Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(20)

I thought about the envelope holding $20,000. A year’s salary, for him. But I didn’t want to think about Gregg Gunn. Didn’t want to think about the strange telephone call or the job I had taken on, motives as murky as one of those cold-pressed juices. Not now. Not tonight. There was a blasting horn and the apartment shook slightly with a passing train. I could tell by the volume that it was a cargo train, not Amtrak. I was used to the trains and didn’t mind.

I stood as the noise faded. “I’ll start dinner.”

“What are you making?”

“Trout grenobloise.”

“Trout what?”

“You’ll see.” I unwrapped a pair of gleaming, silvery brook trout. Added a sizeable piece of butter to a hot pan and got some sliced lemons and capers ready while waiting for the butter to brown. I had a mushroom risotto that I had been stirring for the last hour.

Trout were quick. Ten minutes later we were eating. I opened a bottle of white wine and poured.

“This is delicious,” he said. “And this wine is amazing. Even though I don’t know anything about wine.”

“Good wine is just wine that you like.” I also liked Ethan. His enthusiasm, his obvious love of books. And his smile. I caught myself wondering what his chest was like under the corduroy jacket and shirt.

He looked up from his plate. His eyes were blue and pleasing. “Question.”

“Sure.”

“If we were skipping all of the, like, first date awkwardness. The BS where we try to pretend there’s nothing wrong with us. What if this was, like, date number ten?”

“Ten. Wow. You’re an optimist.”

“I’m serious. What would it be like?”

I thought about it. “Probably,” I said, “we’d be arguing about books. Then maybe you’d ask me some questions about my job that I wouldn’t want to answer, so I’d change the subject. After dinner, we’d take a bottle of wine and some blankets, go sit up on the roof. That’s what number ten might look like.”

He took this in. “Why wouldn’t you want to talk about your job? I love bookstores.”

“Ask me something else.”

“Mysterious.”

“No. That’s the thing.” I wanted him to understand. “People think mystery is good, exciting. Except usually it just means that something bad is around the corner.”

“Are you saying you’re bad?” He wasn’t being lascivious.

“I don’t think I am. I hope I’m not. But the parts of me you don’t know might not be the parts you’d like. They might not even be the parts I like. But they’re there, just the same.” I was quiet. Feeling what I wanted to say fighting through my natural reserve like someone underwater swimming up toward that spot of brightness that means light and air. I couldn’t stay under forever, playing Miss Havisham. No matter how peaceful that sounded.

He was clearing the table. He’d been a waiter. I could tell. The way he cradled the wineglasses between his fingers and lined the plates along his forearm. No one who’d ever worked as a waiter stacked plates when they cleared. I pictured him in college, in Montana. Friday night, maybe working a late shift. Ignoring the frat parties and kegs. Coming home alone, exhausted. Roommates probably out having fun, hooking up, getting drunk. Doing carefree college things. And him alone, worn out, tired. But planning. Planning how to move forward. Past the bad things and toward the good ones.

I wondered which one of us I was even thinking about.

“Look,” I finally said. “Don’t worry about the plates. Grab those blankets from the couch. It’s nice out. We can go sit on the roof for a bit.”





WEEK TWO





13


“Nikki, how have you been?”

“You’re gonna laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Okay. I met this guy.”

“You met a guy.”

“That sounds totally high school. I know.”

“And you like him?”

“Yeah. I had him over to dinner. We kinda hit it off.”

“That sounds very nice.”

“I—am I allowed to tell you, like, personal stuff? Or is that weird?”

“Of course you can.”

“I … um, slept with him.”

“You slept with him.”

“Yeah. Which was ironic because we had joked about not doing that. On the first date, anyway.”

“And you enjoyed it?”

“Uh … yeah. Actually, I did. Kind of a lot. It was a nice evening.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Nikki. And you’re going to see him again?”

“We’re going to a concert in Oakland this weekend with another couple, friends of his. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been on a double date. What do people even do? Maybe we’ll get gelato afterwards. Or play Scrabble.”

“Does this man you met know that you see me? Why you see me?”

“Why I see you?”

“Yes.”

“You mean what happened.”

“Yes.”

“Why? I just met him. It’s not like I have to tell him everything at once.”