The Space Between (13 page)

“And don’t forget, Patrick,” she called over her shoulder. “You’re picking up the tab.”

Patrick watched Shannon for several minutes, his hand alternately stroking and squeezing my thigh. Not wanting to turn around to follow his stare, I responded to texts from Jess and Marley inquiring about my plans for the evening. Jess was over her snit from last night, and she wanted me to join them at a new club, but there was a hand on my knee and I intended to keep it that way.

“You seem to have a lot in common with my brother,” he commented.

“Sam? Yeah, I’d say that’s accurate.”

Patrick gestured for another beer and kept his eyes trained on the crowd. “Maybe you’d rather have drinks with him. Or Nick.”

“If I wanted to be somewhere else, I would be. I don’t think I need your permission for that.”

“What factors led to…cabernet? Pinot noir?” He lifted the glass and sipped my wine.

The intimacy of his gesture floored me. I felt my chest compress and my breathing quicken. Slanting a glimpse at Patrick, I finished a message to Jess inviting them to yoga with me on Saturday. His gaze wrapped around me, intense and unyielding. “Shiraz.”

Patrick balanced an elbow on the table, his fingers tightening on my leg as he leaned in. “When I say you don’t give me much, this is what I’m talking about.”

“What would you like me to give you?”

“Everything.” He laughed when I lifted an eyebrow, and glanced at my glass. “But let’s start small. What led to shiraz?”

“I think of red wine as my rabbi.” It felt exceptionally dangerous to invite Patrick into my unfiltered thoughts—a place where I allowed so few to tread.

“I can see that,” he murmured. “Spent the day praying over pipes, too?”

“Yeah,” I answered, shocked he understood. He reached under the table, dragged my chair to face him and angled my legs between his. Everything around us faded away. We were in our own bubble, just like my fantasy.

And goddammit, I should have worn a skirt.

“What do you think about minimalistic modern?”

“You want to talk about minimalistic modern?” he asked, his brow furrowed and his lips curling into a smirk. “Aren’t I supposed to be asking you questions?”

“Yes, but I want to know what you think about minimalistic modern,” I laughed. “I’ve spent some time hypothesizing about your preferences.”

“What else have you hypothesized about?” That quiet, rough tone did awful things to me. If he asked me to caulk his tub with that voice, I’d eagerly do it.

“Lots of things. I’ve been hypothesizing about you for a long time,” I said with a shrug. “Especially about this minimalistic modern thing.”

“Sounds like a lot of thinking when you could have asked sooner. Maybe we both need to ask more questions,” he suggested, his hand running through his hair. “I’m not coming out against it or saying it needs to die like McMansions do, but it isn’t my preference.”

“What is your preference?”

He hesitated, and I pushed my knee against his inner thigh. “I like what we do,” he replied simply, his hands planted on my thighs. “I like preserving things from the past, and making them better, more efficient. And I don’t mind some modern and maybe some minimalist on the inside, but not too much.”

“I like what we do, too,” I said. “I want your honest opinion of preservation legislation.”

We drank—I saw how the Walsh boys could put liquor out of business—and talked for nearly three hours—all architecture and design. It was better than the fantasy, even without an under-the-table orgasm.

Being with Patrick wasn’t what I expected. He was always intense and serious, but he was funny and sweet, too. It was easy. His big hands warm on my legs certainly didn’t hurt.

“Can we talk about other things now?” Patrick asked, his voice husky and low. I would caulk the shit out of that tub.

We stared at each other for a few long moments, and I studied the freckles riding along his nose and cheeks, noting a few on his eyelids. Some were dark and others were light, and they were both adorable and masculine. I wanted to taste each of those freckles, and I leaned forward.

“Like what?” I asked, my eyes fixed on his lips.

“Like you coming to New Hampshire with me,” he whispered, his fingertips rubbing over my knuckles. “Preferably this weekend.”

Laughing, I sat back. In my book, traditional New England seafood ranked right above fried grasshoppers popular in the Oaxaca region of Mexico, but husky and low were persuasive, and I surrendered. “Maybe.” When his eyes brightened, I pushed his hands off my legs. “I’ll be right back.”

I walked through the bar in search of the restrooms with his eyes trained on my back, marking me with hot, prickling sensations. I needed a reprieve from Patrick’s gaze, his touch. I needed to think. Was it escaping anyone’s notice that we shouldn’t keep this up because it was rapidly spiraling far beyond flirtation? Did he think we’d have some fried fish and a quick fling and go about our business?

But I didn’t want to think about those questions, the consequences, the rights or the wrongs. I didn’t care about anything beyond feeling his hands on me again. Exiting the restroom, I barreled straight into a wall of hot, solid Patrick and my wish was granted.

“Get over here,” he growled, his hands clamping around my biceps and dragging me against his body. His hands skimmed up my arms and over my shoulders to tangle in my hair. He walked me backwards into the restroom until I leaned against the wall, his eyes focused on my lips.

Patrick’s head dipped, and I fisted my hands in his shirt as his lips connected with mine. He was hesitant for a split second, but when I angled my neck back, he devoured me. He kissed as if it was an Olympic sport and he was the defending gold medalist.

Patrick caught my tongue between his teeth, and I squealed at the tiny bite. His touch was urgent, his fingers digging into my skin and communicating every ounce of his desire. My hands went to his neck, and I felt every string of his restraint pulled tight.

He was holding back.

He was holding back while his all-consuming presence obliterated me. Nothing compared to Patrick, and with the bitter flavor of beer lingering on his tongue, the pressure of his fingers on the seat of my jeans, the way he canted my hips to connect with his erection confirmed my initial designation of him as Sex God. Only his grip on my ass prevented me from sliding to the floor with a kiss-drunk grin.

Somewhere outside our heated embrace someone suggested we get a room, and I started estimating how quickly I could get him back to my apartment. Minutes. Probably less than ten.

His kisses slowed, and I sighed when his mouth traversed my cheekbones. His lips were phenomenal, and as I gained the strength and presence of mind to tell him, his teeth scraped across my earlobe. The sensation erased all thought—everything stored in my brain was gone, and I doubted it would ever return if more earlobe scraping was in my future—and my body pitched forward, my arms tightening around his neck.

“Does this change anything?” he murmured, his mouth brushing against the shell of my ear.

He pressed his face against my hair, inhaling deeply. I wanted to know the right answer but all of them were tinted with shades of wrong. I wanted Patrick just like this, but I also wanted Patrick the craftsman, Patrick the mentor, Patrick the visionary. I shook my head. “No.”

“What? No?” He pulled back, studying me while the fog of arousal cleared from my eyes. “No? How—why?”

When I didn’t respond, he kissed me again but he was completely different—soft, restricted, tentative. No longer demanding or instructive, Patrick was retrieving the emotions his kisses communicated, shutting down under my hands. The fire in his eyes cooled to embers and his hands slid from my backside to rest on my elbows—the least sexy part of any body and a clear indication he intended to let me off and not get me off.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t…I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He turned and walked out of sight while I leaned against the wall in a poorly lit bathroom. My feet weren’t ready to carry me forward, and my brain was still obsessing over that earlobe scrape—it wasn’t ready to assess the whining, achy desire pooled between my thighs or the turn of events that extricated Patrick’s hands from my body.

PATRICK

T
he ceiling fan
above my bed was an evil bitch.

She saw everything: the tossing and turning, the suffocating regret, the unsatisfying self-gratification, the dreams that bordered on nightmares because they existed just out of my reach. She saw it all, and kept right on spinning and staring as if she decided my turmoil wasn’t worth her time.

Or maybe I was a delusional bastard.

Why did Andy have to feel so good against me? Couldn’t it have been awkward and bland? Couldn’t we have just laughed about our ridiculous, misplaced attraction and my occasionally stalkerish behavior?

No. No, no,
fuck
no.

She had to taste like tart cherries and her body had to be as taut as I imagined. If that annoying friend of hers hadn’t dragged her away, I would have taken Andy home with me and it wouldn’t have been to watch
Top Chef
. If I hadn’t been a giant idiot, and left her swollen lips and flushed cheeks in that bathroom, well…I was giant idiot.

Fuck my life.

Even if getting my hands on her body wasn’t a sneak preview of heaven itself, the smart, witty conversation with Andy rivaled the best of my life. She thought about architecture in such a passionate manner I couldn’t help getting lost. If restlessness hadn’t ejected me from my seat and sent me in search of Andy, we would have talked through last call.

I kept reliving the moment when her façade melted. I saw her, really saw her, with aroused vulnerability in her eyes, her fingers clawing and begging for more contact, her disheveled breathlessness.

I spent more time replaying those memories, while simultaneously cursing myself for leaving the most complex, alluring woman I ever touched, than was healthy.

She said it changed nothing, and that sounded like a tray full of glasses hitting the floor, each crash louder and more jarring. Though I knew blurring the lines with Andy was quite possibly the riskiest move I could make, I wasn’t interested in a quick fuck in a bar bathroom. Touching her, kissing her—it changed things.

It changed everything. At least for me.

Somewhere in that bathroom I found it in me to walk away because she wasn’t giving me exactly what I wanted. And that was it: she never gave me quite enough.

It was my own personal Bermuda Triangle.

I spent the week breathing fire and raising new sorts of hell.

I threatened to block new projects until someone discovered more office space. I took on Shannon during the Monday meeting, and found new ways to dig myself deeper in that pit each day. Marisa—or was it Melissa?—the newest in a long line of short-term solutions and hiring errors, quit when I kicked the habitually jammed copier and requested she get a technician to replace it by end of day.

Naturally, Shannon and I went a few rounds about my inability to keep an assistant for more than two months, and she refused to find a new one until I handled my alleged rage issues.

Through it all, Andy regarded me with the same unaffected calm that made me want to bind her wrists and ankles to my bed and lick her until her eyes rolled back in her head and the “hm” was nowhere to be found.

She was completely cool and impassive, and while I didn’t expect anything less from Andy, a small part of me wanted to see her flailing in the sea of awkward formality that developed between us.

In a moment of supreme weakness, I started stalking her Facebook and Instagram pages to fill my sleepless nights. It was a special variety of punishment, and I resented Andy for leaving her privacy settings open. As if she wanted me to suffer.

I scrolled through years of photos, fully expecting to find things I didn’t want to see. There were the obligatory girl group line-ups before a night of partying, rueful commentary attached to pictures of epic Ithaca snow banks, several happy years of Cornell’s Slope Day festivities, and I counted at least six different guys in various forms of embrace with Andy. I noted, with some disdain, they reminded me of Mumford and Sons: all hipsters who represented a broad spectrum of beardedness, favored plaid, and were in the range of seven to ten years younger than me.

I was also pretending my recent shaving hiatus was related to the obscenely cold weather rather than a fucked up attempt at gaining her attention.

She went to the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee last spring, and wore a few scraps of fabric meeting the loosest criteria of a bikini.

As if I could pretend I didn’t see that.

Her most recent Instagram post was from one our properties on demo day, and captured a sledgehammer as it connected with a wall. The caption read, “hammer time” and like the deranged fool I was becoming, I laughed hysterically when I saw it.

She traveled extensively during her school breaks, and filled entire Facebook albums with photos of architecture and food from all over the world. By Thursday, I was itching to ask about her travels, but I didn’t want to reveal my creeptastic tendencies.

“Didn’t peg you for a matzo ball soup guy,” she said, pointing at my bowl with her spoon. “I learn something new about you every day, Patrick.”

“Really?” I asked, glancing across the table. “What did you learn yesterday?”

She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. “You hate traffic circles.”

“You’re in Boston, Asani. They’re called rotaries. And they’re only acceptable when traveling by horseback, and even then, I bet they were a pain in the ass. And everyone hates them.”

“Okay,” she said. “I know you refuse to accept
Top Chef’s
awesomeness because you can’t try the food, and I know you like fish dives.”

“You would like them too, if you gave them a chance.” It was rocky territory, but I continued, “Offer still stands. And no, I’m not getting into another
Top Chef
argument with you right now.”