Slip of the Tongue (16 page)

He puts all the food onto a plate, even though I suspect if I weren’t here, he’d eat straight out of the container.

“So,” we say at the same time. Both of us smile politely.

“Go ahead,” he says.

“It’s nothing. Just . . .” I push up my sleeves. I want to relax tonight, and I can’t do that while there’s an elephant in the room. It’s best we fess up to our mistake and move on. “Last week.”

“Right. That’s what I was going to say.”

I nod. Kissing Finn was wrong. I repeat that sentence in my head to avoid remembering how it felt. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

I blanch. My next sentence was going to be,
It won’t happen again
.

“I mean, I
am
sorry,” he says, bringing his plate to the table. “Kind of. Not that it happened, but that it’s happening like this.” He gestures between us. “I wish things were, you know . . . different.”

I cinch my eyebrows. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He forks some broccolini into his mouth. “I do.”

Well
. I don’t know what to do other than watch him chew. Am I supposed to agree? Sure, Finn is jaw-droppingly attractive. Just being around him makes me feel warm. Welcome, even. Light. Happy? He likes me. My mood has improved since walking in the door. But the truth remains beneath the surface. It won’t last. Just because I feel better now doesn’t mean I’d trade the life I have to kiss Finn. That is, if I still even have that life. Nathan can, and might, take it all away. Maybe he already has, and he’s just trying to figure out how to tell me.

“You’re sad,” Finn says.

I look up from staring at his wood table. “I’m fine.”

“No,” he says as if he has a direct line to my thoughts. “You’re
sad
. I can tell.”

With my hands in my lap, I spin my wedding ring around my finger. Finn looks at me intently. If he wants me to say Nathan has made me sad, I can’t. Not to him. An admission like that to another man would be more intimate than a kiss.

“I came over here to ask you a favor,” I say brightly, remembering how excited I am to be able to give him work. “A photography thing.”

He frowns. “You need coaching in the art of changing the subject.”

“That could be,” I admit, smoothing my hands over my thighs.

“I’ll allow it. For now. What’s the favor?”

“Headshots.” I roll my eyes. “It’s stupid, really. My boss wants them for the website. Now that I’ve been promoted, I have my own
About Me
section and everything.”

“Your own section, huh?” He takes a bite and nods at me. “So what’s your picture now? A question mark?”

“A silhouette with a bowl haircut,” I say, deadpan. “No wonder business is slow.”

He smiles as he chews. “Sadie?”

“Yes?”

“You make a mean steak.”

I grin. “Thanks.”

“I’m happy to take your photo. Honored, really.”

“You’ll get paid, obviously.” I smack my forehead like a sitcom character. “Duh. I should’ve led with that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I could use the practice. How’s this weekend?”

“Are you sure? It’s so soon.”

“Absolutely. Let’s do it.”

“Great,” I say with relief. Amelia won’t be on my ass about it. “Where?”

“I get to choose?”

“She said to ‘have fun with it.’ I have no idea what—”

“I’ll take care of it. Come over Saturday morning. I’ll look at your company’s website and get a feel for things.”

I get a business card from the pouch on my key ring and slide it across the table. “Here’s the info.”

“Amelia Van Ecken Communications.” He studies it, flips it over. “We’ll get a picture for your card too.”

I wave my hand. “Our marketing girl handles that stuff.”

“Insist on a picture. It helps for clients to see a face.” He swallows some food and takes a swig of beer. “Especially yours. I’d buy anything you were selling.”

I try not to smile. “I’m not really selling anything.”

“Then I’d believe anything you said.”

I scrunch my nose. “If that’s true, you need lessons in the art of the poker face. Your cards are showing.”

“Sorry, Sadie,” he says. “I don’t play games. Not with something this serious.”

His comment hugs the line of flirtatiousness. Is he referring to my work? Or us? Either way, I’ve been down this path with him. I know where it leads. A suggestive comment becomes an inside joke becomes a kind of intimacy that opens the door for more. My conscience has enough to deal with. Not only did I kiss another man, but now I’m back in his apartment, planning to spend more time with him. “I should get home,” I say.

Finn sits back in his chair. He keeps ahold of his beer by the neck. “Isn’t it bowling night?”

“You remembered.”

“Of course.”

I don’t move. Just because I should doesn’t mean I want to.

He rolls the base of his bottle over the wood a few times, and then stands. He puts his dish in the sink, and on the way back, opens the fridge and shows me a Heineken. “Have one. It will help.”

He could be referring to the heat, but I think he means my problems with Nathan. Staying in this chair isn’t as bad if Finn doesn’t technically ask. I’m comfortable in our own little world. Nathan doesn’t even know I’m here—and would he care? What do I have to go home to?

He pops the cap and gives it to me over the table. I take a longer drink than I intend. And he’s right. It does cool me down.

“What did he say about the lipstick stain?”

I put the bottle down too hard, and he flinches. The fact that Nathan and I aren’t speaking makes the topic a bit difficult to broach. Finn is the only person I’ve told. I’m beginning to regret that I did if he means to hold me accountable. I’d rather forget the stain ever existed. After all, Chin-Mae returned the tie good as new.

“Sadie,” Finn prompts.

I read the Heineken label. It’s a product of Holland. Interesting. I’d thought it was a German beer, yet it’s right there on the front. Shows how little I pay attention. I look for that number, the one that tells you how much alcohol is in the beer.

“The alcohol by volume is five-point-two percent,” Finn says. I don’t hide my shock over his mind-reading skills. He takes the bottle out of my hands and puts it on the table. “I asked you a question.”

I don’t look at him when I answer. “I haven’t brought it up.”

“Why not?”

“Because I trust him,” I say. “And I don’t want to set him off.”

Finn cranes his neck to get me to look at him. “Does he have a temper?”

“No,” I respond immediately when I realize what Finn must think. “Not at all. Just a lot on his mind.”

“Have you found anything else that indicates . . .?”

I almost wish he’d finish his sentence so I’m not forced to fill in the blanks. Anything to indicate Nathan’s cheating on me? He’s fallen out of love with me? He’s unhappier than he’s ever been? I pinch my eyebrow between my nails until my eyes water. I pick up my beer with a look that dares Finn to take it away again.

“I don’t know,” I say. “A couple times he’s come home smelling like smoke when he shouldn’t. Like he stopped by a bar after work, or during lunch.” I wait for Finn to tell me I’m paranoid. He stays silent. “I met this girl,” I continue, “at the bowling alley. This woman. She’s a girlfriend of one of the players. Wednesday nights, wives are invited to the games.”

Finn’s forehead creases. “It’s Wednesday now. He never told you?”

“He did. I turned him down to watch TV, and because I think he’s more relaxed when I’m not around.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t have to worry that I’m having a good time. It’s just the way he is.”

“Oh.” He taps his index finger idly on the table. “So who’s the girl?”

“I don’t know. I just got a feeling, you know? She’s not his type, I don’t think. I just . . . wonder. When I try to ask him what’s wrong, he doesn’t want to talk. He gets defensive.”

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“I know it isn’t,” I say immediately. As upset as I am with him for his silence, I also worry about him. “He wants time to figure stuff out. I don’t know what exactly—” I stop, suddenly aware of my surroundings. Normally, the only person I confide in about my relationship with Nathan is Nathan. Sometimes my brother. Finn and I have crossed a line. I’m not sure how he’ll interpret my concerns over Nathan. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

He knows why not. It’s best I don’t say it aloud. Then again, maybe I don’t know what’s best anymore. Nathan’s in Brooklyn right now, and so is Joan. But I’m here. “Because you kissed me. And I want you to do it again.” I slouch further into my chair, even though he doesn’t move an inch. “That’s not an invitation.”

“I know. Believe me, if it were, there wouldn’t be a table between us.”

I swallow. The picture he paints is clear. “You make it sound like you want something to happen between us. What about Kendra?”

It’s his turn to fidget with his beer. Without looking away from me, he picks at the corner of the label. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

“Kendra?” He works his jaw from side to side before swigging his beer. “I can tell you why I married her. Marissa. It was an unplanned pregnancy. I wanted to do right by them. Kendra didn’t stop me.”

His candidness catches me off guard. “Oh. You mean you weren’t . . . you don’t . . .?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I love her. We were together over a year when I ended things. I thought I was too young to be tied down. Then I made the unoriginal mistake of having breakup sex.” He’s not looking at me anymore. “Not that Marissa’s a mistake.”

I’m glad he doesn’t catch my grimace. “That’s when Kendra got pregnant. Breakup sex?”

He rolls his lips inward and nods. “It’s just not how I pictured things, you know?”

I tilt my head. I know all too well what he means. I, too, thought myself invincible at that age. I wasn’t. Our situations aren’t so different. But it seems that while Finn’s decision set him on a path for life, mine cleared the way for me to choose my life.

“How did you picture things?” I ask.

He squints at me but looks lost in thought. “Kendra teases me for being an idealist. Secretly, I think it bothers her. There’s no romance in staying with someone out of obligation.” He flexes his hands around his beer. “I guess I’m weird for thinking I’d marry for love.”

“It’s not weird.” The resentment in his words is clear. “But I hear it’s nearly impossible for a woman to get pregnant on her own.” I wink. “Just what I’ve heard.”

He smirks. “She lied about birth control, Sadie. You can’t tell me that’s not fucked up.”

“Still,” I say, “it’s not fair to put all the blame on her.”

He scoffs, opening his hands to the table. “I literally could not accept more blame. I married her. For years, I did everything for them.”

His face reddens as I wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, I ask, “You don’t anymore?”

He spins his bottle on the table, and I wonder how much he’s had. He keeps eye contact with me, though, and looks sober. “Kendra’s family is in Connecticut. Affluent people live in Connecticut—which, by the way, is not something I aspired to be. I was happy to try and make it as an artist, but I couldn’t support a family on hopes and dreams. It was safer to raise Marissa there. Quieter. In other words, boring as fuck.” He sniffs. “Back then, I was the only man under thirty on our block.”

It’s an explosion of information, but I take it all in, piece by piece. I think that’s what he needs—someone who isn’t Kendra to listen. “That’s why you’re here and they’re not?” I ask.

“I want Marissa to grow up in the city, where there’s diversity, adversity, culture,” he says. “Not fucking Greenwich. Kendra grew up in Greenwich, and she’s always gotten what she wanted. If not from me, then from her wealthy parents. That’s more dangerous than a few homeless people on your doorstep.” He stands and gets another beer. I’ve barely asked, and he’s burbling and spilling over like an active volcano. After Nathan’s silence, I hang on to every one of Finn’s words. “So I told her—Kendra—I said, ‘I’m moving back to the city. You can do what you want.’” He sits down again.

“And?”

“And she wants to stay together, so we’re selling the house, and they’re coming. Soon.” He shakes his head. “Her family is up in arms.”

“How come?”

“It’s not appropriate. They didn’t want Kendra to marry me in the first place. Her dad pulled some strings and got me into an MBA program without even asking if it was what I wanted. Their princess wasn’t going to marry an unsuccessful artist.”

“They made you give up photography?”

“No. I did it to give Marissa a stable home. I’d already been out of school and trying to turn photography into a career for a while when Kendra got pregnant. I submitted to Kendra and her parents thinking it was best for Marissa, but . . .” He takes a drink.

I bite my lower lip. I’m sitting in another woman’s kitchen, about to advise another woman’s husband on their relationship. Is there someone out there doing the same with Nathan?

I shoo the thought away. “Finn, you need to talk to Kendra even more than I need to ask Nathan what’s going on. You should be saying all this to her. She’s uprooting her life—and Marissa’s—for you. You owe her the truth.”

“That’s the thing.” He leans over the table onto his forearms. “I do talk to her. She knows how I feel. She knew I’d never abandon my own child or shirk my responsibility. We didn’t have to get married. It’s as if she knows how much I wanted something different, and she refuses to let me have it.”

“Different . . . how?”

“I used to be a romantic guy. I did the grand gestures. I was the secret admirer and the kid under a girl’s window with a stereo over my head. I once brought a girl flowers in front of the whole cafeteria to cheer her up. I want to be in love. I want to grow
with
my partner, not against her.” I shift in my seat at the intense longing in his eyes. “I’ve never said that out loud,” he admits. “I’ve been hanging on to this shred of hope, thinking either things with her would change, or . . . or she’d fucking see that she deserves a man who loves her more than I do.”