AllFreeNovel
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Sexy like a wink and red lips curling around a champagne flute at dinner, like a hand on my thigh and a head on my shoulder at a show. Like a hand slipped into mine while she talks to another fan who’s recognized her on our way out of the theater.
She pulls me into a late-night bakery, just a few doors down. “This place has the best apple fritters in all of New York.” She inhales the scent of vanilla and cinnamon and shimmies her shoulders. “Doesn’t it smell incredible in here?”
“It does.” She tells me a few of her favorites while we wait in line, and when it’s our turn we put in a comically large order.
“Gram will murder me if she finds out I came here without bringing her back a scone,” she says. She takes my hand and leads me to a table in the corner, just inside the front window. Between bites of late-night snacks and a cup of coffee that we’re apparently sharing, we play the people-watching game again. It takes me back to one of those first days with Gwen. Really, to the day that everything changed for me.
“So that couple there—the lady in the purple coat.” I spot who she’s talking about on the sidewalk outside, walking toward us on the opposite side of the street. “She just wants to soak it all in. See how she keeps looking back toward the marquee? This is big for her, being here, and he is not having it.”
“He looks like he’s freezing.”
“Look—she’s checking out her playbill; I bet they just stood outside by the stage door for the last forty-five minutes for some autographs, and he’s just over it and miserable.” She shakes her head. “Your turn.”
I discreetly nod toward the kid behind the counter, who doesn’t even look old enough to drink. The bags beneath his eyes contrast with his energetic greeting. “Moved to the city. Trying to make it in the biz. Up early every day for a shift at the diner, then dance classes, then voice lessons, then working as a bike messenger?” I shrug. “Then here. Literally on the go, twenty hours a day.”
She seems to think about it, then nods her head. “See how he’s mouthing the words to this song? No one knows this song. This is old-school Broadway, a song only a true theater geek would know. I think you’re right.” She fumbles through her purse and takes out a twenty-dollar bill. I wince, wondering if it’s one that she’d shoved at me yesterday morning. She drops it in the tip jar on the counter, and he smiles, grateful. “Okay,” she says, linking her arm into mine as we take our box of pastries and hit the street again. “Find one for me.”
There are a lot of couples around us that look startlingly like the one she already analyzed, so no fun there. There’s a stretch limo stopped at the red light a few car lengths ahead of us, two women in light-up necklaces emerging through the sunroof, drinking out of long tubes. “Are those penis-shaped cups?”
Gwen follows my gaze and doubles over in a fit of contagious laughter. “They definitely are.”
I compose myself first, and the limo is gone. But it’s fine, because coming toward us is a man walking solo, urgency in his stride, his eyes desperate, frantic. “Him,” I say, and Gwen cranes her neck.
“Who?”
“This guy. Tan coat. Expensive haircut.”
She scans the sidewalk again, and her lightheartedness evaporates. “Shit.” She turns, grabbing my hand again, tugging me close to her like she wants to take off in the opposite direction, but between the crowd still gathered at the theater to one side of us and the traffic that congests the street, there’s nowhere to go. Cool, sexy Gwen has transformed into panicked, hyperventilating Gwen.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
She locks eyes with me and taps the pastry box. “Two hands on this. Your job is to protect this box. Promise me you’ll hold on, both hands, no matter what.”
“Okay…”
“Sawyer. Promise me. Both hands on the box until I tell you it’s okay.”
“I promise, Gwen.” Her eyes dart between mine and she bites that perfect cherry-red lip, and then the guy I’d picked out of the crowd stops three feet away.
“Gwendolyn.”
She takes a sharp breath and brushes a hand over mine, then turns and faces the well-dressed guy in front of us.
“Tristan.”
Shit is right.
“You look incredible,” he says, and my hands tighten around the box when his eyes scan her body.
“You look the same as the last time I saw you, though there is something different…” She taps a finger to her chin, and this idiot beams like a compliment is coming his way.
“New suit? Custom made a few weeks ago.”
“No, that’s not it,” she says. She looks him over once and fakes the lightbulb moment. “Ah, I know what it is. You don’t have a stranger attached to your dick tonight.”
His smirk vanishes. “Gwendolyn, that was all a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding? I’m sorry… did I imagine you standing there with your pants down with someone else, when you should have been with me?”
