I called up my recollection of a risk management class lecture so I could deliver an offhand answer. “Oh, that one. I just made that to remind myself not to spend too much time watching movies.”
Because movies had been our thing. Our first kiss had been in a movie theater.
He was still touching the camera, but he was looking straight at me. As if he could read the lie.
I shifted the focus away from me. “And you? What about your business, Mr. Leighton?” I asked, as if I were a curious reporter.
He let the charm drop, and the metal he’d touched felt warm against me. He held out his arm, showing me the cuffs of his sleeves. “These bad boys. Women seem to love to give them as gifts.” He nodded to his cufflinks, as if to say it was okay to touch them. I resisted, banishing all thoughts of unbuttoning the black onyx, of taking off his shirt, of watching the fabric fall away from him to reveal his smooth chest, his firm stomach, his trim arms. Instead, I rewound to the morning, trying to remember if I’d dropped an umbrella into my purse, because the sky was about to split open.
“We make them at a factory near Philly, along with tie clips and money holders. But the cufflinks especially have taken off like crazy in the last few years. Especially with those books that have them on the cover. American-made, and a perfect gift from a girl to a guy. Or a guy to a guy, in some cases.”
“Right. Perfect gift.” I stood up and brushed my hand over my skirt, then gestured to the clouds. “I better go.”
He rose too. “You going back to Chelsea?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll give you a ride. I have my car.”
“I’m fine. I’ll walk or take the subway.”
“Kat. It’s about to pour any second.”
I patted my purse. “I have an umbrella in here.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier not to fight for a cab, not to get soaked, and not to have to take the subway?”
Before I could say no again, he was giving his driver our exact location as the first drops hit my head. We walked quickly to the curb while the rain picked up speed. Moments later, Bryan held open the door to his town car for me. A drop fell in my eye. I blinked it out, then bonked my head on the top of the door as I got into the car. “Ouch!”
A sharp pain radiated across my forehead.
“You okay?” Bryan asked, as he slid in next to me. The windows were tinted, but the partition was down, so I could hear the faint strains of music from the satellite radio, and I could just make out the words to Jack White’s cover of Love is Blindness. I almost wanted to ask the driver to change the channel because the lyrics turned my heart in knots with dark wanting.
I pressed my palm against my head where it smarted. “I just don’t know how that door got in the way of my head,” I said, and Bryan laughed.
Then he gently placed a palm on my forehead. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I whispered, letting down my guard for a moment. Brushing my dark brown bangs from my face, he held my gaze in a way that chipped away at all the walls I’d rebuilt with him in the last hour. I flashed back to the movie theater in Mystic, to our first kiss, to how I’d had no need for barriers then.
“Do you need ice for it?”
“Do you have ice?”
“Of course. Fully stocked.”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
“Then let me just give you a kiss to make it better,” he said, and moved towards me. I closed my eyes and breathed out, slipping away into the feel of his tender lips on me. He stayed there for many more seconds than he needed to. He was inches from me, and I could feel the warmth from his body, as I let myself enjoy his kiss on my forehead.
He pulled away. “All better now?”
I nodded.
“What’s your address?”
I gave it to him, and he told the driver, then he looked back at me again. His green eyes were darker, more intense. “It’s really good to see you again, Kat.”
I grasped mentally at numbers, at logic, at images of my parent’s store, at the sound of my mom’s voice. But they were all wisps in my hands, falling through fingers, as my double-crossing heart longed to whisper it’s good to see you too. His gaze stayed on me, and his eyes said so many things, all the things I’d wanted to hear.
I could feel the whole back of the car grow smaller and bigger at the same time. Everything faded away, the din of the music from the radio, the strangers on the street ducking under awnings and opening umbrellas as they sought cover. He was all I saw, sitting next to me, looking in my eyes. I wished I could say I was thinking of business, of my jewelry line, or even of mundane things like where I’d left the quarters for the next load of laundry, because that would all prove I was as impervious as I’d aimed to be. But when your first love tells you how good it is to see you again, you don’t think at all. You just feel.
I felt my traitorous heart jumping, my belly flipping.
Stupid body trying to trick me.
Somewhere, I caught the dangling end of the anger still in me, and held on tight so I wouldn’t fall into his arms. “This is a nice car,” I said crisply, by way of changing the subject.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Thanks. So, I was thinking it would be a good start to this mentor thing if I show you the factory. Can you go with me on Friday?”
“Let me just check my schedule and get back to you.”
Then I turned away, and stared out the window, as if the rain-soaked New York streets were endlessly fascinating, high-fiving myself for playing it cool.