The Spark by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 20
Donovan
“This is a nice place.” I looked around the inner sanctum of Autumn’s apartment. It was small, but decorated really cool with a bunch of black-and-white photographs of things in the City taken from odd angles, like the suspension wires of the Brooklyn Bridge shot from standing and Times Square taken while walking up the stairs from the subway. “Did you take the photos yourself?”
“No. I bought them from a street artist years ago. I like how they show iconic parts of the city, but in an atypical way.” She lifted a box out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter. “I forgot you’ve never been here.”
“Never been invited.”
Autumn smiled. “I hope I didn’t go overboard with this broccoli salad. I took a guess at how many people came for dinner the night I went with you. I figured about a hundred.”
I nodded. “That’s pretty spot on.”
“I borrowed two coolers from a neighbor, so the meat is in those. I couldn’t fit it all in my refrigerator.” She bent to lift another box on the bottom shelf, and I walked over and grabbed it for her.
“Jesus. What’s in here? Rocks?”
“I made twenty pounds. I didn’t want to run out.”
“I think you have the side dish covered.”
Autumn’s kitchen was a typical New York City galley that barely had room for one, so when I joined her to lift out the container, our bodies were almost touching. At the risk of sounding like a complete wuss, I felt it in my loins. My loins. I don’t think I’ve ever had use for that word until now. But fuck if everything from beneath my ribs to the base of my balls wasn’t all tingly.
I set the second tray on the counter and made a point of pivoting to speak to her. She looked up at me from under those long, dark lashes with her big green eyes, and it was like the bathroom at the partner barbecue all over again. Except if we got started this time, there would be no one around to interrupt. Sure, we had people to feed, but would they really starve if dinner weren’t served for one night? I found myself actually debating that thought, until something behind Autumn caught my attention. The kitchen had a small window, which was currently open. A little breeze that I didn’t even feel must’ve blown, because the curtains lifted slightly, revealing a plant on the windowsill.
Was that… No, it couldn’t be.
But then Autumn looked over her shoulder to see what had caught my attention, and when she turned back, the look on her face told me the crazy thought I’d had was right. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and her eyes sparkled like a kid getting caught with a cookie from the cookie jar.
I nodded to the plant without taking my eyes off her. “That’s my plant, isn’t it?”
Autumn shook her head with a huge grin. “No.”
I skirted her and walked over to the window, lifting the pot. It was bigger, and the container had been changed, but I was pretty certain it was my little plant. I knew because I’d cross-bred two of my existing plants—one had green leaves with a yellow stripe, and the other had little yellowish bumps on its leaves—and this one had green leaves with a yellow stripe and bumps. It had barely been a seedling when it disappeared from my apartment. I’d noticed it missing the week after our weekend together, and I’d assumed the kid across the hall I sometimes paid to water the plants had killed it or something.
I studied her face. My bullshit-arometer had zero doubt she was lying. “Really? Where did you get this?”
“At the store.”
“Which store?”
She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know. The plant store.”
I smirked. “The plant store?”
“I don’t remember what it was called.”
“I do.” I leaned down so we were eye to eye and inched closer. Autumn looked like a deer in the headlights, yet there was still a sparkle in her eye. She was enjoying screwing with me as much as I was screwing with her. “You got it from a place called Donovan’s.”
“I did not.” She smiled from ear to ear.
“Did, too.”
“Did not.”
“I didn’t take you for a thief, Red.”
“I’m not a thief. I just…borrowed it, okay?”
My brows jumped up. “You borrowed it?”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
“Almost a year ago?”
“I guess so.”
“So you were planning on giving it back?”
She couldn’t contain herself anymore—she cracked. Her hands covered her face, and she burst out laughing. “Alright, alright. I took it from your apartment. I didn’t get it from the plant store, and I wasn’t planning on giving it back.”
Now I was laughing, too. “Do you do that often? Take something from a man’s apartment?”
“No! I swear. I’ve never ever done that before. I’ve actually only stolen one thing in my entire life—an NSYNC pin when I was ten—and I felt so guilty about it that I went back the next day and snuck it into the store.” She still had her face covered with her hands.
I gently peeled back her fingers so I could see her eyes. “You wanted a souvenir from our weekend together?”
“I don’t know why I took it. I just did. If you couldn’t tell, I’m really embarrassed. I’m sorry.”
I brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m glad you felt the need to take a souvenir. As long as we’re coming clean, I have something of yours, too.”
Her eyes grew wide yet again. “You do?”
I nodded. “I didn’t steal it. Because, you know, I’m not a thief like you. But I found a folded-up piece of paper under my bed the week after you disappeared on me. It must’ve come out of your luggage, and I didn’t notice it until then.”
“What paper?”
I reached into my pocket and took out my wallet. Unfolding the sheet of paper I still carried with me, I showed it to her.
Autumn took it. She closed her eyes after reading the first few lines. “Oh my God. Is there a hole somewhere that I can crawl into? First you realize I stole one of your plants, and now I find out you read an alphabetized list of excuses I wrote.” She blushed and shook her head. “Who does these things? Why are you even interested in me? I’m a freaking weirdo.”
“Normal is overrated, Red. But I am curious who you use the excuses on.”
“My dad. He never forgets anything, so if I gave him the same excuse as the last time I needed to get off the phone, he would remember.”
“So you started a list?”
“Right before I met you last year, he’d called me the morning I was leaving for Vegas. I said I was walking into an elevator and needed to hang up. Apparently, I’d said that on our last two calls, and he called me on it. I don’t like to fly, so I had a few glasses of wine on the flight and made that list, sort of half as a joke.” She sighed. “Can we switch? I’ll take this paper back and burn it, and you can have your plant back. Then we can pretend this conversation never happened.”
I smiled. “The paper is yours. But you can keep the plant, too. I like that you kept something around that reminded you of me.”
Autumn was still looking at the ground, so I slipped two fingers under her chin and lifted until our eyes met. “It means while your mind wanted nothing more to do with me, your heart did. I can work with that.”
She shook her head with a hint of a smile threatening. “You can work with that?”
“Yep. I’m patient.” I tapped the tip of her nose. “The heart always wins in the end.”
***
Dinner service that evening went smoothly. A few of my old buddies came and helped us, and I made sure one of them stuck by Autumn’s side when I got busy. The crowds that came to be fed didn’t always have the best manners, especially since some of them were too drunk or high to think straight. On the way home, I mentioned to Autumn that I’d spoken to Bud’s doctor who said Bud was doing great and could go home tomorrow or the next day.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. “I imagine it won’t be easy doing things with that cast on his arm. Maybe I can make him a few meals and bring them over?”
“If the rest of your cooking is anything like that broccoli salad, I’m sure he’d love it. To be honest…” My eyes shifted to Autumn and then back to the road. “When you said broccoli salad, I was thinking that might not go over too well. The crowd that comes in is more meat-and-potatoes than salad, but that stuff was damn good.”
“Thank you. It’s my mom’s recipe.” She looked out the window for a moment. “She and my dad didn’t tell me Mom’s cancer was back until a few months before she died. She had an inoperable brain tumor. She’d undergone chemotherapy and radiation years earlier, which slowed the growth, but a second tumor developed in a place they couldn’t even really treat.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. They didn’t tell me what was going on because I was twelve and busy with my friends, and they wanted my life to continue to be as normal as possible. But my mom decided she would teach me how to cook. I guess it was her way of spending time with me. So most of what I remember about the last months with her is being in the kitchen and laughing. I think it’s one of the reasons I love to cook.”
“Those are nice memories.”
She nodded. “I was angry when she died that they hadn’t told me. But in hindsight, it might have been for the best. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been able to relax and enjoy that time with her. I would’ve been scared.”
“Makes sense.”
“Anyway.” She shrugged. “I’ll make Bud some meals to freeze and drop them off after he gets home from the hospital, if you think that’s okay.”
“I’ll let him know.” We’d never really spoken about what had happened at the barbecue, or after, so I wondered what the state of her relationship with Blake was. I figured this might be as good a time as any to poke around. “Will it be interrupting plans you have for Friday night?”
She smiled. “No.”
I tapped the steering wheel, debating whether I should keep asking questions I might not want the answers to. Eventually, curiosity won. “What about the rest of the weekend? Any interesting plans?”
“Just Sunday night. My friend Skye is coming over. We were supposed to get caught up on The Bachelor last time we hung out, but we only got through two episodes and both conked out.”
“Shocker,” I said. “Since the show is so riveting.”
“It was the wine, not the show being boring.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How about you? Any plans this weekend?”
“Work. Bud. Dinner service. That’ll pretty much occupy it all.”
“I can also help with dinner service. Maybe we can take turns so you don’t have to do it every night until Bud is well enough to handle things.”
Like hell I’d be letting her drive to an abandoned building to serve people who were too down on their luck to afford a meal. But I knew if I said that, I’d wind up in some sort of an equal-rights argument. So instead, I used the opportunity to poke around some more.
“No date Saturday night?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I might ask you the same thing. Why don’t you have a hot date Saturday night?”
“I’m not the one dating someone.”
Autumn’s mouth spread to a grim line. She looked out the window and spoke softly. “Neither am I.”
“Come again?” I leaned toward her. Could I have heard that wrong?
She sighed. “I’m not seeing Blake anymore.”
“When did that happen?”
“The day after the barbecue.”
A smile spread across my face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, you look really sorry.”
“What happened?”
Autumn’s head whipped in my direction, and I glanced over at her and back to the road. “What?”
“You don’t know what happened?”
I stopped at the light at the corner of her street. “Well, obviously I know what happened at the barbecue, but I meant what made you decide to call it quits.”
“That, Donovan. Blake was very nice to me, and I wasn’t being very nice to him.”
The light changed, so I turned the corner and started to look for a spot. Luckily, there was too much for her to carry inside by herself. As we passed her building, Autumn turned her head, studying a car double-parked outside.
“Shoot.” She groaned.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s my father’s car.”
“The yellow Porsche?”
“It’s one of his many midlife-crisis purchases.”
“Why would he be here?”
“He’s done this on occasion when I don’t answer his calls.”
“You want me to drive around the block a few times to see if he leaves?”
She frowned. “While I would love that, I probably should just deal with it and get it over with.”
There was an open spot a few buildings down, so I parked. “Do you want me to wait here while you talk to him? Then I’ll carry up the coolers?”
“No.” She shook her head. “If you don’t mind, it might make it easier if I have a buffer.”
I shrugged. “No problem.”
I piled the empty coolers one on top of another and carried them, while Autumn brought the bag of containers and serving utensils. As we neared the double-parked Porsche, the driver’s side door opened, and a man I assumed was her father got out. He looked between us.
“It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for almost three hours.”
“You wouldn’t have had to wait if you’d called me to tell me you were coming. I could’ve told you I wasn’t going to be home.”
Her father looked like he was still dressed from work, sans the suit jacket. Did that mean he sat in the car for three hours and never thought to take his damn tie off?
“Well, I need to speak to you.” He glanced at me again and then his daughter. “Preferably alone.”
I looked at Autumn, and she shook her head. When I turned back to her father, he was looking at me expectantly. “Sorry, sir. If Autumn doesn’t want me to leave, I’m staying.” I set the coolers on the ground, figuring it best to make peace. I extended my hand, stepping forward. “Donovan Decker. Nice to meet you.”
Her father looked at my hand like he was considering not shaking it. But eventually he clasped it and grumbled something.
When I moved back beside Autumn, her shoulders slumped. “What do you want, Dad?”
“I’m getting married in two weeks.”
“I’m aware. I received the fancy invitation in the mail.”
“Well, then, why didn’t you respond?”
“Because I figured if I responded the way I wanted to respond, you’d show up at my door.”
“How many years are you going to be upset about me moving on? Your mother would want me to be happy.”
“This has nothing to do with Mom. Don’t drag her into this. And you’ve moved on seven times in the last fifteen years.” She turned to me and tapped her pointer to her lips. “Or maybe it’s eight times. I haven’t seen him in a few months. A lot can happen…”
“Don’t be disrespectful,” her father barked.
Autumn shook her head. “Go home, Dad.”
“Will you be at the wedding?” He took a deep breath and reined in the attitude, speaking with a softer, gentler voice. “It would mean a lot to me.”
Autumn frowned. “Will Silas be there?”
“Of course not. You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“No, I don’t know that.”
“Autumn, please come.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it, okay?”
Her father pursed his lips, but said nothing more. He walked over to Autumn and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
“It’s late,” she said. “I should go in.”
Her father nodded. He offered a vague wave in my direction, and then he was back in his flashy yellow car.
I picked up the coolers, and we walked to the entrance to her building in silence. The elevator ride up was quiet, too. When we got to her door, she fished her keys from her purse and turned to me.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. If you met my mother, you’d understand why I thought that interaction was pretty damn pleasant.”
Autumn smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “He just…I don’t know. He’s got a warped sense of priority sometimes.”
“I take it from what you said, you don’t like one of your dad’s friends…Silas?”
“Silas was his business partner.”
“Not a fan?”
“Nope.”
“Something happen between you two?”
She shook her head. “Not between me and Silas. I dated his son for four and a half years. Things…ended over Christmas break of my first year in law school.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. But then something dawned on me.
“That’s right around the time you also started to have career-decision doubts, wasn’t it?”
Autumn looked down. “I had a lot of doubts that year.” She took a deep breath and blew it out with a forced smile. “I should go in. It’s getting late, and I have an appointment early tomorrow. You can just leave the coolers here. I’ll bring them inside. I’m going to return them to my neighbor tomorrow anyway.”
I hated to leave, especially when she was clearly feeling down, but I thought we’d made a lot of progress the last few days and didn’t want to screw things up by not giving her space. So I nodded. “Okay. But open the door and go in before I take off.”
She smiled sadly. “You’re like a bodyguard.”
“Can never be too careful.”
Autumn unlocked her door, and I slid the two coolers inside. She held the door open after walking in. “Goodnight, Donovan.”
“Goodnight, Red.”
I waited until I heard the lock click closed before I left. On the drive home, I thought back through all the unexpected events of the evening. I’d found out the kid I’d hired to water my plants hadn’t killed one after all, a certain little redhead had stolen it. Autumn had also dropped a bomb on the car ride home—she wasn’t seeing Blake anymore. Then there was her father, who was pretty much what I’d expected from the limited things she’d told me. But even with all that, the thing I couldn’t stop wondering about was what the hell had happened during her first year of law school.
