Pouring out two large measures of whiskey into blue glasses, she hands me one and takes a very long swig of her own, screwing up her face as the liquid burns its way down her throat. “This is so not okay on so many levels,” she says, shaking her head. “You can’t just find out someone’s address and then turn up on their doorstep. That kind of information is private, and this here…it’s kind of stalkerish.”
“I can do whatever I like,” I say, feeling smug about the fact. Money is power and all that. I’m not about to feel guilty for it.
“Yes, you can. But that doesn’t make it right, and that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about the fact.”
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t. But I had to see you and explain. You walked out and didn’t give me a chance. I didn’t like the way things were left.”
“But I did. It was how I wanted it, but you put your feelings above mine in this, didn’t you?”
Nicole’s comment surprises me, and I sip my drink, considering what she’s said. I don’t like it that she’s right. I haven’t respected her request not to see me again. I fixated on my agenda and booked a flight halfway across the world. It was for a good reason – to make things right between us – but that doesn’t seem to make it okay in my mind anymore.
I need to say something that I don’t say often. “I’m sorry.”
“Wow.” Nicole knocks back the rest of the whiskey, then grabs a tea kettle and fills it in the sink. Setting it down, she turns to me and shakes her head again. “I can’t believe you came all this way.”
“Why? I have a jet waiting for me, my company can cope without me for a day or so, and you and I have unfinished business. It’s important to me I make things right.”
“What do you want to make right, Aaron?”
“I need to know that you believe me when I say that I wasn’t aware that Robert was in my apartment.” Nicole looks uncertain, so I continue. “He lives in New York but has a key to my place for when he happens to visit Atlanta. He didn’t tell me about his plans. The first I knew of his arrival was when he called out from the stairs. I know that doesn’t erase what happened, but I wanted you to know that and to believe it’s true.”
Nicole frowns.
“And he promised me that he wouldn’t mention what happened to anyone. I didn’t want your privacy to be compromised.”
“Oh, God. I hadn’t even thought about that,” she says, clutching two mugs and looking horrified.
“And you don’t have to now.”
“Don’t I?” she raises her eyebrows, and I see that trust is definitely an issue for Nicole. Then again, I haven’t exactly acted in a very trustworthy way. I’m asking her to take a leap of faith before I’ve had the time to prove that I’m worthy.
“I know it must be difficult for you to take what I’m saying at face value. I get it. All I can say is that I’m sorry for everything, and I never meant to hurt you.”
Nicole nods, but she doesn’t say whether she’s accepted my apology. Instead, she places the mugs on the counter.
“Do you drink tea? I can’t believe I don’t know that about you. All the things we’ve done, and we don’t really know anything about each other at all.”
“We probably know more than you think.”
“Yeah, but the kinky stuff isn’t that important, is it?”
“Yeah, it is,” I say, with genuine horror. “You think the kind of chemistry that we have is easy to find?”
“I know it isn’t for me. You? Probably not that hard.” I ignore her sassiness because she deserves to get away with something after what happened at my apartment.
“And I do drink tea. No milk or sugar.”
As Nicole sets about making us some more appropriate beverages for the time of day, I lean against the wall and watch, enjoying the view. She’s dressed in leggings and an oversized t-shirt with a slouchy cardigan over the top. I like her in comfortable clothes rather than the high-powered work outfits she was wearing in Atlanta, and I find her candy-pink toenails strangely endearing. She’s right that we don’t know nearly enough about each other, but I shouldn’t care about that. I shouldn’t, but I do.
Nicole hands me a flowery mug, and I follow her into her living/dining room. It’s also tiny with a small table (dwarfed by my inappropriately large bouquet), a single three-seater sofa, coffee table, and wall-mounted TV. Books are housed in a stack of crates that rest on their sides, and two large house plants fill the corners. It’s basic but homey; the kind of place I imagine students to live in. Well, students from ordinary families who didn’t get chauffeur-driven to and from lectures as I did.