Amina’s show is at a gallery on the Lower East Side. Walking from Tribeca, Lili passes tattoo parlors and third-wave coffee shops closing up for the night, people smoking in the doorways of bars. The pavement still gleams with rain, the sound of wet tires and flash of red lights on water accumulated in gutters. She picks up a bunch of peonies for Amina from a bodega on Forsyth Street, on her way.
The gallery is packed with downtown kids and art world types. It’s a rising talent exhibit, a group show, mixed medium; Amina’s canvases hang among confounding installation pieces, abstract sculptures, and fiber artwork draped over the walls. Through the crowd, Lili spies fierce red curls at the bar.
“Finally!” Jackie exclaims when she sees her, balancing her fresh drink as she hugs her. “All good, love?”
Lili smiles, making sure her loose hair covers her neck; her bruises are masked by concealer, but still, worth being cautious. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Across the room, Lili spots Amina near her paintings—bright splashes, deliberate scrawls of color, aggressive at a distance but delicate up close—speaking to an older woman with the demeanor of a gallerist or dealer: serious thick-framed glasses, immaculate long gray hair, Margiela tailoring.
A little further, the rest of their friends cluster in front of Amina’s largest canvas: a huge blue wash that Lili loves, a mess of violent gestures of white paint. An unfamiliar man stands with them, about their age.He’s tall, dark-haired, the look of an analyst just off work, earnest yet confused as James and Hassan tag-team telling some story.
“Come on.” Jackie takes Lili’s hand. “I want you to meet Simon, before those disaster twins scare him away.”
“Simon?”
“Don’t judge—he’s that BlackRiver analyst I swiped right on, thinking he’d give me intel on you and Petrov. I’ve sort of been seeing him—don’t laugh—and I need a second opinion on whether he’s indifferent to me or trying to play it cool.”
“I doubt anyone could be indifferent to you,” she says, but she lets Jackie drag her towards their friends.
It’s late by the time she heads back to Tribeca, dark in the loft. Down the hall, light comes from his open bedroom door.
Aleksandr looks up when she walks in. Leaning against the headboard, he has papers spread out over his bed, pen in hand. There’s the quiet buzz of noise from his iPad: sounds of CNBC, market recaps, Sorkin interrogating some tech CEO’s latest earnings.
“Hey,” Lili says, undoing the laces of her boots. “Michael let you live?”
“Often, it’s easier to let him have his tantrum,” Aleksandr replies, putting aside the dossier he’s reading. Lili frowns, recognizing the serious bold font.
“Are you bird-watching S-1s?”
“That’s one way to put it,” he says. He sets his glasses aside, clicking off the iPad. His fingers have a bit of ink from the heavy Montblanc pen he caps.
“You don’t even take companies public.”
“I like to understand what’s passing as innovation these days.”
Lili rolls her eyes, kicking off her shoes as she climbs into bed. She pulls one of the papers towards her. A tech-enabled nutrition ecosystem targeting health-conscious millennials poised for continued disruption in coastal hubs—a salad chain with an app, she thinks.
“It’s honestly impressive how they hide cash burn,” Aleksandr comments. “Not a single profitable quarter in a decade, but somehow a unicorn valuation.”
“Call me crazy, but shouldn’t you get a hobby outside of your field?”
“What, with my ample free time?” he says, grinning. In one fast motion, he grasps her waist and pulls her under him. Lili lets out a surprised squeak, papers crinkling under her back.
“I could be your hobby,” she volunteers, running her hands up his arms.
“That would imply you offer more stress relief than you incur,” Aleksandr counters.
Lili hits his chest in outrage. “Rude!” she says, making to wriggle out of his grasp, but Aleksandr holds her still under him. His hands on her face brush back her hair.
“I never said I like easy,” he murmurs before he kisses her.
Aleksandr moves slowly, then, but with intent—gaze on her—that makes her feel hot, makes it difficult to breathe. He pushes her skirt up, running his palm up her inner thighs. Slips her underwear down her legs, a slow drag that makes her squirm. Pulls her shirt over her head, undoes her bra. Hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck, her chest, and she tugs at his shirt, needing it off him.
When he pushes into her, it’s slow: filling her inch by inch, pulling a moan out of her. Lili grasps his arms, looking to steady herself.
And as she hitches her knees higher up on his waist, and his thrusts grow harder and deeper, he kisses her again when he catches a flinch of her pain, and he starts to talk her through it, then—good, he murmurs, kissing the corner of her mouth, the hollow under her ear, the drawn-out line of her neck,you’re doing so well, look at you, you feel so good, you have no idea how good you feel—and her legs start to shake, her gasps coming faster, there’s this sense—and it’s stupid, misguided, and it already hurts, a secret she won’t divulge, she’ll never admit—of how she’s started to feel in his arms—cared for, an aching part inside of her whispers—but she can let it wash over her, unspoken, under the weight of him, for a little while longer.
“I’ll be back on Thursday,” she says, bringing them to a stop at the street corner. Taking her overnight bag from Aleksandr, she slings it over her shoulder.
