Another unintelligible response.
“OK, she can be there in fifteen minutes.”
Then Emme takes my hand, leans out into the street, and promptly hails a cab. She opens the door for me and nudges me into the backseat.
“You’re going to meet Reid at the bar at the Mark Hotel. Have fun, be safe, bye!”
Before I can say a word, she slams the door shut. The taxi peels away from the curb, hurtling uptown. I barely have a moment to react to what just happened when my phone buzzes in my hand.
Reid:Emme asked you to meet me at the bar, right?
Lili:She didn’t ask me. She ordered me.
Reid:Don’t go to the bar. Come to my room.
Reid:318
Twenty minutes later, my heeled mules press into cream-colored carpet, muffling my approach. The hush of the gardenia-scented hall makes me feel as if I’m sneaking off to an assignation—which, I suppose, I am.
I pause in front of the door. I am keenly aware that thismoment represents a distinctbeforeandafter: I can still turn heel, jump in a cab, head home, and be in bed before eleven, like nothing ever happened.
But then, maybe we’re already in the after. Maybe Reid and I have always been in the after.
I force myself to stop thinking and knock on the door.
XV
When Reid opens the door, he takes me in the same as I do him, openly, hungrily. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, revealing the softened leather of his watch around his wrist, and I think back to the first time I saw him, the assumptions I made as I misinterpreted his cheap suit and scratched timepiece. HowyoungI was. How much more I know now, and how confused I still am.
Reid inclines his head. “Come in.” When he notices me glancing around the room behind him, he adds, “Gracie’s staying a few doors down.”
I follow him in. We both know what’s happening here, and with the liberation of pretense, I feel myself grow deliciously lightheaded, like I’ve just drunk a column of champagne. Behind me, I hear thesnickof the door shutting. The room is all elegant creams and grays, ensconced in warm light. There’s a small sitting area in the far corner, two plush-looking armchairs facing a low, round marble table with a single pristine pink rose in a crystal vase in the center.
I settle into one of the chairs, consciously avoiding the gravitational pull of the bed in the middle of the room.
“Can I get you a drink? All I have to offer is whatever’s in the minibar. Or room service, if you want,” Reid says, crossing the room.
“Whatever’s in there is good. Now that I’ve gotten myself here, I don’t want interruptions.”
Reid laughs—a low, knowing sound. He crouches down to open the minibar, and I home in on the way he rests his wrist on his folded leg, the flex of his thighs beneath the fabric of his pants. Every inch of my skin has been charged since last night, my nerve endings buzzing like live wires.
He turns to look at me over his shoulder. “Lili?” He catches me staring. I see the glint of it in his eyes.
I must have missed the part where he asked me what I wanted. “Is there whiskey?”
“Neat?”
I nod.
Handing me a highball glass, he sits in the chair across from me and cradles his drink in the palm of his hand. Then he just... considers me. When I take a sip, I feel the burn of the whiskey in my chest, the burn of his eyes tracing down my neck.
“You chose a nice place to stay,” I say. I can’t bring myself to articulate anything of substance. I can’t verbalize anything I’m thinking without opening the floodgates.
He clears his throat, rousing himself. I am so aware of his awareness of me. I am expansive with possibility. I wonder if this is what performers feel the moment they step onto the stage, as if every single molecule in the room is reorienting around them.
“It’s a little much.” He smiles and shrugs. “But the Upper East Side still feels like the quintessential New York dream to me, and I wanted to show Gracie that.” His voice has gone soft. “And also—where I lived when I lived here. A bit of a nostalgia play, I guess.”
“Is your uncle still on Eighty-Eighth?”
