Page 27 of Silver Linings
I’m nodding my head, even though I want to run out the door and jump into the Hudson River. “I just think this,” I point between him and me, “could get too complicated very quickly.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” The look on his face is impossible to decipher.
No. “Yes.”
“Sure thing, Sunshine.” He holds his hand out to me to shake, and when my skin touches his, he tugs me forward and leans down towards my ear, warm breath ghosting across my skin, making me suppress a shiver. “I’ll be the best damn friend you ever had.”
Every inch of my body coils tight in anticipation .
“Great. So, uh,” I step out of his hold, “now that the shelves are empty, where should we start?” I ask, desperate to erase the previous topic from the forefront of my mind.
“Let’s remove the broken planks, and then we’ll each grab a sander and start stripping off the old wood stain.”
He motions for me to follow him to grab the tools we left by the door.
There’s a lingering awkwardness in the air, but I must be the only one who feels it, because Hendrix carries on, unperturbed.
I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed, but if he can carry on as if nothing happened, then so can I.
We make our way back to the shelves, equipment in tow, and I’m about to start sanding when he stops me with a hand on my wrist.
Slowly, he pulls the device out of my hand and sets it on the ground. When I give him a questioning stare, he responds by pulling something out of his back pocket.
When I look down, I see he’s holding a protection mask and glasses. He hands me the mask to put on, and before I can grab the glasses from him, he leans forward and slips them over my ears to rest on my face, unintentionally tucking my hair.
“Safety first.” His eyes glitter with amusement. What is this, psychological warfare?
He hands me back the electric sander after he removes the broken pieces from the two built-ins we’re focusing on today.
Grabbing his own, he looks at me. “If you could go to any place, real or fictional, where would it be?”
And just like that, the tension I was feeling is broken, and he puts me completely at ease, yet again.
The two weeks leading up to book club passes in a blur of eighty grit sandpaper, paint rollers, and a never-ending round of twenty questions.
Hendrix has shown up every day, ten minutes early, coffee and tools in hand.
I don’t know what I thought would happen. Maybe for him to decide this project wasn’t worth it? That I wasn’t worth it if he wasn’t getting something more out of it? Isn’t that what I’ve come to expect after twenty years of lived experience?
There were a few years after Dad died and Mom left that I was still too young to fully grasp the magnitude of what I had endured.
I just knew the world was duller and my parents were gone.
Then, I met Kena, and he never backed down from my quiet demeanor.
He was larger than life to me, even then.
Every time I saw him, he chipped away at my grief until he could finally see me underneath the wreckage, and he pulled me out.
For a long time after that, I didn’t care to give anyone else the time of day. It was better to keep my circle small. But along with growing up comes hormones and recklessness, and I found myself letting down my guard again when I was in high school with a boy.
Jeremy Rollins was perfect—at least I thought so at the time.
He was attractive, cocky, and he could play guitar.
Basically, an early 00s wet dream. Everyone wanted him, but he wanted me .
It made me feel special for the first time in a long time, and I got swept up in that rush.
Being wanted when you spent the most formative years of your life feeling the opposite, felt akin to winning the lottery.
I couldn’t believe it was happening to me—that this person was choosing me .
Every word out of his mouth was honey, and I found myself opening up to him.
He repaid me a few weeks later by sticking his tongue down Melanie Virochec’s throat at a party.
When I asked him why, he said, “You were fun for a minute but I need someone less complicated, less damaged.”
It just served to confirm what I already knew—it’s easier to keep things casual. No one wants the messy bits, keep it fun. That fail-safe has worked for me my whole life since.
Until now.
“What’s your death row meal?”
I smile. Hendrix took the twenty questions game I started on our first night and turned it into two hundred. The queries vary from completely ridiculous to borderline philosophical.
Yesterday, he asked me what my favorite midnight snack was (pizza rolls), and immediately after, he asked me what song I thought best described me (‘The Bolter’ by Taylor Swift).
Then, to my mortification, he played the song, out loud , with me right next to him.
When it finished, he put his phone back in his pocket, said “I like it”, and then resumed his project like nothing was out of the ordinary.
I like it. What does that even mean? Does he like the song or me?
“ You’re going to laugh.”
“That seems likely, knowing you.”
I smack him with the towel I carry around to wipe up stray paint drops, but he ducks away, chuckling.
“I’d start with a fat stack of pancakes that have been waterlogged with syrup.
” He grimaces at my lack of restraint when it comes to sugar.
“Don’t judge! Then, I’d get a pizza from this place on Bleeker.
It has pancetta, three different cheeses, and a spicy peach jam on it.
” I pause to look at him, but he just urges me to continue, knowing I’m not finished yet.
“For dessert, I’d have a funnel cake and wash it all down with a cold brew. ”
“I’m concerned for your arteries.” He runs his hands down his face in exasperation.
“What’s yours then?”
He thinks on it for a while. “Steak and fries.”
“God, that’s—I need to corrupt you asap if you’re to survive the mean streets of New York.”
I look over at him, and he’s already looking at me with a glazed look lining his stunning eyes. The sun’s just setting, and the light is streaming in through the front bay windows, gilding his features in a halo of golden light.
“Corrupt me then.” His voice sounds husky, and my body flushes, suddenly remembering the feel of his stubble-lined mouth grazing my neck, scratching and creating the most delicious friction while he worked me into a frenzy.
I cough and resume painting the shelf in front of me. “What’s Seattle like?”
There’s a long, pregnant pause before he answers.
“Beautiful. The city is nestled between Lake Washington and Elliot Bay, so it’s three-sixty views everywhere.
And you’re near some of the best trails for hiking, with the most stunning mountains you’ll ever see.
It’s pretty incredible.” Admiration and sorrow war for dominance in his tone.
“Why’d you leave?” I hesitate to ask, sensing there’s a story here he might not want to tell.
“Needed some fresh air.” He paints his shelf in vertical strokes, the ink on his tattooed forearms coming alive with each movement.
“And you came to New York for that? We basically ingest a cocktail of carbon monoxide and oxygen on a daily basis.”
He shoots me a grin, but his tone feels loaded. “And yet my head has never felt clearer.”
There’s obviously something he’s not saying, a story he isn’t ready to divulge to me—maybe to himself.
If he wants to keep something to himself, I respect that, even if I want to crack him open like a pinata, and watch all his thoughts spill out before me.
But something tells me from the tense look on his face, even this small admission was a lot for him.
I have the urge to reach out and rub my thumb against his furrowed brow, make it disappear and soften the frown settled on his flawless mouth, eradicating the sadness shading his gold flecked eyes.
But I keep my hand clutching my paint roller.
“Favorite animal?” I ask with a nonchalance that deserves an Oscar.
Hendrix huffs out a breath. “Not a fucking koala, that’s for sure.”
I tilt my head at him in complete bafflement. “I don’t blame you. They’re ripe with chlamydia.”
He looks at me with a bewildered expression before he lets out a hearty laugh, a real laugh with eyes alight and shoulders shaking. Gone is the heaviness hanging over his head like a cloud.
And dammit, if it doesn’t set me beaming.