Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(17)

“Good night, Ruth,” Oliver said gently but firmly as he shut the door.

He heard the familiar crack of the remote hitting the wall behind the TV, followed by his father muttering obscenities at the second-base umpire.

Oliver let his forehead rest on the door just for a minute.

Despite what his mother’s former best friend thought, he hadn’t chosen Naomi because she was eye candy. He’s chosen her because she was interesting. A puzzle he had every intention of solving.

Because what Oliver really needed more than anything?

A distraction from his own life.





SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6

I’m still confused. I thought you were moving downtown,” Claire said, carefully handling a cheap glass vase that probably cost less than the packing material it was wrapped in.

“I thought so, too,” Naomi said, opening yet another moving box and then sliding the box cutter back into the back pocket of her oldest jeans that were reserved for horrors like moving.

She didn’t tell her friend that she actually had purchased this apartment and signed a lease on the Tribeca high-rise. Having more money than one knew what to do with was a cushy problem to have. Most of the time.

Apparently, it also enabled her to make really, really stupid decisions. Like moving into an old building, with even older neighbors, in a snobby part of town just so she could come face-to-face with the man who’d all but destroyed her mother. To make Walter Cunningham see that he’d knocked her down, but not out.

And maybe to finish what she’d started with Oliver Cunningham. Whatever that had been.

“You guys really didn’t have to come over,” Naomi said for the third time as she half-heartedly began unpacking some plates.

“Are you kidding?” Claire said, diving into the box she was unpacking. “This is sort of my fantasy.”

“What, packing peanuts?” Audrey asked, taking a sip of white wine and wrinkling her nose at the box of knickknacks she’d been unpacking at record-slow speed.

“No, I just love new places.”

“I don’t quite know that new is the word I’d use to describe 517 Park,” Naomi said, beginning to place her assortment of mugs with motivation girl-boss-esque notes in one of the cabinets. “We could add up all three of our ages, and I think the building still has us beat.”

“You know what I mean,” Claire said. “New to you. It’s a fresh start. A brand-new place to live.”

“Why this building?” Audrey asked curiously. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous in a stately, prewar kind of way, but you seem too hip for the Upper East Side. And as someone born and raised on Madison, I know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll echo that sentiment,” Claire said, grabbing Audrey’s wine out of her hand and taking a sip. “I’m a Connecticut girl by birth, but I’ve lived on the Upper East for six years now, and you’re way too cool for us.”

“Trust me, I’m really not cool,” Naomi said. “I can name just about every Star Trek character, ever, and that includes the much-maligned Enterprise series.”

“Okay, I don’t really know what that means,” Audrey said, going to the fridge to retrieve the bottle of chardonnay. “But even that’s cool. Your confidence about it. And look at what you’re wearing.”

Naomi glanced down at her ripped black jeans and fitted black T-shirt with Slay written across the front. “Seriously? This?”

“Cool,” Audrey repeated, pointing the wine bottle at her. “Now, where are your wineglasses?”

“I only seem to have unpacked the one,” Naomi said, looking around at the mass of boxes and tissue paper. “And I gave it to you.”

Audrey pulled down two mugs and filled them liberally with wine, handing one to Naomi and taking the other to Claire before refilling her own stemmed glass.

“So?” Claire asked as Audrey put the bottle back in the fridge.

“So what?” Naomi took a sip from the mug and smiled, remembering her early twenties when wine from a coffee mug was pretty much the status quo because her kitchenware contained about three glasses, total, and a wineglass wasn’t one of them.

“Why here?” Claire repeated Audrey’s question, which Naomi had yet to answer.

Naomi set the mug aside and reached into the box to pull out a small carafe she usually used for juice. “I used to live here.”

Both Audrey and Claire looked up from their respective boxes. “What?”

“Here?” Audrey said, using her glass to gesture at the messy space.

“Well, not this particular apartment.” Naomi set the carafe on a shelf more carefully than she needed to. Buying time and wondering if she was ready for this story. Or if her friends were.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Claire said, apparently noting Naomi’s apprehension.

Audrey nodded in agreement.

“Eh. I might as well get it over with,” Naomi said with a shrug. “Better you guys know what you’re dealing with now rather than later.”

She picked up her wine mug and gestured at the small kitchen table by the window. Much of her furniture was still covered in the protective plastic wrap it had been moved in, but the kitchen chairs were accessible.