The Lucky Ones(29)

“No, it’s not that, I swear,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I mean... I wouldn’t want you to think I came to your room because I thought you were, you know, easy.”

“I’m not easy at all,” she said. “McQueen’s handsome and a billionaire. Fact is, I’m quite difficult.”

Roland held up two fingers.

“What?” she asked, eyeing those two fingers.

“I’m pretty difficult, too,” he said.

“Wait. I was your second?” she asked, pointing at herself. He nodded. “Wow. So it was me and someone from a long time ago?”

He nodded again.

“Hope it was worth the wait,” she said.

He nodded again, slowly, and with his eyes wide open.

“I feel very honored to be your second,” she said.

“And I’m honored to be your rebound monk,” Roland said. “I’m not anywhere close to being a billionaire.”

“It wasn’t really the money, you know,” she said. “The money made it possible but...truth is, I didn’t want to be alone. I needed someone in my life. McQueen was definitely better than nothing.”

“I thought he had a girlfriend. In the article where I found your name...he definitely had a girlfriend.”

“Oh, he did,” she said. “And he had me, too.”

“You deserve more than that,” Roland said.

“Maybe,” she said. “But in fairness to McQueen, he made it very clear from the beginning what I was going to be to him. I was in his life to provide sex on demand. Girlfriends had their own lives. Girlfriends could say, ‘Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.’ My job was to be the girl who never had a headache. I was a luxury purchase, and the luxury was that I was there when he wanted me, and when he didn’t, I simply ceased to exist. I was—” she blew on her fingertips “—a ghost.”

“A ghost in love,” Roland said.

“He called me Cricket,” she said. “How can you not fall in love with someone who calls you Cricket?”

“Why Cricket?”

“Our first trip he took me on was to New York. I was twenty, summer before my junior year of college. We went to a Broadway play and it was a nice night so we walked back to the hotel. We passed some homeless people and I told McQueen he should give them money. He said being with me was like having his own personal Jiminy Cricket. I was his conscience.”

“It sounds like he cared about you.”

“You’re being nice.”

“He kept you for six years,” Roland said. “He must have cared about you a little bit, anyway.”

“Maybe. Not that it matters one way or another. It’s over. He met someone and they had a one-night stand. And, bam, she’s pregnant. So goodbye to me.”

“Ouch,” Roland said, wincing dramatically.

“Yeah, ouch,” she said. “But it’s the right thing to do. There’s a kid involved now so...” She took a shuddering breath, wiped her own tears before Roland could. “It’s for the best. I had to put my whole life on hold for him. No job. No boyfriend. The girl in the tower is a romantic image to anybody but the girl in the tower.”

Allison felt the tears threatening to come again and she blinked and blinked until she’d blinked them away. Roland stood between her knees, his hands warm on her bare thighs. She covered his hands with hers and looked at their entwined fingers.

“So that’s it,” she whispered. “The story.”

“Is it the whole story?” Roland asked.

“When he walked out the door two days ago,” Allison said, “I was seven years old again waiting for my mom to come home from the drugstore where she’d gone to get me some cough syrup. It should have taken thirty minutes. Two hours later she still wasn’t back. I just... I walked around the apartment calling for her like a lost dog or something. Like she’d hear me calling and come back.” Allison blinked more hot tears from her eyes. “She never came back. I barely remember her, but I still hate being left alone.”

“Is that why you’re here? You didn’t want to be alone?”

“Probably.” She realized as she said it how cold that sounded. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. If Dad wasn’t dying, I doubt I would have had the guts to write you, anyway. I’m glad I did, though.”

“Even knowing who you just slept with?”

“Especially knowing who I just slept with,” he said, smiling.

She playfully but not-terribly-gently elbowed him in the ribs.

“I deserved that,” he said. “You okay?”

“I will be.” Allison shrugged, pretending she was fine already. “You know what’s funny? His new lady told him that I couldn’t be in the picture anymore. That’s what she said. I was never in the picture. Except the sort of pictures you shred and then burn the negatives after.”

“Negatives, huh?” Roland said.

“McQueen doesn’t trust the Cloud with his dick pics.”

Roland laughed. At least one of them could laugh about it.

“If it helps, you’re in our pictures,” Roland said. “Lots of them. They’re up in Dad’s office.”