Kathleen O'Reilly - New York Nights - Shaken and Stirred

“Yeah, she’s nice.”

He squinted at her. “Did you change your eyebrows?”

Self-consciously she smoothed them back. “It’s called grooming.”

He nodded once. “It looks nice.” Then he stared at the door to his bedroom, then stared back at Tessa. Then he sighed. “Are you ever going to tell me why I’m jumping through all these hoops, Tessa?”

There was something so disarming about the look in those blue eyes. This was the man who probably knew her better than anyone in New York.

She owed him something; she owed him the truth. “Because you scare me,” she said, the words coming out in a rush.

The bloodshot eyes looked at her, confused, as though it wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “Why? I’m the most unscary person on the planet.”

And for Tessa, that exact unscariness was the reason he was so dangerous to her well-being. If he was as raunchy as Sean, or as serious as Daniel, she’d have her shields up, and it’d be easy to keep a relationship alive while chasing her career. But Gabe wasn’t like most men. Her shields had never even had a chance.

“I need time, Gabe. That’s all. I have things I have to do first. I have to learn to be on my own.”

“I’m tired of your rules, I’m tired of your guidelines. Damn, right now I’m tired.”

He did look tired, and she hated that she was doing this, but if she didn’t do it now, she never would. He didn’t know how weak she really was. She had to make sure she could make it on her own. She had to make sure with one hundred percent certainty that if she needed to support herself, she could. Nobody seemed to understand that but her.

She stared into his tired eyes and willed herself to be strong. “I’ve known you for four years. You’re the first person I met in New York. The first person who offered me a job, the first person who made sure I understood the difference between a local and an express train, the first person who explained to me how to cross against the light in order to not be run over by the eight thousand people crossing against the light from the opposite direction. There’s no one that I’ve ever depended on more, Gabe. Nobody. Not even Denny. I can’t depend on you like that.”

Gabe, who had taken care of himself for his entire life, shrugged easily. “Yes, you can.”

“I have to learn to depend on myself first.”

“Tessa you can do anything you want.” He ran a hand through his hair. Dark, silky hair that probably Marisa had touched the way Tessa longed to.

Now wasn’t the time to think about his hair, she reminded herself. “You’re right. I can do anything I want. But I have to actually do it. I can’t just want to do it. There’s a difference.”

He took that in, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. Finally he nodded. “How long are we talking about here? A month? Another four years?”

And now they were discussing schedules. Tessa, who was about five years off hers, felt the familiar panic rise up inside her. “I don’t know.”

Gabe frowned, not sensing her panic, probably because he never panicked. Never felt that urgency at three in the morning, when she stared up at the ceiling, thinking of what she should be doing with her life and how much of a failure she would be if she didn’t decide soon.

“Do you know where I was last night?” he asked.

“Yeah,” answered Tessa, not really wanting to have this conversation.

“No. No, you don’t. It was Daniel’s wedding anniversary last night. Do you know how many wedding anniversaries he and Michelle had?”

“No,” she said, not understanding what Daniel’s wife had to do with his date with Marisa.

“Not a single one. They were married exactly five months before she was killed and never had one anniversary. Do you know what my brother did last night, Tessa?”

“No.”

“He got drunk. Falling down drunk in some bar in Westchester that I don’t even know how he ended up at. Sometimes it’s their anniversary, sometimes it’s her birthday and sometimes it’s nothing at all. My brother had a total of ten months with Michelle, and that was it. All my life I’ve been surrounded by people whose time was up before it was supposed to be, and nobody knows what’ll happen. We could all go tomorrow and—poof—we never would have had a chance. So you can see why I’m not eager to sit on my hands while you move forward with your life. I don’t want to end up drunk in a sports bar in Westchester because you needed time.”

“I’m sorry,” answered Tessa. And she was. She hated that people had to hurt. She hated that Daniel was hurt—he didn’t deserve that. She hated that Gabe was hurt—he didn’t deserve it either. But Tessa couldn’t fix the problems of the world, she had to focus on fixing Tessa. She had to fix herself or she never would. And maybe it didn’t matter to Gabe, maybe it didn’t matter to Daniel, maybe it didn’t matter to anyone but Tessa, but this was her last shot and she knew it. There were other people who could start over at thirty or start over at forty, or start over at sixty-five, but Tessa had never started at all. At some point she had to get out of the gate, and the clock was ticking.

“It doesn’t matter to me if you’re who you want to be or who you are, Tessa. You’re you. That’s enough for me. Why don’t we go slow? You want to do your class. Stay here.”

“I don’t know that I can do that, Gabe,” she said, even though she knew she couldn’t. Gabe was a long stretch of pristine beach looking out over the ocean. The summer breeze blowing across your skin, warming you, making you drowsy and relaxed. Tessa remembered those long, lazy days by the water, hours passing as you did nothing but lay there catching rays.

He met her eyes. “Don’t make me wait too long, because patience is too close to failure for me.”

“I won’t,” she said, feeling the panic moving up her throat. Panic that tasted remarkably like cold cereal.

Tessa swallowed it down. Keeping away from Gabe was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she knew she didn’t have a choice, and maybe tomorrow she’d feel as if she’d conquered the world, but right now she felt like garbage.

So she smiled at him as if she’d just conquered the world. “Starts on Wednesday. Eight o’clock to five o’clock for ten straight days. I needed to talk to you about my schedule. I can’t be there until after five, when class is over. And then when I get my license, I think I should put in my two weeks notice at the bar. I’m going to make this work.”

“Sure,” he said, then gave her one last disappointed look. Their eyes locked, and she longed to take the easy way out, to run to him and ditch every damned goal she’d ever set for herself. It was just like before, when she was young and naive. However, this time she was older, wiser—and this time she was close to achieving what she wanted. So close. If he’d only give her the time to succeed. That was all she wanted. Time. And Gabe.

She sighed, a long, slow exhale of air because she needed to remember to breathe.

His gaze did move off her. Onto something new. “I’m going to bed.”

ON TUESDAY, TESSA HAD to turn in her application and fees for the real-estate class. As she got ready to leave, she messed with her hair for two hours in the bathroom. But even after two hours it still didn’t look any better. She pulled it back, she moussed it (that’d been a mistake), she wore a headband and then finally she combed it back down into her eyes, just the way she always wore it. But still she wasn’t satisfied. The thing about making over your life was that you wanted to do it in strappy heels and head-turning lipstick—and without a man’s name tattoed on your butt.