Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
We broke apart before the elevator doors slid open, but our hands were still loosely clasped, still standing so closely together that our arms brushed. Hazy with wine and lust, we stepped out into his private lobby.
And froze.
There was a pair of shoes kicked off in the corner. Low white tennis shoes with double-knotted laces, frayed and graying from chronic use. The kind Halley always wore around campus.
I froze, sobriety slamming into me like a Mack truck. Halley. The long weekend. What day was it? She wasn’t supposed to be here until–
It was Thursday. She’d flown out after her afternoon class because she didn’t have any on Friday. She’d landed at LAX at six–right when I was walking into Giardo’s.
I hadn’t looked at my phone all night. I probably had a dozen missed calls and messages, wondering where I was.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Con had gone white as a sheet. Whiter than those shoes had ever been. He dropped my hand like it had caught fire. A chasm opened between us instantly.
“Dad, is that you?” Halley’s voice called from the kitchen. We had only moments before she came around the corner and saw us.
Instinctively, I stumbled back into the elevator. I caught a glimpse of Con’s eyes, wild and dark, before the doors slid closed. I jabbed the Lobby button desperately, terrified that the doors would slide back open for some reason and Halley would see me. There would be no covering this up if she did. My hair was disheveled from the ride up and I was wearing fuck me heels the likes of which she’d never seen on me.
If the ride up had been heaven, the ride back down was hell. As soon as the relief of escaping faded, a wretched shame took its place.
What was I doing, running away from the man I loved and hiding from my best friend? I’d only done the requisite Psych 101 course my freshman year, but even I knew those two things meant there was something fundamentally wrong. There was no exception to the rule.
I walked down the block to the safety and loneliness of my building. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent a night here alone. Even in my wretched state, I felt lucky that Con and I spent most of his time at his place. If Halley had walked in on us in her condo…
Chills raced through me. I let myself into the condo and leaned back against the closed door. Down the hallway, I could see the back of the pink couch. The edge of the island in the kitchen. Places Con and I had made love. We’d gotten very lucky that we’d happened to go out tonight.
How long would our luck hold?
How long could we keep hiding?
How long would I still want to?
23
CON
Halley’s visit was excruciating for a number of reasons.
One, I’d never needed to lie to my daughter before. Now it was all I was doing. Answers to simple questions had to be lies.
Where were you out so late, dressed so nice?
Work shit.
What actress is trying to become my stepmother this week?
No one special.
Don’t you love Lily?
She’s fine.
Her visit also made it so I couldn’t see Lily for three days. Not really see her, anyway. I had to settle for staring at the back of her head on Friday instead of focusing on the contract I was negotiating. Friday night and all of Saturday were shitty, empty hours because I was used to filling them with Lily. Then there was the truly brutal Sunday night when all three of us went out to dinner. I hadn’t seen her since she left work on Friday, but I couldn’t really look at her now. Not the way I wanted to. It was like laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet in front of a starving man and telling him not yet.
We went to Halley’s favorite steak house, the one I’d taken Lily to the first time for lunch. Our gazes crossed briefly, both of us silently acknowledging the connection. A soft smile tugged at her lips. It went downhill from there. Halley and Lily sat on the same side of the table while I sat across from them. I heard myself saying banal shit like, Order whatever you want. It’s on me.
Halley gave me a funny look because of course it was on me. I was the dad, after all.
Lily looked miserably uncomfortable, but she tried to cover it up for Halley’s sake. The two of them fell back on conversations about people they knew from college that I had zero interest in. I ordered a second beer and tried not to let my gaze linger on Lily too long. I missed her. I missed the physicality of her in my space, in my bed. The halo of sunshine her hair created in my peripheral vision. The warmth of her legs tangled in mine. It wasn’t just about sex though. I could have gotten that somewhere else. It was galling to realize, but I was fucking lonely without her. Not once in the last three years since Halley left college had I missed having someone in the house. I’d always been a loner who never got a chance to be alone. Now the emptiness of the penthouse mocked me. I wanted to order food with her, bitch about my latest negotiation to her. I wanted to celebrate how I’d finally gotten Sienna Birch signed onto a career making movie. I even wanted to listen to her talk about her day, and that was a new feeling.