he asked, arms stretched out over the back of the couch.
“Quiet,” I replied, and I stood up, certain I was floating on footless legs as I rounded the coffee table and climbed into his lap.
“Is quiet good? I hate quiet.”
I cupped his perfect face in my palms, feeling like I was seeing the bright, beautiful colors of his rosy cheeks for the very, very first time. “I only hear you when it's quiet,” I whispered, as he wrapped his arms tight around my waist. “Quiet is good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
VINNIE
The morning greeted me with sunshine and an insatiable craving for a cigarette. Andy was still asleep, naked and tangled in the throw blanket Pops had left draped over the couch. I lifted her arm, in an attempt to carefully slide my way out from her hold, but she stirred and opened her bleary eyes.
“Hey,” she whispered groggily, her lips full and puffy.
“Hey, sweetheart, I'm just getting up to smoke. Go back to sleep.”
She smiled, reaching out to graze her fingertips over my morning erection. “Well, hurry up. I want this when you get back.”
I laughed, bending over to press my lips to hers. “I'll see what I can do,” I said, before pulling my underwear on and grabbing my smokes and black Zippo from the coffee table, purposely diverting my eyes from the leftover cocaine mess.
I climbed out the window and onto the fire escape, grateful for the dirty, humid air as I filled my lungs. With a cigarette in my mouth and the flick of the lighter, I set myself up for a thorough thinking session, despite my resistance to think at all.
We’d had a lot of fun, Andy and I. Doped-up and diving into a sweet abyss, we fucked on the couch until the high faded and we fell asleep. I could have looked back on the night wearing a fond smile, but as sweet as the memory might have been, what we had done, and what I had taught her to do, wasn't.
Her family was right about me; I was toxic. If I hadn't believed it before, I did now, and that truth left a sick, hollow feeling in my gut.
I loved her. God, I loved her so much. But if I loved her so damn much, how could I have allowed this to happen? How could I have allowed her to talk me into getting her high, and so easily? This isn't what love does. Love protects. It wraps itself around you like an impenetrable shield and stops the bad shit from infiltrating the fortress you've built. Yet we had seen that bad shit knocking on the door and chose to invite it in.
But, wasn't she also a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions? She had made up her mind and would have done it whether I showed her or not. What if she had screwed up? What if she had hurt herself? When I thought of it like that, I wondered if I had actually done the right thing. Maybe, in some twisted way, I had actually protected her. Because that's what love does, and I loved her.
***
We both had work to return to, and I was glad for it. As much as I would have loved to sit in the apartment and make lazy love to her all day, I also felt that a taste of normalcy would be good. Andy needed to see the hospital, she needed the distraction of her patients, and I needed pizza, just to take our minds off her family and the things we had done together. To reassess and figure things out.
So, we went our separate ways and both walked into work late. It had been expected by her colleagues, Jenna, and Moe, because of the party, but they all had no idea what the real reason was and, as far as I was concerned, they never would. Because the coke was gone now, and there wouldn't be any more.
“How did it go yesterday?” Jenna asked, as I pulled my cap on.
“What? The party?”
“Obviously,” she laughed.
I hesitated. In the moment, what had happened at the party was hot and I'd loved every second of it. But now, in hindsight, I was embarrassed. A secret tryst in a bedroom during a party was one thing, but what I had instigated had been reckless and disrespectful.
“It was okay,” I settled on, hoping she'd drop it.
“Oh, come on,” she groaned, dropping the ladle and turning to face me. “You gotta give