Friends Like These(37)

Luke turned back at the door, like maybe he was going to tell his friends to knock it off. Instead he just shook his head and disappeared inside. Watching him go, the sweat on the back of my neck turned cold. The little one stepped closer, lifted his chin. I could smell mints on his breath.

“At least tell me your name,” the weasel said, staring conspicuously at my breasts. “We’re all friends here.”

The fat guy laughed like a hyena.

I could dart between them, run away from the bar. But alone in the dark was where they wanted me. I could fight, knee the short guy in the groin, throw a punch. Except getting physical first was even more of a risk. Yell for help, then pray. It was all I had left. I was about to when the door to the Falls flew open.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Finch bellowed, grabbing my hand and in one smooth motion pulling me clear of the men and into the bar.

Inside, I blinked, stunned— the light, the noise, all the people. A second later, the two men strolled in past me like they didn’t have a care in the world.

“Motherfuckers,” Finch muttered when he came in behind them. He grabbed a chair from some pissed-off guy about to sit down and held it out for me. “You need a glass of water?” He looked around like he was debating whether it was safe to leave me, then waved down a woman on her way to the bar. I desperately wanted his rescuing me not to feel good, but it did. “Hey darlin’, you mind bringing me a glass of water on your way back?”

The woman smiled at Finch, then wrinkled her nose at me. “Sure thing.”

Finch reached out a hand like he might touch me, then put it on the back of his head instead. “Did they, um, do anything to you?”

“No. But I think they might have.” I took a breath. “Thank you for helping me.”

“You want to— maybe we should call the police.”

“No,” I said, thinking both of Keith, probably with drugs on him by now, and the white cops who would surely come, demanding to know what crime I thought had been committed. “There’s no point.”

Finch still looked concerned. “You want me to go get Maeve then, or something? She was just back there talking to Derrick.”

And what was Maeve going to do? Press her hands to her china white cheeks, click her Chloé flats three times, and tell me that everything was going to be fine, even though I could still smell that guy’s minty breath up my nose? Better that she stay talking to Derrick. Maybe he’d get up the nerve to say something to her finally, save her from the Upper East Side and Bates.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing Maeve can do.”

The woman was back with the cup of water.

Once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. I wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand. When I looked up, Finch’s brow was furrowed with concern. He really did seem like he’d shed some noxious shell. This new Finch was almost human, and kind. I still didn’t want to talk. But better to speak first, at least try to move the narrative away from why I hadn’t returned any of his dozen calls.

“It was a mistake,” I said finally, looking Finch square in the eye. “Obviously.”

That night I last saw Finch, a month ago, I’d left the reception in his honor at Cipriani’s an hour before it ended. It was pouring rain by then, and I was standing at the curb under an umbrella, waiting for my Uber, when Finch appeared out of nowhere next to me.

“Where are you going?” he asked, no umbrella, already soaked.

“What are you doing out here?” I gestured back at the party, still going full tilt inside.

“Trying to make you stay,” he said, eyes on the street in front of us. “Maybe then I’ll have time before the night is over to convince you that I’m not the asshole you think I am.”

“Oh, really?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, trying to will away the flutter in my belly.

“Okay, maybe I am an asshole,” Finch said. “But I am other things, too. Some of which you might even find interesting.”

“Yeah?” I gripped my umbrella tighter, my toes clenched inside my shoes. “Like what things?”

“Well, for one, all that matters to me is my work. Just like you.”

I laughed despite myself. “Wait, so we’d be good together because neither of us will care?”

“Oh, I care. All those people in there, and the only thing I’ve been able to think about all night is what my fingers would feel like on the curve of your collarbone.”

He took a step closer, so that the entire length of his body was almost touching mine. We stayed like that as my car pulled up and stopped. Silent. Motionless. And maybe it was the pressure of my patent case going to trial, or that the firm’s managing partner had just berated me for something that was not my fault. Or maybe I was just fed up with doing the right thing all the time. But it was me who’d finally stepped forward and started kissing Finch on that sidewalk. There was no pretending otherwise. And while it wasn’t a great decision to have sex with him, it was one I’d made fully and freely. I was an adult. I’d live with it.

The real problem started as I crept out of Finch’s sprawling Dumbo loft the next morning. Some Polaroids of naked women on his coffee table caught my eye, names written in Sharpie on each one of them. A pretty girl with a nose ring named Rachel was on top. When I paused to look more closely at the pictures, I saw the representation contract next to them. It had been signed by Finch a week earlier with the Graygon Gallery.