Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

She shook her head. She was not, absolutely was not, going to get swept into Leo’s orbit again. In fact, she’d better set down some hard and fast rules about how long he could stay. And she needed to run upstairs and make up the pullout sofa in her office.

Then, Leo was behind her. A hand on her shoulder. “Want to dance?” he said.

She laughed at him. “No,” she said. “I most definitely do not want to dance with you. Also? You are terrible at washing dishes. Look at this.”

“I’m serious,” he said. He lifted her hands out of the soapy water in the sink.

“Leo”—she held herself rigid—“I was clear.” Her posture was combative, but he could hear something new in her voice, a fleeting hesitancy.

He inched closer. “You said no fucking. I respect the no-fucking rule.” Leo was entirely focused on her. His desire was physical, yes (it had been twelve weeks, not counting a couple of breezy flings with the rehab physician’s assistant in the weight room), but he also remembered how much he’d loved this part, getting past her prickly exterior, cracking her wide open like unhinging an oyster. He hadn’t thought about it in a long time, how satisfying it was to watch her steely carriage collapse a little, hear her breath catch. How good it felt to win. Fuck the firefighter.

She sighed and looked past him, out the rear windows, into the Brooklyn night and the snowflakes ecstatically spinning in the beam of the floodlight on her back deck. Her hands were wet and cold and the warmth of Leo’s fingers around her wrists was disorienting.

Leo couldn’t read her expression. Resigned? Hopeful? Defeated? He didn’t see desire yet, but he remembered how to summon it. “Steph?” he said. She smiled a little, but the smile was sad.

“I swear, Leo,” she said quietly, nearly pleading. “I’m happy.”

He was close enough now to lower his face to her neck and breathe in her skin, which smelled as it always had, faintly of chlorine, making him feel as if he could swim into her, assured and buoyant. They stood like that for a minute. He could feel his racing pulse gradually slow and align with the reliable rhythm of her constant heart. He pulled back a little to look at her. He ran his thumb along her lower lip, the same way he had with the marble carving earlier, only this time the lip yielded.

And then, from the backyard, an enormous crash splitting the outdoor quiet like a clap of thunder. Then flickering lights. Then darkness.

When Leo arrived at the Oyster Bar, he worked some magic with the surly maître d’. Within minutes the Plumbs were seated and had unconsciously arranged themselves around the red-checkered tablecloth according to birth order: Leo, Jack, Bea, Melody. They shed coats and hats and made a little too much of ordering “just water and coffee.” Leo apologized for running late and explained how he was staying with a friend in Brooklyn ( Stephanie! Bea realized), and he’d taken the wrong train and had to retrace his steps. Obligatory chatter about how Brooklyn had become so crowded and expensive and why was the subway so unreliable on the weekends anyway and, well, the weather certainly didn’t help, snow in October! Then they all fell uncomfortably silent — except Leo, who seemed utterly calm while appraising his brother and sisters, who all looked back at him, ill at ease.

The three of them wondered how he did it, how he always managed to be unruffled while putting everyone else on edge, how even in this moment, at this lunch, where Leo should be abashed, laid bare, and the balance of power could have, should have, shifted against him, he still commanded their focus and exuded strength. Even now, they were deferentially waiting, hoping, he would speak first.

But he just sat, watching them, curiously attentive.

“It’s good to see you,” Bea finally said. “You look well. Healthy.” Her light affection made Jack’s shoulders relax, Melody’s face unclench.

Leo smiled. “I’m happy to see you all. I am.”

Melody felt herself blush. Embarrassed, she put her hands to her cheeks.

“I guess we should get right to it,” Leo said. In the taxi down from Central Park, he’d decided to address the unpleasantness head-on. He realized, somewhat surprisingly, that he’d given precious little thought to this moment during his long weeks at Bridges. He’d been so focused on Victoria and the dissolution of their marriage that he’d failed to consider the repercussions of Francie’s actions. To be fair, he hadn’t entirely understood Francie’s actions until a couple of weeks ago. When George first told him that his mother was funding the Rodriguez payout, Leo’d had a brief moment of hope that she was using her own — or Harold’s — considerable resources. Alas.

“I know you want to talk about The Nest,” he continued, satisfied to see their surprise at his direct approach. “So first, I want to say, thank you . I know you didn’t have to agree with Francie’s plan and I’m grateful.”

Bea looked at Melody and Jack, who both shifted a little in their seats; they all looked confused and troubled.

“What?” Leo said, processing what was happening a minute too late.

“We hardly had any choice in the matter,” Jack said.

“We didn’t know until it was done,” Melody said.

“Really?” Leo turned to Bea. She nodded.

Ah. Leo leaned back and looked around the table. Of course. He mentally berated himself for that bit of miscalculation while, briefly, experiencing a wave of elation because Francie had acted so decisively and singularly on his behalf. But Leo quickly realized he was wrong about that, too. Francie hadn’t come to his rescue; no doubt she’d rescued herself — and Harold. Leo could hear Harold now, his adenoidal voice going on and on about what was all over the East End .

Bea warily watched Leo absorb this new bit of information. “I tried calling you, Leo,” she said. “Many times.”

“Right,” he said. “Okay.” This complicated things.

When Leo and Victoria were first engaged, shortly after he sold SpeakEasy and “went on sabbatical” (as he thought of it) and after she refused to consider a prenup, he’d opened an offshore account during one of their diving trips to Grand Cayman. He’d acted on a whim while she was off shopping. The account was perfectly legal, and although he’d planned on telling Victoria about it, he found himself not telling her. He thought of it as a little insurance, a private pension of sorts, maybe a way to keep some of his money protected in case of a stormy day. As his marriage began to deteriorate, he started bolstering the balance. One upside to the prodigious way he and Victoria spent money was that she stopped noticing where the money went. A few thousand here, a few thousand there; over the years it added up. He thought about the money all the time and the day he would just pick up and leave. What had kept him from doing it years ago was the hope that Victoria would tire of him first, fall in love with someone else and leave him so he could avoid a financially decimating divorce. When it became clear she never would (why couldn’t he have married someone just as beautiful but not so strategic?), he surrendered fully to the more libertine aspects of his life. He wasn’t sorry to see the diminishing balances on their joint accounts. So even though the accident had been a humiliating and unfortunate event, it had also — in a strange way — loosened him from the life he was already desperate to escape. For months he’d expected Victoria’s lawyers to find and triumphantly expose the funds, but nobody had. He had nearly two million dollars hidden away, almost exactly what he owed The Nest. He’d never touched a penny of the low-interest savings account; it was safe and sound. Liquid. If he replenished the fund to pay his siblings, his two million would be divided by four. The math hardly worked in his favor.