Wine, the great equalizer.
Steadier now, I settle on the sofa and flip on the television, finding a cheesy medical drama rerun I can scoff at.
“Oh, that is such bullshit!” I’m yelling at McDreamy's assessment of some random neural affliction a few hours later when the video pauses and a message pops up on my screen. It’s accompanied by pleasant dinging noise, and a canned woman’s voice announces, “You have a visitor.”
I almost knock over my wine glass in my struggle to find the right remote to buzz Mason up. Meanwhile a camera angle of the building’s entry appears, displaying a forlorn, hulking shape in the pouring rain. He enters a second later. Then I’m in a mad rush, heart pounding as I hit all the various buttons to switch off the show and turn on the playlist I queued up in anticipation of his arrival.
I jog to the door when the doorbell sounds. “Hey!” I say, flinging open the door, not even trying to disguise my excitement. My smile disappears once I take in the full scope of what I saw as a fuzzy shape on camera a moment ago. “What happened to you?”
A waterlogged mountain stands before me, shivering and dripping in camouflage fatigues. At least he has a heavy woolen coat, but that appears to be soaked through as well.
“It’s raining,“ he says through chattering teeth. “And I'm really fucking cold.”
“No shit. Come in!”
He’s even more soaked than I was earlier. Icy cold water drips off him in the foyer, and I can’t help but shiver in sympathy.
“Jesus Christ. Did you walk? What were you thinking?”
He flashes his chattering teeth and his gray eyes twinkle in amusement. “Give me a minute to regain feeling in my business and I'll show you what I was thinking.”
He dumps a rucksack on the floor by the door where it makes a heavy thud. I laugh, relieved at his positive outlook in spite of what had to be a miserable journey.
“Well, you’re on time. But didn’t it occur to you to take an Uber or something?”
“I’m from LA. If it’s less than two miles, it’s easier to walk. The rain stopped just long enough to give me a false sense of security. And I admit, I’ve never Ubered before, so I have no clue how it works.”
“C’mon,” I say, grabbing his cold, wet arm and dragging him down the hallway. I’ll have to clean up the puddles later.
I deposit him in the guest bathroom with a couple fresh towels and a blanket.
“Take it off,” I call through the closed door. “I’ll throw it in the dryer.”
“Uh . . . all of it?” his muffled voice calls back.
“If it’s wet, take it off.”
“All right, sweetness. It’s all coming off.”
A moment later, a muscular arm reaches through the bathroom door with a pile of wet clothing. I eye the smooth length of nearly bare skin, the fresh tattoo stark against his forearm, before grabbing the soggy garments and heading across the apartment to the laundry room.
For a little while last night, I managed to forget about the tattoo and what it might represent. But the image of those arms wrapped around me that morning returns, and I question whether I’m willing to wait until he’s ready to tell me the story. Hopefully he will sooner rather than later.
When I return, he’s seated on the sofa, bundled up in the blanket and shivering.
“Do you drink coffee?”
“I’ll drink anything if it’ll warm me up.”
I detour into the kitchen, checking the kettle. It’s as cold as the apartment was when I arrived. Coffee will take a while, and I need to get something warm in him fast. Microwave cocoa it is.
Cocoa mixed and steaming, I stand staring at the pair of mugs, my stomach churning, not quite ready to face him until I can let some of the questions go. I’m the kind of person who relentlessly seeks answers. Having questions that I can’t poke at makes me edgy, especially after three years of feeling helpless when it came to answering the biggest question I’d had in my short career as a doctor. How did he really die?
The answer was so easy: He didn’t.
But I don’t think the other answers are going to come quite so easily now that I know that one.
Compromise, Callie. That’s what has to happen here. If you want more from him, you have to be willing to compromise. Something I clearly never cared enough to do with Barnaby, so is it any wonder we never worked out?
Taking a deep breath, I head back to him, resolving not to fuck this up by being too pushy about getting what I want.
“So we pretty much have this place to ourselves. Mom might call, since we’ve barely seen each other while I’m here, but I’m not counting on it.”
He gratefully reaches out to accept the mug I hand him. The blanket clutched around him falls to the side, displaying more of his tattooed torso, the incision scar on his chest easily visible in the waning daylight. I’m still baffled that I managed to have sex with him twice before I even saw him shirtless. I’d have probably figured out who he was a lot earlier. His face wasn’t enough to trigger my memory since the first time I met him it was a swollen, bruised mess.
“This is your Mom’s place? Why isn’t she here?”
I settle down at the other end of the sofa, tucking my legs underneath me and blowing into my steamy mug. “It’s more of an investment property and a convenient place to stay when she needs to be downtown. Our family home is over in Englewood, actually.”
“No shit? Isn’t that where John Elway lives?”
I make a noncommittal noise into my cocoa as I nod. I hope he doesn’t ask for more, because talking about my celebrity neighbors isn’t my idea of interesting conversation.
“Did you bring a change of clothes?” I ask, eyeing the damp bag he left in the entry.
He nods, savoring the hot beverage before
