Page 79

When I get outof the shower, Patrick’s nowhere to be found. For a second, I think he left. Then I notice the front door to the apartment is wide open, the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs along with the sound of the jukebox cranked up—21 Pilots. My favorite. Beneath the thumping beat of the music, I can hear the rain.
In my room, I dry quickly and take my hair down from the sloppy bun I threw it up in to shower. Inspecting myself in the mirror, I notice a few flecks of paint that I missed and I rub at them, trying to scrub them off. Finally, I give up and get dressed, pulling on a pair of clean underwear, the skimpiest I can find, and a soft yellow T-shirt dress, worn thin from years of wear.
Plaiting my hair into a quick braid, I secure it with a hair tie before taking another cursory glance in the mirror. No make-up. My hair barely combed. Bare feet and a dress that I should’ve tossed out years ago. I grimace at my refection and consider changing. A nicer dress. Make-up. Maybe take a few minutes to do my hair. It’s what I’d do if I were going on a date with a guy like Trevor or James. I’d spend a solid hour powdering and perfuming myself to perfection.
I sigh, reaching down to catch the hem of my dress, intent on changing.
Just as I’ve got the dress halfway off, the music downstairs goes quiet. “You’re beautiful—now get your ass down here before your food gets cold,” Patrick yells up the stairs, his voice thick with laughter. He can’t even see me and he knows what I’m doing.
Embarrassed, I drop the hem of my dress.
When I walk into the bar, Patrick’s by the front door, wearing a pair of track pants and nothing else, hunched in front of a neat, double-stacked row of sandbags lined against its bottom. “Where did you get sandbags?” I ask, looking around for signs of water damage. Everything looks fine.
As soon as he hears my voice, Patrick stands and turns toward me. “My uncle learned his lesson with Hurricane Sandy,” he says. “He keeps them in the office.” His gaze, traveling the length of me, reminding me I didn’t put on a bra. “I put them down before I left on my run this morning. They’re holding up.” Inches from me, a slow smile spreads across his face. I think he’s going to kiss me but he doesn’t. True to form, Patrick keeps surprising me. “Told ya so,” he says softly, his hand reaching up to lift the loose braid of my hair off my shoulder.
“Told me what?” I say, swaying into him a little, trying to get him to kiss me. Touch me. Anything that will tell me that everything is still okay.
Rubbing his fingers along the length of my braid, he gives it a gentle tug, pulling my mouth to within a breath of his. “You’re beautiful.” He grins at me, his lips brushing against mine briefly, too brief to be called a kiss, before he takes a step back. “And your food is cold.”
He leaves me there, unkissed. Untouched. Completely off balance. I watch him walk away, skirting around the bar to disappear into the small kitchen behind it. “Sit down, Cari,” he calls from the kitchen, like he knows I’m still standing here. Like he knows I’m confused and likes it that way.
Because I feel like an idiot, just standing there, I take a seat at the bar. Looking around, I realize that while it looks and sounds like Armageddon outside, things in here look relatively normal. “How do we have power?”
“Paddy, again,” he says, the words squeezed around a laugh. “After Sandy he invested in a generator big enough to power the whole block.” Patrick appears behind the bar, a plate in his hand. “Lucky for us.” He sets the plate in front of me with a small flourish. On the plate is an omelet stuffed with veggies, a pile of perfectly crispy bacon and wedges of buttered toast. “All we have in the fridge upstairs is blueberry yogurt and bottled water. And ketchup.” He gives me a lopsided grin, the one that shows me his dimple and loosens the hinges in my knees, holding a fork out to me in his outstretched hand. “Neither one of us has been very focused on food lately.”
He isn’t wrong. Still, the observation makes me glad my chest is covered because it suddenly goes hot. I clear my throat and take the fork. “This looks really good,” I say, using the tine of my fork to lift the edge of the omelet. “Is there—”
“Mushrooms?” he says, leaning in close to swipe a piece of bacon from my plate. “No. You’re allergic.” He says it like he’s reminding me, chewing thoughtfully. “And the toast is sourdough. Extra butter.”
Veggie omelet with bacon and sourdough toast. Extra butter. It’s what I order when we go to Benny’s for breakfast—besides pancakes, of course.
“Are you sure Declan’s not back there?” I joke because he remembered that I’m allergic to mushrooms and that I like sourdough toast with extra butter and for a second, I can’t handle it.
I can’t handle him. How perfect he is. How beautiful. How this is all going to end as soon as he remembers he can do a hell of a lot better than someone like me.
He seems to know it too, because he backs off with a smile. “Declan’s not the only Gilroy who knows his way around a kitchen.” He shoves the rest of his bacon in his mouth and wipes his hands on the bar towel slung over his shoulder. “Finish your breakfast, I’ll be back.”
I dig in while he heads back upstairs, disappearing long enough to make me wonder—and a bit nervous—about what he’s doing. I’m halfway through my breakfast and about ready to go look for him when he comes back, hauling both of our laundry baskets down the stairs, mine balanced on top of his.
“What are you doing?” I ask, dropping my fork to slide out of my seat. “You don’t have to do my laundry.”
He drops the baskets and laughs. Really laughs. “Cari, I’ve been doing your laundry for the past six months—” he says it the same way he told me I’m allergic to mushrooms. Like he’s reminding me. “one thong at a time.”
Picking up the baskets again, he heads for the office where his uncle keeps a stackable washer and dryer. As he passes by me he pauses long enough to press a quick kiss to the corner of my mouth. “It’s still raining outside,” he says softly, reminding me again, looking straight into my eyes for a moment before he continues on his way. “Finish your breakfast,” he calls over his shoulder before he disappears into the office. I boost myself into my stool and pick up my fork.
Doing what Patrick says seems to be habit-forming.
Forty-nine
Cari
After the load oflaundry is started and I’m finished with my breakfast I help Patrick clean the kitchen. Standing next to each other at the sink, he washes while I dry. It’s nice, the two of us like
this.
It won’t last. It can’t.
The thought has me bobbling the plate in my hand and he reaches out to take it from me before I drop it. Break it.