The Wife Upstairs(15)

So as February slides into March, March into April, we go to fancy restaurants with menus I can barely read. We walk through parks, our shoulders and hips touching. We go to movies, and sit in the back, like teenagers. His hand is always on me, resting against my palm, tracing the line of my collarbone, a warm weight on my lower back so that I can feel his touch even when we’re apart.

That’s the strangest part to me, really. Not the dates, not the idea that someone like Eddie Rochester might want to spend time with me. It’s how much I want him, too.

I’m not used to that.

Wanting things? Sure. That’s been a constant in my life, my eyes catching the sparkle of something expensive on a wrist, around a neck; pictures of dream houses taped to my bedroom wall instead of whatever prepubescent boy girls my age were supposed to be interested in.

But I’ve been dodging men’s hands since I was twelve, so wishing a man would touch me is a novel experience.

I think I like it.

The first time he kissed me, it was beside his car outside a restaurant. His mouth tasted like the red wine we’d shared, and his hands holding my face hadn’t made me feel trapped, but … safe. And beautiful.

I’d liked the clear disappointment in his eyes when I pulled back. Because, of course, I pulled back. Timing is everything here, and I’m not about to fuck up something this big by being an easy conquest for him.

So, any intimacy is limited to kisses for now and the occasional heated touches, his palms sliding over my upper arms, my thighs, my fingers resting on the hard muscles of his stomach but not going lower.

He hasn’t had to wait for anything in a long time, I think, so he can damn well wait for me.

But it isn’t just the kissing, the desire I feel for him that has my head spinning. It’s how much he notices things. Notices me.

On our third date—sandwiches at a place in Vestavia—I pick a bottle of cream soda from the cooler, and before I can stop myself, I’m telling him the story of a foster dad I had early on, when I was ten. He was obsessed with cream soda, bought giant cases of it from Costco, but never let me or the other kid in the house at that time, Jason, touch any of it—which, of course, meant that cream soda was all I ever wanted to drink.

It surprised me, how easily the story poured out. It hadn’t been that exact story, of course. I’d left out the foster care part, just saying “my dad,” but it was the most truthful I’d been about my past with anyone in years.

And Eddie hadn’t pried or looked at me with pity. He’d just squeezed my hand, and when I went to his house the next day, the fridge was stocked with the dark glass bottles.

Not the cheap shit Mr. Leonard bought, but the good stuff they only sell in fancy delis and high-end grocery stores.

I’ve gone so long trying not to be seen that there’s something intoxicating about letting him really see me.

John knows something is going on, his beady eyes are even more suspicious than usual as they follow me around the apartment, but even that doesn’t bother me now. I like keeping this secret from him, too, the smug smile I wear, the different hours I’m keeping.

But all of that—kissing Eddie, fucking with John—is nothing compared to how I feel now, crouched in front of Bear’s crate as I put him back after his walk, listening to Mrs. Reed on her cell phone.

“Eddie is dating someone.”

I allow myself a small smile. I’d been waiting for this, but it’s even more satisfying than I’d imagined, the thrill rushing through me similar to how I feel when I swipe a ring or put a watch in my pocket.

Actually, it might even be better.

“I know!” I hear Mrs. Reed exclaim from behind me. There’s a pause, and I wonder who’s on the other end of the phone. Emily, maybe? They go back and forth between friends and enemies, but this week, they’re on the friends’ side of things. All it will take is one snide comment about someone’s yoga pants being too tight, or a passive-aggressive dig at the lack of kids, and then they’ll be feuding again—but for now, they’re besties.

And talking about me.

Except they don’t know that it’s me, and that’s the fun part, the part I’ve been waiting weeks for now.

I smile as I turn back to Mrs. Reed, handing over Bear’s leash.

She takes it, then says, “Girl, let me call you back,” into the phone. Definitely Emily, then. They do that “girl” thing with each other constantly when they’re friends again.

Putting her phone back on the counter, she grins at me. “Jane,” she practically purrs, and I know what’s coming. She’s done this before about Tripp Ingraham, squeezing me for any stray info, anything I’ve picked up from being around him. It kills me that she thinks she’s subtle when she does it.

So when she asks, “Have you noticed anyone new around the Rochester house?” I give her the same bland smile as always and shrug.

“I don’t think so.”

It’s a stupid answer, and I take pleasure in the way Mrs. Reed blinks at me, unsure what to do with it, before moving past her with a wave of my fingers. “See you next week!” I call cheerfully.

There are Chanel sunglasses on a table by the door, plus a neatly folded stack of cash, but I don’t even look at them.

Instead, the second I’m on the sidewalk, I pull out my phone to text Eddie.