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I swipe my card and pass through the turnstiles, then turn toward my line, which is different from the one that takes Rena back to her place and Kendall tohers.
“Having a Friday night friend who’s not giving it to you is not pulling his weight,” Rena calls. “How many Marcs are you going to turn down before you either say yes or break down and fuck your best friend like a normaladult?”
Bless New Yorkers. No one even turns tolook.
I take the subway to my stop, turning over Rena’swords.
It’s not that Ben isn’t attractive. He is—every inch of him is designed for the urban jungle, from the strong body that looks even better in weekend denim than designer suits, to a carved jaw that intimidates in the boardroom and makes a woman’s fingers itch, to a firm mouth that’s as tempting pursed as it is in a cocky “I just made a deal that will blow your mind”grin.
His brilliant engineer’s brain and dry sense of humor don’t hurteither.
It’s impossible not to look at a man that confident, that self-possessed, that successful, and not experience some primal desire to align yourself withhim.
But I’m not the woman men like Ben stop to look at. Even back in college, I wasn’t the girl with the perfect hair and makeup and clothes, and I wasn’t the party girl. I was the one people liked to have in their group because I’d get shit done while they were off chasing the partygirl.
When I emerge from the subway and head back to street level, I check myphone.
The picture message from Ben is a ceramic dog on a flat white surface, the blue sky and clouds over a shiny reflection that could be water in thebackground.
I shake my head, grinning.Unbelievable.
Another text has come in since the firstone.
Ben:Missed my flight fromLA.
Concern floodsme as I typeback.
Daisy:Everythingokay?
Ben:Meeting ran long. Fill you inlater.
Daisy:Get homesafe.
It's not a big deal.I tell that to thedisappointment.
Ben and I weren’t always friends. For a while, he was part of a constellation of acquaintances in college, stars colliding in seemingly random patterns at pub nights orstudying.
It was only later that our collisions became more purposeful.Inevitable.
I get to my Upper West Side brick walk-up, taking the stairs to the third floor in my four-inch heels and letting myself into the first door on theright.
“Lil?” I call into thedark.
My two-bedroom apartment is spacious for the city, in a renovated building. My suite has low-profile furniture in soft neutrals with pops of metallic and black. The kitchen is quartz with white cabinets. The walls of the living room, kitchen and my bedroom have art from a number of local on-the-rise female artists—paintings, photography, and pencil drawings. It’s a modest collection but I add to it when I have the time andmoney.
There’s a note on the counter from my little sister to say she’s crashing with her classmate oncampus.
With tonight free, maybe I will stop by and see Marc and his friends. I’m thirty and it’s Friday night. So after showering, I get changed and put on a green dress that’s shorter than I’d wear to theoffice.
After turning out the lights, I’m in my foyer and bent over, stepping into my open-toed sandals, when the door sounds at myback.
“I thought you were outtonight…”
I turn, but it’s not my sister at thedoor.
The man towers over me in the semi-darkness. Terror has my heart hammering in myears.
I must’ve left the dooropen.
