Follow Me(54)

“What do you think?” he said, tossing me a wink as he sauntered in. “Jesus, babe, you have the worst taste in music. If it’s not that seventies post-punk garbage, it’s this pretentious indie rock crap.”

“We can’t all stan for Maroon 5,” I teased, snapping shut my laptop before he could start messing with my carefully curated playlists. The last time Nick had gotten his hands on my Spotify account, he’d snuck a bunch of Maroon 5 and Coldplay songs into my playlists and it had taken me weeks to root them all out. “Hands off.”

“That’s not what you usually say.” he said with a smirk, and then gestured to my wine. “What’s a guy got to do to get a drink around here?”

“Be an invited guest?”

He put a hand over his heart in a mock-wounded gesture, and I laughed. I gave him a hard time, but I was secretly glad he was there. It had been a busy day, and I missed being able to come home after days like that and discuss them with Izzy.

“How about this?” I offered. “I’ll pour you a glass of wine, but you have to listen to me talk about my day.”

“Sounds fair.”

While Nick worked his way through two glasses of wine, I told him about the opening of the Rosalind exhibit and how the possibility of promotion was tied up in it.

“That promotion is as good as yours,” he assured me, leaning over to kiss me. “You always get everything you want.”

My response to Nick was, as ever, Pavlovian. All he had to do was brush my skin and I melted into a mindless puddle of lust. I tilted my face to his, our lips meeting. With his hands tangled in my still-wet hair, Nick pressed his body against mine and walked me backward to my bedroom, his mouth trailing down my neck as he did so. The backs of my legs hit the edge of my mattress, and Nick moved one of his legs between mine, the fabric of his jeans rubbing against my bare skin. My body automatically sloped toward him, closing the already postage stamp–sized distance between us. Leaving one hand in my hair, he moved the other to loosen the towel still knotted around my chest.

“Stop,” I said suddenly, surprising us both.

Nick froze in place, his body still tight against mine, the heat of him still burning through the cloth between us. His mouth just inches from the tender skin at the base of my throat, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

The sensation of his breath on my flushed skin made me shiver and I almost gave in. After all, what was wrong? I hadn’t intended to say “stop,” hadn’t even realized the word was forming. As I wildly searched my brain for an explanation, Max’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. I almost laughed. Max? We had been on exactly one date, and I was choosing him over Nick? Nick, who had been in my life for a decade? It couldn’t be—and yet that’s who I was picturing as Nick’s fingertips nestled themselves into my flesh.

“Audrey?” Nick asked, pulling away slightly to look me in the eyes.

“I’m really tired,” I said, a half-truth that would buy me more time to sort out my feelings.

Nick laughed and looked at me expectantly, waiting for the punch line. When none was forthcoming, he blinked. “You’re kidding.”

I took a step away, his fingers falling from my side, and forced a yawn. “I’m just so, so exhausted. I really need to sleep.”

He cocked his head at me and licked his lips. “Aud, babe, give me like, fifteen minutes, and then you can have all the sleep you want.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, Nicky. Not tonight. Rain check?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, brow wrinkled in confusion. He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Hey, Audrey, you . . . you would tell me if something was going on, right?”

I hesitated. Was something going on? But I couldn’t tell Nick about Max, not before I had even committed to a second date, and so I looked him in the eye and said, “Of course.”

He nodded and lingered in my bedroom doorway, as though I might change my mind and ask him to stay.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll see you another time then, I guess.”

What’s with me? I wondered, slumping down in my bed as Nick’s departing footsteps echoed through my apartment and he let himself out. In the last seven years, I hadn’t ever refused Nick, not even the time I was nearly delirious with a fever.

But I also hadn’t ever been intrigued by anyone quite like I was intrigued by Max.

? ? ?

UNABLE TO FOCUS on work after Nick left, I curled up in bed with a fresh glass of wine and my laptop. I was working my way through a binge session of Gossip Girl when I heard a now-familiar scraping noise in the alley. I paused the show and listened intently, partially believing it was just that damn cat and partially worried about that shadowy figure who may or may not have followed Cat and me home from the bar.

I caught my breath as I heard not just a scraping but a shuffling.

Shit.

Someone was out there. Terror climbed my throat, and I tried to think rationally. Last time I had confronted someone in the alley, I’d made the mistake of charging at them with that wine bottle. They’d fled into the night, and I’d been left without even a description of the creep to give to the police. This time I needed to be more shrewd. I would sneak out there, capture this disgusting Peeping Tom on my phone, and then call the police. Even if he booked it before they arrived, at least then I could give them a suspect. Maybe they would catch him and I could finally relax.