“Great,” she grumbled as we fell into step toward her apartment.
I thought she might tell me not to come with her if I didn’t agree with her, but the thought that Lewis might do something else must have been enough incentive to let me tag along. I’d be happy when she was finally out of that fucking apartment. Natalie might not want me to say anything to Lewis, but he had it coming.
“I wish you’d told me what he’d done.”
She shrugged helplessly. “I was overwhelmed. I could barely tell Amy the truth, and she’s my best friend. I thought, if I didn’t talk about it, then maybe the end of my career wasn’t real.”
“It’s not the end of your career,” I assured her.
She gave me a disbelieving look. “You should have heard my agent.”
“It’ll blow over.”
“No, it won’t. It would blow over for someone with the wealth, status, and family connections to control what happened to them and make this sort of thing go away. It won’t blow over for a nobody who they deem a jilted ex, fraud, and whore.”
I had a million fucking things to say to that. But the crumpled look on her face said that those opinions wouldn’t be welcome right now. She didn’t need someone to tell her she was wrong and that everything would be all right when it felt like the sky was falling.
We walked the rest of the way across Central Park in the dewy morning light.
Natalie broke the silence as we approached her apartment. “I hate that I have to move.”
“I hate that he ever made you feel like you weren’t safe.”
She sighed. “Yeah. It was my refuge in this big city. I’d thought that this was my new start. My first solo apartment, my first book deal…everything seemed right,” she said wistfully. Her gaze was lifted to the line of windows on the apartment complex off of Amsterdam. “I just didn’t see the forces working against me in the background. The lies that ran off of lips as easy as breathing. The manipulations that had gotten me to this place. The machinations that wreaked havoc in the picturesque life I’d dreamed that I’d made for myself. How wrong I’d been.”
And I had no response to that. I’d been as much a part of that as Lewis. I wanted to say that I’d lied, so we could be together, but wasn’t that Lewis’s rationale, too? I shuddered to think I was like him at all.
“It’s about time,” Amy said, hopping from one foot to another to try to stay warm in the entrance to Natalie’s apartment building.
Natalie must have texted her when she left.
“Sorry. It took me longer to get here than I thought.” She nodded to me by way of greeting.
“Hey, Amy,” I said.
Amy suspiciously eyed me. “Let’s get inside where it’s warm. Enzo dropped me off, like, an hour ago.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “So, like, five minutes ago.”
“Not even,” Amy said. “But damn, it’s cold.”
Natalie opened the door, and I took it out of her hand and held it open for them.
Amy shot me a wary look as she passed. “You and I need to have a talk.”
“Looking forward to that,” I said with a lazy smirk.
“It’s not going to be pleasant.”
“I expect nothing less.”
Natalie rolled her eyes at us and then took the stairs first. I noticed her checking the hallways, searching all the nooks and crannies. And then I realized what she was doing, and my anger resurfaced. She was searching for hidden cameras.
Fuck Lewis.
“I’d hide that look until we’re done with this,” Amy said.
“What look?”
“Like you’re going to fucking murder someone.” Amy’s eyes flickered up to Natalie. “She’s not okay right now.”
“I know,” I said, my blank mask falling into place with ease. “I’ve noticed that.”
“And look, I’ll only say this once, but if you hurt her, I will find you, chop off your balls, and feed them to you,” she said with such pointed vehemence that I had to laugh. “I am not joking.”
“I know,” I said delicately. “That’s why I laughed. You’re actually giving me the best-friend talk.”
“How would you know? Your best friends are all shitheads.”
My lips tipped into a frown. “Perhaps.”
“So don’t fuck this up. The fact that she’s even talking to you is a mystery to me. And I will end your life before I see her sink back into that place she was after you.”
Natalie had just reached the third-floor landing and opened the door to her apartment. She glanced back at us, whispering secretly in the hallway. Amy’s smile beamed out of her as if we hadn’t been talking about Natalie at all. Mine must have been convincing, too, because she continued inside.
“I won’t do that to her again,” I told Amy.
“Good. Because I won’t be here to watch over her, and she needs you.”
I nodded once, surprised by her vehemence. The fact that she was even asking me about this shit meant that she was that concerned about Natalie. Which was extra troubling, especially considering the conversation that Natalie and I had just had.
Amy crossed the threshold into Natalie’s apartment, but I froze in place before stepping inside.
The last time that I’d been here, ready to come into her apartment, she had turned me away. She said she wasn’t ready for a relationship. That she wasn’t ready for my first impression of her place to be her breaking down. Admittedly, I was fucking frustrated after that. After I left, I was certain I’d made a mistake by walking away. She’d asked for her space, but what if I gave it and then she never came back? What if I was an idiot and she’d just fucked with me? I’d fucking hated having those feelings, but after dealing with her with Lewis, it had been hard not to listen to my shattered trust and instead to the logical side of my brain.
But all of that aside, I couldn’t enter her place yet.
“What are you waiting for?” Amy asked.
Natalie whipped around and found me standing on the threshold.
“You said that you weren’t ready for me to come inside,” I reminded her. “I thought it appropriate to ask if it was okay for me to come in now.”
I watched her melt at my words. A small smile just for me and then a nod.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Please come in.”
“So dramatic,” Amy muttered and then strode directly to the heater to warm up.
I stepped into Natalie’s apartment for the first time. I understood immediately why she’d liked the place. It felt like her. Quaint and cozy with exposed brick and sparse belongings. A desk shoved up to the window, so she could stare out at the city streets below as she daydreamed and wrote out her magnificent stories.
I gritted my teeth to keep from commenting on how fucking awful Lewis was for making her lose this. “Where are you moving anyway?”
Natalie chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t know if this place is…being recorded.” She nervously glanced around the room, paranoia setting in. And I hardly blamed her. “So, how about I just show you when we get there? It’s not far.”
“Fair enough. Where should I start?”