Something's Come Up Read online

  My first instinct was to run. I thought about catching a flight over to Italy to visit my brother Cedric, but he’d just be all sage and priest-like and I knew I wasn’t ready to be pacified. I was still pissed at myself for being lulled into trusting Kevin. I needed a good old-fashioned lynch mob, not rosary beads. Driving always helps me decompress, so I decided I’d take a little road trip.

  I threw some clothes in a suitcase and tossed it into the trunk of my Chrysler 300. It was one sticky-ass July afternoon, but the breeze from the lake managed to invigorate me long enough to get into the car rather than retreat into the air conditioned comfort of the penthouse. As the sun began to set in my rearview mirror, I crossed the border between Indiana and Ohio. I’d been listening to a local radio station when the DJs began to discuss the new Kevin Wiley movie releasing on Independence Day and the scandal surrounding it. They laughed as they dished about him cheating on his girlfriend with his co-star while on location in Mexico. I turned on my iPod before they could say my name.

  I hadn’t planned to divert my road trip to Boston, at least not consciously. I was simply driving east until I ran out of land, and I figured I’d just piss around in New York City for a few days, maybe wander through some galleries, eat barbecue, do a little clubbing, then stare at Central Park while downing a keg of beer. But as I drove down the left lane of the interstate, I started thinking about my college years on the east coast and the last time I had any real fun.

  I really do have a good time with Gerald and Cheyenne. We definitely have our laughs. But they are my coworkers and there’s always that lingering suspicion they might just be putting up with me because my dad owns the magazine. So as I rolled the word fun around in my mind (trying to recall the last time I’d actually had some), I couldn’t help but think about Pace Turner.

  Good old Pace. Six feet and four inches of ripped, ebony sex god. Tasty, tattooed, and oozing testosterone. Pace had always been a hell of a good time back in the day. Now that was one man who wasn’t afraid of an adventure and he knew how to make me come. The vivid memory of his amber eyes on me made me squirm a little in my seat. Though we’d exchanged a few emails and dirty greeting cards over the years, I hadn’t seen him since before I’d graduated college, and for all I knew he was happily married with children.

  He’d never been my boyfriend. Except for one minor misguided vacation together, we’d been friends with benefits at best. After our jaunt to Italy, things got a bit messy and we hadn’t even been that anymore. But as I checked into a roadside hotel for a few hours of sleep, I realized that Pace’s “benefits” were exactly what the doctor ordered. I quickly called Gerald to kill two birds with one stone.

  “Where in gay hell are you?” he demanded. For an assistant, Gerald was pretty sassy. “Cheyenne’s been trying to call you. She said Kevin just came by the apartment. He just texted me asking how he could reach you. I told him I didn’t have your new number.”

  “Good. Just tell Cheyenne I went away for the holiday weekend. I need you to find a phone number for me. Keep it on the down low.” The last thing I wanted was for those catty office bitches to be talking about what I did in my free time.

  I was back on the interstate about five hours later when he texted me the word Boston and Pace’s number. I nearly sideswiped a semi as I saved the text. I felt the old familiar tingle I always had just before I heard his voice. Then I hesitated. Would he answer? If he did, would he even want to see me? Things had been…complicated between us at the end. The turn off was less than a mile away and I needed to grow a pair and make a choice.

  I debated with myself a bit too long. I veered wildly and cut off a Hummer to catch the ramp toward Boston.

  Not only did I not like Pace when I first met him, I wanted to claw his eyes out. It was fall semester of my junior year at SVA in Manhattan. I was coasting along, earning my piece of paper in case I ever needed to back up my street cred with academic accomplishment. My photos had been in Vogue and Rolling Stone before I’d even left high school, but my dad wanted to be sure I had a formal education. Back then, he really believed I’d take over The Sound Wave one day, God bless him. Unless I took a blow to the head or had a personality transplant, me running the magazine was highly unlikely.

  I had been assigned the dubious task of shooting some pictures for Columbia’s new law school website. It was an assignment the entire school wanted. I thought it was a fucking joke and would have been more than willing to hand it off, but The School of Visual Arts wanted to send their best photography student to impress Columbia. I supposed someone there must golf with someone here. So I had no choice if I wanted to maintain my A and keep my dad paying my credit card bill and letting me stay in his kick ass Central Park West apartment.

  For three days I wandered around the pretentious campus, snapping pics of the foliage, the architecture, and the pampered coeds. Interspersed with my impromptu location shots, I had scheduled shoots for different departments. My last afternoon, I was scheduled to meet the students from the law school. The autumn wind picked up as the day went on, and I used my scarf to secure my hair back in a ponytail. I glanced at the names of the six students they’d selected to be their toothy Ivy Leaguers. I saw the name Carrington Pace Turner III and laughed out loud. Classic. I pictured an Aryan young Republican in a red tie with teeth like Austin Powers. Imagine my shock at the sight of him.

  Fuck me!

  I heard his deep, velvety voice before I saw him. I was bent over, snapping a shot of a plaque on the building. A rumbling voice from behind me nearly made me jump out of my skin.

  “Damn, girl.”

  I spun around and a mountain of a gorgeous black man in a ridiculous vest and overly shiny shoes. He was staring blatantly at my chest, and I watched as his eyes ran down the length of my body and seemed to focus on the low rise of my jeans with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “You might want to pull up those pants before you cause a scene.”

  “Kiss my ass.” I turned away to aim my camera at a completely uninteresting light pole. He was hot, but I was busy and I wasn’t interested in giving some football player my digits.

  I could feel his eyes on me and glanced back at him. He smirked and his lips caught my attention. What a mouth he had.

  “All the better to eat you with, my dear,” he would later say.

  “Planting one on that ass would be easy to do in those jeans, Red.”

  Just like that, he’d given me what would forever be his nickname for me. Red. Later, on certain occasions, he’d call me “Little Red.” I think he liked to imagine himself as the Big Bad Wolf. In actuality, he was much more of a shark.

  “Dude, please. I’m here to do a photo shoot, not naked body shots. Do you know any of the people on this list?” I held my list of names out to him.

  He looked it over and pointed to the name I had so cheerfully laughed about. “That’s me.”

  He moved closer to me to hand the list back and his hulking presence sent a chill down my spine. He reached out and ran his fingers over the scarf that hung from my hair. The guy must have bathed in pheromones, because I felt my temperature rise and my pulse do a power stall. His stuffy clothes seemed like some sort of costume masking his true identity. I’d been hit on by lots of bad boy musicians (occupational hazard), but none of them had ever seemed as taboo as this guy did in his tailored pants and Italian shoes. Like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, he felt like the kind of man who would throw you over his shoulder and drag you back to his cave. The kind of man who’d take his time with you…tease you mercilessly and make you beg for him.

  I cleared my throat and rolled my eyes. “You’re Carrington? Seriously?”

  “Call me Pace.” He seemed bored with the conversation, or irritated that I’d called him by his given name. “Those two are Stephen and Sidney,” he pointed to the three other students casually, “and that lovely lady over there is Max.”

  The guys looked like golden-haired twins from a Knowles nov
el. They lounged a few feet away on the stairs, looking mildly amused. Sitting on a bench under a nearby tree was his beloved Max. I had to agree—she was lovely. I’d been so distracted by “Pace” that I’d been oblivious to their presence. Based on the collective looks on their faces, they’d found our exchange rather entertaining. I felt my face turning the color of my hair.

  “Can we get on with this?” Pace casually glanced at his Rolex. “Some of us are in law school and have studying to do.”

  “Begging your pardon, my lord.” I shrugged, brushing past him toward the other two students. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “Why? It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?” He was toying with me now. His poker face was betrayed by the twinkle in his bedroom eyes.

  I played along. “Yep. Oh, and no offense, but you look a wee bit old for law school. I guess its clever marketing though; they’ll nail the diversity criteria for the website with you.”

  Apparently I’d hit a nerve with that remark, because the amused look in his eyes evaporated. He hung back after that and kept a pointed distance from me, barely acknowledging that he heard any of what I said as I explained my concept for the shoot to the four of them.

  I clapped my hands together rapidly, highlighting my annoyance at not being taken seriously. “Pace. You with us?”

  His response was a cool nod.

  The rest of the afternoon went smoothly. Things always do when models simply shut up and do what I tell them to. But my camera was drawn to him. Max Kennedy was photogenic as hell, and I did several shots with her alone. Sidney and Stephen were both good looking guys, but Pace was definitely the focal point when I composed most of my group shots. When the last two students showed up (both female), it was obvious that I wasn’t alone in finding him magnetic. They both hung on his every word and he was back his swaggering self in no time. When he left, both girls went with him.

  It was Sidney that ended up asking for my digits. I demurred, telling him that my jealous biker boyfriend was still on probation for assault and promptly left the campus. I was in a hurry to wash away all that pretentiousness in a hot shower.

  No one was more shocked than I was when I ran into Pace again three weeks later at my favorite barbecue joint, The Rack. After all, I lived in Manhattan, for crying out loud. What are the odds that you’d ever see the same person twice? I have always tended to be a statistical anomaly.

  Perhaps most shocking of all was that he spent that whole night—and most of the next morning—in my bed.

  Pace, July 2012

  I got my shit together in short order, erasing all signs of my ill-fated date from my apartment in the form of pouring her drink down the drain and washing, drying, and putting away the glasses. Steph was a beer and wings kind of girl, and would sooner throw a martini in my face than let it pass her puckered lips.

  After a quick call to my doorman with a specific description and instructions, I sat back and waited, adrenaline I hadn’t felt in a while rushing through me.

  Steph was the perfect kind of drug. I didn’t realize until I checked my watch for the third time how long it had been since I’d seen her. Touched her. Smelled her. In the span of five minutes I was on the flame-toned roller coaster again, itching to have my hands on her angry pale skin, feeling the places my mouth last touched her.

  I needed her. She was the only woman I’d ever needed, which was exactly why we put several states between us. I’d gained custody of New York and Pennsylvania in our ceasefire, she won Ohio and Indiana.

  Forty-five minutes later, I grinned as my phone rang. She always drove like the devil was calling in a favor, so I knew even if she got pulled over it’d be less than an hour before she stormed into The W. Despite the bottomless craving I’d developed for her, I hadn’t lost my sense of play.

  “Hey, you. Change your mind?” I cleared my throat to mask my pleasure at the scene I knew was taking place downstairs.

  “Bite me, Turner. Your sexy doorman says he was given instructions not to let me up. I didn’t drive all the way here to go sightseeing. Are you going to let me up, or should I take Drake here out for a night on the town?” Her words were calculated, but the breath used as she spoke my last name was anything but collected.

  “Put him on.”

  A second later, a cheerful middle-aged Drake spoke. “I’d love to let her up, Mr. Turner, but ‘a night on the town’ with this enchanting creature…”

  “Ha! Let her in. I’ll meet her in the lobby.”

  The elevator door opened and Little Red stood with her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side. Gone was the nose ring from our college days as well as the smoky art girl makeup. Her hair was a lighter shade of red, framing those eyes that always made me think of the frigid waters of the Atlantic. She’d transformed from “the cool girl” into a particularly striking young woman, but I’d seen her image everywhere for the past year or more, so I knew exactly how gorgeous she’d become. Expletives slipped out of those lips in the first second her eyes lifted to my face.

  “‘Bout fucking time, Daddy Warbucks.”

  I didn’t say a word as I nodded my thanks to Drake. He grinned and gave me a measured salute as Stephanie stepped onto the elevator and the doors locked us in the most confined space we’d been in for years.

  “It’s not moving.” Her sharp tone filled the tiny space.

  “Huh?”

  “The elevator, Hershey. It’s not moving. Do you need to swipe your multi-million dollar card, or something?” She gestured to the card dangling between my sweaty fingertips.

  Without taking my eyes from her, I reached out my right arm and slowly, deliberately, slid the card through and hit my floor number. She shoulders twitched as the car began its slow ascent.

  “Hershey, huh? Is that how you’re going to play it, Strawberry—”

  “Don’t say it.” She lowered her head to try to hide her grin.

  I took one half-step toward her and placed my hands confidently on her hips. “Oh,” I whispered, “I intend to say that and a whole lot of other things tonight.”

  Her blue-green eyes were alive with something I’d been missing for years. She tilted her chin to face me head on. I had to restrain myself from pushing the emergency stop button as she batted those eyelashes. Her voice was velvet wrapped in nails. “I dare you.”

  I took a deep breath, letting a growl escape through my exhale as I touched my forehead to the top of her head and remembered our first elevator ride.

  2008

  The new Columbia Law School webpage had been launched the day before and certainly earned me a lot of attention. Welcome attention, if I’m completely honest. I got more play in the months that followed than I had in in my last two years of undergrad. I was front and center on the banner for the homepage and featured, along with a brief article, in the J.D./ M.B.A. section. The site had turned out great, but all I could think of when I looked at my face on the screen was her.

  Red.

  She hadn’t given me her name in between my showing up late for the shoot, her professional profanity, and my smugness at being involved with the shoot at all. I remember watching her move her body in all kinds of inviting ways as she tried to capture the right light, the right angle; sometimes standing on a wooden crate, sometimes crouching back on her heels in those tasty red cowboy boots. The way she moved her body had my mind wandering to the sheets of my Upper East Side apartment.

  “Hey, Cary, this isn’t a Playgirl shoot.” She’d snapped her fingers and whistled. “Get those bedroom eyes off your face.”

  Cary. The unauthorized nickname made my lip curl.

  “What’s the matter, stud? Did I strike a nerve? Pay attention.” She hid behind her giant lens and resumed her rapid-fire clicking.

  “What’s your name?” I’d taken off the vest and loosened my tie and collar.

  “Uh-uh, big shot. Just stand there and look pretty.”

  It was standard protocol for women to toss me everything short of their
social security numbers the second I asked. That I didn’t even know her name left me gloveless in the outfield.

  When the shoot was over, she was out of there before I even turned around from making evening plans with my friends. I was certain the air smelled like cinnamon, but that was likely a psychosomatic response to the way she nuzzled into every inch of my senses.

  I shook my head and rolled my shoulders back. I reasoned I’d never see her again, despite my disappointment, so there was no sense in giving her any more thought.

  That didn’t stop me from buying a pack of Big Red gum on the way home. I never opened it.

  A few weeks later, thoroughly battered and exhausted after completing the last of my mid-terms and papers, I went looking for some comfort food. The Rack had been my go-to barbecue joint since the second I found it while wandering around Central Park. It was a pain in the ass to find barbecue worthy of the name the further you got from my grandmother’s kitchen, but The Rack did a bang-up job.

  I avoided my friends that evening; they all wanted to go out and get tanked. I was rarely one for drinking with the intent to get drunk and I wasn’t in the mood to listen to Sidney drone on about how every woman in the bar wanted him. I was in the mood to have a few drinks, eat some ribs, and crash. Needless to say, I was more than annoyed to find my barbecue joint packed on a Thursday night. I’d just wanted to eat, drink heavily, and leave, but that was rapidly turning into a several-hour prospect.

  “It’ll be about a half hour to forty-five minutes. Want to wait? You can have a seat at the bar.” The young hostess smiled, the restaurant’s name stretched tight across her chest, and blew a bubble of purple gum as she waited for my answer.