Under the Table(18)

“How about an update to your cologne or aftershave?” Zoey asked when he met up with her, both his hands full of shopping bags.

Tristan grimaced. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to smell like a lady.”

Zoey smiled to herself, thinking, Baby steps. She was able to talk him into a pomade though, for when he wanted a more updated look to his hair.

“It’s time to ditch the part down the middle, dude,” she suggested.

“Do you want to look for anything for yourself?” he asked, adding, “My treat, to thank you for all your help.”

She could’ve told him a hundred things. Like friends don’t have to reciprocate all the time, and just dressing him was all the treat she should be allowed for one day. Or that what he had paid her the night before was thanks enough. Or that she would rather be dragged behind a cross-town bus than have to model whatever she took into the dressing room, an exercise that would make her more distressed than the jeans he had to be talked into buying. She settled on, “Thanks, but I think I’m all shopped out.”

“Then can I make you dinner? If you don’t have any other plans, that is.”

There was such a hopefulness to his voice. Luckily, she didn’t have a job booked.

“That sounds awesome. I’d love to.”

“Let’s call my car service. These bags are weighing me down,” he suggested.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Can I borrow your phone? Or maybe Barneys will let me use theirs?”

“You forgot your phone?”

“I don’t have one.”

He had just spent so much money that someone from Barneys would’ve been willing to call them a car. Maybe even carry them both home on the salesman’s back. Instead she handed Tristan her phone and thought, This throwback-to-a-simpler-time stuff is getting ridiculous.





Chapter 7




If Zoey lived to be a hundred, she doubted she would ever meet someone as courteous as Tristan. With him it wasn’t an act or something he turned on and off. His grandparents had raised him well. He loaded the bags into the car himself and refused help from the doorman when they returned to his apartment.

Zoey sat on a stool at the island in the kitchen pondering her dilemma while he took his new clothes to his bedroom. When would she tell him about Derek? Should she just spit it out, or mention it in passing? Would he be disappointed in her? Would he put the instant kibosh on their friendship and ask her to leave? Things that others took for granted in this day and age were monumental to him. It wasn’t like neglecting to tell him she got suspended from school for pot smoking or about having her tonsils taken out. She couldn’t even say she was divorced. Whatever the outcome, she would have to face it then come to terms with it. The longer she waited, the worse it would be in the end. If he cooled off their friendship after hearing the news, it would sting. If they truly bonded, it would be heartbreaking, for both of them.

Music started playing from the overhead speakers. This time it was reggae. Just when Zoey thought she was on the verge of figuring him out, he threw her another surprise.

When Tristan returned, it was with a bottle of white wine and two long-stem wineglasses.

“How do you feel about Italian?” He opened a drawer and pulled out a corkscrew, driving the pointy end into the top of the bottle.

She watched him opening the liquid courage. “Always delicious. Tristan . . .”

The cork released with a resounding pop. He began to pour half glasses. “It’s just a little glass of wine. I wanted to use it in the recipe tonight. It’s too good to go to waste.”

“Sounds wonderful.” She was grateful for him presenting his back to put the bottle opener away. “Look, Tristan, there’s something you should know. Not that I think it’s a big deal, but I’m technically married.”

She saw him stiffen again and he slowly closed the drawer before turning back to her. The expression on his face was new to her, tight-lipped anger.

“It’s a very big deal. The word technically is just semantics. You’re either married or you aren’t.”

The heat of his stare was enough to burn a hole right through her. “We’re separated.”

“Technically separated? Such as, I’m in Tristan’s apartment and can’t see my husband right now?”

If she wasn’t feeling so awful about this latest misunderstanding, she would be able to appreciate the fire in his eyes. It was nice to know he wasn’t a total pushover.

“My husband is back in Ohio and if I had my way, we would already be divorced. But I agreed to wait a year before filing. I thought it was ludicrous then and I think it still is now. But I agreed to it. I don’t want to go back on my word.”

She blinked back the tears that were burning her eyelids, furious that she couldn’t stop the reaction or the shakiness in her voice.

“Did you run away from him because he abused you?”

His follow-up question was fraught with a different kind of anger, the chivalrous kind. The way all his muscles tensed in the too-small velour shirt, he looked perfectly capable of holding his own in a fight.

“He wasn’t physically abusive,” she said, forcing her gaze away from the sight of him. “But there’s a lot of ways to abuse someone, you know?”