Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City) (21 page)

“No
, not really. Not yet. Maybe. I don’t know.” I didn’t want to think about Dr. Ken Miles at that moment. I was semi-enjoying the after effects of Nico’s shameless stare.

Janie was
silent for a moment then said, “Nico seems like a really nice person.”

I stared at Janie, cleared my throat. “You already said that.”

“Yes. I just wanted to reiterate the fact that he is a really nice person.”

“And why do
you want to reiterate that fact?”

Janie turned, still holding my phone, and met my gaze directly. “Because I’m
ninety-seven percent certain he is in love with you.”

I considered her for a moment, studied the almost disapproving coolness in her gaze.
“Why ninety-seven percent?”

“A three percent confidence interval is standard.”

“Why would you think he’s in love with me?” I tried to sound confused, but failed. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I sounded defensive.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.
He’s
the
guy. He’s the guy from Iowa, Garrett’s best friend. He’s the one that you were friends with as kids, then hated, then didn’t hate, then lost your virginity to. I just met him this afternoon and I, the queen of missing the obvious, couldn’t help but notice. He talked about you basically nonstop, Quinn found it irritating, but I thought it was charming. Also, he looks at you like he wants . . . well, like he
wants
.”

My heart rate increased
, and I couldn’t help the breathless question, “What did he say?”

“He talks about you like you invented penicillin. Like you
—like you’re an angel. It’s rather disconcerting, to be honest.”

I frowned. “Because I’m so awful?”

“No. You’re not awful, what a ridiculous thing to say.” She gave me a severe, annoyed scowl before she continued. “It’s disconcerting because he’s so smitten and you don’t—well, you know. You don’t have relationships, after what happened with Garrett.”

I covered my face with my hands and sighed deeply. “Oh, Janie. I don’t know what to do.”

Janie crossed soundlessly to where I sat and claimed the spot next to me. She placed her hand on my back. “What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, but
I’ve really missed you.” I sniffled and suddenly felt like crying again.

I was officially ridiculous
.

“I’m here now. Do you want to talk about it?”
Her voice was soft, concerned, supportive.

So I cried.

“What happened?” Janie pulled me to her shoulder and held me as I leaked all over her. We sat on our couch in our shared apartment, in our fancy bras and lace panties, and I quietly cried on her shoulder. I’m sure weird didn’t even begin to describe what we looked like.

I didn’t cry for long.
The tears were actually more of a quiet sob than a cry, and I reigned in my wobbly chin admirably. Janie left briefly to fetch tissues and tequila. When she returned I unloaded the entire story and left absolutely nothing out.

Janie listened thoughtfully
. When I told her about his confession then kiss she took a shot of tequila and offered me a shot. I refused it since I would need to be back at the hospital at 10:00 p.m. to administer an infusion for Angelica.

When I finished
my tale of both woe and
whoa
, we sat together in silence. She appeared to be deep in thought, and I was completely spent. After rehashing the entire story I thought I might feel better about things or at least less muddled. If possible the opposite was true.

Finally she spoke, “You know
I’m bad at this.”

“At what?”

“I’m not good with relationship advice.”

“I’m not in a relationship.”

“Right. I should have been more precise. I’m not good with giving advice about men.”

“I don’t need any advice.
I don’t—I can’t lead him on. I can’t get involved with him.”

I felt her curious and concerned gaze
before she spoke, “Before you make up your mind, I will ask you a question. You don’t have to answer out loud, but you should answer honestly, to yourself.”

I drew a steadying breath and closed my eyes. They were scratchy. I rubbed them
with my fists. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“When was the last time you were happy?”

My chin wobbled, and my nose stung again. I swallowed and bit my tongue to stem new tears.

She added
, “I’ve known you for over ten years.”

“Are you saying people need to be in a relationship to be happy?”

“I think relationships, whether they be friendship or something else, are a contributing factor to happiness.” Janie placed her hand on mine and pulled my fist from my eye. “You and I have been happy together, our relationship has helped both of us. I hypothesize that love plays a key role in happiness.”

I scoffed at this notion. “I don’t need someone to love me in order to be happy.”

“I agree. I don’t think you need someone to love you. But I do think maybe you need someone to love.”

I blinked, opened
my eyes, brought her kind face into focus. My eyes blurred with tears. “I love
you
, Janie.”

She nodded. Her
smile was watery. “I love you too, Elizabeth. But I’ve learned something this past year.”

I sighed, sniffled, tried to lighten the mood by sounding weary. “You’re going to tell me what it is, aren’t you?”

She nodded again, gave a tearful laugh, then squeezed my hand. “I’ve learned that the more people I love—and I mean really, really, completely, unconditionally love—the happier I am.”

~*~

Quinn Sullivan, Janie’s fiancé, was the most efficient man in the universe. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was a wizard; an irritable, stubborn, taciturn wizard. In the span of a few hours—after learning from Nico that I’d been harassed by paparazzi, that my phone was basically not useable, and that my email was clogged, and after learning from me about the weirdo lady—Quinn waved his magic wand and solved the majority of my problems.

Quinn arranged for a car to take me to the hospital ever
y day along with a very discreet, effective guard to assist with untoward photographers and keep an eye out for the crazy fancy stalker.

Quinn
had his people clear out my email and apply a new spam filter that miraculously caught the bad, but released the good.

Quinn
provided me with a new unlisted number and a new cell phone, with all my old contacts already programmed in—including a few new ones, like Nico.

Not that I called him.

Janie’s non-advice advice increased my decisional paralysis. She made sense. But I remembered what it was to love someone—really, really, completely, unconditionally love—and how it felt to lose that person, watch that person turn to dust then disappear.

I
’d also watched my father struggle with my mother’s death for years.

For some people the cut is too deep
, and the broken bones never heal. They don’t get stronger; they remain in an immunocompromised limbo of being too vulnerable for and, therefore, incapable of real love.

For others,
they are immunoresistent; unable to sustain a new (love) infection because their body, heart, and mind are vaccinated against it.

I believed
my father and I fell into the second category. We’d been vaccinated.

After my mother’s death, my father told me as I grew up—over and over—that she was it for him. That he loved her and could never love another. I didn’t appreciate his perspective until Garrett died
, and I knew, I knew to my bones, that my father and I were just alike. We were built the same way.

Regardless,
I’d actually hoped to see Nico, but he was not at the 10:00 p.m. infusion with Rose and Angelica Thursday night. His mother explained that he’d flown back to New York earlier in the evening. She didn’t know when he would return.

Feeling
bereft from this news, I ended up giving Rose the list of equipment needed in order to complete the study visits at the new penthouse—where Rose, Angelica, and Nico would be staying for the rest of the month. I also spoke to Dr. Botstein about the study drug; he, in turn, promised to solicit approval from the study sponsor to allow us to take the drug out of the investigational pharmacy and store it at my apartment.

Friday and Saturday
passed in this way: double shifts in the ER; polite, but awkward interactions with the Dr. Ken Miles; not-so-polite interactions with Meg; study visits with Angelica and Rose three times a day; carted back and forth to the hospital by Quinn’s guards. I saw Janie in passing a few times, as I was coming or she was going. When I wasn’t at work, I was knitting, or reading the latest medical journals, or listening to music loudly, and/or—more often than not—fantasizing about Nico Manganiello.

I looked
forward to the study visits with Angelica and Rose, seeing them, visiting with them. I enjoyed taking care of Angelica and easing Rose’s fears, providing them support. On Friday we met for lunch before the infusion and then decided, when my schedule allowed, we should continue doing so for the rest of the month.

Rose informed me during the
6:00 a.m. infusion visit on Saturday morning that all the equipment from my list would be at the penthouse by that afternoon. With approval from the study sponsor in hand to take the drug offsite, I made a plan to stop by their apartment once my shift was over.

Much to everyone’s excitement and relief, I was
able to complete Angelica’s Saturday evening study visit in the comfort of their apartment rather than everyone having to migrate back to the clinical research unit at the hospital. I was doubly relieved because it meant I wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, which was my day off.

The alarm woke me up at 5:15 a
.m. Sunday morning. It pulled me out of a really nice dream; Nico and I were on a private beach someplace. All my dreams recently, good and bad, seemed to involve him. It wasn’t something I struggled against. I accepted it, even looked forward to sleep partially because of it and partially because sleep is awesome.

My plan was simple: I would take a shower, pull on some scrubs
and slippers, administer the infusion, come back home, go back to bed and hopefully reenter the dream exactly where I’d left off: Nico shirtless and walking toward me. Yum.

I used the key Rose had given me on S
aturday to enter the penthouse around 5:45 a.m., still yawning and feet trundling as I closed the door behind me. It smelled like coffee and baked goods. My stomach rumbled.

I walked past and took note of two suitcases by the entranceway
, but thought nothing of them; then moved into the living room, where we’d placed the infusion chair and other needed supplies. Rose was there and Angelica was curled on her lap, still asleep. A
My Little Pony
cartoon was on the TV.

Rose
met my gaze and gave me a hazy, sleepy smile. “I’m going to let her sleep for a few more minutes. There is coffee in the kitchen if you’d like some, also apple fritters.”

I scrunched my face at her. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long.” Rose pressed a kiss on Angelica’s forehead. “Go get something to eat. I’m hungry just looking at you. You’re like skin and bones, working all the time.”

I lifted an eyebrow
, but did as I was told and turned toward the kitchen in search of apple fritters. Rose liked to tell me I was skin and bones, but I was not. I was a size eight and healthy with a pleasant tummy pooch in the middle. I liked to think it made me cuddly.  

I slipped my hand
under the shirt of my scrubs and was scratching aforementioned pooch when I walked into the kitchen, to the coffee machine, and stopped, immobilized.

Before me was the
sight of Nico, shirtless and in black boxer briefs, making apple fritters. He was standing at the kitchen table spooning apple goo into a waiting dough shell. Flour speckled his chest and stomach. I noted his stomach was pooch free.

Watching
a shirtless Nico Manganiello bake was something that belonged in Playgirl magazine.

He was obscene
, and the scene was pornographic. Between the smell of coffee and apple fritters, the still-lingering arousal from my Nico-beach dream, and finding him in the kitchen all hot and domesticated, I thought I might orgasm on the spot.

I certainly would if he touched me.

Don’t let him touch you!

I stared at him and his
 . . . everything. Just. Freaking. Everything. And I might have drooled a little bit. In fact, I know I did because I felt drooly water fall to my arm. It was enough to wake me from the Nico-domestic-porn trance. I wiped my arm and hand on the pants of my scrubs and—with every ounce of self-control I had within me—tore my gaze from him and his . . . fritters.

As luck would have it, Nico
appeared to notice me at the exact same moment. “Hey, Elizabeth. Want a fritter?”

“Uh, nope.” I not
ed that the color of the kitchen walls were pale gray.

He crossed to me, holding a golden pastry. “Sure you do.”
I lifted my eyes at his approach, was slapped in the face with the unrealness and unfairness of his perfect physique.

“No. I’m good. Really.”
I turned slightly and backed up, unthinkingly trapping myself between the island counter and the sink.

He lifted the pastry to my mouth and said, “Open up.”

I leaned backward over the sink, my arms flailing, and forced him to stop his advance. “Hey buddy—you want to put that junk away?”

Nico glanced down at his black boxer briefs
. “What are you talking about?”

“The torso of magnificence and thighs of splendor. You want to cover up?”

Nico placed the fritter on the counter to his side; his other hand rested on his chest, and he issued me a soporific smile. “Torso of magnificence?” His hand moved down the front of his chest, over the ridged plane of his abdomen then slowed just above the elastic of his briefs, hovered there. I watched the movement of his hand as though it were a snake ready to strike.

Bad, bad, bad analogy!

“Am I distracting you, Elizabeth?”

“No, no you’re not. You’re just—you just shouldn’t walk around half
- or mostly naked when people are out and about. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Do you have a problem with male nudity?”

“I don’t have a problem with male nudity.” I shook my head. “I have a problem with your male nudity—in this apartment.”

“This is my apartment.”

“Yes, I know. But there are women and children in this apartment, in the other room watching cartoons.”

“She’s my niece.”

“I know that.”

“And my mother.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that fact as well, but I’m not related to you.”

“No
 . . .” His grin was less lazy, more focused. “No, you’re not related to me.”

“No
 . . . I’m not . . .” I was trapped in his gaze for a moment and may have swayed forward a few inches before catching myself and averting my eyes. “I’m not and we’ve already established that fact and I’m going to leave the kitchen now.” I tried to move past him, but he shifted to the side; my arm made contact with his bare chest, and I recoiled as though burned.

“Well, let me just ge
t out of your way.” He said though he purposefully filled the entire space between the two counters, ensuring that I would have to touch him and his torso of magnificence—if not his thighs of splendor— in order to pass.

“Very nice, very nice—” I rolled my eyes at his antics and attempted to navigate a path through the small space without rubbing against his
impressively proportioned and well-chiseled body.

“You know, maybe you would be mor
e comfortable if you took your clothes off.” Nico shifted and caught me against the counter between his arms; his hands rested on either side of my hips. “I think if you took your shirt off then you wouldn’t feel like things are so uneven.” He was the only person I’d ever met who could swagger while standing still.

“Would you please just—please just move out of my way
?”

“I mean, you don’t have to take your bra off, you could just take your shirt off.”

“Oh, really? Did you want me to administer the infusion to Angelica with no clothes on? Would that be appropriate behavior?”

His grin intensified.
“Elizabeth, I can think of many things I want you to do without your clothes on, but administering an infusion to my niece is near the bottom of the list.”

“Oh? Ok
ay, what other things can you think of that would be near the bottom of the list?”

“Let’s talk about the top of the list.”

“No.” I forgot for a moment that I was trapped and found myself thoroughly enjoying the unexpected turn of our conversation. “I want to talk about the bottom of the list first.”

“
Okay, at the bottom of the list of things I want Elizabeth Finney to do with no clothes on is,” Nico glanced at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused as though deep in thought, then he abruptly returned them to me. “Hug another guy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s near the bottom of the list.”

I placed my index finger on my chin.
“Well, what about washing a car?”

“No, no—that’s high on the list. Very, very high.”

“Oh, it is?”

“Lower on the list would be something like cleaning up poop.”

An involuntary laugh burst forth. “Okay. I can see that. I can see why that wouldn’t be so great.”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“What would
you like me to do with no clothes on?” His eyes searched mine, intense and intent.

Heat swelled within me
, and I knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that he wasn’t asking, he was offering. I held my breath, knew that any response would likely result in us getting naked on the counter.

Teetering on the precipice of ruin, I was sure he saw the silent answer to his
offer. I was sure because it was plainly observable in my eyes, shallow breathing, parted lips, and the thundering of my heart. However, just as his fingers slipped under my shirt, brushed against my stomach, Rose’s voice sounded from just beyond the kitchen.

“Elizabeth it’s almost six and I thin
k Angelica is awake enough for you to start.”

We quite literally jumped apart. I jumped up on the counter, sitting very awkwardly on the edge of the sink, and Nico jumped to the far side of the kitchen, back to his station by the apple fritter assembly line.
I can’t say with certainty whether he managed to accomplish the task with one giant leap, but I do know one minute his knuckles were searing my skin and the next minute he was across the room, spooning apple goo into dough.

Rose
shuffled in, still in her bathrobe, and meandered to the coffee pot. “I turned on another cartoon, just until the procedure is over. I think I’ll send her back to bed after.” Rose, either purposely ignoring the tension in the room with an impressive display of acting ability or completely blind to it, sleepily moved to the refrigerator and pulled out some cream.

Meanwhile, I endeavored to s
urreptitiously rein my rapid heart and raging hormones, pointedly stared at the counter across from me and count the number of spatulas in the utensil container. There were eight. Who would ever need eight spatulas?

I was not l
ooking at Nico and his flawless olive skin. I wasn’t looking at the gracefulness of his movements, the way his back muscles bunched and flowed or the fact that he had the most perfect man-butt in the history of all time.

Period. End of story.
Goodnight.

“Lizzybell
a, where is your coffee? Do you want cream?” Rose was suddenly standing in front of me, eyeing me with open concern.

I blinked at her
dumbly then released the breath I’d been holding for maybe over a minute. Gingerly, my feet touched the ground as I slipped off the edge of the sink.

“I
 . . .” I released another breath; it was audibly shaky.

She glanced between Nico and me and muttered in Italian,
“Chi ha l'amore nel petto, ha lo sprone nei fianchi
[4]
.”

Nico’s shoulders tensed.

I frowned. “Pardon me?”

“Are you
feeling well?” Rose pressed her hand to my forehead.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

Without turning around, Nico joined the conversation. “I was just asking her the same thing. She looks hot.” He stressed the T, and I was immediately frustrated by the calm in his voice and the double meaning of his words.

F
reaking Nico!

“I’m fine
,” I said and politely refused Rose’s offer of creamer. “I don’t take anything in my coffee.”

“Hmm. Nico takes his black too. I can’t drink it like that, I need it a little sweet.”

“Elizabeth is already sweet.” Nico mumbled, just loud enough for us to hear, and my chest constricted at his sweet sincerity. I wanted to evaporate and disappear. I hated that he did this to me.

“Yes she is. She is an angel.”

Rose’s agreement caused me to groan inwardly. The blood pumping in my veins felt anything but angelic. It felt downright sinful.

Anxious to leave my fan club, I ducked my head, darted around Rose, and
said over my shoulder, “I better go get started.”

“What about your coffee?” Rose called after me.

“I’m perfectly awake!”

Nico caught my eye as I passed. Instead of a smug smile, his features were solemn, sober, and his eyes hot with intent and promise.

It stung me with an awareness that lingered, made me cognizant of where the worn cotton touched my skin, and was the reason I took a cold shower as soon as I returned to my apartment.

~*~

My palms were actually sweaty as I approached the penthouse for the 2:00 p.m. infusion. I needed to never be alone in the same room with Nico ever again. My skin was still on fire, and I was honestly worried what I would do if presented with any opportunity to maul him.

But when I entered he was
nowhere in sight. Angelica was coloring, Rose was knitting, but Nico—Rose explained—was out with Quinn, Janie’s fiancé. This thought made me frown.

Quinn and Nico, roaming around Chicago together
—no good could come of it.

Rose invited me to stay and knit
, but I hastily declined. I administered the infusion, conducted Angelica’s daily exam, then rushed out of the penthouse, worried that I might run into Nico if I dawdled. Arriving back to my apartment, coming face-to-face with the silence of solitude, I immediately regretted not staying with Rose and Angelica.

So, I took a nap and, predictably, dreamt of Nico and his
 . . . apple fritters. I may or may not have been licking the sticky sugar and apple juice from his bare stomach to his collar bone and he may or may not have been bringing me to bliss while forcibly restraining me.

I awoke
hot and sticky and with my legs, middle, and arms tangled in sheets—which explained the restraint by force portion of the dream—and decided I needed another cold shower.

I stumbled across Nico’s mixta
pe CD when I was getting dressed. Man scrawl stared at me from the inside of my underwear drawer where I’d, unthinkingly, placed it for safekeeping. At first I ignored it, pulled out some very white cotton underwear and a sports bra.

I dressed myself in
yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt with a chemistry joke about methane inscribed on the front; crude chemistry jokes were my favorite, followed closely by Star Trek puns. I pulled my hair into a tight pony tail and attempted to busy myself—and hopefully center myself—with some yoga.

But thoughts of the CD in my underwear drawer, touching my under
things, kept me from focusing. After fifteen minutes of mental arm wrestling while trying and failing to do a firefly pose, I stomped over to the drawer, pulled out the CD, and pushed it into the player connected to our stereo.

I waited, breathing hard
for no apparent reason, hands on my hips.

Freaking Nico.

The first notes of the first song startled me. A single cello followed by a group of violins played in abrupt unison—one over the other—and created a solid yet stunted rhythm. Then a woman’s voice, thick and rich and familiar, sang the opening words.

As the song unfolded, a heady modern bass beat
resounded in the background. I recognized the song and the singer—“Where Do I Begin,” Shirley Bassey—and further recognized that it was a remix and that the remix was masterfully done; a solid, modern, edgy reimagining of an old standard.

I
walked back to my exercise mat now feeling curious. Music, quality music, flowed over me, and I easily centered myself. I spent the next half hour doing yoga, holding poses somewhat longer than typical. I strained to listen to the words of the songs or held my breath in anticipation of what would come next.

S
ome songs I recognized, some I didn’t. They ran the gambit of decades and musical genres; I repeated a few—like The Cars’s “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend”—and I would have skipped a couple of them if I’d known the words ahead of time.