinking about how I want to face my fears?
Before I can talk myself out of it, I call to the driver, “Can we go to the Lower East Side instead, please?”
He mutters a string of curse words under his breath, then does what I can only assume is an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic. My bag goes flying again. This time the clasp on the back pocket pops open and Luke’s folder of numbers half slides out. I forgot that was still in there.
