She moves quickly toward the door, towing my suitcase behind her, and puts my stuff in the hall, then holds the door and stands back.
Alessandro and I each grab an end of the table. “On its side,” he says, and we tip it sideways. He starts backing toward the door. “I’ll go first.”
We manage to wrangle the table into the elevator, and when we get to the bottom, Jess holds the door open while Alessandro and I wrestle the table out.
“Watch the top end of the table,” Alessandro says as I move backward out the door.
“I’ve got—” But that’s as far as I get before a corner of the table catches on the top of the elevator door, causing me to lose my balance and my grip. I hear Jess gasp as I drop my end and I topple over backward onto my butt, which brings the top edge low enough to clear the door. The jerk of the table yanks it out of Alessandro’s grip and it starts to fall toward me where I sit on my ass, stunned. But then, with reflexes like a cat, he grabs for the table leg and stops it, mid-timber.
I look up at it, dangling over my head, and back at Alessandro as he strains to bring it back upright, and what I know for sure at that second is that Brett would have let that table flatten me if it were him in that elevator.
Jess grabs the other side of the table and helps Alessandro right it as I scramble to my feet.
“Thanks guys,” I tell them as we slide it the rest of the way out of the elevator. “This thing is so freaking heavy I’d have been roadkill.”
“Damn!” Jess says as the elevator doors close, and I realize all my stuff is still in there.
Alessandro’s hand darts out for the call button but it’s too late. The car is rising. It stops on the fourth floor and we wait for it to come back. And when the door opens, Bambi has my suitcase open and my clothes are strewn all over the elevator. She has my red lace thong looped over her index finger. “By the time I’m done with him, he’ll forget you ever existed,” she says, curling her lip in disgust as she flicks it at me. She struts past us toward the door.
“Good,” I say as she slips through.
Jess steps up next to me and grasps my hand as Bambi vanishes through the door. “Karma, Hilary. The universe is going to come back and bite that bitch in the butt.”
“I think maybe it already did.” I turn back to find the coffee table leaning against the wall and Alessandro inside the elevator, collecting my things and packing them carefully back into my suitcase. He picks up a black lace bra and hesitates for a second before tucking it in under a sweater and I feel myself blush, of all things. I don’t blush. Ever.
“I’ve got it,” I say, kneeling next to him and grabbing for the last few pairs of underwear I see, cramming them into the corner of the suitcase.
I toss a sweater on top as he scoops up the last towel and folds it in, then helps me zip it up.
“Thanks,” I tell him as I grab the handle and tow it out of the elevator.
“My pleasure.” He purrs the last word, and when I look at him, there’s an amused spark in his eye.
Jess grabs my bags of stuff and takes the suitcase handle from me. “Let’s get out of here. There’s a bad vibe in this building. It’s giving me the creeps.”
The subway scene is basically a repeat performance of the one that got the table to my apartment in the first place, except this time we have Jess to run interference. She shoves the crowd back from the door, making room for Alessandro and me to load the coffee table into the subway car. We finally make her apartment and wrestle the coffee table in, and my heart sinks when I see there’s already a glass coffee table in a delicate white frame.
Jess sees my frown and says, “Oh, no! It’s not what you think,” like she got caught cheating on me with another coffee table. “This is Lucinda’s. She’s taking it when she moves.”
My spirits lift a little. “So, you’re okay with my coffee table?”
“Definitely. I hate that thing,” she says with a scowl at the pretty glass table. “Where I grew up, a coffee table was where you put your feet, but Lucinda flips out when she catches me with my feet on hers.”
And that makes me think about furniture in general. I’m going to need at least a bed.
“Where would you like this in the meantime?” Alessandro says, and I realize I’ve left him standing there holding my coffee table.
Jess looks around. “Maybe we can lean it on that wall?” she says, pointing to the wall next to the couch.
Alessandro slides it across the floor to the corner and leans it, legs out, against the wall behind an armchair. “Are you going to be okay from here?”
That’s a really good question, but as I look around at the apartment, I realize the answer is yes. Maybe Jess is right. Maybe this was meant to be, because I feel a sudden wave of relief. I didn’t realize how tense living with Brett had become until now, when I don’t have to do it anymore. That frustrated, wrong feeling is totally gone. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“The children are doing a Christmas show at the youth center tonight. It’s open to the public if you ladies would like to come.”
Funnily, I sort of want to say yes, but . . . “I promised my sister we’d be there for dinner.” He nods and turns for the door, but then I remember I have his gift. “Wait!” I go to the bag and pull it out. It’s a little bit smashed and I almost change my mind. “Here,” I finally say, thrusting it at him. “Merry Christmas.”
He takes the wrapped tube from my hand and laughs at the cockroach bow, then squints a question at me.
“Just open it.”
He pulls off the cockroach and slides it in his pocket, then slowly slips off the wrapping paper . . . and smiles. “Salomé.”
I shrug. “I hope you like it.”
His smile widens and his eyes spark. “There’s something about a woman who has her shit together.”
I cringe a little, remembering that’s what I said about her at the museum.
His eyes lift from the rolled print to me. “She reminds me of you.”
I cringe deeper.
He backs toward the door. “Don’t forget. We have a date at the youth center tomorrow morning.”
I roll my eyes. “Ten. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“My pleasure,” he says with a smile that makes my cheeks warm again, then he disappears through the door.
“You’ve got it bad,” Jess says, and I realize I’m just standing here staring after him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You want him, Hilary. You’re blushing. I’ve never seen you blush before.”
I hate what I’m feeling is so obvious on my face. I’ve spent my entire life learning to hide my emotions. How does being around Alessandro turn me back to that girl so easily? Just one more reason I shouldn’t be around him. “I just hauled a five-thousand-pound table halfway across Manhattan, Jess.”
She shrugs and gives me a knowing smile.
“Which means I could use a shower before we go. Can I use yours?”
“It’s yours now,” she says with a goofy smile. Then she goes all Mississippi and jumps up and down, making me laugh. “This is going to be so awesome!”
JESS IS ON the floor with Henri, building one of his four new Lego sets, Jeff is bundled up with Max on the back deck looking through the telescope Mallory and he bought the boys, and Mallory and I are on the couch. I’ve filled her in on Brett’s and my breakup, and when she heard how Jess took me in off the street, she offered her leftovers to take home—Mallory’s seal of approval.
“So this guy . . . the one who helped you move . . . ?”
“What about him?” I ask, but I know where she’s going. Ever since I mentioned he was back and saw her reaction, I’ve avoided talking about him with her.