Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(16)

He finds me here, his hair ruffled, his face scratchy when he kisses me on the cheek. He says nothing, goes into the kitchen. I hear him putting water on to boil, pulling dishes out of the cupboards. I smell coffee, hear the sounds of eggs being turned, butter scraped on toast.

He puts the plate and mug down next to me, goes back in the kitchen and fetches his own. We eat, the only sound our chewing and sipping. When we are done, he nods at me.

‘I take it this is a yes.’





NINE


It’s simple, he tells me. Even though I don’t have an Internet connection, he tells me the library has wireless twenty-four hours a day.

‘No password needed,’ he explains.

‘Why don’t you just use your laptop, then?’ I ask.

He gives me a long, lazy grin. ‘You should have your own.’

‘But it’s a one-time thing.’ I have no idea whether it is or not.

‘Don’t worry. You’re worrying too much. It’ll be a piece of cake.’

I chew the inside of my cheek, dubious. ‘It’s not going to work.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he says again, but he misunderstands.

‘We can’t use the library. It’s Sunday.’

‘OK, then we wait till tomorrow.’ He gives me a leer. ‘We can find something else to do today.’ He reaches for me, but I push him away.

‘It’s closed Mondays, too.’

He sighs and rolls his eyes. ‘So then we find a coffee shop or something. There’s got to be a place with free wireless, right?’

‘I don’t trust the VPN. How do I know it’ll do what it’s supposed to?’

He shakes his head slowly. ‘Trust me.’

I’m stalling, although as I speak my fingers are caressing the pad, moving the cursor around the screen, getting used to it again. It’s like the sex: Even though it had been a long time, there was no awkwardness; I knew what to do. As natural as breathing. Or riding a bike.

The idea of going to a coffee shop with him – or anywhere else – makes me uncomfortable. There will be witnesses. And I want to be alone this first time. But I don’t tell him that.

‘Loosen up, why don’t you?’ he teases. ‘Your friends want you to have a boyfriend. Why not me?’

‘I’ve already rejected you. I’ve talked about how obnoxious you are.’

He laughs, a great, big sound that echoes through my living room and bounces off the walls. ‘Women like obnoxious men.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You didn’t seem to mind me last night.’

‘We’re complicated. Our relationship. But no one knows.’

He stops smiling and stares at me for a few seconds, his eyes dark, his jaw set. ‘You really did disappear, didn’t you?’

I know what he’s saying. I didn’t just leave, move somewhere, change my name. It wasn’t just superficial. I left it all behind, my whole identity.

He waves his hand around, indicating my house. ‘All this, the house, the island, that bike gig, the way you dress, the glasses, the whole package. If I didn’t know it was you, I wouldn’t know it was you.’

‘I didn’t want to be her anymore,’ I say softly.

He leans toward me, touches my face, runs his finger from my cheekbone down across my jaw and traces my lips. ‘But you’re the same in one way,’ he says hoarsely, and he reaches further and kisses me. I do not push him away this time. It is a deep kiss, as if he is searching my soul, and with one movement his hands wrap themselves around my waist and pull me onto his lap.

My robe is around my waist when I hear the knock, the ‘Hello, hello!’ and the door being opened. Quickly I jump up, tying the sash, making wild hand gestures to indicate he should go in the bedroom, out of sight. But it is too late. Steve is in the doorway, his eyes taking in our disheveled appearance. It is obvious we are not just having a cup of coffee.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Steve stammers. ‘I thought, well, the door was unlocked, and I thought—’ He is visibly uncomfortable, embarrassed.

I take a step toward him. ‘That’s OK, don’t worry about it.’

His eyes then land on the table behind me. He frowns. ‘Did you buy a laptop?’

I think fast. ‘Yeah, I did. It just arrived.’ I twitter, a sound I haven’t heard come from my throat before. ‘Veronica was on my case about a website for my paintings. I figure I might as well get with the program. Twenty-first century and all that.’ I am babbling.

I can’t tell whether Steve is more surprised to see him or the computer.

‘Do you want some coffee?’ I ask, slipping past him to put on a fresh pot, leaving them in a standoff.

‘So where are you from?’ Steve asks politely.

‘New York,’ he says. Interesting. He’d said he was living where he’d been before, which was not New York but Miami.

‘What sort of work you in?’ Steve is digging for more information.

‘I dabble in a little of this, a little of that.’

I cringe as I spoon out the coffee into the French press. He could come up with something more original than that. I guess I wish Steve would think I had better taste, pick a man who was more solid professionally. I remind myself that Steve is not my father.