The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(140)

“Jesus,” Erik said. “I said in the face.”

Will pushed him away. “Wanted to do that for years. I best go for it before you disappear again.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Will started unbuckling his belt. “You’re going on your knees.”

Erik sprang back, laughing, and headed for the door.

“Yeah, that’s right. Run away, Fish.”

“It’s what I do,” Erik said. “No watching my ass as I run.”

“High and tight,” Will yelled after him. “Just like a girl’s.”





Build Something Beautiful


“It’s a sweet little house,” Daisy said, turning the key in her front door, “but I really bought it for the porch.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Erik said. The porch ran along the whole front of the small house and hugged one side. It was bare now, but he could imagine wicker furniture and flower boxes in spring. Daisy sitting out here with a book and some iced tea. He added himself into the scene, sitting on the steps, playing guitar.

It was too easy.

He was an idiot.

“Come in,” Daisy said.

It looked nothing like La Tarasque, and yet the moment Erik stepped inside, he knew every piece of furniture, every cushion and lamp and knick-knack had been chosen and placed to evoke the essence of her parents’ house. Right down to the Meyer lemon tree by the window.

She gave him a short tour of the downstairs, ending up in the kitchen.

“It’s a carbon copy of your mother’s,” he said, gazing around at the yellow walls, the red-enameled pots on a shelf. A basket of cloth napkins, a bowl of oranges.

“Not exactly. I don’t have her big table.”

“I know, but…” It was obvious and yet he couldn’t explain. It was all so familiar.

Daisy took two beers from the fridge. “Opener is in the drawer there.” She put her head through the loop of a red butcher apron and tied it around her narrow waist.

“What are we having?” Erik said, opening the bottles.

“You kidding? Grilled cheese and tomato soup. The best conversational food out there.”

As Erik sat down at the island, a grey cat gracefully jumped up and onto the counter. “Hello,” he said, holding his fingers out to be sniffed.

“Bastet. My live-in lover.”

Having passed inspection, his palm moved in long, slow arcs over the top of Bastet’s head and down her silvery back. Her eyes were powder blue marbles. “She’s beautiful.”

“She,” Daisy said, “is a standoffish bitch. As are most Russian Blues.”

As if cued, the cat meowed at her. Daisy leaned in, lips puckered, letting Bastet rub and nudge at her face. “But yes, she is beautiful.”

Erik sat and drank his beer, chin resting on his hand between sips. Daisy sliced bread and cheese. Assembled the sandwiches and set them on the hot grill. Warmed up soup. She lit a few candles, turned on some music. His eyes followed her everywhere. He was reminded of their long-ago Thanksgiving, when he had watched her move around the kitchen with her mother. Blithe and confident and happy. As if she had never suffered a day in her life.

“Tell me what happened to you,” he said. “After I left.”

Daisy flipped the four sandwiches on the griddle over. “We tabled this one, didn’t we?”

“I needed to be looking at you.”

She smiled at him before turning to take some plates and bowls from a cabinet. “After you left, two things were going on. Three. One was mourning you. Two was beating myself up for sleeping with David. The third was dealing with the trauma of the shooting.”

“Did it ever come back to you?” he asked. “Anything from the day?”

She slid her spatula beneath the corner of one sandwich, peeked under to see how done it was. “Yes, it did.”

He sat a little straighter on his stool. “It did? Really?”

“I’ll get to that.” She took a pull of her beer. “So, after graduation I got into the corps of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Living the dream, right? I assume so because I can barely remember a thing from those days. I remember waking up every morning being shocked the sun was up. I’m alive? Again? I thought surely I’d be dead by now. I wasn’t taking care of myself at all. Not eating, barely sleeping—”

“Were you still doing coke?”

She shook her head, ladling soup into bowls. “But I was smoking like a fiend. God, the chain-smoking. I was a shell. Just going through the motions.” She flipped the sandwiches onto a cutting board and sliced them on the diagonal. “And I got fired.”

“Shut up.” Erik passed her one bowl at a time to be filled up with soup.

“I know. Me, right? The smartest girl in ballet? I blew it. I mean, the tactful way to put it is they didn’t renew my contract.” She rolled one of her shoulders dismissively. “I got fired. Which broke me out of my pity party a little. Unemployment will do that. But dance is a small world, I had some good contacts. I got into the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and I thought it would be good—New York, fresh start. Out of Pennsylvania, away from the memories and the ghosts. This was my second chance. I wasn’t going to screw it up. I started caring for myself better—just in terms of eating healthy and not smoking so much and managing my body. I was dancing really well, and I was starting to teach, too. Just freelance at studios around Manhattan and Brooklyn. And then I ran into Opie one day. I mean John. Dammit.”