Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

“When did you get such good taste,” Leo asked her. “Where’s all that crap from IKEA I had to help you put together.”

“You aren’t the only one who grew up and started making money, Leo. I haven’t had that IKEA furniture for years.” She walked into the living room from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, happy to admire her house along with him. She loved her house; it was her baby.

“Italianate, right?” Leo said, examining the ornate marble mantelpiece. The center medallion of the mantel was a carving of a young girl. Marble curls of hair fell around her face, her nose was long and straight, her gaze direct, her lips full. He ran his thumb over the mouth, feeling the hard edge of a tiny chip at the center of the lower lip; the imperfection made the young woman’s mouth both damaged and oddly alluring.

“Isn’t she perfect?” Stephanie said. “Most mantels I’ve seen have carved fruit or flowers. I’ve never seen another face. I like to imagine she meant something to the person who built this house. Maybe she was a daughter, a wife.”

“She reminds me of someone.”

“Me, too. I can’t ever think of who.”

“She has nice tits.”

“Don’t be gross.” Stephanie knew Leo was provoking her.

“Sorry.” He moved over to the fire and threw more wood onto the flames, watching it flare as he agitated the embers with an iron poker. “She has a lovely décolletage. Better?”

“Stop staring at defenseless Lillian’s breasts.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve given her a name,” Leo said, shaking his head. “Please tell me someone else named her Lillian.”

“ I named her Lillian. Sometimes we chat. Don’t touch her breasts.”

“Truly, I’m not that hard up.” He sat on one of the sofas flanking the hearth, scanning the room for signs of a male presence. “No more Cravat?”

Stephanie couldn’t help smiling a little. Cravat was Leo’s nickname for one of her post-Leo boyfriends, a guy who’d lived with her once and briefly and had made the unfortunate choice one evening of wearing a velvet jacket and a silk cravat to a book party. “He hasn’t lived here in years.”

“Not enough room for all his smoking jackets?”

She shook her head. “Do I really still have to defend one bad wardrobe choice from years ago?”

“I also recall a summertime straw fedora.”

“You always did have great recall for anything that made you feel superior.”

“What can I say? I’m not a hat and cravat guy.”

“Turns out we have that in common.”

Leo removed his damp shoes and put them close to the hearth to dry a little. He put his feet up on the coffee table. She sat down opposite him. “You always knew how to pick them,” Leo said.

“I had some great picks.”

“Like who?” Leo said, encouraged by what could have been a slightly flirtatious turn in her tone.

“Will Peck.”

“The firefighter ?”

“Yes, the firefighter . That guy was great. Easy.”

Leo was genuinely stunned. He’d met the firefighter once, remembered him as being disturbingly good-looking and fit. An ex-marine or something equally stalwart. “Setting aside physical strength, which I will cede to the marine—”

“Don’t be such a snob. Will’s an intellectual, a Renaissance man.”

“A Renaissance man?” Leo couldn’t keep the mockery from his tone.

“Yes. He traveled. He read. He cooked. He made things .”

“What? He whittled? No, no, I forgot, we’re in Brooklyn. He knitted? Did he knit you that sweater?”

“Hardly,” Stephanie said. “This sweater is Italian cashmere.” She pointed to a custom bookcase lining the opposite wall, one Leo had admired earlier for its graceful economy. “He built that.”

“Okay. I give,” he said. “It’s a nice bookcase.”

“It’s a fantastic bookcase.”

“So why isn’t he here if he’s so great?”

“Probably because his wife hasn’t kicked him out of his apartment yet.”

“Right,” Leo said. He deserved that one. He couldn’t stop looking at the bookcase, which was, he had to admit, pretty fantastic.

“And he wanted other things.” Stephanie was quiet for a minute, thinking about what good company Will was and how she hadn’t been able, ultimately, to make him happy. She still ran into him sometimes with his new wife. She didn’t think they had kids, yet. She looked up and thought: Leo!

And then, Careful .

The storm outside was intensifying. The streets were quiet, devoid of pedestrians and traffic. The whole city seemed to be huddling against the weather. The fire cracked and hissed and warmed the room. Leo started to relax for the first time in weeks, for the first time since the accident, really. He missed Stephanie, the ease between them, her solid and comforting presence. Sitting across from him, in the light of the fire, she blazed with health and well-being and good humor.

“I can’t believe you sold your business,” he said.

“I can’t believe what a hypocrite you are.”

“I’m not a hypocrite, I speak from experience. I never should have sold out.”

“You’re just saying that now. I remember those days. You were thrilled by that fat check. Also, I’m not selling out. I was acquired. My life is just going to get a lot easier. I can’t wait.”

“I’m telling you,” Leo said. “That was the start of the end for me.”

Stephanie shrugged and took a clementine from a bowl on the table, started peeling it. “You could have stayed. Nathan wanted you to stay.” Nathan Chowdhury had been Leo’s business partner at SpeakEasyMedia. He’d worked behind the scenes, running the money side of things, and had stayed after the acquisition; now he was CFO for the entire conglomerate. As far as Stephanie was concerned, the beginning of the end for Leo wasn’t selling SpeakEasy, it was acquiring Victoria and all that came after — namely, nothing.

She still remembered the day he’d told her he was planning to sell, the day she’d visited him at work during a period when they were trying — and nearly managing — to be “just friends.” Victoria had walked into his office. “Hey,” she’d said to Leo, lifting her eyebrows a bit, her smile even and smug. Stephanie heard it all in that one word: hey . The intimate monotone of Victoria’s low register. A kind of hey that said they’d woken up in the same bed that morning, probably could still smell each other on their hands. The hey wasn’t inquisitive or demure or apologetic; it was territorial. Stephanie had heard that hey before, coming from her very own foolishly cocksure mouth. After Leo sold SpeakEasy and married Victoria, he’d practically fallen off the face of the earth. The last thing in the world she needed from him was life — or business — advice.

“You should have called me,” Leo said.

“Why would I have called you, Leo? When was the last time we spoke?” Stephanie wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of telling him that she had called. She’d left a message on his cell and someone identifying herself as Leo’s personal assistant had called back. “Assisting what exactly,” Stephanie had asked the girl, who sounded sixteen. “Does Leo have a job?”

“Leo has a number of projects in the works,” the girl had said. She sounded ridiculously tentative and nervous. Stephanie suspected she was using the assistant ruse to discover the identities of all the women on Leo’s incoming call list. Well, good luck to her, she thought. “Can I tell Leo what this is in reference to?” the girl had asked. Stephanie had hung up and never called back.