She looked thoughtful, swaying her feet and swirling her wine. “You liked them, didn’t you?”
Her eyes sparkled when she looked up at me. “A lot. Every year I end up with a few clients who are my favorites. These two, so far, win on cuteness points alone.” Fiona cocked her head. “Although no one beats the great Max Devlin for total cuteness points.”
I tossed her a wink. “Be honest. I’m crushing that spreadsheet of yours, aren’t I?”
She lifted a shoulder, coy and playful. “Let’s change subjects before that ego of yours gets even bigger. What are some of your favorite memories from the places you’ve lived?”
I stirred the pasta, thought about her question. Thought a little bit about that couple in love. “Moab, in Utah.” I tossed a towel over my shoulder, picked up my wine. “I lived there a few years ago and stayed longer than usual because it was that damn beautiful. The desert out there is something else. Harsh but pretty, and most nights you can see the Milky Way. I spent a lot of fucking time on my bike, going on long, long drives through all the parks, staring at those giant canyons. Made me feel small but in a good way.” I watched Fiona over my wine glass. “I think I listened to Neil Young non-stop on those rides.”
“I can see it,” she said. “His voice, plus those melodies, surrounded by red dust and deep canyons. That’s the poetry of perfect background music.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The way a certain song can come on and yank you back to a moment in time. Or make the moment more dramatic.”
She was nodding her head. “Certain songs remind me so strongly of nights with my sister, out in the city. Not just at The Red Room but being young and wild and never needing to sleep. It’ll take me back to some moment in a cab or some bar or some concert that had thrilled me.”
We smiled at each other—because we both got it. And I hadn’t really known that I wanted someone in my life to get it.
“Where else have you loved?” Fiona asked.
“Parts of Vermont,” I said. “And I spent some real time in Austin and Miami. Denver. Nashville. I was in Maine when Pop called me home, staring at the Atlantic Ocean.”
I turned to heat up the tiny pieces of hot dog while keeping an eye on the pasta cooking. “Sometimes, I think you might dig it, Fiona.”
“What, moving around so much?”
“Yeah.” I turned the heat down, stirred the water. “It is a type of controlled chaos. You have no home base and no ties and no place you really need to be. Which could be scary and kind of, well, freewheeling but in a bad way. But because it’s on my terms and I control when and how I do things, it’s more fun and liberating and adventurous. It’s enjoying the journey.”
“I don’t know, not really,” she said softly. “The closest I came to what you’re talking about were touring road trips with my parents. But I was young, in school, with zero control over my surroundings. I’ve never gone somewhere. Just to go somewhere. I was in college, then law school, then started at Cooper Peterson Stackhouse, and it’s been non-stop work ever since.”
She was stroking the stem of her wine glass, looking thoughtful. I cleared my throat, tried to be casual. “You and me. Some time. We could do a thing.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Do a thing?”
“Like go somewhere. Together. I’d put you on the back of my bike with a bag full of the essentials and take off. Head towards the first beautiful place we wanted to.”
She laughed like she was surprised. “What would we do?”
I shrugged. “Go see music. Watch a few sunsets. Explore. Fuck each other for days on end. I’ve got some ideas.”
“And no plans?”
I shook my head. “None at all.”
“I might need to be convinced.”
I laughed as I pulled down two giant bowls from her cabinet. “Well that’s what I’m saying. Leave the to-do lists behind and let me fuck you while we have a wild adventure.”
She was biting her lip and staring down into her glass. “I’m more tempted than I thought.”
I placed two bowls of macaroni and cheese with hot-dog slices on her tiny table. She had two barstools and a vase of pink daisies in the middle. The picture above her table showed Fiona on her graduation day, being squeezed by her parents and a younger-looking Roxy.
Fiona hopped up on the stool, bent down to inhale. “Okay, it smells delicious.”
I handed her a fork. “Filling on a cold night and easy to make when your dad is running a punk rock club all by himself.”
Fiona ate carefully as I joined her, placing the bottle of wine between the two of us. It was a lot—sitting at this tiny table with music on, a bottle of wine, and a beautiful, barefoot woman staring at me like I was her personal hero. I’d never really understood intimacy, but I was starting to think this was it. This closeness I’d never had before with a person I was also sharing a bed with.
“I’d like that, by the way,” she said. I glanced up at her, waiting. “Doing a thing with you.” She said each word slowly, mouth twisted in a smirk.
“You and me, on the road some time?”
“Yep.”
“You can take that much time off of work?”
“Nope.”
I grinned, squeezing her knee beneath the table.
“But I’d hate to have worked so hard to achieve these goals in my life and not…” Fiona paused like she was deep in thought. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. My family tends to harp on my workaholic tendencies. All work and no play. It’s annoying. Because I love what I do, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But maybe, sometimes, what they see in me is all work without enjoying all of this.” She indicated her apartment, the music, me. “It’s not only these window dressings of life. Music, family…” She held my gaze. “Relationships. They can be enjoyed just as thoroughly and should be.” She fiddled with her fork before setting it down. “I wasn’t always so strict with my priorities and my time.”
I poked my fork into her bowl and stole a hot dog, which I popped into my mouth. She retaliated by drinking from my wine glass.
“Yeah, well,” I said, leaning back and taking her in. “I probably could have used a slightly stricter idea of my time. Would have helped me be a better friend. A better son, maybe.”
“I see you trying, though,” she said. “It’ll be worth it in the end. Some people, when they find out that they’ve hurt others, they refuse to take responsibility, let alone actually work towards being better.”
I idly stirred my pasta, foot tapping to the beat. “Mateo and Rafael and I spent parts of yesterday papering the block, and you know, we’re older now, but that connection between us is so strong. I took it for fucking granted.”
She was studying me like she wanted to say more. I did too—the unspoken question that hung between us was my job and L.A. and what would happen next. I didn’t have an answer, but I didn’t want to take Fiona for granted.
I dodged it. Even though that would have been the perfect time to bring it up. And it wasn’t lying, but it certainly wasn’t honest. And I always swore I wouldn’t do stuff like that.