Page 25 of The Tryst

After I pack, I grab breakfast, then meet her at the town car I ordered that’s waiting in front of the hotel.

Our second date entails coffee. I hand her the black coffee and keep my own Café Cubano in my left hand as I open the car door for her with my right.

She slides inside the car, and I join her, then pull the bag of baked goods from my jacket. “I hate pastries,” I say as she takes the bag and opens it.

“They’re pointless. Utterly pointless,” she declares, brandishing the sesame bagel. “But bagels? Well, the New Yorker in me can’t resist.”

“The New Yorker in me can’t either.”

She smiles at that remark, but it’s a little wistful. Perhaps I’m reading too much into apost bite of a bagelsmile, but maybe she’s wishing I were still a New Yorker.

No expectations, man. You have work to focus on. You have deals to ink. Employees to pay.

As we dine in the town car, I shove off thoughts of what it would be like to live in the same city as her. “What will you work on when you return to New York?” I ask as the sleek black vehicle motors toward the airport.

“Following up on some of the meetings from here. I’ll see my business partner, Geeta, Monday, and we’ll review everything together. You?”

“Finalizing a funding deal,” I say.

“Sexy,” she says with a wiggle of her brow.

There. That’s better. I’d prefer that she sees me as a powerful venture capitalist rather than a dad.

When we arrive at the airport, the car drops us off at concourse H, which handles domestic and international flights. We’re both on the same airline, just heading in different directions.

I carry her bag inside. Roll it through the security line. Lift it onto the conveyor belt. Then I walk her to her gate.

Her flight is boarding now, and I wish I could delay time. A pang of missing wedges into my chest unexpectedly.

This was a one-night stand. Nothing more.

I really need to say goodbye. For once and for all. “Looks like you’re out of here.”

“I am. Thanks for walking me to my gate,” she says. “And carrying my bag.” Then she kisses me, a quick, firm kiss. “And for my first, fourth, and everything in between.”

“The pleasure was mine,” I say.

“No. Pretty sure it was mine.”

“Fine, it was ours.”

“It sure was.”

With her standing by the gate, the hustle and bustle of the airport around us, I slide a thumb along her jaw. “I’m going to sound like a dick, but I’m so glad Mikka had laryngitis.”

“Me too.”

I haul her in for one more shameless kiss.

An airport kiss, tasting of a goodbye that came far too soon.

A kiss I hope she’ll carry with her to New York.

Where she’ll remember me fondly, and filthily, as the man who took care of her in and out of bed.

When I break it, I stare a little too long at her blue eyes, then her red mouth. And…fuck one-night stand rules. I like to break rules, and I like to bend them. “I meant what I said this morning. And I’m in New York three to four times a year,” I say, bending the rules with an offer of sorts.

Maybe there can besome expectations.

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