The Professor Next Door (Cider Bar Sisters Book 3) Page 18

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Men never feel this way about me.” Rather, they stopped fucking her so they could confess their love to other women.

  David took out a familiar note, one she’d given him months ago.

  Here’s your share, followed by a little heart.

  Oh, God. Oh, God.

  He’d kept it all this time.

  As she stared at the note and the heart-shaped candles flickering on the cake, she tried to compose herself and avoid any more inappropriate reactions.

  It was difficult, though, when she was so unfamiliar with such situations.

  This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? For someone to fall for her? Just to know it was possible?

  Not David, though.

  Never David.

  Because the last thing she wanted was to break his heart.

  They would have to stop seeing each other every Friday and sleeping together. They would just politely nod at each other in the hall. She’d have to be quiet when she had sex in her bed—she wouldn’t want him to hear.

  She couldn’t stand to look at those blasted candles, so she blew them out.

  “David,” she said gently, “you know why I don’t want a relationship.”

  He nodded. “I know you’ve had bad experiences in the past, and I know you’re afraid of losing who you are, but I would never let that happen. I would support you and give you the space you need. When we live together, we’d make sure to get a two-bedroom place.”

  She just stared at him. He was talking about living together.

  “Sorry,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “That was moving too fast. But I promise, I wouldn’t be like him. That’s the last thing I want for you. We can figure out how to make this relationship work. It wouldn’t have to be a lot different from what it is now.”

  No, he was wrong. It would be very different.

  The idea of a relationship made her feel like she was chained to her bed, and she didn’t like being restrained. She gripped the counter, feeling like the walls were already closing in on her.

  She was supposed to be a confident, independent woman, but she’d always been a little soft and vulnerable on the inside, like her teenage self who’d wanted to be assured that everything wasn’t her fault.

  And now Nicole was a blubbering mess. She half wanted to yell at him, but she couldn’t. He was too damn sweet and nice.

  “Why did you ruin it?” she whispered. “What we had...it was exactly what I wanted.”

  David handed her a tissue. “I thought you might have feelings for me, too, based on some of the things you’ve said and done. Don’t get me wrong,” he added hastily, “I’m not saying you led me on. I just figured you might feel the same way, but if you don’t—”

  “I don’t.” The words tasted horrible in her mouth. They tasted...almost like a lie? But that was foolishness. There was no lie.

  “Okay,” he said. “I can’t have dinner with you tonight. It would be too hard for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “If you don’t want all the food yourself, you can leave my half outside my door and I’ll pay you back for it. You can keep the cake.”

  He plucked the candles out of the cake and left.

  * * *

  An hour later, Nicole had eaten lots of sushi. She was now drinking red wine and eating dessert. Every bite reminded her of David, and it tasted like ash, but dammit, she wouldn’t let cake go to waste.

  Though she might feel miserable now, she was determined to become fabulous again. She’d go out and have fun. She made decent money, and she didn’t have to answer to anyone. It was a good life.

  But is it really, if I have to keep reminding myself...

  Yes, it was. This life was a million times better than the one she’d had with Calvin.

  She swallowed more wine. She shouldn’t be in such a foul mood. Maybe she needed a nice orgasm to relax her and take the edge off.

  Except her sex toys would remind her of David. How unfair.

  She wondered if he’d eaten the sushi she’d left in front of his door. She’d texted to tell him it was there, but he hadn’t replied.

  It would be a crime to leave sushi in the hallway. She’d better make sure he’d taken it.

  She tiptoed out to the hall—why was she acting like this was a top-secret mission?—to check. The food was gone.

  What was he doing now? Was he wearing those sexy glasses and reading?

  Would he get over her quickly?

  She hoped he would.

  She returned to her wine and ube cake. She would enjoy the hell out of this cake, dammit.

  Nicole Louie-Edwards wasn’t heartbroken, not one bit.

  Chapter 27

  In a cruel twist of fate, Nicole saw David on Monday.

  She’d just checked her mail after work and was waiting by the elevators when someone approached.

  David nodded at her, nothing more.

  She hoped the elevator would come soon. Not because it was cruel that she had to wait for the elevators with him. No, her concern was only for him.

  She was fine. Yes, she was.

  The elevator mercifully came quickly, and they both stepped on. When the doors closed, they both stood facing forward. She could tell he was looking forward because she snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eye.

  At the twelfth floor, the elevator came to a sudden stop, and the doors didn’t open.

  Just her luck.

  Well, it was bad luck for him, more than anything. Being stuck on an elevator with the woman he loved who didn’t love him back. Must be awkward. For her, it was only a slight delay in when she got to take off her bra and eat instant noodles. No big deal. She was fine.

  David stepped closer to her, and her heart sped up, even though he probably just wanted to press the emergency call button.

  But before he could do so, the elevator started moving again, and she let out a sigh of relief, then held her breath until the elevator reached their floor.

  They walked off and headed to their respective doors, and when Nicole closed the door behind her, a wave of anguish overtook her.

  God, she hated that things weren’t the same between them anymore, that they hadn’t been able to have an easy conversation on the elevator, that he wasn’t pushing her against the wall right now and kissing her. She yearned to be touched by him. In comfort, in desire...however he wanted to touch her.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Maybe she wasn’t okay after all.

  * * *

  The following Saturday was Po Po’s eighty-seventh birthday, and so they were out for lunch at Congee Princess. Nicole had never been here before, but it was the restaurant that Charlotte went to with her parents whenever they were in town.

  There were seven of them clustered at a round table in the busy restaurant: Nicole, Po Po, Kelsey, Mom, Dad, Cam, and Cam’s partner, Tessa.

  “Why didn’t you invite David?” Mom asked.

  Nicole wasn’t in the mood for this. She served herself some scallops to delay her answer.

  “Wah, didn’t you hear?” Po Po said. “They broke up.”

  Nicole jerked her head toward her grandmother. “What?”

  “How come she knows and I don’t?” Mom demanded.

  “She likes me better than you.” Po Po lifted her nose in the air. “I am cooler.”

  “Po Po!” Kelsey said. “Stop lying.”

  “David and I couldn’t break up,” Nicole said wearily, “since we were never together.”

  “This is...what do you call it?” Po Po said. “A technicality. I visited him on Tuesday.”

  “You what?” Nicole exclaimed. A few people in the restaurant looked in her direction, but mercifully, it was too loud in here for this to be much of a scene. Still, she lowered her voice. “You have no sense of boundaries.”

  “Boundaries? What are boundaries?”

  Kelsey
shook her head. “We had a long talk about this, Po Po. You’re being obtuse.”

  “What is this word? I don’t know it.”

  “You literally looked it up in the dictionary yesterday.”

  “Did I? But I am old. Bad memory. Who are you?”

  “Don’t joke about that.” Kelsey turned to Nicole. “I refused to drive Po Po to your building on Tuesday, so she took a cab. She visited David because she wanted him to be in more videos, and also because she’s somehow convinced he knows three hot men with six-packs—”

  “Eight-packs!” Po Po interrupted.

  “—who would be willing to dance shirtless in her videos.”

  Poor Tessa was just looking around the table, mouth hanging open, like she had no idea what to make of any of this.

  Yeah, welcome to our family.

  Cam whispered something to Tessa.

  “Anyway, he politely refused,” Kelsey said. “She kept badgering him, but he stayed firm—good for him. But then she demanded he take her to H-Mart and said he should ask his girlfriend to come along. When he told her, once again, that Nicole wasn’t his girlfriend, Po Po said he should ask her to be his girlfriend, and he said that he had, but Nicole had declined... Anyway, it went something like that, assuming Po Po wasn’t lying to me.”

  Mom turned to Nicole. “You declined? What’s wrong with him? Is it because he’s divorced?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with David. He’s great.”

  “So? I know you care for him. You made jook when he was sick.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Nicole said irritably.

  “You also made him galbitang,” Kelsey added.

  “Why didn’t I know about this?” Po Po shouted.

  Mom ignored the outburst. “You do really like him, don’t you?”

  Nicole slumped in her chair. She was tired of lying to herself. Tired of lying to other people. “Yeah. I do like him.”

  Po Po grabbed Kelsey’s phone. “I will call him and tell him that!”

  “Ma, no!” Mom jumped up and grabbed the phone from Po Po, then put the phone on her chair and sat on it.

  “Ah, you are stealing my moves,” Po Po said. “Are you going to butt-dial him?”

  “Can you please try not to scare Tessa off?” Cam muttered.

  “Hello?” said a low, unfamiliar voice. “Kelsey?”

  Nicole looked around, then realized the voice was coming from her mother’s ass.

  “Auntie!” Kelsey shrieked. “You butt-dialed someone and put it on speakerphone.”

  Mom picked up the phone and looked at the screen. “Who’s Gerald?”

  “Uh, I’m the guy on the other end of the phone.”

  Mom handed the phone back to Kelsey, who took it off speakerphone and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I’ll text you later, okay?”

  Po Po crossed her arms over her chest. “You better do some explaining. Who is this Gerald person? You live with me. You owe me answers! Is he a boyfriend?”

  “Ma!” Mom said. “If you want Kelsey to keep living with you and doing chores and driving you around, you can’t be so intrusive. Boundaries, remember.”

  “Hmph.”

  “And don’t call David, either. Nicole admitted she likes him. How about we let her figure this out on her own, okay?”

  Nicole nodded at her mother gratefully.

  Once upon a time, Mom wouldn’t have responded like this. It was hard to predict exactly what Mom might have done, but perhaps she would have told Nicole that she only had herself to blame for her bad experiences with love; they’d happened because she hadn’t been positive enough. Nicole had feared telling her mother anything, but now, things were better.

  “So, what about Mrs. Lee?” Mom asked Po Po.

  Good. She was changing the subject.

  “I don’t care about Mrs. Lee anymore,” Po Po said with a dismissive gesture.

  “I thought she was stealing your thunder?”

  “But TikTok is not the most important thing in life. This is new lesson I have learned. I was becoming too obsessed with it.”

  “What brought this about?” Mom asked.

  “Mrs. Dong is in the hospital.”

  “Oh, no. What happened?”

  “She broke hip. She forgot her keys and locked herself out, but she remembered she had left living room window open. So, she tried to climb through window but had an accident. I guess this is a bad thing to do when you are octopus.”

  “I think you mean ‘octogenarian,’” Kelsey said. “And don’t you dare try to climb through any windows. Why didn’t she call one of her kids or grandkids instead?”

  “She was too embarrassed to admit she forgot her keys. Kelsey took me to the hospital to see her, and even though I always talk about outliving her, I realized how sad I will be without her. So, I think it’s more important for me to spend time with her than to be on more Popsicles than Mrs. Lee.” Po Po turned to Nicole and shook her finger. “But if David changes his mind, I am still interested, okay? He can be in my videos and bring his friends.”

  Nicole nodded. “Okay.”

  Po Po helped herself to more food. “How about Gerald, Kelsey? Would he like to be in videos with me?”

  Nicole returned her attention to her plate, then thought of something to ask Cam. But her sibling and Tessa had their heads bent together, and Cam was smiling. It made Nicole ache for David. To have him with her at family gatherings. To go home with him afterward.

  God, she really did love him, didn’t she?

  She thought about him as they finished their meal, and even though everyone had eaten more than enough food, Kelsey had arranged for a special chocolate cake with candles to be served by the unsmiling waitress. Kelsey passed out party hats and filmed as they all sang “Happy Birthday” to Po Po.

  And when everyone clapped, Nicole had a strange sensation in her chest. It was partly caused by her feelings for David—but not only by that.

  “You okay?” Cam whispered.

  “Yeah,” Nicole said, even though she wasn’t sure.

  * * *

  The plan had been to go to Ossington Cider Bar, as usual, but at the last minute, Sierra suggested L instead. Colton wasn’t going to be there, but he’d encouraged her to use one of his credit cards and do something nice with her friends.

  Nicole wasn’t complaining. She could always eat more chocolate mousse and cheese.

  They sat in a different place than last time, thank God—those chairs had been uncomfortable. Nicole was on the bench seating, between Rose and Charlotte, and once she’d drunk half her second dark chocolate espresso and orange martini, she finally worked up the courage to say what she wanted to say.

  “I love David.”

  She immediately stuffed some sheep’s cheese in her mouth and looked around at her friends. Not a single one of them looked surprised.

  “You’re not going to say ‘I told you so’?” she asked. “After all the teasing you did?”

  “We promised not to tease you anymore,” Rose said, squeezing Nicole’s hand. “What are you going to do? Will you tell him?”

  Nicole drained her martini. “He already confessed his love to me with an ube cake and heart candles, and I turned him down.”

  “But why?”

  “First of all, because I didn’t realize how much I liked him at the time. And second of all, because I haven’t had a relationship in a decade, and that was a terrible experience. I lost who I was, and I let him walk all over me. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “I can’t imagine you letting someone walk all over you now,” Amy said. “If that happens, you’ll kick his ass, right? We can help.”

  “Don’t volunteer me for shit without asking my permission,” Charlotte muttered. “But, Nicole, from the little you’ve said about this guy, he doesn’t sound anything like Calvin.”

  “He’s not,” Nicole admitted.

  She forced herself to think more about being with David, really being with him. Maybe it was partly the bo
oze and being surrounded by her friends—and the fact that some time had passed—but she could do it now without panicking.

  David was a respectful man, and he wasn’t dating a much younger woman because nobody else would put up with his crap. And unlike last time, she wasn’t a lot younger, just six years instead of eighteen. It felt like they were at about the same place in their lives.

  Also unlike Calvin, David was excellent in bed. Nicole had a lot to compare him to, and he was definitely better than average. Even though he was kind and polite outside the bedroom, he could be pretty naughty when they were alone, and not at all afraid to explore new things with her.

  She didn’t want to have sex with a variety of people anymore. No, she just wanted him.

  She imagined living with him, building a life together. He’d do his share of housework and be considerate of her needs—and that didn’t sound like a grand romance, but those things were important.

  Nicole had enjoyed herself in the past ten years...until recently. She didn’t regret it, but maybe it was time to enter a new phase of her life. Not the crying-and-drinking-wine-alone-in-the-bathtub-on-her-birthday phase, but a phase in which she could let herself be loved well and not freak out when she saw heart-shaped candles.

  “Will you tell him how you feel?” Rose asked.

  “I’ll try.” Nicole could approach random men in bars, but approaching someone she knew had feelings for her? It scared the shit out of her. What if he’d changed his mind?

  The thought made her ache, but if he turned her down, she’d manage somehow. She could make new friends in her building, and when she was ready, use apps for dating rather than only for hooking up.

  “You have to bring him to meet us!” Amy clapped her hands.

  “If you’re still worried,” Sierra said, “about being treated like you were before—”

  “I’m not worried about that anymore,” Nicole said.

  “We’ll interrogate him a lot and make vague threats in case he treats you badly.”

  “Please don’t threaten him. He’s already had to deal with multiple surprise encounters with my family. Don’t torture the poor guy.”

  “You’re rather protective of him,” Charlotte observed.