Tear You Apart Read online

  Oh, you son of a bitch, I think, even as my knees go weak with relief. Naveen is chattering, something about going to dinner. Something about drinks. Will I be okay, will I need a ride home? Do I want to come with them?

  At home, I have a dark and empty house waiting for me. Ross is out of town until Monday. Naveen is already making moves to take his lady love away someplace private. So I do the only thing that feels right. I thumb a message into my phone.

  You can be here in two hours.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “You okay?” Naveen presses another drink into my hand.

  It’s my third gin and tonic, and the first two went down like water. We had dinner at some bistro, and though I could tell Naveen was anxious for me to leave, his lovely lady friend was solicitous and generous and kind. I can see why he loves her. She is everything he always avoided in the past.

  It’s been an hour and forty-five minutes.

  Now we’ve moved to a club down the street. There’s an Irish pub on one side, where we are standing at the bar, with a dance floor through a set of arched doors, and a sports bar on the other side. You can move from one to the other, but Naveen’s itching to get out of here. I don’t blame him.

  Another text pings through—Will, giving me the update on his travels, how close he is. How much longer it will be until he gets here. Naveen hasn’t asked me who it is or why I told him I’m not going home, but he won’t leave me here alone until he’s sure I’m okay.

  Just got off the train. Cab. 15 min?

  Everything inside me goes tight. I swallow the rest of my drink and put the empty glass on the bar. To Naveen I say, “You can go on. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure?” Francesca asks, looking around the bar. “Are you waiting for someone? Is...he...here?”

  So delicate and appreciated, and we share a look that says she knows I know the truth, and appreciates my discretion, too. “Not yet.”

  I hug Naveen. Kiss his cheek. Whisper in his ear, “Go, I’ll be fine. Go and have fun.”

  He holds me close for a second or two longer than I intended, saying against my cheek, “Be careful, Betts.”

  Funny advice, coming from him, and it makes me close my eyes and take a deep breath. I squeeze him hard before stepping back. “Go.”

  Ten minutes pass. Another text from Will. He’s not quite sure where to go and the cabdriver has let him off down the street. I call him.

  “Where are you?”

  He names the corner of two streets a block or so away.

  “Keep walking,” I tell him. “I’ll wait outside.”

  South Street in Philly on a late July night is crazytown. Throng is a good word to describe it. I stand with my phone pressed to my ear and navigate him toward me while I search and search the crowd for the first glimpse of him. Unfamiliar faces pass me. I keep looking.

  “I’m in front of a lingerie store,” Will says. “It has a gimp suit in the window.”

  He’s close. “Keep coming. You’re one block away.”

  I see him before he sees me. He’s looking, though. Scanning the crowd and the storefronts as he dodges and weaves through the foot traffic.

  “I see you,” I say.

  And then he sees me, too.

  Recognition lights his face and he puts away the phone, tucking it into the pocket of his pants. Like Neo going after the Woman in Red in the Matrix, he battles the opposite-moving crowd, until at last, at last, Will is in front of me, and all I can do is stand there.

  I want to kiss him, but there’s still a sting from this long month of nothing and waiting. I’m too proud, I guess. Or too determined not to get stung again. But still, he’s here. He came. No matter what happens after this, nothing else matters.

  Will kisses me, hesitant.

  “Kiss me harder,” I say against his mouth, and he does.

  We pull apart.

  Will opens his arms. “So. Now what?”

  I look over my shoulder, then back at him. “Let’s go dancing.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The room is lit in lines of blue and green, and though most of the rest of the club is jammed elbow to elbow, crotch to ass with strangers grinding and writhing, this room is much smaller and almost empty. At least this part is, the raised step with benches built in against the wall. I sit with a sigh, and Will sits next to me.

  DJs don’t spin anymore—but I do. I spin even though I’m sitting, because Will’s thigh presses mine, the warmth of his calf rubs my bare skin, and he jiggles a little to the beat of an eighties classic. When the music changes, shifting into the familiar opening strains of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” he gives me a grin.

  “Show me your sweet moves,” I say.

  And he does.

  Nobody’s ever danced for me that way before, all silly and goofy. It’s heart-stoppingly sexy because it’s not all smooth and concentrated, the way the guys in the corner are dancing, with the girls bending over to shove their asses into the guys’ crotches. Will just dances as if it doesn’t matter what he’s doing, and I watch with my smile growing wider and wider. I can’t stop smiling, and I clap my hands and bounce a little on the smooth vinyl bench.

  And then, just then, in that moment with the lights that are blue and green and gold, and the music pumping, I know that I love him.

  I am in love with him, and I think I’ve known that for a long time, but now I can’t stop myself from admitting it. I love the way he dances for me, trying to make me laugh, not caring if he looks a little like a fool. He is adorable and charming, and the breath leaves my lungs and my heart forgets to beat, moment after moment.

  I love him.

  I love him.

  I love him.

  You never fall in love with anyone the same way you fell in love with someone else. It’s always different, every time, if you’re lucky—or cursed—enough to have it happen more than once. But I’ve never been uncertain about love, not any of the times I found myself in it. Love is always real, even when it doesn’t last.

  I love him, and I want this night to go on and on forever. I want this song to never end, but of course it has to, and he slides onto the bench beside me. He’s laughing, but I can’t find the air to laugh with him. All I can do is kiss him.

  More slow kisses, feather brushes of lip on lip, the quick and furtive slip of his tongue inside my mouth.

  “Kiss me harder,” I’d said earlier in the night, but this is not hard. It’s slow and sweet and soft, and I can’t get enough.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Will says, linking his fingers in mine. The squeeze of his hand is perhaps meant to be casual, but there’s a weight of meaning in it.

  “Yes,” I say. And again. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  The alcohol didn’t intoxicate me. His mouth does. His hand on the small of my back, tugging at my dress to keep me from stepping into the street. The way he hails a cab and opens the door, waiting for me to slide inside before he gets in after me. The press of his knee on mine. I am drunk on Will.

  The streetlights seem elongated and wavering, the view from the pilot’s seat of the Millennium Falcon. Traffic lights are a rainbow. The driver’s music is low and something foreign I don’t recognize, and he barely says a word to us, not even glancing in the rearview mirror. Maybe he’s had too many drunk and horny couples in the back of his cab and he knows better. More likely, he just doesn’t give a fuck beyond getting us to where we want to go. I give him the address of a hotel close to the train station, because it will be convenient for Will in the morning.

  We don’t kiss or touch except for the inconsistent press of our calves, the occasional brush of our fingertips, each of our hands on top of our knees. Everything is surreal. Nothing seems right. Am I dreaming this? And if I am, I don’t want to wake up.