Chapter 44 - Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 44: Chapter 44 - Forbidden Fruit

For a few seconds, the rest of the world fell away. Angie’s mouth was hot and hungry on his, her fingers twisted in his collar, the warm weight of her pressed against him across the console. She tasted like red wine and something sweeter underneath, and her perfume filled his lungs, amber and vanilla.

Jesse slid a hand up to the side of her neck, his thumb brushing her jaw.

She moaned softly into his mouth.

Then, all at once, she tore herself away.

She jerked back so fast her shoulder hit the passenger door. She pressed one hand flat against her chest and the other over her mouth, her grey eyes huge and wild in the dark. She looked like a woman who had just woken from a dream to find herself standing on the edge of a cliff, or like someone who’d bitten into forbidden fruit and only now realized what she’d tasted.

"Oh my God," she whispered through her fingers. "Oh my God."

Jesse stayed where he was and didn’t reach for her.

"Angie—"

"I’m sorry." She lowered her hand. Her red lipstick was smeared at the corner of her mouth, and Jesse realized there was a faint smudge of it on his own lip too. "Jesse, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never..."

"It’s okay," Jesse said gently. "I understand."

"It’s not okay." She shook her head hard, her curls tumbling over her shoulders. "I’m married. I have a daughter, Jesse. She’s at home right now with a babysitter, waiting for her mom to come back." Her voice cracked. "And I threw myself at you in a car on the side of the road, like some kind of..."

She couldn’t finish. She pressed her palms against her eyes.

"I’ve never crossed that line in ten years of marriage, even when it was bad. Even when he forgot my birthday, or when I spent Christmas Eve alone because he was on a stakeout and he stayed away for three days without calling." Her breath hitched. "I never even looked at anyone else. What kind of woman does this make me? What kind of mother?"

"Hey." Jesse kept his voice quiet and steady. "Angie, look at me."

Slowly, she lowered her hands.

"You’re a good mother," he said. "You got dressed up for your husband on your anniversary, and he got up and left you sitting alone at a table with two hundred dollars." He held her gaze. "You’ve been lonely for a long time. Tonight you got hurt, and somebody finally looked at you the way you deserve to be looked at. That’s all that happened."

Angie stared at him.

"Don’t be so hard on yourself," Jesse said softly. "It was one kiss."

She was quiet for a long moment. He watched her breathing slow down, her shoulders loosen and her hands go still in her lap.

She reached up and wiped the smeared lipstick from the corner of her mouth with her thumb.

"You’re a lot kinder than I expected," she said finally. "Percy always made you sound like..." She stopped herself.

"Like my father’s son?"

She looked away. "Something like that."

Jesse smiled faintly. "Percy says a lot of things."

That almost got a laugh out of her.

She took a deep breath, smoothed down the front of her dress and sat back properly in her seat.

"Can you take me home now?" she asked quietly. "Please."

"Of course."

He pulled away from the curb and drove the last half block in silence.

The Bonham house was a two-story colonial with white siding, black shutters and a neatly trimmed hedge along the front walk. A pink bicycle with streamers on the handlebars lay on its side on the lawn. The porch light was on, and through the front window Jesse could see the flicker of a TV and a teenage girl curled up on the couch with her phone. The babysitter.

Jesse stopped at the curb and put the car in park.

Angie sat with her clutch in her lap for a while, staring at her own front door like it belonged to someone else. Then she turned to him.

"Jesse," she said. "What happened tonight..." She swallowed. "I need you to forget it. Please. It can’t happen again. As far as we’re concerned, it didn’t happen. Okay?"

Jesse looked at her red lips, at the curls falling over her bare shoulders, and at the grey eyes that were trying hard to look firm and certain and weren’t quite managing it.

"It’ll be hard," he said honestly. "But I’ll try."

Something flickered across her face. It might have been relief, though it looked a lot like disappointment wearing relief as a disguise.

She nodded quickly.

"Thank you for the ride," she said. "And for what you said."

She opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. After she closed it, she paused with one hand resting on the roof of the car, then bent down and looked at him through the window one more time.

Then she turned and walked up the front path, heels clicking on the concrete, hips swaying under the black silk. She kept her eyes on the house the whole way.

At the front door, with her key already in the lock, she stopped for a second.

Then she went inside.

Jesse watched the door close behind her. He let out a slow breath, touched the faint smear of red on his bottom lip with his thumb, and drove away.

******

The apartment door swung open just as Jesse’s footsteps faded down the stairwell.

Aileen stood in the doorway in her baggy cargo pants and cut-off band shirt, phone in one hand, ready to unload two hours of worry on her sister.

Then she saw the hallway and forgot every word of it.

Shopping bags lined the wall on both sides of the door, stacked two and three deep. There were glossy black garment bags with gold lettering, cream boxes tied with silk ribbon and a tall orange box with a name stamped on the lid that Aileen had only ever seen in music videos. Tissue paper spilled out of every one of them.

And standing in the middle of it all was Carrie, in a pale gold slip dress Aileen had never seen before, her hair loose and wild, holding a pair of nude heels in one hand and an insulated takeaway bag in the other.

Aileen stared at her sister. Then at the bags. Then back at her sister.

"Car," she said slowly. "Whose stuff is this?"

Carrie bit her lip.

"Mine."

"Yours."

"Jesse bought it for me." Carrie lifted one shoulder in a helpless little shrug. "All of it."

Aileen’s mouth fell open. She stepped out into the hallway in her socks, crouched beside the nearest bag and peeked inside. She pulled out a corner of black silk, read the label stitched into the collar, and let go of it like it was hot.