The Shameless Hour (The Ivy Years #4)

That awful day last winter, it was stone sober wake-up-next-to-the-one-you-love-and-grab-each-other sex that I’d walked in on. And when I saw Graham kissing Rikker, there was more passion and tenderness on his face than I had ever seen there before.

People could say what they wanted about all the recreational sex I’d had. But I knew what love looked like. I’d probably stood there thirty seconds longer than necessary that morning, just trying to process my own disappointment.

I let out a big sigh. “I never made him as happy as he is now. Not even close.”

“That sucks, Bella.”

“It really did. But it was the lying that killed me. I thought we told each other everything,” I said, hating how pathetic it sounded. It’s hard to admit you’re just in someone’s periphery when you imagined you were closer to the center of their world.

“He should have leveled with you. But maybe he was afraid.”

But not of me, I argued to myself. I liked to think of myself as bulletproof. Things that bothered other girls (like being called a slut behind my back) didn’t bother me so much. Graham’s heartbreak hadn’t been so easy to brush away. He had never belonged to me. But it had been a shock to know he never would.

Also, I considered myself an excellent judge of character. But twice now I’d fallen in love with people who were incapable of loving me back.

Since then, I’d stuck to sex and kept my unreliable heart out of it.

Unzipping my hockey jacket, I shrugged it off. “To add insult to injury,” I added, “I was in such a hurry to get out of there that I caught my jacket on the door handle.” I showed Rafe the pocket. “And it tore. I still need to get it fixed.”

Rafe took the jacket out of my hands and inspected the rip. “This isn’t so bad. It just needs a few stitches. You should do it, though, before the edges get too frayed.”

“True. I’ll take it to that dry cleaner’s on Chapel Street tomorrow.”

“And let them charge you twenty bucks for a half-inch repair?” Rafe looked appalled. “Don’t you have a sewing kit?”

I did, as a matter of fact. “Sewing on buttons is the most I can manage.”

Rafe gave me an eye-roll, which most men can’t really pull off. On his chiseled face it looked sexy. “Whip it out, then. I’ll mend it.”

“Seriously?” I slid off the bed and went over to my desk. In the very back of the drawer, behind the highlighters that I never seemed to use, I found my tiny sewing kit. “I bought this on the street corner in Chinatown just because I liked the little silk pouch. Not because I know how to sew.”

He took it from my hand. “Where are you from?”

“New York City.”

Rafe raised his eyes. “Me too. What part?”

“Guess.”

He chuckled because I’d put him on the spot. New Yorkers were very opinionated about their neighborhoods. “Well, you don’t dress prissy enough for me to guess the Upper East Side.” He measured me with his eyes. “So… I’m going to go with the West ’70s. How did I do?”

I gave him my biggest smile. “You’re half right. Because I went to school on the West Side. But I grew up in a townhouse on East 78th and Madison.”

“Wow.” His smile was wan. “But where are your pearls?”

“Very funny.”

“Your turn,” he said, fiddling with the sewing stuff. “Where am I from?”

“Staten Island,” I teased him.

“What?”

Now we were both laughing, because I’d just named the least fashionable corner of the five boroughs. And I was glad I had, because it meant I got to see even more of Rafe’s hot smile.

“Just kidding, okay? How about Red Hook? That’s my guess.”

“You are not even close.” He picked up a needle. “I’m from Washington Heights. My family runs a Dominican restaurant.” He looked at the needle in his hand. “These are pre-threaded. That’s handy.”

“How is it that you know how to sew?”

Rafe shrugged. “My mother made me learn the basics when I was a little kid.”

“Show me,” I demanded.

His long fingers held up a needle with black thread dangling from it.

“Is that going to look okay against the gray?” I asked.

“Sure is,” he said. He wrapped the free end of the thread around the tip of a finger, then rolled it against his thumb, revealing a knot on the end. He slid the jacket onto his lap, dipping the needle’s tip into the pocket and anchoring the thread. “Okay, see that?”