Only To Be Without, Book 1

Chapter 5

"For God's sake, please go buy a coat. It isn't even the coldest part of the year yet, and you will do me absolutely no good if you freeze to death before winter is even over."

That was it. That was the favor she demanded of him, that he use a portion of the three thousand in the bag to buy a coat, and he felt that much more embarrassed by his panicked rambling from earlier. In the end even that couldn't ruin it for him, because she'd held his hand the entire rest of the way to the station.

She really wasn't nice at all, he thought, she was kind of a smartass, and she'd not only teased him mercilessly, but she'd managed a comeback to every jab he'd thrown out in response. He had found himself laughing more than she was by the end of it and he liked the pleased expression on her face while she watched him doing it.

She'd asked him out this time, and he was pretty sure hell had just frozen over but he wasn't going to question it too far. It wasn't entirely unheard of for him to make it to a second date, it had happened before, but he had never had the date in question be the one to request it. She'd left him with a business card that she had written an address on the back of in an impossibly neat script considering she was standing in the shadows and using him as a writing surface, 165 Charles St. She'd said it was in the West Village, and not to worry about which apartment it was because she would meet him in the lobby of the building.

She'd invited him to have dinner with her there, and she'd told him not to expect the favor of a home cooked meal in return, but she would make sure he was well fed, and at least she could guarantee there would be no microwave fires, because she wasn't entirely certain she owned one. He'd had to laugh at her, because he couldn't imagine anyone not ever once going into their own kitchen, but she had only smirked at him and said she didn't mind it because she was sure he wasn't used to being the one laughing at someone else, and she was happy to be the one to give him this new and fresh experience.

Then he had told her she was kind of a bitch, and she had better be careful because he was really starting to think he might like her.

She had kissed him good night and he'd particularly enjoyed testing out his theory from before. He absolutely could pull her feet off the ground just by straightening up, and he'd enjoyed the undignified yelp she'd let out when she'd called him an idiot and demanded to be let down. She'd punched him in the arm, too, and she definitely worked out because it had actually kind of hurt, but it was one hundred percent worth it because she had been very apologetic after he told her he'd broken that arm before.

Now he was alone again, retracing the route back to his apartment and it felt as though his entire body was humming, he couldn't think of the last time he had been so relaxed, and he couldn't keep the smile off his face. Even if he hadn't recognized the buildings around him, he would have known he'd made it into his own part of the neighborhood when the passersby stopped looking at him twice, but he'd had at least two people stop him and ask him if he was alright, and he wondered if it was really so unusual for him to smile that it was causing concern with the people who knew him by name.

She was right though, he was starting to get cold by the time he'd gotten within a few blocks of his home, and rubbing his freezing hands together didn't even seem to produce any warmth anymore, though at least blowing into them helped relieve some of the ache. He definitely couldn't feel his fingertips anymore.

He didn't particularly enjoy that lack of sensation, because there was the third finger on his left hand that he hadn't felt in thirteen years because it had gotten pretty well mangled when he'd fallen out of a moving car and the back tire had run over top of it. They'd more or less managed to restore the use of it for him, but the first surgery hadn't connected the nerves back just right, and he'd never had the cash for a second one.