Broken (Nick #1) Page 10

  I felt shy again when he said that.

  The night wore on, and I started to relax with every bottle of sake I had. The two guys were keeping up with me and drinking even more. They seemed to be having a great time, and I could tell how much they liked each other. Kinda like me and Jack.

  Finally, the restaurant was about to close. I had class in the morning, so I felt that I had to be getting home. It was a fun time, and I was able to relax through drinking alcohol, but I wondered if I could ever relax around Nick without it.

  I still wasn’t entirely sure that Nick was interested in me romantically. Perhaps I was dreaming when I thought that maybe Nick and I could be more. I certainly hoped not, because Jack was absolutely correct. I wasn’t always going to be able lean on him like I currently did. There would come a time when Jack would have his own life, and I didn’t want to feel lost and alone.

  That night I went to bed dreaming about the beautiful man that I had dinner with tonight, and fantasized about what it would be like to be with him without fear.

  Chapter 18

  Nick

  Ryan and I made our way back to my loft, where Ryan would be staying in my guest bedroom. This was his first time visiting me here, so he was having a good time looking around the place. “This is a cool place, Nick. It’s very you, much more than that mansion in Mission Hills. That place is beautiful, but a little stuffy.”

  “Yeah, well, Rielle was most of the reason why my old place looked the way that it did. If it was up to me, I would’ve had a downtown loft in Kansas City as well.” Rielle got that mansion we owned in Mission Hills, and all of its contents, in our divorce. I got everything else, including all the cash, the house in Lake Como, and most of the paintings. She also didn't get maintenance. Turned out that they didn't call my attorney “the Miracle Worker” for nothing, considering how much she had been demanding from me.

  I had to work the next day, of course, but it had been so long since I had seen the guy, I thought that I could stay up and talk with him. So I made us both some scotches, and we had a seat on the couch.

  “Okay,” I said. “I want to hear everything about what is going on back in KC, but I have to get this out of the way. What did you think of Scotty?”

  “Scotty,” he began. “Beautiful girl. Smart. Seems very down-to-earth. A real sweety. I mean, you said that you had to order for her, because if you didn’t she would consciously try to get something small and inexpensive. So, right there, she’s more quality than anybody else you’ve dated. She doesn’t strike me as somebody who wants you for your money. So, yeah, I like her. I like her a lot. A lot.”

  “Ok. But…”

  He took a deep breath. “What do you know about her background?”

  “Not much. I know that her mother has problems. I happened to be in her bar on a Saturday night, and her mother was in there, completely sloshed. And she had left a two-year-old boy at home alone. I took care of that for her. So, I would imagine that her mother has problems. But that’s all I really know about her, outside of stuff about her education and design talents.” I took another sip of my scotch. “You have reservations, I can tell. What are they?”

  “Well, let’s see. How do I put this. You’ve told me that she seems scared of you sometimes?”

  “Yeah. All the time, really.”

  “I see it too. It’s in her body language and facial expressions. The girl is terrified.”

  “Okay. So, what do I do?”

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  “Go on.”

  He took another deep breath. “I don’t want to talk out of turn, but….”

  “Come on. Stop beating around the bush. Out with it.”

  A deeper breath and a long pause. “She’s been sexually abused. I’m almost sure of it.”

  That stunned me. “What? How do you-“

  “We always recognize each other. It has become a part of my DNA, so I can almost always spot it in others.”

  Sexually abused. Well, that would explain everything.

  “So, how do I….What do I….”

  “You’re really interested in this girl?”

  I took a deep breath. “I’ve never felt like this about anybody else in my entire life.”

  He nodded. “I’m happy for you. Really happy for you. But you’re going to have tread gently. You remember how I was at her age. How self-destructive I was. How much pain I carried around with me. You know how long it took me to come out of all that. I really only just now did. Just now. I mean, my life is extraordinary, and I have the greatest relationship with Iris and Dalilah. But look at what it took to get there.”

  “Well, you guys had special circumstances.” To say the least.

  “True,” he said. “Of course, I know that you’ve had your own share of devastating losses. Abrianna and Michelle. I suspect that you’re afraid of being hurt yourself. Just don’t close yourself off like you have all this time. You can only be happy if you can let yourself really feel vulnerable. It’s scary, but if you can do that, and open yourself up, you can find happiness beyond your wildest dreams. Speaking from experience.”

  Michelle. My sister. Probably my greatest tragedy of my entire life. Until my daughter Abrianna. Ryan was right - I was closed off. I had been ever since I was a teenager, really. Michelle’s death really affected me - I loved her so much, and losing her made me want to never make myself vulnerable again. Abrianna’s death at the age of 7 cemented for me that vulnerability could be devastating.

  Hence my brick wall.

  Leave it to Ryan to figure it all out.

  Now here was Scotty. Scotty was going to be a complicated case, if Ryan’s hunch was right. Scotty would make me even more vulnerable. Yet, there was an overwhelming need for me to get past my own misgivings about the situation and see where it might lead.

  I sighed. “She’s going to be a complicated case, then. But I’m up for the challenge. I just need to know how to go about it.”

  “Well, you remember when Iris was raped, right? For the longest time, I couldn’t touch her at all. At all, at all. I’d put my arm around her, and she would completely stiffen up. She got intensive therapy, and things were ok for awhile. Until the Nat situation, of course. I’d imagine that Scotty probably hasn’t been through any therapy, considering her financial situation. So, yeah, it’s going to be difficult, but not impossible. If she means something to you, then it will be worth pursuing in the end.”

  It was then that I realized just how much Scotty did mean to me. I had only known her a short period of time, but I was inexorably drawn to her. She was a complicated woman, but she was also very kind and obviously not money-hungry. She was sexy, beautiful and smart. And her vulnerability was so very appealing to me.

  “She does. She does mean something to me. It’s hard to explain, but I’m crazy about her.”

  “Then find a way to make her yours. But you have to go slow, and go with her cues. If you make any sudden movements, she’ll disappear into the night.”

  “Well, she sure beats the hell out of Penelope,” I said, shaking my head. “God, that woman put Rielle to shame for being a total beyotch, and Alexis to shame for being just plum crazy. But, it was fun while it lasted.”

  We talked for a little while longer about what was going on in his life. Turned out that he felt on top of the world. And why shouldn’t he, after the life he had led, and after everything that had happened to him in the past couple of years? Not to mention all that had happened to poor Iris. Anybody would be cray-cray after being put into a coma by a crazy woman, being raped, then seeing one’s husband being shot and almost killed. Yet, Iris seemed to come through it all pretty much no worse for the wear after all was said and done, and I admired that thoroughly.

  Ryan got a good one, and he deserved every bit of happiness.

  He got his happy ending. Now it was my turn.

  Chapter 19

  The next day, Ryan left to go and meet his people and see Nat and Nate, a
nd it was time for “Operation Scotty” to begin. Now that I had a pretty good idea of what was going on with her, I needed more guidance on how to go about pursuing her. I could read books about sexual abuse survivors, but I wasn't sure what they would tell me that I didn’t already know. Having known Ryan almost my entire life, I was able to see, first-hand, what sexual abuse can do to a person. Scotty, to my knowledge, wasn’t into drugs the way that Ryan was, but I was quite sure that her wounds ran deep.

  Of course, I had no idea exactly what had happened to her, only that Ryan was pretty sure that something did. And, one thing about Ryan, he had a keen way to read people, and he was almost always spot-on. So, I trusted his instincts about this.

  Did she have a close friend? I didn’t even know. That would be the best thing, find a trusted friend of hers and find out more about her. Because I felt like I was flying blind.

  I thought about it, then decided to invite Scotty over for dinner, and ask her to bring a friend. Then get to know the friend, and maybe get the friend alone at some point and ask the friend more about her. That would at least give me a road map on where to go and how to approach the situation.

  I would be seeing her that evening in class. That would be when I would ask her to dinner the coming weekend and see what happened. Plus, she was interning at the firm the next day. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were her days there, and she worked seven hours a day when she was there. So, two opportunities to ask her out.

  So, I taught my class and she slinked it at the last second, as she usually did. I found myself catching my breath and could feel my heart pounding every time she walked in the room now. When she came in that evening, I had already started my lecture, and I lost my train of thought for a second. She looked embarrassed, and I smiled to myself. She was such a sweety.

  “Ok, so Le Corbusier studied the design of cities and…..” I said, then saw Scotty coming in. “Uh, Le Corbusier, uh,” I stammered around before recovering. Losing my train of thought in a Le Corbusier lecture? That would be like a professor of classical philosophy losing his train of thought in a lecture about Aristotle.

  After the lecture, I called her name before she could high-tail it out of there. There was one thing about Scotty – she usually tried to sneak in and out of class these days. I had no idea why, but thought that it had something to do with her overall fear of being alone with me. As much as that hurt, I knew that it was also possibly a good sign. Ryan seemed to think that she was afraid of me because she had feelings for me. I hoped he was right.

  “Ms. James,” I said, dashing from behind the podium. Since she sat at the back of the class, catching her attention was difficult.

  She turned around, her books held tightly to her chest. She didn’t meet my eyes. She was dressed in baggy clothes, baggier than usual. Her blue sweater was around three sizes too big, and she was wearing large cargo pants that hung off of her tiny frame, along with scuffed Doc Marten combat boots. Her hair was up, and she was wearing glasses. I don’t think that she had a stitch of makeup on.

  She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  “Uh, Professor O’Hara, I’m so sorry I was late. I missed the subway that would have gotten me here on time. I’ll do better in the future.”

  “That’s okay, Ms. James,” I said, addressing her formally because other students were loitering about, some of them wanting to talk to me. “Could you, uh, wait around for about fifteen minutes? I need to talk to you about some of your designs.”

  She looked at me and she seemed startled. I surmised that she really thought that I wanted to talk to her about designs, and her naivete made me smile again.

  Everything about her was making me smile these days.

  “Sure, uh, sure. I’ll wait for you.”

  Then she went into the hallway, and a stream of students came up to talk to me about certain points about the lecture they were unclear about. I always encouraged this, and welcomed it, because it was better that they get things cleared up while they could. So, even though my mind was on Scotty, and hoping that she didn’t leave, I had to make sure that I didn’t lose patience with any one of them.

  Finally, after about twenty minutes of fielding questions from the students, I was able to get away. I went out into the hallway, and Scotty was standing there against a wall, not really doing anything. She was staring into space, biting one of her nails, with her books still held close to her chest.

  “Hi, Scotty,” I said, and she jumped. “Sorry to startle you.”

  I stood there close to her, breathing in her scent. She smelled of almond shampoo and some kind of inexpensive perfume. It was intoxicating, really, and then I started to feel myself getting hard.

  Uh, oh. That was a problem with me. There was never hiding when I was turned on, unfortunately. So, I discreetly put my bag, which held my lesson plans and slides, over the front of my pants.

  She smiled. “Sorry. I was lost in thought. As usual.” She looked at me and took off her glasses and put them into her purse. She self-consciously touched a wisp of her hair and patted it, like she was nervous about how she looked. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was wondering, um, if you and a close friend of yours would like to have dinner at my loft this weekend.”

  She looked surprised. “Sure. Uh, does it matter who the friend is?”

  “No. I just wanted to get to know you better. I mean, we’re working together, and people work better together if they know one another. And, I have the feeling that you aren’t entirely comfortable with me yet, which is why I want you to bring a friend over too.”

  “Well, I think that can be arranged. My roommate, Jack, uh, I’ll see if he’s free. I’m free, I know that. But he works two jobs and auditions for plays and commercials all the time, so I never know when he is going to be able to do stuff.”

  “Sure, sure. Well, I hope you two can make it.” Jack. A male roommate. I felt a keen sense of jealousy welling up, and tried to avoid that feeling. I hoped that I didn’t want to kick his ass when I met him.

  “I hope so, too, uh, Nick. That would be very nice.”

  Nice. An understatement.

  I couldn’t stop staring at her. I knew that I was making her feel self-conscious, but I couldn’t help myself. She was so beautiful, so innocent, and so vulnerable. I knew that the word “vulnerable” was constantly on my mind, and it was overused, even in my thoughts. But she was. And I felt myself wishing that I never had to part with her again.

  “Well, Scotty, uh…”

  “I hate to cut you off. But I have to run.” She looked down on the ground, pulling her books ever closer to her chest. She traced her shoe on the floor. “I have to get home. I have a paper that I have to write that is due tomorrow.”

  “Would you like me to drive you home?”

  “That would be great, but I’m like way out of your way. That’s very kind of you to offer, though.”

  “It isn’t a problem,” I said, perhaps a tad too anxiously. “I mean, I know that your apartment is out of the way, but it really isn’t a problem.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll let you drive me to the subway station if you like.”

  I felt disappointed. I wanted to be my usual impatient and demanding self, but that aggressive approach wasn’t called for here. Her little compromise was what I had to accept.

  “Okay,” I said, “Well, let’s go and get my car and I’ll drive you to the station.”

  “Thanks, Nick,” she said. Then I saw her take a deep breath, and she held out her hand.

  It was my turn to be shy. I tentatively took the hand that she had offered to me. It was warm, but she was shaking wildly. I gripped it tighter, and the two of us walked along and out onto the sidewalk. We soon made it to my car, and I realized that I had no desire to let go of her hand. My own heart was pounding, as I gently touched her cheek, and opened the door for her. She got in, and so did I.

  When I got back into the car, I immediately took
her hand again, and I held it the entire way to the station.

  The car ride was way too short.

  We got to the station in just a few minutes, and she hesitated in the car for a beat.

  I looked at her, and I felt an overwhelming, and I mean absolutely overwhelming, need to feel my lips on hers. So, I put my hand on her cheek, and I reached over and gave her a soft kiss. Her lips were smooth as a baby’s, and she had a faint taste of cinnamon, like she had been eating cinnamon candies. I tried to will myself not to get a hard-on, because that would not be welcome to either of us at that moment, but I couldn’t help it.

  I felt that kiss down to my marrow, so I felt myself growing with each passing millisecond.

  She kissed me back for a second or two, and then pulled away. Her face looked stricken, and her entire body was trembling. Her cheeks flushed scarlet, and there were tears in her eyes.

  “Uh, Nick, uh, I’ll see you, uh, tomorrow,” she said, as she got out of the car and started walking rapidly towards the station. I sat there and looked at her for a few seconds, and then saw her come back. I got my hopes up that she was coming back to let me give her a ride home, after all, but it wasn’t that.

  She rapped on the window, and I let it down.

  “I’m so sorry. I was so rude. I forgot to thank you for driving me to the station.”

  That gesture touched me, to say the least. Did I finally find a woman who appreciated the small things? Or who appreciated me at all?

  With a smile on my face, I said “it was my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  And she smiled, then turned and walked to the station.

  I drove home with the biggest smile on my face ever.

  Chapter 20

  Scotty

  Oh.my.god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I couldn’t breathe. At all. That was my first kiss, my very first kiss, and it was beyond words. There were no words to describe it. I had never felt like that in my entire life. Exhilarated. Terrified. On top of the world, yet like I was falling off a cliff at the same time. I felt all tingly, and I had a strange stirring in places that I never gave consideration to before.