Tonic (12 page)

I didn’t want to admit how right he was. He didn’t wait for me to — he probably knew he had me.

“What character did you get? Did it mean something to you?”

“It does mean something to me,” I said, wanting to defend myself, but I was without a single bit of traction, except this. “It’s the symbol for ice.”

Joel watched me for a long, quiet moment. “Tell me what it means.”

I swallowed, feeling the weight of his eyes on me, my own eyes on my fingers as they traced a small split in the vinyl of the arm of the chair. “Ever since I was a little girl, I was serious. Roxy was the sun and I was the moon. She was the spring and I was the winter. She was the fire and I was the ice. Cold, just like the place where my ancestors were born.
Led
, ice. Hard and harsh and sharp. I’ve always been this way,” I said, as if I were trying to convince myself that it was all right just as much as I wanted to convince him.

He watched me in a way that made my heart speed up. “That’s not what I see.”

I met his eyes. “What do you see?”

“Snow. Cold and soft, the sum of an infinite number of beautiful pieces. And when the light hits just right, you shine.”

I had no words, my mind blank as my eyes hung on to his like a lifeline.
 

He broke our gaze and moved to stand. “Let me see it.”

“What?” I blustered, caught off guard.

“Stand up and turn around. I want to see it.”

I was too surprised and caught up in the moment to refuse, so I stood and turned, laying my palms on the armrests as I faced the back of the chair.
 

One hand rested on my hip.
 

My heart stopped as I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
 

I glanced over my shoulder, my gaze bouncing between his face — turned down too much to read — and his reflection in the speckled, antique mirror, which I couldn’t see much of either. His free hand moved to the waistband of my tailored pants, and his fingers hooked and tugged, pulling the band down low.

His thumb ran over where I knew the tattoo was, and I felt his breath. Every place where we connected spoke to me of ownership.
 

“You got this done here? In New York?” His voice was rough.

Mine wasn’t much better. “Yeah. In Brooklyn.”

“Let me cover it up for you. Give you something you’re proud of. Your skin …” He paused, and I wished I could see his face, read his mind. “This shouldn’t be here, not on you. Let me … I want to …” He had moved closer, his hand on my hip pulling me back into him slightly enough for me to not have noticed that the backs of my thighs were touching his, my back arched just enough, his breath hot.
 

And then, he disappeared. I stood, finding my hands were trembling, wondering where I was and how I’d gotten there. The shop was mostly empty — no one had seen, not that it would have looked like much from the outside. But from where I stood, I felt every single deliberate move like a telegraph, telling me exactly what he wanted to do without him having to finish the sentence.
 

His back was to me when I turned around, his face down — I couldn’t see it in the mirror over his cabinet of ink and needles as he dug around in the drawers, seemingly for nothing in particular.
 

“Let me know if you want me to draw something up.”

“Okay, I will.” I paused, not knowing what else to say, feeling like I should say something. But there was nothing that I
could
say. “Well, have a good night, Joel. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded, glancing at me in the mirror. “See you, Annika.”

I tried not to bolt out of the shop, but once outside, I admit it — I took off. I hauled up the stairs and into the office to grab my bag, grateful that Laney was already gone, and I texted my driver, asking him to pick me up a few blocks away so I could walk, put some distance between me and Joel, get the energy out of my body, through my legs and feet, into the pavement.

Annika

THE CITY PASSED BY OUTSIDE my window as we drove to Brooklyn, the lights zipping past in streaks, my eyes focused on a fleck of mud on the glass.

Nothing made sense.

It was pretty clear to me that I wanted more from Joel than I’d admitted to myself before, and I felt like an asshole for the amount of pushback I’d given to him for coming on to me. All because the idea of him and me freaked me out on multiple levels. I wasn’t sure what I even wanted from him. Sex? Definitely. The way he touched my skin, as simple as the motion was, it was undeniable — my body wanted his body.
 

Past that?
 

I sighed, unable to even imagine what went past that. Dinner with Joel? I didn’t think he’d like the idea of a nice dinner at the restaurants I frequented. Joel in a suit. My thighs squeezed together remembering him in the suit that first night, imagining him in one again, sitting across from me at a candlelit table, or in my room, my hands under his jacket, pushing it over his shoulder—

Stop it,
I told myself. We had nothing in common. What would we even talk about? My heart argued that we hadn’t lacked for conversation up to that point. My head told my heart to sit down and shut up.

Indecision swarmed through me like evil bees, but in the center of that was the honeycomb — the knowledge that I wanted more from Joel, though I wasn’t ready to define was
more
was. That knowledge, at least, was comforting, the release of the levy I’d been doing my damnedest to keep standing, and I was flooded with relief.

More relief came as we pulled up in front of my house — Roxy would know what to do.

I thanked my driver, climbed out of the car, walked across the sidewalk and into the house, ready to spill it all.

The house was dimly lit, having wound down from the day, and Roxy sat on the couch, humming along to The Lumineers as the soft, folky sounds filled the room. She looked up from her sketchbook and smiled.

“Hey.”

I set my bag down on the hall table. “Hey.”

Her smile fell a hair. “You okay?”

I sipped in a deep breath. “Yes and no.”

She full-on frowned and set the drawing of a garment on the coffee table. “What’s going on?”

“Anni!” Kira squealed and bounded down the stairs and into my legs, which she wrapped her little arms around.
 

I smoothed her hair, looking down at her. “Hey, Bunny. What are you still doing up?”

“Mama said I could wait up so we could play.”

Roxy stood. “Baby, I said
maybe
, but I think Anni’s tired.”

I waved her off. “No, it’s okay. I promised her yesterday.”

Kira beamed, and I took her hand.
 

“Come on, let’s go. What are we playing?”

“Anna and Elsa,” she said definitively and to no surprise to me.
 

I laughed. “So I’m Anna?”

Kira gave me a look like I was crazy as we climbed the stairs with Roxy in our wake. “You’re
Elsa
. You’re always Elsa.”

“Oh, of course. I thought maybe we were switching it up. Looks like Mama’s going to play too. Who will she be?”

“Sven. And Kaz will be Kristoff”

Roxy rolled her eyes. “How come I always have to be the moose?”

“
Reindeer,
” Kira huffed, impatient as we turned into her room.

“He has no lines! I just end up giving Kira rides around her bedroom.”

“Well, Mama, you’re not a good singer like Anni and me,” she said matter-of-factly.

Roxy laughed. “I guess that’s true. But I could at least get to be Olaf.”

“Okay,” Kira started once we reached her room, straight to business. “Anni, you sit here. Mama, you sit there. Kaz will go here.” He was already in her room, asleep on the rug, and she picked him up under the arms, moving him to the bed. He looked apathetic at best. “Okay, lemme get your costumes.” She turned for her closet to rummage through a trunk full of dress-up clothes.

We sat, and I unbound my hair, shaking it out before getting started on a French braid that sadly lacked the length or girth of Elsa’s. Roxy leaned in. “What’s going on?”

My fingers wound my hair around and around. “Hairy.”

Her brows rose. “Good or bad?”

“Both,” I said as I wrapped the hair tie around the end.

Dresses flew over Kira’s shoulder as she kept digging.

“Well, what happened?” Roxy asked.

“I think I like him.”

She opened her mouth to say something snarky — I could tell by her face — when Kira cheered and ran over with two dresses in hand.
 

“This one’s for you, Anni.” She extended the blue-and-white sparkly costume, adult sized, which I took. “And this one’s for me.” She clutched the darker dress to her chest.

“What about me?” Roxy asked.

“Oh!” She bounced off, and Roxy turned to me.
 

“I’m glad you finally figured it out. But what
happened
?”

Before I could answer, Kira was back, wiggling an antler headband in Roxy’s face. Roxy leaned back to avoid getting speared in the eye and situated the headband on her head.

“Okay,” she said as she wiggled into her dress, and I pulled mine over my head, an adult-sized costume copy of Elsa’s gown. “Let’s start with me looking for you. You go sit up there in the ice castle, Anni.” She pointed to her bed, and I did as I was told. “Come on, Mama. I mean, Sven. Let’s go find Elsa.”

Roxy got on all fours, and Kira climbed onto her back, humming as Sven crawled in circles on the rug. “Was there k-i-s-s-i-n-g?” she asked.

“No,” I answered. “But I think I want there to be.”

“And you really just figured this out?”

“No, I mean, I knew, but I didn’t want it to be true. After today though, I don’t think I can hold off. I don’t think I should. In fact, I don’t know what was stopping me in the first place.”

“Well,” she said, circling the rug again as Kira pointed to her closet and said
over there!
Roxy headed in that direction. “You gave me the list the other night, but it all sounded like BS to me.”

“BS, BS, BS,” Kira sang, then said, “Oh, no! It’s Marshmallow the snow monster!”

“
Rawr,
” Roxy growled and reared back, and Kira squealed as she held onto Roxy’s neck. “Whew, we made it,” Roxy said as she continued on and began to circle the rug again.

“I don’t know, Rox. I don’t know anything right now.”

She gave me a sympathetic look.

“There she is!” Kira pointed at me, and Roxy gave her a lift to the bed.

“Sister!” I cried, opening my arms.

She climbed into my lap. “I missed you. Me and Sven looked all over the forest and almost got eaten by Marshmallow!”

I gasped dramatically. “But my monster wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

She giggled. “I know, but he growls scary. Okay, now it’s time to sing ‘Let It Go.’”

I laughed. “Oh, it’s already that time? Will you sing with me?”

“Yes!”

And that began our musical interlude, wherein my little cousin and I sang “Let It Go” for the eighteen thousandth time. I’d learned all the lyrics like a good auntie and sang them almost daily. Halfway through the song, Kira stopped singing, leaning into the crook of my arm so she could look up at me with wide eyes. Even Roxy looked dreamy as she listened, and I sang through to the end.

They paused for a second when I was finished before cheering, clapping and squealing or whistling, depending on age and ability. I bowed my head, smiling.
 

“Thank you, thank you.”

Roxy sighed. “You have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. I wish you weren’t such a fuddy-duddy about karaoke.”

“Please. Embarrassing myself in front of you two is nothing, but bar full of strangers? No thanks.”

“You’re crazy,” Roxy said.

Kira squished my face. “You sound like an angel,” she said, triggering the memory of Joel saying the same thing about his mother.

I kissed her nose. “Thanks, Bunny.”

“Okay,” Roxy started, “I hate to cut this short, but it’s super late, kiddo.”

Groans of dissent filled the room.

Roxy got back on all fours. “Come on. I’ll still be Sven until after teeth are brushed.”

That perked Kira up, and she slid off my lap and onto her mother’s back.

“Go pour us drinks. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten,” Roxy said as she adjusted Kira.

“Deal.” I pulled off my costume as they made their way down the hall, packing the abandoned dresses back in their chest before heading downstairs.

I smiled to myself, listening to my cousins upstairs laughing as Roxy read her daughter a story, and I settled into the couch with a bottle of Russian Standard, pouring a finger of liquor into a rocks glass. Kaz jumped up and lay down next to me as I knocked back the shot. I was just pouring another when Roxy came down.
 

She climbed onto the couch next to me and picked up her drink. Her feet brushed Kaz, and he bit her toe, swatting at her foot with his paw. “Ouch!” she shouted, jerking away from him with a furrowed brow and red cheeks. “Screw you too, you mean old son of a bitch.”

I laughed, chiding the old cat half-heartedly.

She settled in, still eyeing him. “All right. What’s the deal? You and Joel?”

I took a sip, buying a second before answering. “I don’t know what the deal is with us. I mean, I’ve been telling him absolutely never for the last week, and now …” I sighed. “I don’t know anything past the fact that I want him to kiss me. And that seems like a terrible idea. There are still reasons why I shouldn’t, but they all seem stupid now that I’ve admitted to myself that I like him.”

“Okay, so tell me again for real — why can’t you let him kiss you?”

“Because I already told him he’s not allowed to. Because he’s not the kind of guy I usually picture myself with. Because we work together, and me getting emotionally involved with one of the cast members could affect my ability to be objective. Because he makes me uncomfortable. Because he scares me.”

“Scares you?”

“Roxy, he is the literal unknown, in the flesh. I’m not the one to throw caution to the wind.”