Slip of the Tongue (19 page)

He doesn’t move. “Stay there.”

“My hair—”

“So what?” he asks. “We got what we needed. Don’t smile.”

The rain falls harder, skipping right from drizzling to pouring. One minute it’s on top of me, and the next it’s sideways. He takes more pictures.

“Your camera’s going to get ruined—”

“Try not to react to the rain.” He gets close to my face. Moves some strands of hair that’ve stuck to my cheek. “I know it’s hard. Just let it happen to you.”

I stand very still, my hands awkwardly stuck at my sides. I could never do something like this for a living. Not modeling, and not the photography side of it. I feel ridiculous, but Finn’s snapping away as though he’s struck gold.

“You look—Jesus, Sadie. Fucking gorgeous.” The adoration in his eyes soothes the chill in my bones. I forget that I’m wearing expensive-as-fuck shoes in a mess of wet leaves and that my Chloé handbag is on the ground, getting soaked.

“Really?” I ask.

He looks affronted. “Are you kidding? You’re confident. Sexy. I wish you could see yourself through my lens.”

I am confident. It’s only these last few months that’ve made me forget it. Finn doesn’t hide what he wants. He doesn’t play games. With him, I remember how it feels to be seen. Worshipped. I close my eyes and tilt my head up to the rain.

“You’re killing me,” he mutters. “Always killing me. Turn around.”

I trust Finn more now that my skin feels like my own again, so I do as he says and face the street.

“Now look back at me.”

I turn my head, touching my chin to my shoulder. My mascara must be smeared. Rain trickles under the neckline of my dress, gathering in the underwire of my bra. “Like this?”

“This one look is enough to make a man come undone. To make a man forget his own name.” He shakes his head. “You’re telling me that’s not art? That doesn’t make you feel something?”

I pinch my bottom lip between my teeth. Finn’s attention makes me feel a great deal of things. His craving is written on his face. It gives me back the power I lost months ago when Nathan stopped looking at me the way Finn is right now.

Thunder cracks between us like a whip. We both jump. “We should go in,” he says, as if it’s just occurred to him.

I gather my things as he snatches his camera bag off the ground, then holds the building door open and motions me to move faster. My heels sink into the soil, slowing me down.

He laughs loud enough for me to hear over the storm. “Just take them off,” he calls.

I remove my nude pumps, cradle them in my arms, and run with bare feet through the grass to him. Inside, a man exits the elevator with an umbrella in hand. Finn sprints ahead to catch the doors.

Finn scrubs his hands in his hair. “You must be freezing,” he says as we ride up to the sixth floor.

I scrunch my nose. “I am.”

“It’ll be worth it. You won’t even recognize yourself.”

“I’m sure my boss will love that,” I say sardonically.

His laugh is deep and throaty. “I’m talking about those last few. They’re not suitable for work.”

My dress sticks to me everywhere. Until the doors open, the small space holds a noticeable charge, even though we’re out of the storm’s grasp. We walk briskly down the hall, dripping onto the threadbare carpet. He jingles his keys in his pocket until we reach his apartment. “This is the first time I’m grateful for my busted heater.” He unlocks the door, and we hurry inside. Warmth envelops us. I dump my purse and shoes in the entryway by his camera bag, and he hangs up my coat and scarf. “They should dry quickly,” he says as he disappears down the hall.

It isn’t until I’m halfway into the living room that I stop and realize where I’m standing. Why did I come in here? There’s a heater, a shower, and a change of clothes waiting for me across the hall—but not much else.

Finn returns and holds out a towel. I use it to squeeze excess water from my hair. “Finn—”

He whips the sheet off the couch. A cloud of dust motes twinkles in the yellowed-gray afternoon light. “Sit,” he says. “We’ll take a look at what we got.”

My body is loosening with the heat. I dry my collarbone and chest with the towel. “I should probably go home,” I say. “Get out of these clothes.”

“Probably.” Neither of us makes a move. He removes his camera from around his neck and sets it carefully on his new coffee table. “I’ll make us a warm drink.”

SIXTEEN

Locked in the hallway bathroom of Finn’s apartment, I stare at the screen of my phone. There’s nothing there worth looking at. The coffee aroma drifting my way makes me simultaneously shiver and salivate. Though my clothes are getting dry, I’m chilled from the inside, as if my bloodstream carries chunks of ice. Stay here, where it’s warm and inviting? Or go home to an empty apartment? I send Nathan a text.

Coming home soon?

As I wait, I inspect my reflection. My straightened hair is curling. My scrubbed-off lipstick has left my mouth pink. I find body lotion in a cabinet under the sink and use it to remove my smudged mascara, wondering if it belongs to Finn or Kendra.

My phone vibrates on the sink counter. I pick it up and read Nathan’s reply.

Not yet. Basketball game was cut short because of the rain. We’re having a beer.

Sitting in a pub on a rainy afternoon sounds about right for my mood. I did tell Donna I’d try to make it out to Park Slope soon, and I should probably be anywhere but here. I invite myself.

Which bar? I can meet you.

He’s typing. I wait. I could shower, change, and be on the train within an hour. If only Brooklyn were closer. My phone alerts me to his answer.

At Mikey’s place. Poker.

I look back into the mirror. If Joan mentioned living with Mikey, I don’t recall. Suddenly, I regret drinking as much as I did that night. They’re engaged—I remember that. Generally, engaged people live together. She could be there right now with Nathan, who knows I won’t show up because I have a real thing about gambling. My dad and mom are casino rats. They came home many nights reeking of cigarettes and cheap liquor. They lost money they didn’t have and cash they’d promised me. First, it was for little things—a ticket to my high school prom, lunch money. Then it was college applications, and finally college itself. They did one thing right, though—maintaining a level of poverty scholarship funds smiled upon. That was when I recognized I was the only one who could shape my life into what I wanted it to be.

I’m about to exit the bathroom when another text comes through from Nathan.

The game will go late. Don’t feel like fighting the storm. I might crash here.

That’s what you think, is my first thought. I type rapidly and end up having to fix several mistakes.

You’re a grownup not a kid at a sleepover. I want you to come home.

I don’t think an actual confession would shock me more than his next response.

If I’m not in our bed, what difference does it make where I sleep? I’ll be home when you wake up.

I narrow my eyes at the screen and wonder who this man is. He isn’t my Nathan, who used to call me randomly at work just to say he was thinking of me. This man doesn’t even think spending the night elsewhere merits a conversation.

After I leave the bathroom, I grandly dump my phone back in my purse. Nathan has plenty of reasons to come home, but he’s given me none to do the same. In the living room, I close my eyes and appreciate the rich smell of coffee brewing. I lay the towel Finn gave me on Kendra’s green velvet couch. My dress is slightly damp. It’s my undergarments, though, that’re wet enough from the rain to make me uncomfortable.

Finn returns barefoot with two mugs. Steam curls over the rims. “You didn’t need to do that,” he says.

“It’s a lovely couch.”

“It’s an eyesore.”

It is a beautiful and well-made piece of furniture. It belongs in a store window or a historical movie set in an English castle. It doesn’t fit Finn, though, who is more bull-in-a-china-shop than monarch. He still hasn’t done anything with the apartment. I wonder if his reason for not liking it extends beyond personal taste. I don’t decorate the apartment with anything I think Nathan wouldn’t like.

The coffee warms my hands and cheeks. It smells of going home for the holidays, even though those aren’t particularly favorable memories for me. Trips to the Beckwith family home generally boil down to Andrew, Nathan and I trying to survive my parents’ bickering.

Finn and I each take a sip. “This is good,” I say. Already, it’s eased my tension. “Did you spike it or something?”

“No, but I can.” He grins. “The beans are from Quench Coffee.”

“That’s why I like it.”

“I’ve been going there since college,” he volunteers. “Minus the Connecticut years.”

I look away.
Connecticut
is a dirty word. It’s a side of Finn I don’t want to think about. It’s a side of myself I don’t want to acknowledge. Rain beats against the window. “Can you seriously spike this?”

He leaves the room and returns with Kahlúa. “Try that,” he says with a conservative pour.

I taste it, looking up at him. “More.”

He tops my drink off, then his own. “Cheers.”

“What to?” I ask.

He sets the mug on the table without drinking any and picks up his camera. “Bad decisions?”

Mid-sip, I flit my eyes up to him. He isn’t dense enough to believe we’re doing nothing wrong, but there’s no reason to announce it. I gulp down some coffee and ask, “Are you trying to get me to leave?”

“Not quite.” He glances at me from under his lashes as he plays with the camera. “I was talking about gray as a background for your headshot. Not the best decision on my part.”

I purse my lips. “That’s what you want to cheers to?”

One cheek dimples with his smile. Each time he hits a button, the camera beeps. He hums. “I can definitely work with most of these, though.”

I lean forward. “Can I see?”

“Let me find a good one.” He shuffles toward me, distracted by his task, until our naked feet touch. My knee ghosts against the fine hairs on his shin, and my skin prickles. He holds the screen in front of my face. “Here. How’s that?”

In the photo, my arms are crossed, my smile confident. It’s good, although the graffiti on the wall behind me gives me pause. I’d prefer a less aggressive backdrop. “It’s an option . . .”

“Not my favorite.” He flips through a few more shots and chooses one taken seconds before the rain started. My squinted gaze holds the secret to my next client’s success. New York City fall is my backdrop, with multi-colored foliage against a graying sky. I’m not as poised.

“What else?” I ask.

“What about this one?” He shows me another. My head is twisted over one shoulder, my expression playful, my hair plastered to my cheeks. I don’t remember biting my lip, but the evidence is there on the screen. I’m not looking at the camera, though. I’m looking above it. At Finn. My insides tighten.

Finn touches something, and the screen goes black. He holds the viewfinder over his eye.
Snap
.

“Finn . . .”

He brushes his knuckles softly down my cheek and clears some hair off my neck. He takes another, but the graze of his touch remains.

“I took my makeup off.” My attempt to thwart him sounds as lame as it is.

“Hmm.” He adjusts a dial before taking the next photo. “I noticed. Funny how I . . . I mean, the camera . . . likes you anyway.”

This time, when I say his name, it’s a warning. “Finn.”

“I can’t help myself.”

“You can’t?” I ask. “Or you don’t want to?”

I see the edges of his smile from behind the camera. He lowers it. I’m likely wearing the same expression I was in that last photo. I’m not a model, and I’m no actress. That lusty look in my eyes was the real thing, and it’s not going away.

Finn reaches out and traces my neckline. Just the feel of his hand through the fabric sends my heartbeat racing. Lights up my skin with goose bumps. He pushes a fingertip into my dress, against my skin. It’s not enough. That simple, barely-there touch puts me more on edge than if he’d just gone and grabbed me. He tugs until I sit forward.

“Can’t help myself,” he answers my last question. “Don’t want to. Won’t.” Slowly, deliberately, with ample time for me to protest, he lifts my hair off my neck and slides my zipper down the length of my spine. He peels the dress over one shoulder, exposing the curve of it.

And he takes my picture.

He angles my jaw a little to the side. The room is darkening from the storm. The only sounds are raindrops against glass, my body-swaying breath, the slice and click of the camera.

“Fix your hair,” he says quietly.

“How?”

“However feels right.”

I rake a hand through my roots. I gather it in a loose, damp ponytail.

“Pull it.”

The little I’ve already given in makes my restraint slippery. He’s not asking, so I don’t have to decide for myself. I curl my hair around my hand and make my scalp tingle. I wait for his next command, my ass melding to the couch cushions. My dress is stiff. He pushes it down by the neckline, over my bra, to my waist.

“You’re made for the camera. For this lighting.” His voice scrapes like a dull knife on my skin. “For me.”

Despite the heat, a series of tremors run through me. I try to keep them inside, try not to move, as if my participation is ambiguous. There are things I want to feel—Finn’s tongue in my mouth. His hands on my breasts. The rock hardness of him pressed to my thigh. I don’t know if all that means I want to do this, though.

“It’s okay to move,” he says.

I hug myself to stave off any more trembling and run my hands over my biceps. I drink more coffee and Kahlúa. The heat coats my throat and chest like a syrupy waterfall.

“You asked what I like to take pictures of,” he says from behind the safety of his black box.

I look at him. His one exposed eye is squeezed shut. “Strangers,” I say.

“The opposite. I prefer someone I know. I get to see a new side of them.”

“What are you seeing now?”

“You have a lot of levels, Sadie. You don’t show them easily. Maybe you don’t even realize they’re there.” He can see all of me, yet I’m missing most of his face. I’m not sure if that’s making this descent into moral gray area easier or harder. His words are physical, hands on me, several of them all at once.