Seven Days in June(42)

He half grinned. “You want me to humiliate myself for you?”

“No, I want you to want to humiliate yourself for me.”

They laughed, and soon they were quiet. Shane taking measured sips and Genevieve silent.

Shane was seeing double. He closed one eye, and his vision rebalanced.

“Hey,” he started. “Why do you do it?”

“Don’t know. I go into a daze.” She sounded far away again. “There’s a relief after.”

“Does it hurt?”

“That’s the point.”

“Same with my arm,” he admitted. “Hurts, but I need it. Like it’s the glue holding me together.”

She said something inaudible. And then “Gonna sit now.”

Shane felt her weight slide down the door. He sat down, too. He didn’t know how long they were like that. Time was elastic. After a while, Shane passed out. He must’ve slept hard, because when Genevieve finally opened the door, he fell flat on his back with a dull thunk.

“Let’s go to the pool!” She sounded strong, cheerful.

Shane peered up at her from the floor. Genevieve was wearing a brilliant smile, like the pills had kicked in and what had been hurting her no longer did. She was soaking wet, hair dripping. Had she taken a shower with her clothes on?

The only sign that she’d cut herself was the discreet Band-Aid on her inner forearm.

Stupefied, Shane stared at his drenched T-shirt gripping her skin, her bra, her panties—and he was caught between a helpless surge of arousal and uneasy fascination. It’s like nothing’s happened. She didn’t seem hurt. She seemed triumphant. A force of nature.

For a heated, drunken moment, Shane thought he’d hallucinated the whole thing.

But then, confidently, she stepped over him, dripping everywhere and striding out of the room. “Get up!” she called out over her shoulder.

Without thought, he did.





WEDNESDAY





Chapter 13





Pretty Sentimental




THE NEXT MORNING, THINGS WERE STILL UNBEARABLY AWKWARD BETWEEN EVA and Audre. Eva’s stomach was twisted in knots. It was less about the fight, really, and more about the way they’d spoken to each other. They never said purposefully hurtful things to each other. Other moms and daughters did. But not them.

In silence, Audre slipped out of the house with no breakfast.

Eva was destroyed—she really was. But she knew she had to get this done. The second Audre left, she threw on a short but casual tank dress, tousled her curls to hair-vlogger lusciousness, and speed-walked to the F train. In the three blocks to the subway, her tiny migraine escalated from dull to abusive (June humidity!) and threatened to puncture her fearlessness. She ducked into a bodega bathroom and shot herself in the thigh with her injectable painkiller. By the time she showed up in the West Village, she had a numb thigh, a woozy brain, and limp hair—but she remained focused. After grabbing two iced coffees at a beat-up Eighth Avenue café, she rushed through the labyrinthine cobblestone streets till she found the address.

Horatio Street oozed with designer charm and old New York splendor. Shaded by lush, overgrown trees, No. 81 was the second to last on the block, a nineteenth-century redbrick town house. It loomed one story taller than the rest, with a majestic stoop leading up to a dramatic cerulean-blue front door.

Eva climbed the majestic stoop of the town house, pausing at the top stair—breathing hard, her hands frozen, the iced coffees dripping onto her Adidas.

With no free hand to knock on the door, she gently kicked it with her foot. Nothing happened. She kicked it again. Still nothing. And then it opened.

Shane stood in the doorway, frustratingly broad-shouldered, bright-eyed, and exquisite—all rumpled white tee and gray joggers (pornographic)—his expression reading pure, unabashed shock.

“You’re here,” breathed Eva.

“You’re here,” he said on an exhale. “You came.”

Eva nodded. “I did.”

He thumbed his bottom lip, trying not to smile. “Why?”

“To bring you coffee,” she said, because she didn’t know how to tell him the truth. She thrust the cup into his hand.

“Thanks?” he said, confused. “Um. So. I went too hard with the texting. I’m sorry. It was the way you left. I was worried.”

“No need. I’m fine.” She caught her exceedingly nervous, fidgety reflection in the window. She didn’t look fine. She looked like she was on her fifth grande latte.

“Wanna come in?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Oh.” Shane hesitated a beat before adding, “Want me to come out?”

Eva swayed a little, suddenly knocked off-kilter. Here she was, standing before him, in front of this big, beautiful old house, and she hadn’t fully worked out her opener.

“You owe me,” she blurted out.

“I owe you,” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

Shifting a tad, he thrust a hand in his pocket. “For the coffee?”

This was so hard. “No, I mean…look, I’m not here to talk about the past. But after the way we ended? Back then? You know you owe me.”

“Oh,” he exhaled, getting it. “Hell yes, I owe you.”