“If anyone could do it, it would be you,” she says firmly.
I stare at her for a second, caught off guard. “Was that almost a compliment?”
“Don’t get used to it.” But she’s smiling, just barely.
We stand there for another few minutes, not talking, just existing in this space that meant so much to my father and is starting to mean something to me too. Then Brooke shivers slightly and I realize how late it’s gotten, how the temperature has dropped, how she’s standing there in a dress and heels in an abandoned building in the middle of the night.
“Come on,” I say, moving back toward the window. “I should walk you home.”
“Chivalrous, but I can take care of myself, Dominic,” Brooke laughs. “I’ve lived in this city for fourteen years.”
“I know you can.” I hoist myself back through the window and turn to help her out. “But I want to walk you anyway. I’m not going to leave you to find your way home alone when I’m the one who dragged you to some abandoned building at midnight.”
She rolls her eyes, but she takes my hand and lets me help her through the window, dropping down onto the sidewalk beside me. “You’re still the same as you were in high school, you know that? Always thinking you need to protect everyone.”
“And you’re still the same too,” I say. “Always thinking you don’t need anyone’s help.”
“Idon’tneed anyone’s help,” she says, giving me a sidelong glance as we start walking. “There’s a difference between needing it and accepting it.”
We walk through the Lower East Side and up through the Village, past late-night pizza joints and bars with their doors propped open and couples stumbling home from wherever they’ve been.
Brooke points out places as we pass them, little pieces of her life here. The corner where she got her first apartment, the bar where she used to drink with colleagues after deadlines, the bodega that knows her coffee order. I listen and try not to think about how natural this feels, walking beside her through streets she knows by heart, watching her face when she talks about the city she’s made her home. It’s dangerous territory. It’s exactly what I swore I wouldn’t do.
And then somehow we’re at her building, a brownstone on a tree-lined street in the West Village, and it hits me just how far she’s come. She wanted to be a journalist since we were seventeen years old, used to talk about it with that fire in her eyes like it was the only future she could see for herself. And she made it happen. She’s at the top of her field, living in a building like this, in a city like this, and despite everything between us, I feel something close to pride.
We walk up the steps together and she pulls out her keys, unlocking the door but not going inside. Instead she turns to face me, her back against the doorframe, and we just look at each other for a long moment.
The streetlight is casting shadows across her face and that mark on her neck is visible again, the one I left two nights ago, and I have no idea what she’s thinking but I know exactly what I’m thinking and it’s nothing good.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she says quietly. “One night of semi-civil conversation doesn’t mean I like you.”
“I know.” I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “I don’t like you either.”
“Good.” She takes a step closer. “I’m glad we’re clear on that.”
I take a step closer, closing the distance between us until there’s barely any left. “Me too. It’s good to be aligned on these things.”
She looks up at me, her lips parting slightly, and I watch her eyes drop to my mouth and then back up again.
“Fuck you, Midnight,” she says, and then she grabs me by the front of my jacket and pulls me in and kisses me.
It’s angry and hungry and nothing like a kiss should be when you hate someone this much. I grip her waist and pull her inside, kicking the door shut behind us, and her back hits the wall of her entryway before I’ve even registered what the apartment looks like. Her hands are shoving my jacket off my shoulders while I’m trying to get closer, trying to feel every inch of her body in that red dress I’ve been thinking about taking off all night.
She bites my lower lip hard enough to sting and I groan against her mouth, pinning her against the wall with my hips. She’s got her fingers twisted in my shirt now, pulling me closer like she’s trying to crawl inside me or maybe just tear me apart, and I honestly can’t tell the difference anymore.
She pulls back just enough to speak, her lips still brushing mine. “This is the last time we’re doing this,” she says. “Just this once more. Then we’re done. And don’t go thinking one conversation changes anything between us.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I tell her, and then I’m kissing her again, lifting her up as her legs wrap around my waist, and I stop thinking about anything at all.
CHAPTER 18
Brooke
He lifts me like he’s done it a hundred times before, and my legs wrap around his waist as his hands grip my thighs hard. He carries me through the dark apartment without breaking the kiss, my mouth greedy on his, and when we collide with the dining table something crashes to the floor. The little ceramic bowl where I keep my keys, probably. I couldn’t care less if the entire apartment collapsed right now.
He sits me on the edge of the table and steps between my thighs, pressing forward until I can feel every inch of him against me. I grab fistfuls of his shirt and pull him closer because there’s still too much space, too much air, too much anything that isn’t his body against mine. My teeth catch his bottom lip and he groans into my mouth and the sound of it travels straight down my spine and pools between my legs.
I start working his buttons, fumbling because his mouth has moved to my neck and whatever he’s doing with his tongue just below my ear has wiped my brain clean of basic motor function.
