Tonic (18 page)

Annika

I COULDN’T KEEP MY EYES open, not just because Joel saw more of me than I wanted him to, but because I was exhausted. My body was heavy — my arms slung around his neck, my legs caught under his arms, every breath labored. He was heavy too, his body on mine a comfortable weight. I liked being surrounded by him. It was comforting. Safe.

But I couldn’t look into his eyes when he looked at me like that.
 

He released my legs, and I stretched them out, winding them around his waist as he buried his face in my neck, his breath huffing, lips closing occasionally to kiss my skin. I leaned into his ear, nestling into the bend of his neck.

We lay like that for a long time, long enough that I think I fell asleep for a few seconds, woken with his movement as he rolled over.
 

I twisted my hips to ease our bodies’ separation, then put them back where they were, leaving me lying flat on the bed, feeling like a fat, lazy cat after a feast of milk and honey. Sweat had beaded all over my skin, and now that we weren’t pressed against each other, the cool air prickled the moisture. It felt glorious.

The bed bounced as he got up — my eyes were still closed, my body reveling in its current state — and dipped again a moment later when he returned from the bathroom, if the flushing toilet was any indication. I sighed when I felt him next to me, turning my head, prying my lids open as I smiled at him where lay, head propped on his palm, smile on his lips, eyes on my face.
 

I convinced my body to roll onto my side so I could face him more comfortably, tucking my hands under my head and curling toward him.

“I’m so tired,” I muttered.

His smile pulled up on one side before he started singing “I’m So Tired,” by The Beatles in his off-key, gruffy timbre.
 

I chimed in on the chorus, and his tone shifted, trying to match mine without luck, but I didn’t care. The look of surprise on his face as we sang all the lyrics together was absolutely perfect.

He laughed when we were finished, and I found myself smiling like a fool, lying next to Hairy, singing The Beatles.
 

“I never would have pegged you for a big enough fan of The Beatles that you’d know that entire song.”

“It’s on one of my favorite albums.”

“
The White Album
? Really?” he asked, his face colored with disbelief.

“Yes, really. I know every note of that album just as well as I know my own name.”

He shook his head, still chuckling.

“Is it really that unbelievable?”

“Yes, actually.”

“More unbelievable than me reading romance novels?”

He laughed. “That’s different, but close. Classic, stuffy, Regency era fiction seems like just your kind of story.”

I pushed him in the shoulder. “Hey, you’re reading it too, last I checked.”

He laid a hand on my hip, slipping his thigh between mine. “I am. And it’s not even that bad — I kinda love it. Well, once I figured out what the hell they were saying, at least.”

I chuckled and shifted to move closer to him. “I’m glad you’re reading it. It shows a particular level of persistence that you’d brave Jane Austen just to impress me.”

That smirk of his made my insides feel all fluttery. “Psh. I don’t even have to try when it comes to impressing you.”

I full on laughed at that.

“So,” he said, “explain to me how you became a mega-fan of the Beatles, because I can’t figure out a theory that makes any sense.”

“My parents have the original vinyl albums.”

His mouth dropped open at that. “You’re kidding. Do you know what number it is?”

My brow quirked. “What do you mean?”

His eyes lit up. “So the album covers all have numbers printed on the back,” he said, speeding up a little as he spoke, “and if the number is under a hundred, it could be worth near ten grand.”

I blinked. “Oh, my God.”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t even know if I could sell something like that, if it were mine.”

“No, they would never.”

“Even to help their retirement?”

I shook my head. “It’s too important to them. Mama loves to tell the story about when they lived in Israel and couldn’t find a record store that carried it, so Roxy’s dad sent them a copy from America. It was so rare to them, so valuable — did you know their music was banned in Russia? Well, anything Western was banned in Russia.”

He shook his head.
 

“I think to them it was a tangible representation of their freedom, you know? No one would stop them from listening to it. There was no one to tell them no. So it’s invaluable to them, along with most of their record collection.” I smiled. “Papa still has his old record player, in mint condition. I remember being a little girl, dancing with him in the living room to ‘Honey Pie.’”

Joel smiled and brushed my hair back from my face. “Who would have thought.”

I laughed. “Not you.” The last word stretched into a yawn. “But I really am so tired. I wish I could stay.”

He leaned in for a kiss. “Then stay.” His soft lips brushed mine, and I sighed.

“I can’t. I have no clothes, and your apartment is in the same building where I currently work.” I’d all but stopped smiling. “I don’t even know how I’ll get home other than a cab — if I call my driver, Laney will have a trail to follow.”

“You can’t just say you were working late?”

I chuffed. “Maybe if the show wasn’t an around-the-clock operation. Someone’s always here, and they’d tell her I wasn’t if she asked. Which she would.”

He was frowning, and I realized I was too.
 

“I dunno. Maybe I can walk to a bar and have him pick me up there. Pretend I had a drink.”

“I don’t like the idea of you running around alone.”

I laughed. “You act like I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn. I’ll be fine, Joel. Really. I’ll sneak out, take a little walk, and call my driver to get me home. Or call a cab and pay a small fortune to get over the bridge.”

“Maybe you should just bring clothes over. You know, just to make things easier,” he offered.

“Maybe I will,” I said, leaning in for a kiss, wishing I had anything to wear tomorrow because going home felt like the equivalent of asking me to climb Everest. But I peeled myself out of Joel’s bed and shuffled around the room, picking up my clothes and putting them on my exhausted body — he only had to reach off the side of the bed for his pants, swinging his legs over the side to pull them on.

When I was dressed, yawning hard enough for my eyes to water every thirty seconds, he walked me to the door and cupped my face, a gesture that made me feel small and precious.

“Next time, stay the night. Make it easy on both of us.”

My heart lurched, something about his words giving me a sense of foreboding. “All right,” I said anyway, and tipped my chin up, reaching for a kiss that he gave me, a gentle connection of our lips that swept away the feeling, replacing it with a wisp of a flutter in my chest.

He opened the door quietly and checked the hallway, even going so far as to trot down the stairs, barefoot and blissfully shirtless, to make sure the sidewalk was clear before finally letting me leave. Though he wouldn’t let me go until I granted him another kiss, one a little deeper and hotter, like he wanted to leave his mark in parting, giving me something that would stay with me.
 

As if the night hadn’t been enough.

I hurried out of the building, feeling less anxious about being spotted once I hit the sidewalk. And once I was near the corner, reality began to seep in.

I had no idea what I was doing. My first reaction was shame — not of being with him or doing what I wanted with him, but for not remembering the consequences. For not letting those consequences stop me. Because now? Now I’d had a taste, and there was no walking away. Not easily, at least.

I sighed as I walked toward a bar that, according to my phone, was down Broadway, barely recognizing myself. As different as Joel and I were, we fit together like clasping hands. Never in my life had I been with a man who knew exactly what to do to my body, a man so sure of every move he made, a man so …
equal
to me. It seemed to me, I realized suddenly, that every man I’d been with up to that point had been safe, unaffected. Ambitious, sure, but without true passion. Not like the lust for life that emanated from Joel like some crazy pheromone.

 
What are you doing, Annika?

It wasn’t even a question I could answer, so instead I texted my driver before ducking into a bar called Habits, ordering a shot of Stoli to calm myself down as I waited. The bar was nearly empty, besides a middle-aged man slumped over a table in the back, and the bartender — a woman who I guessed was in her thirties and not used to working a bar, given the
Help Wanted
sign in the window and her open laptop displaying Quickbooks the far end of the bar. I was also glad she was too busy with her work to bother with me.

I heard Laney in the back of my mind, calling Joel a meat puppet and telling me not to get involved. I heard Joel telling me it didn’t have to be complicated, that we would both walk away at the end and it would be over.
Like it never happened
, he’d said. I didn’t know if I could ever pretend that Joel Anderson never happened.

I sat up a little straighter and turned the shot glass with my thumb and forefinger. We were hot for each other, that was obvious, and I told myself I’d imagined that there was anything more to it. It was just chemicals, that was all, and Joel said himself that he was a loner. He didn’t do relationships, and he wouldn’t want to start with me. And all of that was for the absolute best.
 

As I picked up the shot glass and tossed the liquor back, I did my best to convince myself that I was right.

Annika

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING — MUCH too early given the long night before — I found myself hauling the heavy box of ledgers up the stairs and into my office. Laney was already at her desk and on the phone, and I set the box down with a thump, shaking out my fingers from the strain. She glanced over at the box, then at me quizzically as I took a seat and opened up my laptop to go over the schedule for the day.
 

The big segment was a piece Joel would do for a woman we’d cast weeks before. She wanted a graphic piece in black linework, the concept simple enough that it could be done in a day, though it would take all day to film. We wanted to show the process of getting a tattoo, start to finish, including the sketching. Though we were sort of cheating — Joel already had an idea of what she wanted and had sketched a draft that she’d approved in advance so we could expedite things. I smiled to myself, looking forward to spending the day with him, wondering how it would feel to work that closely with him for an entire day after last night.

“Thanks, Paul,” Laney said into the receiver. “Yeah, no problem.” She set her phone down on the desk and leaned back in her chair. “What’s all that?” She nodded to the box.
 

“Paperwork for my parents’ retirement. Joel offered to help me with it.”

“Look at you, making friends,” she said snidely.
 

I frowned. “God, what’s with you? I mean, you were practically pushing me into his lap when we started this.”

Her face softened. “I know. It was funny, seeing you all worked up, but I’m now convinced it’s a terrible idea.”

“I wasn’t worked up.”

“Whatever you say, Annika. You know how I feel about it. What’s on deck today?”

I let out a breath in an attempt to let her judgments go. “Joel’s big tattoo segment. Tomorrow I have interviews. And Shep relinquished a key to Ramona’s place for a scene we’re planning to do with him setting up a romantic dinner at her apartment, but I sent a PA to copy the key and go over there to wreak havoc.”

Laney laughed. “I like it. What’s the plan?”

“Take a pair of Penny’s shoes and hide them here in the office in the hopes that she blames one of the other girls for stealing them. Throwing out food in the fridge marked for Veronica. Taking Ramona’s toothbrush. That sort of thing.”

“Great. Where are you at with Veronica and Patrick?”

This was one of the topics I wasn’t crazy about. “There’s not much there. Patrick’s living with his girlfriend now, and they’re rock-solid. Veronica doesn’t seem too hung up on it, either. I’ve pressed her in her interviews, but I really don’t think anything’s there.”

“Maybe you should make something, then.”

“This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of show.”

She sighed. “I know, but it’s like a disease. I can’t help but see the weak spots and try to exploit them. It’s been years of conditioning, and you have to admit, it would make good TV.”

“It would, but let’s just focus on conflict outside of the store instead of creating conflict in it.”

“That works for me,” she conceded without a fight.

I relaxed a hair. “Thank you.”

“For now.”

I gave her a look.
 

“Don’t give me that. We need a hit, you know that.”

“I do, and I think we have one. You’re right, they’re going to love Joel and the shop. They’ll get to learn, see a little drama. It’s going to be great.”

“They’re going to want a lot of drama. But that’s what Hal is for.”

I took a breath and let it out. “Right.” The word was far less emotional than it felt. It sounded apathetic, which was a massive crock of shit. And I was tired of feeling like I didn’t have control over my own show.
 

I snapped my computer closed as if I could leave my discomfort there, in a spreadsheet or an email or somewhere harmless where it couldn’t do damage.

“I’d better get down there to make sure everything’s set up. I’ll see you later.”

“Let’s do dinner tonight. How does cold pizza on our desks sound?”

I chuckled. “Sounds like heaven. Let’s see if we can make it work. Have your people get in touch with my people.”

“I’ll pencil you in.”

I waved at her over my shoulder as I walked out and headed downstairs, feeling a little raw. Mostly because Laney was right after all. Joel was already clouding my judgment, and I didn’t think the problem was going to get any easier.