Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) (3 page)

Shafted

Rick surveyed the crowd before him, clearing his throat loudly. Discordant chatter fell to an expectant hush, and all eyes were on him. Camera flashes popped.

I don’t belong here.

A prod in the back from Isabelle reminded Rick that this wasn’t about him.

He looked down at his hands and almost burst out laughing. It was like one of those horrible dreams you had as a kid, showing up at school and suddenly realizing you’re naked. Except he was way overdressed, in a bespoke suit with a horrible Brioni tie strangling him in ways his guitar strap never could.

But that sinking feeling of the dream, of looking down to the utter shock of nakedness? Yeah, that was there. He had no guitar to hide behind. But what he did have in his hands was a pair of gigantic, ceremonial scissors.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Isabelle wisecracked from behind him.

“Right.” He knew the drill. Welcome everyone, allow the hospital president to say a few words, shake hands for the camera, cut the blasted thing, and call it a day. Both his publicist and the hospital’s spokesperson had been over it ad nauseam.

He opened his mouth and words started to flow. But the audience began to murmur again, shaking their heads and raising brows to one another.

“Sorry, sorry.” He tapped the dead microphone, then remedied it with a flick of the switch. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sound-check my own mic,” he joked. “Check, check one-two.” That garnered a laugh, mainly from the under forty crowd.

Rick had done the easy stuff earlier. Posing for pictures with various board of director muckety-mucks, signing autographs for them and for some of the doctors, their children, and their children’s children. Now came the hard part. He glanced down at the wide, orange satin ribbon stretched out before him as Isabelle gave him another nudge. It was the only thing keeping him from performing a perfect swan dive into the arms of the city officials and dignitaries seated below.

That and social decorum, he supposed.

“Thank you all for coming, and for giving me this honor. Simone would be . . .”

Simone would be what?

Rick glanced around at the shiny new cancer wing of the famed Manhattan hospital. His wife had died far away from here, the city of her birth, and from her parents, who had been unable to make the opening due to unforeseen circumstances. They were the ones who tirelessly raised the money and spoke for the cause, year after bloody year. He was just another checkbook, a token figurehead. Putting money where his mouth—or daresay where his heart—was not. He certainly didn’t deserve this honor that had fallen upon him right in the middle of his band’s tour, yanking him from the promise of the road and back to the crapshoot of reality.

“Simone would be . . .”

As he searched for the right words, the devil riding shotgun on the shoulder seam of his designer suit provided some choice ones.

Simone would be here if it weren’t for you, you pompous, self-centered prick.

His fists clenched, and he heard the crisp bite of stainless steel cutting through the satin. The orange bits fluttered to either side of him, and he stepped back, feeling faint. A collective gasp emanated from below and the president gaped uselessly, unread speech gripped in his hand. Isabelle was at the podium now, not a hair out of place and smiling as the crowd recovered and politely clapped.

“I have to get out of here,” Rick hissed at the back of her perfumed neck, “or I’m going to lose it.”

“Fine. Go. Take the service elevator,” she replied, mouth still frozen in her happy publicist’s smile. Isabelle was on the board of the Simone Banquet Memorial Foundation and was certainly equipped to provide the lip service for it. “There’s a car waiting downstairs to take you back to the airport.”

She relieved him of the Goliath shears and planted what felt like the kiss of Judas on his cheek. Exposing him for what he really was. Why, why,
why
did he let her talk him into this?

Rick bounded behind the pipe and drape toward the old part of the hospital, away from the Simone Banquet Memorial Cancer Center wing that he had just prematurely dedicated.

Why had he even bothered to come? He was useless at these types of things. Beyond useless, actually, and tipping over into the hazardous category. God, he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. He should be safely on the other coast with the band in Los Angeles, not here. Anywhere but here. Fingers worked to loosen the tight knot at his throat as he proceeded down the hallway toward the service elevator, which was miraculously opening at that very moment to allow a worker off.

“Hold the lift!” he barked as the doors began to close upon his approach. He saw no one inside move a finger in response. “Dammit!” Curse New York and its bloody New York minute, with everyone rushing and no one taking the time—

A slim, tan leg shot through the gap in the doors, causing them to spring open again.

Rick murmured his thanks as he wormed in, past the tiny sandal dangling from the foot holding the door at bay.

“Crap. My flip-flop!”

The owner of the leg shifted a huge paper sack of heavenly smelling baked goods in her arms, just in time to catch a glimpse of her shoe slipping neatly through the crack as the doors slid shut with a smug
ding
.

“Son of a bitch!”

The expletive hardly matched the wisp of a girl who had uttered it. She had the delicate features of a china doll and barely came up to Rick’s chest. Yet he and the other occupants of the elevator cowered as she swore like a trucker.

“Sorry,” was all Rick could muster.

“Me too.” The girl glared at him with eyes startlingly bright, banded in colors that reminded Rick of the tiger iron stone he used to bring back as gifts for his sons after tour stops in Australia. She mumbled something about good deeds unpunished and left it at that.

As they rode in uncomfortable silence, Rick realized the elevator was going up, not down. He had been so intent on escaping, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him that it might not be going the way he wanted.

Nothing was going the way he wanted these days.

He sighed, his eyes drifting down. The girl was balanced like a stork, her bare foot nestled against the inner thigh of her opposite leg. How she was able to stand like that while the elevator took its time to stop at every other floor, Rick had no clue. Not that he could blame her; he wouldn’t want his skin coming into contact with any part of Manhattan’s terra firma, whether inside or out. Her arms were still clutching the huge bag. Rick caught a whiff of cinnamon swirling with honey and walnuts and realized he had not eaten since landing on American soil.

An older woman in pink scrubs commandeering a cart full of hospital supplies finally spoke up. “Here,
chica
.” She rummaged through the items on the bottom shelf of the cart. “You take,” she continued in her broken English, smiling and offering up a scrunched handful of something.

Without a word to Rick, the girl handed off her bag to him so she could slide what looked like a pale blue paper shoe over her bare foot.

“Gracias,”
she said politely and pointedly to the woman. Which seemed to imply
No thanks to you
as far as Rick was concerned. She was a firecracker, this one.

Pink Scrubs got off at the next floor, leaving just the two of them on board. She took back custody of her bagels and kept her eyes on the lighted panel above the door. The only number left lit was sixteen, and they were almost there. Rick leaned past her to press L, feeling like an idiot.
L for Loser.
The girl smirked but didn’t comment.

Her hair was straight and glossy, darker than even his, and caught back in a ribbon the same orange hue as the one he had just snipped in half back in the multi-million-dollar wing that bore his wife’s name. He had felt so useless earlier. Now he had the sudden urge to do something, say something, to remedy the current situation.

“Can I buy you a coffee?” he blurted.
Lame.
“A new shoe?” That earned him a roll of those tiger iron eyes, flecked with golden jasper and bits as dark as black hematite. “How about a tetanus shot?”

With a dismissive snort, she scuffed down the hall in one paper shoe and didn’t look back.

Cinderella in Reverse

Do a good deed and what do you get?
Sidra thought.
The shaft.

Literally.

Truth be told, she had been too busy sneaking a glance at the gorgeous specimen who had entered the tight quarters of the elevator to notice her silly shoe was falling off her foot.

And that accent. Talk about imported!

Guys in power suits usually intimidated her, but something about this guy was different. Make no mistake—he absolutely owned the look. Especially with that cascade of long hair. The unexpected contradiction made him even more intriguing.

His suit had appeared tailor-made for his body, and that tie screamed spendy. Sidra would bet the last bagel in her bag that his shoes were a) Italian and b) worth more than her whole wardrobe combined. Not that her wardrobe contained much more than yoga pants and sports bras, but still. His shoes were really nice. Way too expensive (
and whoa—big!
) to ever lose down an elevator shaft.

She thought back to her “where have all the good guys gone?” conversation with Liz.
Gay?
Maybe.
Taken?
Maybe that, too. He had had a faint but fresh-looking lipstick mark on his cheekbone, she had noticed. Shoot. Oh well.

Sidra delivered the bag of bagels left behind by Seamus with little fanfare. The receptionist even gave her a tip. Enough for the subway ride home, but since she only had one damn shoe, she’d have to spring for a cab. No way was she going to deal with the hassle of the MTA while a paper bootie was cinched to her ankle.

Mr. Import had offered to treat her to a tetanus shot. Cute.

And she totally blew him off for his trouble.
Nice one, Sid. You may as well have given Manhattan’s last knight in shining armor the finger.

She wondered if he was a doctor. Plenty of them seemed to have abandoned the white coats these days. And the way he carried himself gave the impression he was some sort of big cheese, compared to the other lab rats in the maze of a medical center. But why the hell had he been riding the service elevator? Sidra knew why she was on it. Upon checking in at the front desk, she had been relegated to taking the route reserved for deliveries and dirty laundry. Certainly not the preferred mode of transportation for someone so well dressed.

The clap-scuff of her hurried pace echoed through the empty hall.
Back to the scene of the crime,
she thought as the elevator doors slid open.

“Your chariot awaits.”

Mr. Import was back, and he had brought a wheelchair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sidra laughed self-consciously. She hoped the Manhattan Goddess bagel hadn’t given her tuna breath.

“It’s the least I can do.” He pointed to the seat. “In you go.”

Sidra humored him. Maybe he could roll her down to the taxi stand, at least.

“Do you make a habit of this?” she asked.

“Of what? Absconding with hospital property?” As his laugh rumbled above her, she wished she hadn’t taken the seat so she could see the smile that went with it. Like his suit, she bet it looked like a million bucks. “Hardly.”

“No, of riding the dirty service elevator all day.”

They passed by two more floors before he answered. “Only when there’s the possibility of rescue and redemption.” The handsome stranger’s stilted murmur was close to her ear, raising goose bumps and questions she didn’t dare ask.

The ride going down was fast and smooth, with no stops in between. He whisked the wheelchair into the busy lobby and finessed his way to the sliding glass doors, humming something in a melodic baritone as he pushed.

“Okay, well. The ride stops here. I’m fine, thanks.” She really needed to get downtown so she could grab another pair of shoes from home and hoof it to the studio. “I’m going to be late for work.”

“Well, you certainly can’t go to work barefoot.”

Now it was Sidra’s turn to laugh as she accepted his large hand and allowed herself to be helped out of the wheelchair. “Actually, I can.”

He raised one heavy, sculpted eyebrow. “Look. You said no to my offer of coffee—”

“And to your offer of immunization,” Sidra interjected.

“—so let me at least replace your shoe. I insist.” He was already signaling to a—no joke—long, black limousine idling out front. Its driver popped out and stepped lively toward the back door.

“Dude. I’m not getting in a car with a total stranger. Sorry.”

Mr. Import’s dark brow furrowed as if he didn’t quite understand. He
so
wasn’t from around here.

“You’re not getting in a car with a total stranger, you’re getting into a car with . . .”

“James, sir.” The driver tapped his own name tag with a smile.

“You’re getting in a car with James.” He turned to the driver and Sidra saw the flash of a bill disappear into the liveryman’s breast pocket as they spoke in hushed tones. “James is going to take you to a shoe store, and then he’s going to take you to work.” Now Sidra caught a glimpse of his smile, which appeared to be tinged with the tiniest bit of regret. “I’ve actually got a plane to catch.”

Sidra watched from the open window of the limo as Mr. Import stepped to the curb and raised his arm. “JFK Airport, please,” she heard him say.

So, chivalry isn’t dead after all,
she thought.
It’s hailing a yellow medallion cab to Queens.

* * *

“There’s a Duane Reade.” Sidra pointed, but James appeared to have strict orders to not stop until he had reached a proper shoe store. They were on Third Avenue, which brimmed with Upper East Side expensive choices.
Step on it, Jeeves. Tick-tock!
She had class in an hour, and her seniors weren’t very Zen about being made to wait.

“They’re ten-dollar drugstore flip-flops,” she insisted impatiently. “And I only lost one. So why not give me five dollars of the hundred he slipped you and we’ll call it a day?”

James’s eyes met Sidra’s in the rearview mirror. “I promised him we’d get you proper shoes, miss.”

Of course they had to be proper. Sidra could still hear Mr. Import’s oh-so-proper accent ringing in her ears. So smooth. “Pretty elaborate pickup technique, don’t you think?”

“Or just a good Samaritan, I suppose.”

Sidra contemplated James’s reply. For a smooth talker, her Prince Charming hadn’t offered up a name, or asked for hers. Perhaps this was just one of those weird pay-it-forward things, like covering the toll of the car behind you, or treating the next customer in line at the drive-thru. Manhattan usually didn’t see such random acts of senseless kindness. Or, at least, Sidra didn’t.

“Here we are, miss.”

Sidra balked at the storefront; she recognized the name brand from flipping through those thick fashion magazines her friend Fiona was partial to.

“Um, the hundred dollars he gave you isn’t going to buy an Odor-Eater in this store, James.”

Her driver reddened as he ushered her through the front door. “That was just my, um . . . tip. Everything else is on the company account.”

Sidra felt her ears burn. As if it weren’t embarrassing enough to walk into a high-end boutique wearing a paper hospital bootie! “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Thankfully, the sales girls didn’t bat an eye at Sidra’s odd choice of footwear and went to fetch her size. “Just the cheapest you’ve got. Last season,” Sidra called after them. They enlisted James, who brought her a sizable stack of boxes. Even the cardboard looked expensive.

“This is ridiculous,” she said to no one in particular. Half the styles she nixed just on the prices alone. The other half she longed to play dress-up with, as they were flirty and fun but totally not practical for walking the uneven and broken sidewalks of her East Village neighborhood. James stood by at the ready, as if he had all the time in the world. But Sidra knew time was a-wasting; she had to get back downtown to teach her beginners class at Evolve.

She slid her feet into the most comfortable and decadent pair of flip-flops she had ever encountered. The suede-covered cork footbed practically sighed as it molded around her foot and supported her arch and heel. The straps were genuine black patent leather, not the plastic stuff, and heavily embellished with rhinestones.

“These are perfect. I’ll take them.”

James looked on approvingly, and for a millisecond, Sidra entertained a fantasy that instead of a suited chauffeur, her Mr. Import was standing there in all his fineness and finery, helping her choose. A pang of regret reverberated through her. She should have at least asked him his name. Not that it mattered, but . . .

A salesgirl discreetly disposed of the dirty paper shoe while the other clerk rang up the purchase. Sidra cringed at the price, knowing her new flip-flops cost roughly eighteen times more than her old pair.

“What’s your return policy?” she asked as James supplied Mr. Import’s line of credit. She had half a mind to bring the pretty shoes back tomorrow. Although the other half of her brain must’ve been connected to her feet, which insisted she was never going to take them off.

“Thirty days. Would you like to keep this?” The salesgirl held up Sidra’s lone cheap flip-flop.

“Sure, what the heck.” Perhaps she’d tack it to her bedroom wall. It could serve as a reminder that Manhattan hadn’t run dry of the good guys just yet.

*   *   *

The limo glided down Second Avenue. Sidra made good use of the surround sound stereo and had James rocking rhymes with the Beastie Boys and singing along to seventies Motown by the time they had reached Houston.

“So this is it, I guess.”

“It’s been a pleasure, miss.”

“Please, call me Sidra.”

But it was a little too late for introductions, as the limo pulled away from the dusty, littered curb of Rivington Street and the spell was broken.

Back to reality, I guess.

Sidra glanced up as she gave the doorknob of her family’s building a vigorous pull. There was the old sign for Sullivan and Son Bicycles, its red and black letters barely legible amidst the curls of peeling paint and splintered swollen wood. Nailed to its bottom frame was the sign Seamus had painstakingly designed and airbrushed for their cousin Mike: a biomechanical steampunk logo for Revolve Records. While the name was fitting for an establishment that still sold physical forms of music, it was really more of an homage to their family’s old trade. Although, Sidra thought grimly, Revolve was quickly on its way to becoming a relic itself. Besides Mikey and a few other purists, no one cared about vinyl. Or even CDs anymore, for that matter. Seamus kidded about just airbrushing over the
R
in the sign once the record store flopped. “Evolve or die,” he had joked.

Which was how Sidra came to name Evolve, her month-old business.

She really should have a sign made, too. Word of mouth could only travel so far. Still, it secretly pleased her to know her unlabeled yoga studio brought more income into the property during that short time period than her cousin’s record sales had in the last quarter.

“Nice shoes.” He whistled from behind the counter. “What, did you mug Paris Hilton?”

“All the better to kick you with, Mikey.”

Sidra blew her cousin a kiss as she breezed through the deserted record store and into her back sanctuary. Judging from the number of attendance cards out and lockers in use, it looked like she had ten students waiting for her.

“Good afternoon, everyone.” She kicked off her overpriced flip-flops. “Let’s begin in Child’s pose.”

Shedding her tunic in favor of the lightweight black tank top underneath, she grabbed her mat and spread it under the light and shadows cast by the lone Moroccan-style brass lamp hanging high in the back space she had claimed as her own.

All of her seniors folded up and rested their torsos on their thighs like dutiful children.
“Balasana.”
Sidra breathed the Sanskrit name as everyone, herself included, surrendered to gravity and the state of non-doing required of this pose. As her forehead met her mat, she was grateful for an excuse to clear her mind of the surreal events of the day.