More Than Words(58)

Nina’s brain screeched to a halt. She blinked at Tim. “You want to run the Gregory Corporation?” she asked him.

“Don’t you want me to?” he asked back.

Nina looked at him. How had they never talked about this? How had she not known that this was his vision for the future?

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“What do you mean you haven’t thought about it?” Tim looked perplexed. “Remember when we played ‘business’ when we were kids, when everyone else was playing house? I was always the CEO. You were always the chairman of the board. And we carried those briefcases my mom got us and used your dad’s old crossword puzzles as our balance sheets.”

They had done that. They had pretended. But they were kids. They’d also thought they could climb a rainbow if they put suction cups on the bottom of their sneakers. “That was a game, Tim,” she said. “I didn’t think it was real.”

Tim looked at her. She looked at Tim. It seemed like they didn’t know how to speak to each other anymore. She didn’t know how to fix what was happening between them. The ring Tim bought her felt heavy on its chain around her neck.

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Tim said. “I don’t understand how we got so far off track.”

“Me neither.” Nina looked around Tim’s apartment, as familiar to her as her own. There were photographs of both of them everywhere. A small painting she’d had commissioned for him for his birthday, of the pier where they’d first kissed. Neither of them said anything for a while. Finally Tim spoke.

“Do you . . . want to stay over tonight?” he asked. “And maybe we can talk more in the morning?”

The easy thing to do was to stay. But Nina thought about that letter in her parents’ nightstand. She thought about her conversations with Leslie. What it felt like to be next to Rafael. She thought about the parts of herself that she still wanted to explore and develop and discover. It was too much. Everything was too much.

“I think it might be better if I sleep at my place tonight,” Nina said. “I just . . . I’m so mixed up right now.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I think . . . I think I need to be alone tonight,” she said.

“Okay.” His hands were in his lap, and he lifted one as if he were going to touch Nina again, but then didn’t. “I love you,” he told her. “More than anyone else in the world. I really love you.”

Nina took a deep breath. “I love you, too,” she said. “That’s never been the problem.”

Tim stood up and held out his hand. “We’ll talk tomorrow?” he said.

Nina took it. “Of course,” she answered.

As Nina walked out the door, she turned back to Tim. “Last night,” she said. “Before you came over. Was Casey out watching baseball with you and the guys?”

Tim quietly closed the door without answering.





54



Even though it was a long walk, Nina decided not to jump in a cab or take the subway. She needed to clear her head, to think, to move. Despite the fact that it was late, the city was alive with people and noise, and she took comfort in being a part of it. In New York City you were never alone in any situation—by the laws of probability there had to be at least hundreds, if not thousands, of people who were going through the same thing at the same time. Nina found it consoling.

As she walked, she pulled out her phone; it had blown up with calls and voice mails and texts from Leslie and Jane and Pris and Rafael. Nina scrolled through them.

Is this real? (Leslie)

Holy shit. We have to talk strategy. Call me ASAP. (Jane)

What’s going on over there? Brent just showed me a picture of you and Rafael on Twitter. (Pris)

Don’t read the comments! (Leslie again)

Are you okay? Will you please call me when you can? (Rafael)

Nina called Rafael. He picked up on the first ring.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. No greeting, just that. “I shouldn’t have grabbed your hand. We should’ve just sat there and had our picture taken. I made it worse. I wasn’t thinking.”

Rafael’s voice was heavy with apology. Nina could hear it through the phone. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” Rafael insisted. “I should’ve been thinking about the end result of those photographs. I’m just . . . I’m not used to it yet. Was Tim very upset? Jane just practically crucified me.”

Nina thought about the media, the paparazzi really—there was a difference. Her father used them to his benefit, to the Gregory Corporation’s benefit. He knew how to play them, what to say to whom, how to achieve the desired outcome. He’d trained her to think that way, but she hadn’t been thinking. Not where Rafael was concerned.

There was a bench in a small park across the street. Nina sat down on it.

“It’s funny. He was livid at first, and then he wasn’t,” Nina said. “He told me he wanted to kiss this woman Casey at his office. That it was normal to want to kiss other people, no matter who you were with, as long as you didn’t do it. I . . . I don’t know what to make of it all.”