Page 81 of My Favorite Bad Decision
“Only because you baited him,” she argues. “He was lovely. He stopped by to see me this morning before I left.”
I don’t know if I want to cry or laugh. But as I leave her house, I know the person I most want to discuss it with is Miller.
I shouldn’t reach out to him. If this morning proved anything, it’s the impossibility of this continuing. But my fingers twitch impatiently until I’ve written him.
Hey, are you around?
Miller
I can be. Want to come over? I’ll cook.
It’s not avocado toast, right?
Keep it up. I’ll definitely have something to put in that smart mouth.
Is it soft and green?
I haven’t looked in a few hours, but I certainly hope not.
I run a few errands and I arrive an hour later at the address he sent with a bottle of wine, which feels oddly formal and also insufficient. The man gave up his trip to Kilimanjaro for me, then gave up his safari, then took me to his cottage in paradise and shepherded me home.
That probably deserves more than a nice Malbec.
The doorman leads me to the elevator and pushes a button for the twelfth floor. When I step out, Miller is opening his door—barefoot, shirtless and sweaty—and walking into the hallway, as if he was so excited to see me he couldn’t wait until I reached him.
His abs gleam, tan from Starfish Cay. I picture him beneath me the way he often was there, looking up at me from under heavy-lidded eyes.
“I sort of thought you’d wait to look all sweaty untilafterI’d had my way with you.”
His dimple flashes. “I just got back from the gym. And I intend to look exactly like this again in an hour or two but let me shower first.”
He leans down as I reach him and gives me a chaste kiss. Only Miller could manage to sweat like that and still smell good.
“Don’t shower for my sake,” I reply, my voice a little raspy.
He glances at the outfit I wore to my mom’s. “I don’t feel worthy of defiling you in my current state.”
He pulls me into his apartment, which reminds me a lot of his place in Starfish Cay—the same cathedral ceiling, the same modern wood. I would like to stay here and never leave. “Make yourself at home,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk toward his bookcase and thumb through a massive book about management. “I’m going to go through all your things,” I warn.
He laughs. “I assumed nothing less.”
When he’s gone, I go to the window, which looks out over Central Park.
That’s the first place I took Rob after he came here to visit me. He was supposed to be in California, with his parents, and got a flight here instead. I’m not sure why, but those memories of him seem more distant now. I don’t want them to feel distant because it’s as if I’m giving him up, giving him back to the world, but, perhaps, theyshould.
Maybe I’ve been clinging to those memories because it’s the last time I was truly happy and I didn’t want to forget what it felt like—and that it was possible.
I go into Miller’s bedroom, which is as spotless as the rest of his place. There’s a wide dresser that isn’t piled with clothes the way mine is. A closet holds only a few of everything—a couple suits, some shirts, some jeans. I’d like to think that I’d be similarly spartan were I a man, but I seriously doubt it. I take a seat on his bed and glance at the nightstand. And stare. There, next to a glass table lamp, sits a woman’s ponytail holder. Tossed there casually by someone who forgot her hair was still up until she climbed into bed. My stomach sinks. I have no right to be bothered—I was, after all, about to get engaged. But that ponytail holder is a small wound, one that reopens a little when he walks out in nothing but a towel and gives me that dimpled smile.
I don’t want anyone to see him like this but me, and very recently someone did. And probably will again.
23
MILLER
You’re getting ahead of yourself.
