I looked around the room at their version of normal, considering my original angle to this article—a puff piece about disparaging socialites and the vanity of youth, but I’d realized it was more than what it seemed, as most things were. There was a sense of family about them, the root of Stella’s betrayal. And I felt that tingling, that sense of belonging, even though I was the traitor who’d betrayed them.
I shrugged the thought away. “What the fuck is normal anyway?”
She offered a small laugh. “If you figure it out, let me know.”
“Deal.”
We listened to Atticus play for a minute, and I marveled at his skill in ashing his smoke without interrupting the song.
“What about you?” she asked. “You fit in just as well as anyone—you’re an artist, same as Atticus and half the people here.”
“I dunno—I don’t really think of it as art. Just another medium for transferring a feeling. A moment. To share that moment with someone else.”
“How is that not art?”
“Art implies intent. It suggests some preparation or a message. A plan. But I never have a plan. I just shoot what I see and hope whoever sees it understands what I felt when I took it.”
“Will you show me?”
“You want to see?”
“I want to know if I understand what you felt. I want to feel it too,” she said simply.
“I’ll show you with one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll let me photograph you.”
She chuckled. “Me? Why would you want to photograph me?”
I leaned back so I could lay a sober look on her. “Aside from you being the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen? I want to show you what I see, and I want to know if you understand that too.”
Her cheeks flushed, her eyes both bright and heavy. “How could I say no to that?” she answered quietly, tossing the phrase back at me.
“Guess you can’t,” I said. And I kissed her to sign the deal.
12
Nothing But You
STELLA
It was sometime after midnight when we said our goodbyes and hopped on Levi’s bike to speed toward Hell’s Kitchen. He was warm and solid in the circle of my arms, my body latched to his from my chin to my knees. Every move he made, I made with him. Every muscle that shifted, I felt contract and release—his abs when we turned, his thighs when he switched gears. When his hand was free, it hooked my thigh, strong and hot against the chill of the rushing air. And I wished I didn’t have on his helmet, if only to nestle my cheek in the valley between his shoulder blades.
For as much as I’d experienced in my life, for as many opportunities that I’d had, precious few new men made it so close to me. It was a little incestuous, the group I belonged to, the people I called my friends. We’d known each other forever and insulated ourselves, partly because there were so many of us, but mostly because inside our circle, we were safe. Until now, at least.
I’d combed through the guest list from the speakeasy, trying to figure out who could have brought a goddamn reporter to our party. It had to have been an outsider, I’d determined. One of those not in the original crew, one of the other assholes I’d apparently not vetted well enough. As an experiment, I’d decided to invite our core group to the next party and excluded anyone else. If the mole wrote about it, I’d know someone on the inside snuck the bastard in.
And then we’d really have a problem.
Levi took off from a stoplight, and my arms tightened to hang on. A thrill zipped through me, not just for the speed. For the man himself.
Everything about him was new and fresh, a man from a world very different from mine. His quick wit and sharp tongue kept me happily on my toes, and I lapped up every minute with him like a dog after a 5K. It felt like he’d been dropped into my lap by divinity, a gift with a catch—a gift I couldn’t keep. But I did my level best to ignore that particular part of the deal, favoring the present over the future. Moments like this one were worth far more to me than bellyaching over a future I couldn’t know. Now was good, pushing perfect. And that freedom was liberating after two years of pretending I wasn’t in love with Dex.
I stuffed the thought down, putting everything out of my head but the way Levi felt in my arms.
The turns came one after another, indicating we were nearly to his place, confirmed when he stopped in front of what looked to be an old warehouse and killed the engine.
I pulled off the helmet and shook out my hair, getting off the bike, my eyes upturned to the massive red brick building.
When Levi locked up, he grabbed my hand and towed me toward the entrance.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “How long have you lived here?”
“Since right after college. It’s lucky, really. I’d never be able to afford this place if I had to lease it on my own, but my buddy Cooper owns a bunch of properties—including this building—and rents it to me for nothing. Even let me convert part of the space to a studio and dark room.”
“Cooper Moore?” I guessed.
He smiled down at me. “Should have figured you knew him.”
“He used to run with us until he went and got himself all domesticated.”
“Well,” Levi said as he unlocked the door and held it open for me, “I guess Coop’s dad bought the building in the ’90s when Hell’s Kitchen started gentrifying, gave it to him as a birthday present or something bananas like that. I don’t even know that I could afford to live in the neighborhood without the hook up.”
“Why Hell’s Kitchen?”
He shrugged as we climbed the stairs. “My dad lives around the corner. I help him out around the house, groceries and stuff. Keep him company.”
My heart warmed up and turned to goop. “What happened to your mom?”
He paused. Drew a breath. “My biological mom and dad took off when I was a kid. Junkies. Billy was one of the cops who found me. Took me in to foster, ended up adopting me.”
For a beat, we climbed the stairs with nothing but our footfalls to fill the silence.
“I’m sorry, Levi,” was all I could think to say, too overwhelmed by feelings and questions for anything else.
But he smiled again as if it were no big deal. “Don’t be. Billy gave me the home I never woulda gotten otherwise.” We turned the corner of a landing and took the next flight. “I mean, not that it was the Upper East or anything, but it was a step up.”
“God forbid someone be from the Upper East,” I teased, and he gave me a little smirk.
“It’s alien sometimes, your world. Even in college, when I was running with Cooper and Ash, I couldn’t get used to it. There’s something so …” He sighed. “There’s no way to say it without being shitty.”
“Then be shitty. I won’t get mad.”
He assessed me for a second before deciding I was telling the truth. “It feels wasteful. You’ve gotta understand—I’ve had to scrape and save for everything I’ve ever had, even Billy. When I think about how he gave his life to the city and barely has enough to live on, then go with Ash to a club where he spends Billy’s monthly income on booze? It’s hard to be objective.”