Rolling in the Deep (4 page)

The IHOP is packed. I probably should have suggested someplace quieter, but this time of night on a Saturday everywhere would be busy—unless we met at my apartment. But I doubt Holly would have been comfortable with that.

She’s late. I know that because I got here five minutes early and since then I’ve been watching the second hand on the overhead clock, tapping a straw against the table, and jiggling in the booth seat. I ordered coffee, but I can’t drink it. At this point any additional stimulation to my system will send me rocketing through the roof.

We just won the mother-loving lottery.

I keep repeating that to myself, because I don’t believe it yet. How could anyone believe a thing like that? Each time I say it, I immediately panic and doubt myself, and then check the ticket again to be sure.

I’ve checked the ticket about three hundred times.

We won.

I slid it into a Ziploc and pinned the bag inside my shirt so I wouldn’t lose it. Imagine losing the damn ticket, after all this? I think that happened to some guy once.

The bag is sweating against my chest right now, and I don’t even mind because that’s how I know it’s there.

Outside the restaurant window Holly shuts her car door and runs across the parking lot. She angles through the crowded entryway and scans the floor for me.

God almighty, she is lovely. Her hair is down. I realize I’ve never seen it fully out of a ponytail before.

She finds me and heads over, sliding into the booth. She’s wearing jeans and the light blue sweater she wore to work today. It’s even better without a uniform vest buttoned over it.

We stare at each other for a while—both a little breathless, which is understandable under the circumstances. There’s a lot to say in a situation like this, an infinite number of words to exchange. We should probably start talking to each other about what happened. How we feel. What we’re going to do.

But the fact is, I can’t get a single articulate word out.

The waitress stops at the table with a carafe of coffee and Holly nods, inching her cup over.

When she’s gone, Holly adds milk, stirs, and pushes the mug aside. She covers her face with her hands and lets out a little shriek. And then we both start giggling like kids. Quietly at first. But when we look at each other and try to speak, nothing coherent comes out.

“Hol—”

“Oh my—”

“What are we—”

It’s funnier each time we try and fail, and soon we’re both hysterical, struggling mightily to keep it quiet, and failing at that, too. People start looking over at us and we try shushing each other but that only makes it worse.

“Holly.”

She flops her arms onto the table, face pressed against her hand, and shakes visibly with laughter.

“Holly, seriously.”

She peeks up at me. Her face is bright red. Her eyes are so clear and blue it almost stops my heart, which is beating wildly enough as it is. I wipe the tears from my eyes and, tentatively, reach out and touch the tips of her fingers.

She doesn’t hesitate. Her fingers turn and wrap around mine.

The contact sobers both of us. Warm skin against skin. She clasps my hand and looks fully into my eyes, and I feel her breathing.

“Ray, what is happening?”

I run my fingers over her palm, over the back of her strong hand. Adrenaline whistles through my body. It courses through me and into her, and back again, a closed circuit of energy. I can’t look at her and hold her hand at the same time. It’s too much.

I let go and press my palms flat against the table, because we need to talk now. It’s what we came here to do. I can’t let myself be distracted by…I don’t know what.

But that’s a lie. I know exactly what.

I want her. I want to kiss her. To take her clothes off. To make love to her.

It’s the surreal quality of the situation that’s fast-forwarded everything in my mind. That’s brought me to this place so quickly. I’ve known her for, what—a month and a half? As a coworker. Not even as a friend, let alone a boyfriend.

It’s not the time for thinking about sex. She’s freaked out enough already. I’m freaked out enough.

I want some kind of release for all this panic and exhilaration, but flooding it into Holly would unhinge both of us. I know that. I sit back, trying to get a little space from her in the cramped booth. Her knee bumps into mine and I almost jump out of my skin.

“What’s happening,” I say, fighting for focus, “is we just won a shitload of money. We won it, Holly.”

“That’s crazy.”

I laugh, briefly. “Yeah. It’s crazy.”

“It changes everything.”

I seize on to that, wrapping my fingers around the tepid coffee cup to stop myself from taking her hand again. “What does it change?”

She gazes at me steadily. Tears spring to her eyes, but I don’t think they’re from laughing now. “Everything.”

“What will you do?”

“Well.” She clears her throat. “First I’ll look up Stacey Brody from middle school who made fun of my knockoff sneakers and tell her I’m a millionaire now and she can suck my dick.”

I snort. “Multimillionaire, you mean.”

Her eyes widen. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That means I can buy like fifteen Lexuses.”

“Why stop at fifteen?”

Her face softens. “My son.”

“Drew.”

She smiles. “Do you know what I can do for him now?”

I breathe in deeply, and think about how this must feel to her, as a mother. That quiets my hormones, thank God, and gets me back where I need to be—thinking of a plan. For myself and Holly both. Because it’s not just her who’s winning this money. It’s her child. She can provide for him now in ways she never could have dreamed of before. I can’t imagine how that must feel.

I think of my own mother, of how she would have reacted to this at Holly’s age—to be relieved of the burden of working so hard for Tony and me. I think of her going on vacation, of taking a break, and it hits me so hard in the chest I actually gasp.

“Ray?” Holly reaches for my hand, and that only deepens the feeling. It spreads it out, like a wildfire, so that now there are tears in my eyes, too. On another day I might have been able to contain that. But not today. Nothing is fitting inside its container anymore. It’s spilling out everywhere.

Holly rises and comes around to my side of the booth. She doesn’t speak. Just presses her shoulder against mine, and although it sends a seismic tremor through my midsection, it’s exactly the right thing. I lean into her for a minute, and close my eyes.

“My mom died in December.” I wipe my face with both hands. “She would have been able to, you know…”

“She could have been part of this.”

“Yeah.” I move away slightly, partly to break the overwhelming physical contact with Holly, and partly so I can see her face. And she can see mine. “You know the reason I moved up here?”

She tilts her head. “I was wondering.”

“I’m supposed to apply to the Culinary. Mom made me promise, before she died.”

“You’re a chef?” Holly smiles.

I laugh a little. “Not yet. I’ve cooked a lot of plates of eggs. But I’m not a chef. I want to be. I mean, I think I do.”

“Did you apply, then? Are you waiting to see if you’ve been accepted?”

“I’m too chickenshit.”

Holly snorts. “Yeah, right.”

“No. Seriously. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m scared as hell of failing at it.”

“That’s honest.”

“Yeah, well, honesty’s all I got.”

Holly eyes me. “That and about two hundred million dollars.”

Lord—this woman. “There is that.”

She smiles. “Yes.”

“And what about you?” I lean back against the wall, crammed in between the jukebox and the back of the booth. “Do you have a dream job? Or would you just retire? I mean, will you. It’s not a matter of ifs anymore, is it.”

She huffs out a thick breath. “I guess not.”

“What will you do?”

Holly props an elbow on the table and grabs a sugar packet to play with. She shakes it nervously. “I don’t know.”

“Is there something that you love?”

Her eyes fill up again. “Gardening. Flowers. You know, planting.”

I can’t help it—I rest my hand against her cheek, and wipe a tear away with my thumb. “Why are you crying?”

She leans against my hand.
God in heaven.

“Because…” She grabs a napkin from the table dispenser and dabs it against her face. “Because…I don’t know. I can have a house now, maybe. And there’s this community garden where I volunteer? We never have enough money for supplies. Everyone kicks in whatever they can afford, but it’s never…And now I can—”

“You can buy the whole damn city and plant flowers on it.”

She laughs. “Not quite.”

“You could have your own garden.” I smile at that—at the image of her in a backyard, with a big floppy hat and a tiny little shovel. “You could, I don’t know, build other people’s gardens.”

“Landscaping.” She sniffs, and hides a smile behind her scrunched-up napkin.

“Right.” Her other hand taps against the tabletop. I cover it with my fingers. “You could be a landscape gardener.”

She turns her hand over and presses her palm against mine. “And you could buy your own restaurant.”

“Whoa. You’re right.”

She breathes in unevenly, her gaze fixed with mine, and I realize both of my hands are on her now—one in her hair, one on her hand. I feel the gentle vibration of her body, the shaking. The emotion that moves through her. The tender and hesitant hope that feels so much like sadness.

I want to kiss her.

I’m scared to death. Of what’s to come for both of us, of how this will change us. Of going to sleep tonight and waking up to a life that’s utterly, entirely new.

There’s no going back to how it was, not now.

I know a normal person would ask why anyone would want to go back. To driving a beat-up old truck from a one-room apartment to a dead-end job at Cogmans day after day. Or before that, to slinging burgers at a run-down diner in Forest Hills.

But that little life—that ordinary, run-of-the-mill American life—it was
my
life. I knew it. I understood it.

This, whatever it’s going to be, I don’t understand.

I don’t understand anything right now but the softness of Holly’s cheek along the palm of my hand. The blue of her eyes on mine.

I trace the outline of her lips with my thumb, my fingertips trailing along the side of her throat. Her breath catches. Her pulse beats hard against my hand.

I want to kiss her.
To follow the line of my thumb with my tongue, to cover her mouth with mine. I want to suck in her gasp, breathe her air, taste her.

But we’re in a fucking booth at IHOP.

I might be out of my mind. But I’m not going to kiss Holly for the first time in the middle of a chain restaurant.

I take out my wallet and Holly sits back, flushed and silent. She takes a sudden interest in organizing the cutlery. I drop a ten on the table, take Holly’s hand, and all but drag her out to the parking lot.

The evening breeze hits my skin and I realize how hot it was inside the restaurant. Or at least how hot it felt, being pressed against Ray like that.

I don’t know how it happened—how I ended up on his side of the booth. It startled me to see him crying, I guess.

Brett never cried like that, never showed much emotion at all besides anger and a certain kind of possessive tenderness.

With Ray, it was like seeing Drew cry. All I wanted to do was comfort him, but then it got all twisted up. He was comforting me, and I don’t even know what for.

What the hell kind of person cries when they win the lottery? We’re supposed to be celebrating. Getting drunk and whooping it up, calling all our friends.

But I don’t want to call anyone. At the moment the only person I want to know about this is Ray. The only person I want to be with is Ray, and that’s terrifying.

He almost kissed me just now. And God help me, I would have let him. Hell, I almost leaned in myself, and that’s not something I ever do. I’m far too reserved for that, too quiet. I put my head down and get my work done, and I…I wait for things to happen to me. I react the best I can. I try to be prepared.

As if you could prepare yourself for a thing like this.

We’re rich, Ray and me. We’re rich now. How am I going to put my head down and get through this? And why—
why
—is that what I so desperately want to do?

Ray has my hand in his still. He’s pulling me toward my car, parked beside his at the back of the restaurant, the lot away from the street and dimly lit. In the growing shadows his face looks more severe. Dangerous, almost, and on some level I realize that should maybe scare me a little. We’re the only cars parked back here, and he’s clearly upset. Anything could happen.

And, God, I want it to.

I stop abruptly a few feet away from Ray’s truck, bringing him up short and pulling my hand from his. I bend my knees and cover my face with both hands, and half scream. Half cry.

I want to kiss him. I want him to kiss me. I’m so tired of
waiting.

And I can do anything now, can’t I? I’m rich. That’s what people do when they have money. They do anything they want.

I stand up again so fast it makes me dizzy, and I push Ray. I push him three feet backward against the bumper of his truck, and when I get him there I don’t know what to do. He’s breathing hard. I feel the air moving in and out of his chest because my hand is there, right against his heart. He breathes against my palm like he’s running and I feel it coursing through me. The energy of him, the life. His eyes flash with fear and heat, with desire. He wants it, too. He’s scared, too.

I step forward and close the distance between us.

“Holly.” His breath brushes against my mouth and my knees buckle. He grabs my arms to steady me. And then to pull me in. So that my thighs press against his. So that I can feel his hips against mine. I shift into him, and he hisses out a breath, and then his hands are in my hair. He’s holding me right against his mouth and it’s hotter and more intimate than any kiss I’ve ever had. Except that he’s not kissing me, not yet. It’s like he’s waiting, for me to take that last step in.

And I do, God help me. It’s happening too fast, and everything in both of our lives is turning upside down, and this is the last thing in the world we should be doing. But I move in anyway, and touch my lips to his.

The sound he makes—
Jesus,
the sound he makes before he flips us around and presses me against the truck.

His hands grip the back of my head, sheltering it from the truck’s surface and at the same time pulling me deeper into the kiss. It’s like being dragged into a long, dark cave. Like being sucked under water. When his tongue trails hotly along my lower lip, I don’t know where I am.

A light wind drifts across our skin—a sharp coolness against burning, burning heat.

I press closer, and he shudders. Actually shudders, from the touch of my body. I feel its power suddenly—the way my breasts graze his chest when I move, the way that shatters his breathing.

It seems to galvanize him. His hands, suddenly, are moving. All over my body. He slides his palms up to my breasts and he’s not gentle. Thank God he’s not gentle. When he feels me arch toward him he bends his head and bites into my neck.

Jesus.
“Ray.”

He pulls back with effort, his hands fisting at his sides. He tries to look at me but can’t, and swipes his hand across his face instead. He drops to a crouch, and then down to his knees on the pavement.

“God almighty, Holly.”

I manage to sit down beside him. For several moments all we can do is try to catch our breath.

His eyes are closed, his hand covering his mouth. That soft, beautiful mouth. His strong hands.

He’s a chef. I never knew. I wonder what he’s like in the kitchen. What he’s like when he’s doing what he loves.

“Ray…Are you okay?”

“No.” He laughs abruptly, and risks a glance at me. “Are you?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what just happened.”

He shifts a little to face me, displacing the gravel underneath his jeans. “Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll all be a dream.”

I gesture with my chin toward the truck “I don’t usually have those kinds of dreams.”

“No?” Ray’s eyes warm. “Me neither. Not like that.”

“I’m sorry, Ray. For…I don’t know. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Holly.” He holds out his hand. I hesitate briefly, and then take it. “Listen to me. Don’t be sorry. Okay? Please don’t be fucking sorry.”

I take a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“We should talk about this, about what just…”

“Yeah.”

He stands and starts to pace, back and forth along the bumper of his truck.

“And we…we also have to talk about what comes next.”

I rise, too, to face him. “What do you mean?”

“Just that, you know, we’ll have to claim the ticket. And there are options about how you take the money. Lump sum or monthly payments, how you split it when two people buy one ticket. You’ll have to…you know, think about what you want. How you want to do it.”

All at once something occurs to me, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. “Ray.” I can’t believe I’m such a self-centered jerk.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to…I mean, you’re the one with the ticket. It was your idea to buy it. You don’t—”

He stops and holds up a hand, incredulous. “Are you serious?
Dios.
”

“It’s your ticket. You—”

“Holly, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“But—”

He shakes his head and inches closer to me. His work boot bumps against the toes of my canvas sneakers. “Do you really think I would take the money? And leave you with nothing? And then…and then kiss you like that?”

I close my eyes. I don’t
think
he would, no. But this is reality. People behave in all sorts of ways. You have to be prepared for the worst.

And I wasn’t, I realize. It didn’t occur to me not to believe the best of Ray.

“I just…I wanted you to know you have options.”

He grabs my hand. “I do have options, yeah. I opt to share the ticket with you, and the winnings, like I said I would. Okay?”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Good. Tomorrow we can claim the ticket. Together. But first, I think we should talk to a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?”

He lifts his shoulders, embarrassed. “I read the testimonials on the Powerball site. Everybody gets a lawyer to help them decide what to do with the money. Anyway, there might be other winners, too. We’ll have to figure all that out.”

“Okay. Really? Yeah, let’s…let’s do that. Do we get the same lawyer or—”

Ray cocks his head. “Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. Yeah, you’ll probably want somebody separate, right? Just to make sure your, um…your interests are being covered and everything.”

His voice has turned strangely formal. I pull back and release his hand.

“My interests?”

“I don’t know, Holly.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to do this any more than you do.”

I watch him for a minute. I want very much to climb into his arms right now, like a child. But I can’t do that. I can’t lean on Ray, as tempting as it is. I have Drew to consider. I have, as Ray put it, my own interests to look out for.

That’s reality.

Ray holds my gaze. “We’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Yes.” I back away toward my car, fishing in my pocket for the keys.

He stands where he is, watching me. “Holly.”

I go still, and suddenly he’s stepping forward, holding my face gently in his hands. He kisses me once, softly, on the lips, and whispers, “Congratulations.”

I shouldn’t hug him—I should step back and get into my car. But I do hug him. I wrap my arms around his solid body and kiss the side of his hair. It smells like shea butter, like the lotion I rubbed onto my belly when I was pregnant.

The scent stays with me all the way home.