Rolling in the Deep (12 page)

He scowls. “What do you mean?”

“Listen, she loved you. That’s obvious. And she was an amazing mother. But maybe you don’t want to be like your brother, you know what I mean? Maybe you don’t want to be a five-star celebrity chef. Maybe you just want to cook good food for nice people and just…I don’t know, be happy.”

His eyes fill with tears.

I’ve said the wrong thing.
I don’t know who I think I am, talking about his mother like I know her. Like I know him.

He stands abruptly, and comes around to my side of the table. Then he crouches down beside me. I turn my knees toward him and almost knock him over.

“Shit. Sorry.”

He stumbles to the side, and then rises, steadying himself on the table. Then he pulls me up to stand with him. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I just—”

“No.” He takes my arms and wraps them around himself. “You’re right.” His mouth goes to my hair, so that when he breathes out I feel it tickling my scalp. “You’re right, Holly.”

It takes on another meaning when he says it a second time. A meaning that makes my heart go into free fall.

“Ray.”

“I know I’m moving too fast,” he says into my hair. “I know I should slow down. It’s just…I’m supposed to want all these big things. To be some kind of crazy success story, which I don’t even know what that means. I keep trying to do what my mother said, and aim big, you know? That was important to her, and I get it. She could have moved back to Mexico after my dad died and had some help from her family, but she didn’t. She busted her ass to keep us in good American schools in a decent neighborhood. She made thousands of sacrifices so we’d have opportunities she never had growing up.

“But opportunities for what? I don’t think I want what I’m supposed to want. Even this money.” He pulls back, and looks hard into my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s amazing. I am going to spend the shit out of this money.”

I laugh. “Me too.”

“But it’s surreal, you know? Maybe because we haven’t gotten it yet. It doesn’t feel real.”

“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”

“But this does.” He takes my shoulders in his hands and squeezes. “This feels real.”

I make an inarticulate sound. I don’t know what to say.

“It feels so fucking real, Holly.”

He kisses me, and his mouth tastes like cinnamon. The sweet scent of home-baked cookies surrounds us in this kitchen I spent the weekend in, with my son. We’re here, in my home, in the place where I am most at ease, most myself, and Ray is right.

It feels real.

It feels natural. And easy, so easy.

I’m falling in love with a sweet, decent man. I’m about to be richer than I ever imagined in my craziest dreams. It’s not possible for me to be this lucky.

It’ll all go wrong, somehow. There’s no other explanation. It’s only a matter of time before everything falls apart.

Ray leans his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry, Holly,” he says again.

And I can’t have that. I can’t let him feel like he’s doing something wrong. “No, Ray, please. Don’t be sorry.” I wrap my arms around him; I pull him close. “I’m moving too fast, too. It’s all moving too fast. I can’t…keep up.”

“I know,” he says, stroking my hair. “Me neither.”

I press closer to him, and suddenly it’s not close enough. I feel his breath when I breathe in, his heat, his pulse as it races through his body. Every part of me he touches flares to life.

I grip his back with my fingertips and he breathes in sharply through his teeth.

“I don’t know what the next week is going to bring,” I tell him. “With the money coming in. It’s all going to change, isn’t it?”

He brushes his lips over the side of my neck. “Yes.”

“Are we going to become assholes when we’re rich?”

“Probably.”

I feel his tongue along the pulse point of my throat, and shiver. “Maybe we’ll hide out in the dark in our mansions, and start wearing Kleenex boxes for shoes like Howard Hughes.”

“Definitely,” he says, and bites my neck, gently.

I almost collapse.

His hands go to my hips, to my bottom, to hold me. I wrap one leg around him and then the other, and he lifts me onto the counter.

And I don’t care if I turn into an asshole or go crazy. I don’t care if I gain the whole world and then lose it all again.

I don’t care about anything in this moment but the taste of Ray’s mouth on mine.

Two weeks ago I would have been starting my shift at Cogmans by now, buttoning up my uniform and stacking shelf after shelf with crackers. I would have been wondering whether I’d have enough to cover the rent this month. The last thing I’d be thinking about is my body, about how good it feels to be inside it, to be alive.

But I’m here now. And yes, it could disappear at any minute. Or I could ruin it somehow. I could get this lucky—exactly this lucky—and it could all be taken away. There’s nothing I can do about that.

But while it’s here—while Ray is here—I want to be here with it. To be a millionaire with a hot boyfriend, and just for a minute, for one afternoon, to not be paralyzed with fear that it will all be taken away.

As though I don’t deserve it.

Because I don’t. No one does.

Not me. Not Ray. No one.

It just happens.

Ray lowers his head to my breast, to my nipple, which he mouths through the cotton of my T-shirt. Just that quickly, the friction of cloth against my skin becomes the epicenter of my universe, and here I am. Inside this body. Inside this moment. With Ray.

It might be too good to last, but for now, here it is. Here we are.

I pull off my shirt and bra, and he holds my breasts up to his tongue, his lips. He licks them, kisses them. Sucks them into his mouth.

It’s been just over a week—that’s all. A week since we won, since I first kissed him. But my body arches against his like it knows exactly what to do. Like we’re in a dance together that we’ve always known and didn’t know we knew—the way I move with him, the way he molds himself against me. Like we’ve been doing this always.

“You feel so good,” he says, bringing his mouth to mine, his thumbs moving over my nipples.

“So do you.” My lips move over his, tasting him.

He kisses my jawline, the hollow behind my ear. “I missed you.”

My heart spirals out at that, but I’ll worry about it later, how right this feels. How much I want him. Not just my body, though that’s real enough. But everything, all of me.

“Ray.”

He pulls me down off the counter and I lead him to the living room, to the couch, and take the rest of my clothes off. He stands very still and watches me. This time the tenderness in his eyes doesn’t scare me. I feel it, too. I want to believe it can be real.

And for just this moment, it is.

It is.

He pulls off his shirt and jeans and lines his body up with mine on the couch.

I think,
I want to know this man. This person.

His brown eyes are soft, searching, like he’s trying to learn me as well, trying to
see
.

I wait, and have been waiting, for his gaze to settle on something he doesn’t like or approve of, something he will feel the need to correct. My messy apartment, my too casual clothes. The makeup I didn’t bother to put on this morning. But all he does is stroke my hair, and kiss my lips, gently.

I shiver, and his hands quiet me. They roam over my body, unhurried, while he kisses me. It’s a slow, quiet burn, so measured and patient I can’t help but feel safe with him. Safe enough to explore him, too. To learn his body. To feel the way he breathes when I touch his shoulders, his hips, his hard, muscular thighs.

When he slides his fingers between my legs, I’m ready. I arch into him. He breathes out hard against my shoulder, and bites into it, and I gasp and take his cock in my hand. It’s hot, and silky, and beautiful to touch while he touches me. While he kisses my mouth. My throat.

I close my eyes while he rolls a condom on, remembering what he felt like when he last entered me. It’s even hotter this time, anticipating him. Because now I know exactly how it will feel. What to crave, what to want. He pushes my knees apart and slides into me, thick and sweet, and then he’s kissing me—his tongue and his cock both driving deep. My body bows up, pressing into him, and he gasps and grabs my hair.

I can’t get him close enough. My legs clench around his hips and I rise up to meet him. He breathes hard into my mouth and starts to move faster, bracing his feet against the edge of the couch.

“Holly, I can’t—”

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t hold back. Just…just…”

He fucks me harder, and I can’t speak anymore. I can’t breathe. I throw my head forward, he pulls it back, his fist in my hair, and I bring my knees up to my chest so he can go deeper.

His face is pressed against mine, his mouth right at my ear. So that I can hear the sounds he makes. The desperate, out-of-control sounds, the way his breath shatters and breaks. It’s the sound of his voice that makes me come. His voice when he groans my name.

“Holly.”

I fall apart beneath him, and he doesn’t stop. He thrusts right into it, again and again. He fucks me as I twist away from how intense it is. He holds my hips in place and buries his face in my neck, and makes me feel him. There’s no getting away from it, and as much as it scares me I don’t want to. I want to leap over the edge and dive right into this. To him.

I feel his body start to tense—the tendons in his thighs tightening, his movements quicker and shakier. He’s trembling, actually trembling in my arms, and it hurts so fucking sweetly to feel him lose it like that. It tears my heart right out. I want all of it, all of him. I want him to come.

“Ray,” I say, and lick his throat. It’s the last straw for him—I knew it would be. It yanks him over the edge. He grips my hips and slams into me.

“Fuck, Holly. Oh, God.”

He pulses and jerks inside me, and it’s so hot I want to die. I want to die with him inside me like that.

I kiss him, and he kisses me, and
my heart.

My heart.

He just breathes against me for a minute, his pulse hammering along my skin. He holds my hair in both of his hands, his eyes closed.

He’s shaking.

He tries to hold himself up, to not crush me with his weight. And then gives up, and pulls away onto the floor, kneeling beside me.

Then he opens his eyes and stares straight into mine, and winces almost. “I can’t—”

“Ray, I—”

He shakes his head. “I can’t talk right now, Holly. I can’t talk to you.”

I pull back, confused. Aware all at once of my nakedness.

He takes my hand and squeezes it, hard. “I’ll say things that will scare the hell out of you.”

I suck in a sharp breath. “Ray.”

“No, just…can you wait a second?” He rises, a little too quickly, and almost falls. “I’m sorry, I just…”

He grabs his jeans and disappears down the hall. In a moment I hear the water in the bathroom running.

I sit up and cover my face with my hands. And realize my hands are trembling. I want to go to him, to go after him. But I have no idea what I would say. I’m scared, myself, of what I would say right now.

I get dressed. When Ray returns, I’m sitting upright, knees against my chest. He’s wearing jeans and no shirt.

Christ almighty.
I could spend several days studying this man’s shirtless chest. I duck into the bathroom to wash up, too, simply to get away from him for a minute.

I’ve tried, but it’s just so much, what I feel with him. It’s so much more than I can handle. I splash cold water on my face for what feels like five minutes before I’m calm enough to go out to him again.

I sit beside him on the couch, and he takes my hand. He’s put his shirt on, thank God.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Holly.”

I lean my head against his shoulder, and just stay like that. For several long minutes, we sit in silence and listen to each other breathe.

After a while he pulls me down with him on the couch, his belly against my back, my head resting on his arm. I hold his hand against my chest, and lie still, and it’s too perfect to last, I know that. Something—soon—will come along and take all of this away.

We had this moment, though, didn’t we? Maybe we will lose what we have right now, but at least while we had it, we were here. We didn’t run away.

I’m whistling as I cross the road on foot to the corner store. Mid-morning sun is shining overhead and I’m on the hunt for supplies to make a tray of enchiladas for Holly.

After we woke up yesterday, on the couch, it was easier to talk. Sleeping together somehow softened the fear we were both feeling. It took the edge off the shock of how our bodies came together, the way they seemed to know something before our brains had a chance to catch up.

My eyes opened and Holly was lying in my arms like she’d always been there. And it wasn’t as big of a deal, suddenly.

It just was.

For both of us, I think. I showed her a dominoes game Tony and I used to play when we were kids. We talked. She told me all about growing up in Poughkeepsie. And when I mentioned how my mother taught me to cook enchiladas when I was Drew’s age, she asked me to make them for her someday.

It was the first time things felt normal with her. Like we were just two people.

Two people with a future.

I won’t see her today, but we have a breakfast date tomorrow. I like the idea of leaving a meal behind for her and Drew today, so she doesn’t have to work when she brings him home. She can just heat it up and relax with him. Maybe help him with his homework.

It’s far too soon to be thinking so domestically, but where’s the harm in this exactly? It’s just dinner.

For a woman I’ve fallen in love with.

I stop at the door of the deli, my fingers gripping the handle. Then I take a deep breath and pull it open.

The sound of tinkling bells echoes through the store. Patty looks up from the paper she’s reading at the counter.

“Morning, Patty. How you doing?”

She eyes me. “Look what the cat dragged in. Glad to see the rich and famous are still humble enough to stop by once in a while.”

I smile at her distractedly and examine a cluster of sad-looking onions in a basket. “I’m only one of those things, Miss Patty.”

“Oh yeah?” She raises an eyebrow and turns the newspaper she’s reading around. “What do you call this?”

I see the headline from across the store, but the impact of it doesn’t sink in until I reach the counter.

Local Powerball Winners Hit It Big in More Ways Than One.

Oh shit.

The lead picture is of Holly and me walking out of her apartment together yesterday afternoon. I try to remember what was going on around us in that moment, but the truth is, I was too distracted by her to see much of anything else. There could have been a camera anywhere. Hiding behind a car. In the bushes, like some stalking creep.

The next picture is of me lying down beside my mother’s grave.

But the last one—the last one is what makes my stomach drop out from under me.

It’s a photo of Drew. I recognize him from the pictures Holly’s shown me. He’s coming out of school—the name of the place is clearly displayed on the front entrance—and he’s staring at the camera, looking worried. Holly holds his hand and appears to be moving quickly, like she’s trying to get away.

Fucking Chad Winters must have followed them there. Ambushed them, right after Holly left me and went to pick Drew up.

She never responded to my texts last night. I thought she was just busy with Drew.

I drop the onion I’m holding and bolt out of the store, taking the paper with me.

I call three times before the phone picks up. Her voice when she answers is hollow, empty.

“Holly, I just saw it. Are you okay?”

Long silence.

It’s a maudlin article—written like a fairy tale with Holly and me at the center. An orphan and a single mom cast suddenly into greatness. Rich overnight, with a budding romance to boot.

“Holly?”

She makes a broken sound. “No, I’m not okay. He took Drew. This…this morning. He saw the paper before we even woke up and drove over here and took Drew away.”

“Brett?” I sit down hard on a kitchen chair. “Can he do that?”

“Yeah. I mean…I don’t know.” The sound is muffled briefly as Holly blows her nose. “He…he said I should never…I should never have exposed Drew to this. That I’ve…pimped him out to the newspaper to try to make myself look good. Like a romance story for people to read and think I’m some Cinderella who met her prince.”

“But—”

“He said things about you, Ray. That I’ve whored myself out to you and now I’ve dragged our son into it. And he won’t…he won’t let me do that…he won’t…”

I try to picture this scene, in Holly’s living room where yesterday we spent the morning together. I feel sick. “Where was Drew in all this?”

Her voice catches. “He was there. In the…in the hallway, watching. And he was scared, so…I didn’t want him to be worried or to see any more, so I just let him go. I let Brett take him, and he didn’t want to…Oh, God, Ray. He didn’t want to go but I made him. I just…I thought maybe it was better for him to not see a big scene, you know? And he could just go to his other house and Emma would be there and maybe—”

“Holly—”

“I was just…Do you think we, we…brought this on? I mean, with the reporters? I tried so hard not to engage with them, to just—”

My gut twists. “No, it was me, Holly. I knew that guy was following me around and I…I should have stayed away. You remember I started to tell you about the reporter at the cemetery? And then I…I forgot. I should have warned you, or I shouldn’t have come. I just…I wanted to see you, and—”

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault. Brett is right. I should have been more careful. That picture of him right in front of the school…Everyone will know where he goes now. Every day—he’ll be a target. People will know where to find him if they—”

“You think he’s in danger?”

“Brett says he is. He says…” Her voice gets very quiet. Deadened almost, like there’s nothing left inside it. “He says it’s just like me. To make everyone think I’m some kind of saint. This nice girl who finds a pot of gold and a hero to share it with. When in fact I’m so selfish I don’t even take the most basic precautions to protect my own son. He says he should give an interview to the paper, tell the world what I really am.”

“What you really—? Holly, that’s not—”

“He’s right, though. I didn’t protect Drew. I was too busy worrying about what to do with us, trying to figure out how I feel. I didn’t keep my eyes open. I didn’t make sure he was
safe,
Ray.”

Her voice cracks on the word
safe,
and it’s then that I know I have lost her.

I shut my eyes and lean forward in the chair, my head down almost between my knees. A wave of sickness sweeps over me.

It’s obvious what she will have to do now. Any mother in her position would make the choice she is about to make. She’s put her child in harm’s way because of me.

I know this, and I know what’s coming.

But it hurts.

For the love of God,
it hurts so much when she says it.

“I can’t see you anymore, Ray. I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“Holly, we can…we can take a break. We can just, I don’t know, lay low for a little while, and then—”

“No.” She takes a broken breath. “I can’t. I just…I have to think, okay? I have to think about Drew.”

I shut my eyes tight.

“Okay.”
Fuck.
“Okay, Holly.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

And I start to reply—to say goodbye, somehow. But the line goes dead. She’s gone.

What else can I do?

I have to let her go.

I sit very still by the kitchen window for a long time. Staring at the flickering shadows the midday light casts on the wall.

It was too good to last, I knew that. I knew, and still I’m not ready. I thought we’d have more time.

And yesterday, lying in Holly’s arms, I had started to think we might actually have a chance in the long term. That there was something between us that could survive whatever tests might come our way.

Maybe we could have survived something else. But not this. Not anything involving Drew. That is a line in the sand she could never cross—that I would never want her to cross.

I should have told her about Chad Winters. I should have known he would be looking for Holly and me together. He was digging for information that night he came to my apartment, and if he was bold enough to follow me to the cemetery, of course he wouldn’t rest until he found proof that Holly and I are…what?

What are we, even? Or what were we?

I never had a chance to find out.

All I know is that losing her, saying goodbye—it’s like being gut-shot.

I don’t know what it must have felt like for her to open the paper and see Drew there. Her son, right in front of his school, exposed to every print and online reader in the county. A target for any criminal who wanted to get his hands on Holly’s money.

It’s not her fault that a reporter went after us, that he wouldn’t give up until he had the story he wanted. But of course she would blame herself. And of course her asshole ex-husband would bludgeon her with that blame.

It seems pretty clear to me that the reason Brett will never forgive her is that he still loves her. I don’t think Holly sees it that way. She believes he hates her, and for good reason. But hate and love are mixed for people sometimes. And the deeper they’re mixed, the stronger and more toxic they become.

Brett won’t ever stop trying to punish her. And if he has to use Drew as a weapon to do it, so be it.

I want to tell Holly to fight back, to tell him to fuck off. But I’m not the one who’s had to deal with him all these years. And if he can legitimately threaten to withhold her son from her, of course she has to be cautious.

I hate it that she has to cower in front of him, that she doesn’t have the freedom to stand up for herself without potentially compromising her relationship with Drew. How is she supposed to feel strong, to feel free of Brett, if she always has to placate him? She’s trapped.

I could have made her happy, I think. That’s the part, most of all, that kills me. I could have supported her, been a friend to her.

I could have loved her.

Fuck it,
I do love her.

I love her, and it’s too late to do anything about it. Our chance came, and now it’s gone. And that’s just how luck fucking works.

I should be celebrating right now. I’m about to receive more money than anyone could reasonably spend in a lifetime. I should be planning a party in Vegas or pricing a mega-mansion or something. The money could be here any day.

It could be here today, in fact.

I grab my phone, because I might as well, and check my bank account online.

Deposit, six o’clock this morning. Eighty-plus million dollars.

God above.

Despite everything, a half-sick thrill is still capable of spiking through me.

I might be a sad sack at the moment, but even so, this is actually happening. I can move from this tiny apartment if I want. I can pay for my nieces’ college tuition.

I can buy a new car.

Like, right now. Immediately. In cash.

I stand up from the chair.

Holly is knee-deep in the weeds, and there’s nothing I can do to help her. Maybe one day, when no one knows or cares who we are, and all of this has blown over, we can try again. But that’s not going to happen right now. And if I sit here all day stressing over whether it will ever happen, I’ll go crazy.

What I need is a distraction. I need to stop being so precious and just go ahead and do what any other red-blooded American would do if they won the lottery.

I leave my goddamn apartment and go shopping.

I hit the American Girl doll store in Times Square first. Then I head out to Long Island, stopping at Tony’s favorite bakery on the way. It doesn’t take long to find parking outside the Ferrari dealership Tony and I have been stalking since we were kids. I buy a Maserati convertible and drive it right off the lot to Tony’s house.

When the girls come to the door, I hold out their dolls and they jump up and down and hug my legs like a pair of deranged kittens. Then they run to their room, chattering wildly about how they have to do the dolls’ hair and teach them how to drive a forklift.

Tony holds the front door open and accepts a giant box of cannoli. “Nice ride. Guess the money came through.”

“It did, yeah.”

He claps an arm around my shoulder. “Congratulations, man. Truly. How you feeling? You good? You happy? You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Seriously, though.” Tony opens the box and spends a full minute selecting the best cannoli.

I leave him standing in the open doorway and sit down on the front steps.

The house is a detached Colonial with families packed in close on both sides. Tony’s lived here for eight years almost. Bought the house with his ex-wife before the girls were born. Now that she’s moved to Brooklyn with her new boyfriend, it’s just him and the girls out here, but they’re surrounded by neighbors. By people who know them and look out for them. After the divorce, Tony’s freezer was packed with casseroles.

There are worse ways to live.

“You like the car?” I ask him.

He licks cream off his fingers, lets the screen door slam shut behind him, and sits down next to me. “You know I do. That’s the one we looked at last time we went down to the beach, remember? What’re you trying to do, rub it in?”

“Nope.” I grab a cannoli out of the box and bite into it. “I’m trying to ask if you like your new car.”

Tony just stares at me, mid-chew. “What’s that now?”

I reach into my coat pocket and hand him the keys. “Your new car, dumbass. Go give it a spin. I’ll watch the kids.” I take another bite of cannoli.

Tony’s grin is the sincerest I’ve seen on him since Alexa left, and that alone is worth the fat stack I just laid down for his car. Not that it matters. It’s barely a drop in the bucket.

“When you come back, I need to talk to you about what I’m going to do with all this cash.”

He grabs my whole head in the crook of his elbow and rubs his knuckles, and probably a glob of cannoli filling, into my hair. “Whatever you say, little brother. If this is what you have in mind, I got no problem helping you spend your money.”