Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (22 page)

She took a tentative sip of her coffee. The java and espresso combo was bitter and thick—exactly what she needed. She wished she could get it pumped directly into her veins. “I went out with Dani. Then we stayed up for a while talking. At some point, it made no sense to go to sleep.”

He leaned hard on one hip, indignant. “You shouldn't be here. Go sleep in. I'm on the schedule for this morning.”

“I don't mind working,” she said.

“What's wrong?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Did you get crazy? Are you
overthinking
?”

“Probably,” she said.

She breathed in the fragrant steam from her coffee. Last night—or perhaps it was early this morning—she'd kissed a man who wasn't her husband. She supposed she'd needed to do it, and looking back, she realized that she'd had high hopes for the kiss. She'd wanted to know she was still sexy and appealing, and that she could still feel that spark of electricity and promise of new romance. And yet, what she'd learned from the experiment was slightly disappointing. Her future of kissing men was a future filled with
common
kisses—not unpleasant—but not the kind that made her wild for more.

The truth was, she'd only been in love once in her life. One great, juvenile, operatic, and misplaced passion. The shape of that first falling in love had been coming back to haunt her in recent weeks, and yet it was nothing but a cruel, empty shell of what it had once been. No amount of kissing strangers could bring those feelings back.

Jules leaned on the counter, his arms crossed. “Well, I'm proud of you. You needed to go out. And you're supposed to try new things.”

“Even if it gets me in trouble?”

“Especially if it does,” he said.

She smiled and felt some of the pressure of her hangover abate. She'd behaved badly. She knew that. She was not some twenty-something who should be dancing on tables and making out with strange men. If she made a self-discovery, it was not that she'd discovered who she was—but rather, who she wasn't. Still—it was a start.

“If you're going to be staying out all night, then we've got to get something straight,” Jules said sternly.

“What?”

“You're the boss. And when you stay out all night, you're not allowed to come in at six a.m. the next day.”

“But—”

“Nope.” With one tug, he pulled the string of her apron. She grabbed for it when it fell. “If you don't go home and go to bed right now, you're going to have to find yourself another token male barista. Seriously, Thea. This is me putting my foot down.”

“You're not a token—”

“Out. Now.”

Thea barely had time to get her purse before Jules shooed her out of the coffee shop. Outside, the sun was rising, and the mist was fading from between the narrow buildings of the pier. She took a breath, and the cool, clean air filled her lungs and cleared her head. She felt different, a little bit more certain—though she wasn't precisely sure what she felt certain about. The mire of tiredness gave way to bright waves of energy and triumph. Newport was waking up. Dawn was becoming day. All the hours were before her and full of possibility. She thought,
I couldn't possibly go to bed
.

And yet, when she got home, her pillows beckoned. And she fell into a slumber that was dreamless, restorative, and deep.

A hundred times—a thousand maybe—Thea had told her daughter,
It's going to be okay.
When Irina had been learning to ride her bike and she'd scraped her knee so that there was hardly any unscratched skin to speak of, Thea had told her,
It's going to be okay.
When Irina was six and she'd come tearfully into Thea's bedroom to confess that she'd broken the living room lamp, Thea made room for her under the covers and said
It's going to be okay.
And last week, when Irina had purposely snapped her toothbrush in two because Thea wouldn't drive her over to Providence at almost nine o'clock on a weekday night to see her father, Thea summoned all her patience and assured her daughter,
It's going to be okay.

Irina needed to know they would get through this. All of them. And yet to assure another person
It's okay
was also to acknowledge that something was wrong.

“I don't know what to do,” she told Dani over the telephone. “Tell me what to do. How do I handle this?”

“Hey.” Dani's voice was soft. “You're freaking out.”

Thea forced a deep breath. “I know. I'm sorry. I'm just worried about her.”

“I know you are. But honey? You've got to believe me on this one. I've been there, done that.”

“Believe what?”

“One way or another,” she said. “It's going to be okay.”

 

 

Garret didn't have enough information to do any kind of formal comparison to determine if other men were more talented in bed than he was, but the anecdotal evidence—offered in breathless and bewildered gratitude moments after orgasm—all pointed to his being more dexterous than the average guy.

In college, he'd thrown himself into discovering ways to please women with the same passion that he'd once brought to the soccer fields. He'd pored over the hints and tips in dirty magazines that his friends passed furtively from one dorm room to another. He soaked up lessons like a sponge: “What Women Want,” “Five Secret Fantasies of Real Women,” “How to Kiss a Woman (but Not on the Mouth).”

But eventually, snippets in men's magazines began to seem predictable and inadequate.
Of course
he knew about the G-spot.
Of course
he could pay attention to the back of a woman's knee. And so he sought education elsewhere. It didn't take him long to give up on watching porn for pointers; silly scenes of nurses and delivery men were choreographed for the visuals, not necessarily for the pleasure of the parties involved. When skin flicks failed, he turned to books, their covers plastered with pictures of half-naked couples, the gentle contours of candlelight and shadow obscuring strategic body parts. Unlike movies, the books made a promise that he wanted so badly to believe: all he had to do was follow the instructions to a T.

In crowded common rooms of the boys' dorm, where his friends played Ping-Pong and dropped coins in the vending machine, he made no secret of his studies. And the guys mocked him ruthlessly—not because they weren't impressed but because Garret was the only one of them who never got laid. He read, studied, and learned—he even counseled others on what he knew when they needed advice—but he didn't put theory to practice. Not until years down the line.

Now—an adult out on a promising date—he stood in the quiet marble lobby of his building with Gemma, a gorgeous blond he'd met on Jamie's yacht. They'd returned from a nice dinner together at a gourmet steak house in Providence, and she was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an invitation to join him in the elevator.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said. Her lips were red and shiny, set in her tanned face. Her hair, touched with perfect highlights, smelled of flowers. “Are you up for dessert?”

He looked into her eyes—past her dark makeup to the shock of blue that may or may not have been contacts. His entire life, he'd prided himself on making his dates happy. And this woman—he could make her
very
happy.

But when he tried to imagine walking her through the rooms of his condo, where Jonathan was probably reading a science fiction novel on the couch, and Irina was sleeping soundly in the room they were all coming to think of as
hers
, he simply didn't like the idea of bringing her inside.

Oddly enough, he'd found himself enjoying the company of his brother and his niece more than he ever could have anticipated. Sure there were inconveniences—Jonathan left the toothpaste cap open and tended to be a bit of a slob, and Irina had the television in a stranglehold of endless cartoons. But generally, he enjoyed the friendly, quiet hours they spent together, and he knew it would upset the balance if he were to bring this woman home.

“You have no idea,” he said in his deepest, sexiest voice, “how much I want to take you upstairs right now.”

Her smile flickered.

“But the trouble is my niece is with me for the weekend. And she's too young to explain why her uncle has house guests.”

“You're so thoughtful.” She ran her fingers along his tie. “But we'll be quick. In and out before you know it.”

“I see you're going to make this difficult for me.”

She sidled closer, twining her arms around his neck. “I'll sneak out before morning.”

And I bet it's not the first time,
he thought. For a moment he had the odd sense that he was on the wrong side of a seduction, and he didn't like it. He wondered if the women he'd seduced over the course of his life had also felt like this—the slight discomfort that was not dangerous and exciting, but more of a pain in the ass.

“Rain check?” he asked.

She dropped her arms from his shoulders. “This might be a one-time offer.”

He nodded, relieved. He held the glass door of the building for her as she walked outside, her green dress making a perfect hourglass of her curves, and he shook his head at himself.

The doorman appeared by his side, watching his date walk away. “Rough night?”

“No,” Garret said. “Not at all.”

 

 

Thea didn't realize that she was staring off into space until Irina looked up from her summer reading and stuck out her tongue.

“Sorry!” Thea said, and they both laughed.

At a table in the corner of the coffee shop, Irina looked like a miniature version of the writers and college students who regularly brought their work into the coffee shop. With a mug at her side and her foot tucked under one knee, she took on their posture—their veiled gaze and air of studious boredom—perfectly. Some days, she was ten going on thirty. Other days, she was still a baby in Thea's mind.

Thea looked up when she heard the brass bell over the door ring, and she saw Jonathan walking into the Dancing Goat right on time. He was still dressed for work: gray pleated slacks, an oxford shirt with a tired collar, and a light purple vest. His briefcase hung from his fist.

“Dad!” Irina scooted off her chair. She threw her arms around her father's waist, her face pressed into his belly. “What are you doing here?”