Page 13 of Only for Tonight
“Aww.” She tilts her head to the side. “You’re lying, but that’s sweet of you.”
“I am not lying,” I assure her, “but it’s just, I…”
“Listen,” she starts, taking a sip of her coffee and reaching out to put her hand on my knee, “I live in New York, and you live not in New York.” I nod at her. “And, well, last night was a lot of fun and perhaps we went a little further than we should have. But it was one night and…” She takes her hand off of me. “We’re two grown adults, who enjoyed each other’s company.” I nod at her. “And, if it’s not too much to ask, I would really, really like to keep it between us.”
I don’t know why this bothers me, her telling me she wants to keep it a secret, especially since that was what I was going to ask her. This conversation is literally going the way I wanted it to go, yet it pisses me off at the same time. She’s not even fighting it. “Deal,” I agree, the burning in the pit of my stomach seeping through me and up to my chest. “Our secret.” I hold out my hand.
“Oh, we’re shaking on this.” She wipes her hands on her robe, before holding out her hand. Then taking it back before I can shake it. “It would be better if we did a pinky promise.” She holds out her folded hand with her pinky showing. “Our secret.” Her eyes stare into mine as I try not to laugh out loud and fold my pinky with hers.
“Our secret,” I repeat the words, our pinkies still intertwined and moving up and down like a handshake. “Between us.” She nods her head and I can see a flicker in her eye, but before I can ask her about it, she drops my hand and turns back to her sandwich. I grab one of the black, rolled linen napkins that holds a set of cutlery, trying not to wonder what would happen if we lived in each other’s city, instead of across the country.
six
Ariella
One month later
The phone rings, and when I look over at it, I see that it’s Lexi. “Morning,” I say right before I grab the cup of coffee that just finished brewing. “Why are you up so early?” I ask her, knowing that she’s two hours behind me and it’s only 8:00 a.m. for me.
“I’m on my way to my Pilates class,” she replies, “and thought I would check in.”
“It’s like the ass crack of dawn.” I take a sip of coffee before I walk down the hallway to my bedroom. Looking into the cup of coffee, it tastes a bit sour. I turn back and walk over to the fridge, taking out the carton of milk and checking the date, which expires in two weeks. I take another sip and it tastes off, but I turn and add one more pump of vanilla syrup before I go back to my bedroom.
“Yes, but Trent is up early with surgery,” she says of her husband, who she has been with for the past ten years. Even though they have been married for over ten years, I feel like I’ve met him maybe four times. To be honest, I usually see her when she comes to town with him, but other than that, it’s been just FaceTimes and phone calls. She’s missed a good chunk of all the other events because of her husband’s busy schedule. It seems that whenever her family plans something, that’s when he’s able to whisk her away. “I thought I would get up with him.”
“You are such a good wife,” I tell her. Putting the cup of coffee down on my bedside table, I make my way to my closet. “So what’s life like in Phoenix this week?” We spend about twenty minutes chatting about what she has planned for this week and then what I have planned. When she finally gets to her destination, she lets me go, telling me she’ll call me later.
I hang up the phone, and the second I do, the phone rings again. I pull it out of the pocket of the cashmere robe I’m wearing. The display shows me it’s my mother. “Good morning.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” she says softly and I smile at her voice. Without fail, she calls me every single morning at around the same time, except for the weekends when the calls come later in the day. She knows how much I like to sleep in.
“Hi, Mom,” I reply as I stare at the clothes hanging in my closet.
“How are you?” she asks me like she didn’t talk to me less than twenty-four hours ago. “Are you ready to slay the day?”
“I’m getting ready to fuck the day in the mouth,” I tell her and she laughs. “My coffee tasted like shit this morning”—I exhale as I grab one of the hangers and move it to the side, looking at the second shirt—“which did not start the day off on a good note , and I’ve only been up for about twenty-five minutes.”
She laughs at my dramatic story. “Was the milk bad?”
“That’s what I thought.” I grab the hanger that has the white shirt on it before snagging a pair of black pants. “Then I checked the date and it said it’s good for another two weeks.”
“You know milk can still go bad, even if it has a best before date,” she informs me and I gasp.
“Why do they put a date on it, then?” I sit on my bed, picking up the cup of coffee and smelling it. “It smells fine,” I tell her and then take a sip, but it tastes worse than it did the last time, so I spit it back into the cup. “That’s gross.” I grab the cup of water I have beside my bed every night and take a sip of it to rinse my mouth. “Maybe my fridge is broken.”
“Is it still cold?” she asks me and I’m walking back down toward my kitchen, opening the fridge, and touching my milk.
“It’s still cold.” I pick it up and open the top, smelling it and gagging a little bit. “I think it’s bad.” I feel my stomach become queasy. “Will it make me vomit?” I ask her, pouring the milk down the sink. “I took one and a half sips.”
“You’ll be fine.” She sighs. “I have to go and make sure your sister gets to school. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Mom,” I say as I hang up the phone. I think about ordering myself a coffee, but then the thought of the sour milk makes me nauseated, so I opt out of doing that and instead stick to water. I dress in my black pants and white sweater before going back to the kitchen and filling my cup with fresh water and ice.
Pulling out my desk chair when I get into my home office, I put the glass down beside the keyboard before walking over to the two small windows at the back of the room. Even though they face another building and no sun really gets into the room, I like having them open and then closing them at night.
I sit down and start my computer, plugging in my phone beside the keyboard as the sound of pinging alerts me to emails coming in.
Only when my stomach grumbles do I stop typing an email and look at the top of the screen, seeing it’s just after six. I finish the email, before making my to-do list for the next day and then closing it down. It was something I made clear when I started, if it wasn’t done in the workday, it would get done the next day. The world is not going to come to an end if I don’t respond to an email. That is not to say I don’t check it when I’m not at my desk, but I’ve come to terms with a balance of it. I close the shades in the room before I call my mother as I drag my feet to my bedroom.
