First, shower. I’ve been sitting in the same fucking spot for more than a day, and I’m not going to get Erin back by showing up at her apartment and looking like I’ve not slept and smelling like a barn. Though there’s probably no way to look like I’ve slept without actually…sleeping. I don’t have time for that.
Quickly, I shower, and I throw on clothes before grabbing my keys and heading out the door. This is the beautiful thing about living in Manhattan. The city is still alive and awake, though quieter. Another upside is that there’s absolutely no trouble getting a cab at this time of night.
I feel nearly delirious as I hail a cab and quickly pull up the email from Michael with Erin’s contract. Hopefully it will be one of the last times I ever see him after I fire him. Which will be after I sleep so I can make sure that I’m doing it correctly and give my lawyers and my editor time to work out a deal. But her contract has her address, and I rattle it off to the cabbie.
What I’m about to do is more important than sleeping.
Late night construction makes it take longer than I expect for the middle of the night, so when I pull up to Erin’s building it’s nearly five AM. I push into the building as an early morning runner comes out. Good thing I showered so it didn’t look like a drunk was trying to break into the lobby. That wouldn’t have gone well.
I climb the stairs two at a time until I’m on her floor, and then find her door. This is it. My stomach plummets. I need her to hear me, and I need her to forget what an ass I was because she’s the best thing that’s ever fucking happened to me.
I need her.
With one last breath, I bang on the door.
Erin
Thunder wakes me out of a dead sleep. That’s weird. We honestly don’t get thunder that often. Or if we do, it fades into the background of trains and cars and whatever noise is plaguing the city that day.
Laying my head back down, it comes again, startling me. Wait a second. That’s not thunder. Someone is banging on the door to my apartment?
I lean over and tap my phone. Five in the morning. What the actual hell?
More than once I almost trip in the dark on the way to the door. Please don’t let this be the police telling me that someone I know has died or that there’s a crazy person in the building. Of all the things, I really don’t need that right now.
No, it’s something that I need even less than my upstairs neighbor being murdered. Malik stands outside my door, disheveled and exhausted. He’s leaning against the doorframe, just waiting. After a minute, he knocks again. It’s softer this time, like he’s on the verge of giving up on the idea that I’m actually in here.
Damn it. I shouldn’t be curious, but I am. “What are you doing here, Malik?”
His head flies up, and I see him look directly at the peephole where I’m looking. “I need to talk to you, Erin. Please.”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I do.”
I shake my head. “And you didn’t think that maybe it could wait until normal ‘humans are awake’ hours?”
“No. It can’t wait.”
With a sigh, I open the door and unlock it. “What the fuck, Malik? You just fire me and break up with me out of the blue? You can’t just-”
Malik surges through the door and in one movement he wraps me up in his arms and his mouth slants across mine. He tastes like mint and coffee, and I shouldn’t want this, but I do. My body is a traitor and I melt under the way that he’s touching me, fully unable to form words or figure out if I want to push him away or make him come closer.
He shoves the door shut behind us and spins me so that I’m pushed up against it. God, it’s so good that I can’t breathe. And I also can’t do this. With the short time we spent together, I fell too hard and too deep for me to let him bounce in and out of my life. I won’t be able to take that.
“Malik,” I push my hands against his chest. “Stop.”
He pulls back just enough to stop kissing me but not enough to separate our bodies. His forehead rests against mine, and we catch our breath together.
“I can’t do this,” I say gently. “I can’t be a yo-yo for you. I can’t go back and forth because it will kill me, okay?” I hate how sad my voice sounds. But he deserves to know. He hurt me, and it still feels like I’m walking around with a wound in my chest because of him. That’s not something that I can just ignore.
“You’re not a yo-yo,” he says. “You’ve never been a yo-yo.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
His lips are against my cheek. “I’m here because you fixed me. I finished the book. And I know that I fucked up, but I’m hoping you’ll hear me out. Because you’re amazing, and that entire phone call was a mistake.”
I’m not breathing. His words were dripping with sincerity. Of course that’s exactly what I wanted to hear him say. But it’s early in the morning. Maybe this whole thing is a fever dream because I’m still hurting and still desperate for this to happen.
The real Malik is probably still at home asleep and not even thinking about me. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I.”
“No,” he says. “You are fucking amazing. Special and talented and I want to help you get published. More than that. I want to be with you. Help you. We can get a better agent together. There’s no agency in this city that wouldn’t take me, and I’ll make sure that we’re a package deal.”
Okay, wait. My brain grinds to a stop. “Hold on. What are you saying? What’s wrong with Michael?”
He pulls me away from the doormat but doesn’t let me out of his arms. I manage to flick on a lamp on the way to the couch, and when the light hits his face, it’s clear that Malik is just as exhausted as I’ve been these past few days. But there’s fire and drive in his eyes that I can’t ignore. “Malik?”
“A couple of days ago, before I called you, Michael wanted me to come down to his office and check in about how it was working out with you. And he didn’t want to do it over email just in case.”
“Okay.”
Hands run up and down my arms like he can’t stop touching me. I don’t mind. Even if I have to ask him to stop after he finishes telling me whatever this is, I’m weak, and I’m going to enjoy it after being starved of it for the last couple of days.
“I asked him why you weren’t published, because I swear to God, Erin, there’s no reason that you’re not. You’re so much better than I was when I first started. And-” He cuts off, and I don’t think that I’ve ever seen him so angry. “Michael made it abundantly clear that the reason you’re not published has nothing to do with your writing.”
I gasp. “What?”
“He said that you weren’t desperate enough yet. And until you were desperate enough to either blow him or let him fuck you, you were never going to be published.”
Shock rolls through me. “He actually said that?”
“Believe me, I wish that he hadn’t. He also made it clear that part of the reason he sent you to me was because he thought I’d want to fuck you too. And I swear, that was not a part of the reason everything happened between us.”
“I know,” I say, smiling. “You’re not a good enough actor to pretend you were that angry on that first day, if that was your goal all along.”
He smiles at that too. “My lawyer and my editor are working on a solution to get Michael the hell out of the way and for him to have no part in the earnings of the book. As soon as that’s confirmed-hopefully tomorrow. Or rather, today after the sun comes up-I’ll have all the ammunition that I need to fire him. You should too.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I mutter.
“Your book is amazing,” he says. “I read it in one sitting, and it unlocked something in my brain that I was afraid wasn’t there anymore. After that, the words just kept pouring out and I couldn’t stop.”
“Have you slept?” I ask.
“No, but I had to see you and tell you everything. Because you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I want to figure this out together. I was so taken aback by everything-I didn’t want to be a part of holding back or sabotaging your career. Firing you was the only way that I could see to do that.”
I lean forward, resting my head on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you just tell me all of this? You didn’t think that I would understand?”
“I…don’t know,” he admits. “I was just horrified. And I wanted you to be separated from that and me and anything that could potentially keep you in my shadow as fast as possible. And I probably wouldn’t have realized what an idiot I was being if I hadn’t talked to someone. And then read your book right after.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“My dad,” he smiles softly. “I know that when you asked about him, I was abrupt, and I’m not ready to talk about that on so little sleep, but I promise I will tell you.”