Page 4 of Guy's Girl
Adrian stared as she bustled about the kitchen, unwrappinggroceries and tucking away spices. She moved casually, as if she hadn’t just told her son that his entire life was unraveling. He was so angry he could have thrown a fit—if he were the type to do so.
But he wasn’t. So, instead, he bottled it up, all that anger, all that sadness, all that grief for the only home he had ever known.
“Pakold össze a cuccaidat,” she said. “Egy hét múlva indulunk.”Pack your things.We leave in a week.
When he reaches the front door of his apartment building, his phone buzzes. He checks it, expecting another email from an MD.
Instead, it’s his future landlord.
He found the studio on StreetEasy. He hasn’t yet told Clay and the others that he’s moving out, that he won’t be re-signing their lease. Living with them has been fun, but Adrian is ready to try out proper adulthood. To have a place where he can lie down and turn everything off, every switch and lever of his personality.
On their front stoop, a plastic bag filled with cardboard boxes waves in the breeze. Delivery from Mamoun’s. Clay must not have heard the delivery man buzz. Typical. He was probably regaling Ginny with some story.
When Adrian agreed to move into this apartment after graduation, Clay was the only one of his roommates he really knew. They met in the Delphic, of which Clay was the president and Adrian the vice president. It was a natural pairing: Clay, with his easy charisma, was the face of the club, while Adrian did organization and behind-the-scenes strategy. He didn’t mind the arrangement; he’s never been one for the spotlight.
As he climbs the four flights of stairs, plastic bag dangling from his hand, Adrian imagines what living in a studio will be like: his own space, a bed and a little kitchen, a TV to watch movies, and a bookcase filled with novels. Stacks and stacks of them.
In his rare moments of free time, Adrian reads. Fiction, mostly. He likes stories that drag him into the narrator’s psyche, that forcehim to feel. Because hedoes. He does feel. He feels in a way that seems impossible in real life. Characters die, and he is sad. Characters fall in love, and he is happy. He might not cry or laugh out loud, but there is a stir in his chest, a pit in his stomach, a flutter of excitement that reaches his very toes.
Perhaps it is the safety of the unreal. The knowledge that he can close the book or turn off the television, and the emotion will shut off with it. Like guardrails around the heart.
Right as Tristan flips over the card that completes Ginny’s full house, the apartment door swings open, and in walks Adrian Silvas. His face is cast in shadow from the tight hallway. He’s dressed in the typical investment banker uniform: a jacket and button-down, pressed pants, and leather shoes.
Ginny sighs inwardly.There goes my good mood.
“The zombie returns,” says Finch, setting down his phone. “And so early.”
“MD has a weekend in the Hamptons.” Adrian shuts the door and walks out into the living room. From his hand dangles a plastic bag and the telltale odor of fried chickpeas and shaved lamb.
Ginny zeroes in on the food and takes a few deep, steadying breaths. She can do this. This is what she prepared for, why she didn’t put any food into her body all day. To create a cavern within herself. She can eat, and the food will fall deep into the cavern—far, far from her hips, her thighs, the ring around her belly.
It’s just one night.
In her pocket, Ginny’s phone starts to buzz. She pulls it out and checks the screen. It’s a FaceTime from her sister, Heather. As she so often does, Ginny hitsignore.
“Hi, Ginny.”
She looks up. Adrian stands above her, setting the food down on the coffee table and unbuttoning his jacket. He smiles. It’s a small smile, a flash of white teeth and crinkled eyes amid dark hair and five o’clock shadow. His jawline is long and crisp, eyes so dark brown they could almost be black. He looks tired, so tired, but genuinely happy to see her.
That small smile—it does something strange to her. Like a rumble deep within a long-dormant volcano. The feeling shocks Ginny. She looks down at the floor, cheeks heating. When she looks back up, Adrian is watching her curiously.
Remembering her manners, she jumps up, causing her phone to slip from her hand and her head to spin. “Adrian, hi!” Her voice is too high. She blinks through the stars speckling the edges of her vision. “It’s been so long! How are you? How was work?”
“Work was soul draining, as usual,” he says.
She blinks, and her vision steadies. “You don’t like investment banking?”
“No one likes investment banking.”
“Oh.” Ginny tilts her head, studying him. He’s handsome. Far more handsome than she remembered. “You look surprisingly good for someone who hates his job.”
She regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth.Shit. Was that an insult or a compliment?It’s been so long since she’s socialized; she seems to have forgotten how.
For a moment, Adrian just looks at her, lips parted, eyebrows pulled together.She opens her mouth to apologize, to say she was kidding—but then, without warning, Adrian’s face splits into a grin. The smile transforms him, cracking every hard, tired line of his face, erasing the standoffish boy she remembers from college. It shocks Ginny so much that she almost stumbles backward.
“Thanks,” he says. “I think.”
“We’re about to start Texas Hold’em,” Clay says. “You want in, man?”
