I would expect London’s apartment to be full of these kinds of gifts, or bribes, or payments.
It’s not.
Aside from her clothes, the record player is the only obvious sign of her career. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she bought this for herself to go with her record collection.
I didn’t intend to come into the room when I stood up. Only to look. To canvas. The records change my plans. My fingers itch to separate them from each other and read the titles. It’s the same aching itch I have to touch London whenever she’s in the same room, which is nearly always.
A deep breath to steady myself turns into an exercise in restraint. I can smell her. The light floral soapy scent of her shampoo is all over the blanket, and she’s left it tumbled and open, like she just climbed out of it. The bed is a trap. It’s the records that hook me at the center of my chest and tug me across the threshold.
The fact that I hesitated has made all of this more illicit and more irresistible. If I’d just walked in like I own both the bedroom and London Frank, I wouldn’t get to feel this blend of shame and exhilaration.
My feet meet the rug and it gives. The rug, like everything else, is shockingly secondhand. It’s endearing as hell to know that a person like London, beautiful, well-traveled London, furnishes her apartment with comfortable castoffs. I fight off the urge to sink down to my knees and run my palms over the fabric ridges.
The rug ends where the shelf begins.
This is more intimate than rifling through her underwear drawer. Make no mistake—I want to do that, too. So much that if she ever knew, she’d call me a sick bastard and change the locks. I want to look at the records more. Is it an obsession if it makes you want to go through a person’s records more than you want to see their lingerie?
Perhaps.
I test the paperboard sleeves of the records and my heart races like I’ve hooked a finger into the waistband of her panties. It hurts to stand, as cavalier as I’m being about it.
What hurts more is the absence of her in this apartment. I’m six inches from the side of her bed and it’s a joke. A furniture taunt. I could have her in that bed. What I wouldn’t give to have her in that bed, to have my fingertips on her skin instead of on these records—
I pull one out at random, take off the sleeve, and drop it onto the record player. My grandpa had one of these when he was alive. An Army man. He would have been ashamed of what his son had become. He would have been ashamed of me, too. I suppose it’s just as well he died of a heart attack decades ago.
The needle drops into the groove and the soulful voice of Etta James fills the space.
Maybe she’s listened to this, too, standing in this very spot. Maybe she was only dressed in panties and a bra. Maybe she was wearing nothing. Her body would have been relaxed. It wouldn’t be like it is with me. London pretends to be at ease but I know she’s not. She knows what I’m capable of.
“What are you doing?”
London’s voice is a spear through At Last. My hand goes to the bullet wound before I can stop myself, skin tightening. I’ve been swaying a little with the music. Mistake.
She’s planted her feet in the doorway, eyes dark with suspicion. London has both arms around a paper grocery bag and her lips in a thin line.
I can’t stand it. Can’t stand the frown, can’t stand the tense set to her shoulders, can’t stand any of it. It’s only a few steps across the room.
When I reach for the bag she turns slightly away, eyes narrowing. “What are you—”
“Don’t fight with me. Don’t argue.” London releases her death grip on the groceries and lets me put them on the bed. And then I reach for her hand. “Dance with me.”
She has already taken my hand by the time the words are past my lips. Already stepped toward me, still in her winter jacket. Oh, London. You can’t resist me, either.
It could be the music, but I suspect it’s something else that makes her move in closer. Long eyelashes flutter closed over eyes like the forest at night. She sighs. It sounds like surrender. “What are you doing?” This time, it’s more of a plea than an accusation.
“Dancing with you.”
I lift my arm and London twirls underneath it. The breath goes out of my lungs. A man who has been shot should keep his arms below his shoulders to avoid worsening the wound. I’ve worsened it. And I’ve had a vision of her in a white dress, with flowers in her hair.
She finishes the turn and searches my face. “You look like shit.”
“You only keep Tylenol in your apartment.”
“You looking for something harder?”
“Why? You got a stash of pot in here somewhere? It’s not even illegal here.”
“Sorry. Only Tylenol. I might be able to spring for Advil, if you play your cards right, but no promises. I might give you essential oils instead.”
I search her beautiful hazel eyes. Sometimes people are careful about what drugs they keep around because they dealt with addiction. “Did you use?”
“Cocaine,” she says, her voice flat and matter of fact.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m cleaned up. It doesn’t control me anymore.”
My voice comes out soft. “I’m glad.”
“Should you even be dancing right now? You just got shot.”
So it hurts. So does everything. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“That’s a slick line. I don’t fall for guys with slick lines. Not anymore.”
“But you used to?”
“Used to do a lot of things. Used to be an influencer. A couple million people like to watch me splash around on the beach at Bali or walk barefoot in the desert in Egypt.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
She gives a delicate snort laugh. “Yeah, what they didn’t see was the hours it took to do my hair so it would have those beachy waves before my toes even touched the water. Or the sunburn I got from posing for two hours to get the perfect shot.”
“And you met a lot of slick guys this way, huh?”
“It’s the party scene. I started off wanting to travel the world. Wanderlust. My parents had it, too. I never wanted to stay in one place. The Instagram, the photos. It was all for fun at first. Then I started getting contracts as an influencer. All you have to do is say you drank this coconut water or wear those clothes. I thought, what’s the harm? I started getting invited to all these parties. Meeting models and celebrities. Doing drugs.”
“And you’re done with that now.”
“Definitely done with the drugs. Maybe done with the whole scene. Instagram. TikTok. Selfies. Makeup. Traveling the world. It’s a lot scarier when you’ve been on the run across the Italian countryside. You realize just how dangerous that world can be.”
I sweep her in a circle around her old embroidered armchair. It makes my side ache, but I don’t really fucking care, not when her hair’s flowing around her shoulders. “You don’t have to swear off traveling. Or selfies. It could happen without the drugs.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not like it was important work, anyway. Convincing people they should drink coconut water or making them feel envious of my life.”