In the Wake of Wanting

  

  by Lori L. Otto

  Copyright 2016 © Lori L. Otto

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  In the Wake of Wanting

  Lori L. Otto Publications

  Cover doodles created by TWG Designs - Miami, FL

  Official Proofreader: Author Services by Julie Deaton

  Visit our website at: www.loriotto.com

  First Edition: October 2016

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Printed in the United States of America

  dedication

  In the midst of writing this love story, a rapist was convicted, jailed and released for a heinous and violent crime.

  I was so angered by the events that it changed the entire plot of this book.

  I was so inspired by his victim’s strength that I dedicate this book to her.

  prologue

  A good man treads away

  But his thoughts stay

  Behind with the woman he loves

  But can't hold. Not today.

  In the wake of wanting

  He abandons parts of himself:

  His heart. His desire. His future.

  His future.

  His future, he casts aside in his past

  And for that, what has he to live for? To work toward?

  In the wake of wanting

  He leaves everything and retains nothing,

  And that has to be good enough for him.

  For her.

  For now.

  Another man runs.

  Can he even be called a man?

  It never looks back; never gives thought

  To the women it's taken

  But not once loved.

  In the wake of wanting

  It leaves no discernible trace.

  It's cold. Methodic. Ruthless.

  It lives in the present. It. Lives.

  While the victims in its past slowly shy away

  Lie awake

  Cry, ashamed; pray to die.

  In the wake of wanting

  Through taking everything, it has even less, yet presses on.

  Taking, taking. Taking more.

  chapter one

  Ask me to write an article on how beef consumption in the United States affects global warming, and I’ll have something ready to publish with research, interviews, and sources in two days.

  Ask me to step in for the pitcher at a pickup baseball game in Central Park, and I’m likely to throw a shut-out.

  But ask me to cook pasta primavera, and I’ll be here, standing in my underwear in the middle of my kitchen with a stove covered in foam and three New York firefighters lecturing me about how I shouldn’t try to shower and prepare my meals at the same time. They’d be more helpful if they’d go fetch me a pizza and a salad from Sal’s downstairs.

  I’m not an idiot. I just have too much going on today.

  “You got some towels to clean up this mess?” one of them asks.

  “I have towels, yes,” I respond, looking at the puddle of water on the floor caused by the sprinkler overhead that was set off by the smoke detector. The flames were small, and I put out the fire myself with the extinguisher I keep under the sink.

  The only reason the authorities are here is that the building alarms went off, too, forcing the evacuation of the majority of my neighbors in this 28-story building. The firefighters have to make sure the apartments are safe before anyone can come back inside, but all this attention is unnecessary.

  “It’s not enough water to cause a leak below, I don’t think,” another one says. “But we should make sure.”

  “Shit,” I mutter, but realize I’m lucky only one of the sprinklers went off. I’m grateful the ones in the living room and office area weren’t activated, or my TV, computer, stereo system, and home detection system would have been ruined. “You’re done here, though, right?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Great. I’m late for something.”

  “You’re lucky you’re alive, Mr. Holland.”

  “It was a tiny fire–never mind. Thank you,” I say, not wanting to argue anymore as I show them to the door. My phone rings just after I let them out. My mother.

  “Your building’s on the news! They said there was a fire!” she tells me. “Are you at home?”

  “I started the fire,” I tell her bluntly.

  “What?”

  “It was just a stovetop fire, Mom. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Jacks, Trey started the fire,” she says to my father as an aside before coming back to me. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “The stove?”

  “It’s a little damaged. Management’s going to come take a better look tomorrow once it’s all cleaned up. Look, Mom, I’m late for this stupid dinner thing with Zai, though, and now I have nothing to eat.”

  “Oh, I forgot about that!” she says. “Is that what you were cooking?”

  “Yeah. Liv gave me the recipe, but I got home late, and I was in a hurry and trying to do too much at once, and I shouldn’t have left the stuff on the stove unattended. I was just trying to get everything done so I wouldn’t be late.” Someone else calls on the other line. “I’m sure that’s Zaina. I need to go.”

  “Do you need us to help clean up?”

  “I’ll deal with it later. I’ve got everything under control for now.”

  “Can we order you a pizza or something?”

  I can’t say no to that offer. “If you don’t mind, that’d be great. You can just call Sal’s. Tell them it’s for me. They know my regular order.”

  “Okay. Will you call me when you’re done?”

  “It’ll be awhile. She wants to do this whole dinner-date-thing, you know? But sure.”

  “Okay, Trey. I’m glad you’re okay, honey. Open your terrace door and windows to air out the place.”

  “They’re already open, Mom. Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up quickly to answer the other call. “Zai?”

  “Where are you? Why aren’t you online?”

  “I’m hurrying. Can I call you in five–no, ten–minutes?”

  “Tria, really?” She calls me by the term of endearment she gave me in high school, but the way she says it is far from endearing.

  “Yes, Zaina, really. I’m not even dressed.”

  I can tell she’s not happy with me. “Go get dressed. I’ll just start with my salad.”

  “Okay. I’ll hurry.”

  “Call from your computer.”

  “I will.”

  When I hang up the phone, I’m faced with the mess in my kitchen. Hurriedly, I grab all the towels from the guest bathroom and throw them on top of the standing water. Immediately, they’re saturated, and the floor is still wet. There’s no time to deal with this now. Reaching up into the cabinet, I find the bottle of bourbon. I can’t continue this afternoon without it. I walk over the towels to fix the glass of ice and grab a Coke from the refrigerator, making the drink that’ll get me through the next couple of hours.

  Well, the first of a few drinks that’ll get me through.

  After consuming the whole glass, I fix myself another and head to my bedroom to get dressed, wiping my feet on a dishtowel before I reach one of the only two carpeted rooms in my apartment. Maybe I can get away with not wearing the suit. This is ridiculous. Zaina and I celebrated our four-year ann
iversary when she was still in the States last weekend. Why is it so important to go through this routine, too?

  Because you love her, Trey, and this is what she wanted.

  Not wanting to upset her by not being appropriately dressed, I put on the full suit–all three pieces–and the tie Zaina bought me for Christmas. My hair’s still wet, but I don’t care to fix it now. I kick my socks and shoes to the side, then bypass the kitchen as I head to my desk, log into the computer and pull up the Facetime app. After one last gulp of my drink, I call her.

  “Sorry,” I say to her before she has time to speak. “I didn’t forget. I just had too much going on at once here.”

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  “You look nice. Beautiful, actually.” She has her hair pulled into a long braid over her shoulder and wears more makeup than usual. Her dress is one I haven’t seen on her before, either. It’s white with thin straps that contrast with her dark skin.

  “Thanks. Is your hair wet?”

  “I just got out of the shower… with an added bonus of an overhead sprinkler.”

  “Hmmm,” she says, seeming to miss that last part. “So I made beef bourguignon for dinner with pasta and a Caesar salad, and I have a nice red wine that goes with it. The grocer recommended it for me since I wouldn’t know what to buy.”

  “That’s great. Sounds amazing,” I tell her. “Now, how was your day?”

  “Well, wait! What are you eating?”

  I shake my head at her. “Nothing yet, Zai.”

  “Trey! You were supposed to have dinner prepared and everything! This is our date!”

  “I know, but shit, it’s only two o’clock here, and I had a game until one, and I tried to make dinner happen, but I started a fire in the kitchen, and it looks like a war zone in there now and the fire department is probably still in the building–”

  The look of anger quickly changes to worry as she sets down her fork. “A fire? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just late and not ready for this. And I’m sorry, Zaina.”

  “How did you start a fire?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention and I turned on the wrong burner. There was part of a dishrag on it and I went to take a quick shower while I was getting everything started. It was contained. I’ll probably need a new stovetop or something. I don’t know. I’m not worried about it.”

  “You could have called and told me you were running late, Tria,” she says sweetly. “I didn’t realize you had a game.”

  “Well, it’s already so late there. I didn’t want you to have to postpone having dinner even longer.” The time difference between New York and Oxford could be worse, I guess, but it’s pretty inconvenient when I most want to talk to her. During the week while we’re in school, we have scheduled calls over my lunch break, which means we rarely get to talk about anything very personal since I’m typically somewhere on the Columbia campus, where there’s not a whole lot of privacy. It doesn’t matter where I go, it feels like someone is watching me–and they probably are.

  Being the son of the richest man in the country, I’ve spent my whole life in the spotlight. The entire city has had a front-row seat to my childhood. I recognize the unwelcome photographers who have staked out family birthday parties, formal gatherings, and casual arguments in the street. I know some of them by name.

  The campus provides a little shelter from prying eyes, but not much.

  “Are you all right?” Zaina asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell her with the first genuine smile of the afternoon. “You?”

  “I’m glad you’re okay. That must have been scary.”

  “It was a little unnerving. But I’m confident in the FDNY’s response to fire alarms here. They were very quick. I barely had enough time to put underwear on before they nearly busted down the door. But I’m not too inept with an extinguisher. Sadly, the neighbors now have one more reason to hate me, though. Aside from my occasional loud friends and their louder music, the paparazzi blocking the drive downstairs, and the randos that somehow make their way into the building every now and again in their search to find me, now they can complain about having to exit down the stairs when the alarms went off today.”

  “A good fire drill never killed anyone.”

  “I hope,” I say, thinking about my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Hoffbriar, across the hall. I wonder how she managed and consider going to check on her. Knowing her, she’s probably still packing up her expensive jewelry in preparation to take it downstairs. She’s a woman with priorities. Having never had children, her prized possessions are the millions of dollars of jewels her husband had given her over their lifetime together. I only know this because I’ve helped her move some heavy things a few times, and she’s thanked me with milk, cookies, and an inordinate amount of much too personal information. I make sure I’m available to help her anytime, though, because anyone less honorable–and less wealthy–would take advantage of her trusting nature. She knows my family name. She knows I would never have a need for her diamonds.

  “Can we toast? To us?” Zaina asks, lifting a wine glass.

  “You know I can’t buy alcohol,” I respond with the answer she should expect from me.

  “You have Jon and Livvy, or Matty. I figured they could get you some wine.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d be encouraging me to have any.” We’d had one too many fights about her perception of my overuse of alcohol. I don’t lie about much, but when it comes to her, I never let on that I drink anything. It gives her one less thing to use against me in any arguments that may pop up.

  “It’s a special occasion. I’m having some.”

  “I guessed wrong, then. I just have some Coke,” I say, lifting my spiked beverage for her to see. Without waiting to see if that will work for her, I start in on a speech. “I knew how lucky I was four years ago when we sat down at Tamarind on our first date–mainly because I never would have been able to navigate that menu without you.” She rolls her eyes at me. “You know I was already infatuated with you by all the questions I would ask you on our group dates. There was no hiding my crush on you well before we were a thing. I loved learning about you: about our differences and our similarities. And what I was surprised to find was that we were actually so similar. My favorite thing about you is that we share the same ethical values, Zai.” If my conscience could intervene and thump me on the back of the head, it would at this moment as I talk about my ethics while I lie about such a stupid thing as what I’m drinking just to avoid a potential fight. “That if there’s ever a question of right or wrong, we’re always on the same side. I never thought that would be such a hard thing to find… but it’s important to me. I love you, Zaina, and we’ve had four, wonderful years together. Thank you.”

  “I love you, too, Tria. I love that you know and respect what’s important to me. I love that you supported my decision to go away to school, even though it meant we would be apart while I pursued my dream. And not many boyfriends would agree to–”

  The doorbell rings, interrupting her toast.

  “Sorry, Zai, can you hold that thought?” She looks offended. “I think it’s my dinner.”

  “Oh,” she says, conceding with a forced smile. “Okay.”

  “Yes?” I answer to the concierge downstairs through the intercom.

  “Trey, you have a delivery from Sal’s Pizza.”

  “You can send them up. Thanks, Jerry.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I return to the computer while I wait for my food. “What did you order?”

  “Sal’s. Mom called it in for me.”

  “That was sweet of her.”

  “You know my mom. Just a sec,” I say to her when there’s a knock on the door.

  “Hey, Trey,” Arturo, my regular delivery guy, says. “Large artichoke and prosciutto pizza with a Caesar. Your mommy paid in advance.”

  “Oh, shit. Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I pull out my wallet and hand
him a ten.

  “I gotta be honest, she tipped me well, too.”

  “Well, it wasn’t her place to do that. Take it.”

  “You guys are too generous.”

  “You guys always save the day and encourage my laziness. Although today…”

  “What’s that smell?” he asks.

  “Burnt dishcloth and stovetop, I guess.” I step back to let him see the damage.

  “Oh, fuck! You did that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The fire department came for you?”

  I laugh. “Yeah…”

  “We need to bring you something more tomorrow?”

  “Maybe so,” I tell him. “I’ll call in if I don’t go out. Thanks, Arturo.”

  “Good luck with that,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “Ahem.” I easily recognize Zaina’s annoyed attention-getting throat-clear.

  “Oh, shit,” I whisper to myself. I’m surprised Art didn’t ask me about my suit. It’s not like I sit around dressed like this every day. “Let me get a plate and I’ll be right there, Zai!” I yell to her. I hurry to get everything together, then return to the computer. “Okay,” I say, trying to give her my full attention, even though I’m starving and can’t wait to have a bite of pizza. “Where were we?”

  “In the middle of our toast,” she says.

  “Right.” I pick up my glass again, trying to remember where I left off. “Ummm…”

  “You were finished.”

  “Okay, cool.” My embarrassment burns in my cheeks. “Sorry, Zai. Really. Continue, please. I’m listening.”

  “I was saying… Not many boyfriends would agree to getting all dressed up just to spend an hour or two talking to their girlfriend over video chat, but maybe you’d rather be somewhere else, too.”

  “Come on, please. Give me a break with this, okay? We had the nicest dinner we’ve ever had last weekend to celebrate our anniversary. We followed it up with an incredibly romantic night away at the Glenmere. It’s not that I want to be somewhere else, Zai. It’s that my mind is already in a million other places, and at two on a Saturday, it’s hard to put everything else aside and pretend it’s a quiet evening out with my girl. I still have prep work to do before classes start Monday. I need to do research this weekend and I have supplies to buy before the book store closes at six.”