Page 67 of Shades of Grey & Gold

Thedrivebackisquiet in a good way; it doesn’t need filling. Gio is at the wheel, and Rudi is in the passenger seat and Cal’s hand is in mine in the back and the city moves past the window in streams of light. And it feels normal.

When we get to the penthouse building Gio and Rudi both get out, and Rudi opens Cal’s door. Only Cal’s. When I turn to open my own, I see Gio blocking my doorwith his back to me.

Cal frowns, noticing the same, and steps out. Walks around to the other side of the car and has a short conversation with both of them in front of my door, his voice too low to hear. Then he opens my door himself.

“Rudi’s just going in ahead of us,” he says with a reassuring smile. “There was a crew working on one of the lower floors today, they just want to clear it.”

I nod. I look up at the building as I step out—up and up, floor after floor, until the top where the penthouse sits above everything else.

“I haven’t seen the view from the balcony yet.”

His eyes are like two stars in the darkness, and it feels like he sees me better than anyone else. With a smile, he takes me by the hand and we walk with Gio slowly before Rudi gives us the all-clear to go up.

The view is the whole city, the river and half the sky.

I stand at the railing with the cold air moving around us and I don’t say anything for a while because there isn’t anything to say that would add anything. Just looking at the view speaks for itself. The lights reflect off the water in long broken lines. To the left, I can see the bridge, and to the right, the skyline stacks itself up against the dark.

“I love the river,” I say finally.

“I know.” Cal’s beside me for a moment, then he’s not.

He comes back with a blanket—soft and thick—and settles it around my shoulders without asking, without ceremony, just wraps it around me and then leans on the railing beside me. I smile just to myself, because he somehow can tell what I need even before I realize it.

“I bought this place right after graduation,” his words land somewhere in the sky above us while he’s looking at the water. “When my father was gone and I didn’t have a choice but to be here, after everything. The first thing I did was find an apartment with a view of the river.”

I peek at him. His eyes sparkle with the reflection of the city lights and the shadows paint his face in sharp edges.

“Why the river specifically?” I ask, though I think I already know the answer.

“Remember in your senior year, you had that apartment on the east side?” he breathes, and doesn’t take his eyes off the water. “The one with the window seat. You used to say the river view was the only thing keeping you sane during finals. You said, ‘I could stare at the water all day.’ And you told me one day you’d ‘buy the perfect house overlooking the Charles’ in Boston so you could do just that: look at the river all day.”

I’m very still. Patrick made me give up that apartment right after graduation because he wanted us to move into his.

Cal bought this penthouse because of a view I mentioned in passing during my senior year. He graduated and went back to a life he didn’t want and the first thing he did—before anything else, before settling in, before figuring out what came next—was find himself the view I loved.

He intended to come back here. This was always supposed to be—he was always going to come back for me.

This place wasn’t meant for just him. It was meant for us.

I spin around.

The blanket turns with me and I’m facing him while he’s still looking at the river. His sharp jaw, the dark beard with just a few threads of silver catching the city light, the curl of his hair, the way he holds himself at the railing like he’s done this a hundred nights… alone.

“Are you telling me,” I return, “that you bought this enormous, fancy, extremely gorgeous penthouse forme, Calogero Renzetti?”

He turns his head. Something moves across his face—a flicker, fast, like a match striking—at his name on my lips, his real, full name.

He steps into my space, his hands finding the railing on either side of me and he looks down at me. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes are very clear.

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, holding a smile back and anticipating his words, his touch… him.

He doesn’t deny it, but he ignores it.

“Noticed you didn’t drink any wine tonight, Sims.” His voice is low, and I know it’s the tone he uses in a deposition when he already knows the answer. “Any particular reason why that might be?”

I run my hands up the front of his shirt, the soft linen warm under my palms. I move them up, as slow as possible.

“Because I’ve followed all your rules, Renzetti.” I bite each word out with my fakest innocent tone. “Every single one. And if you don’t kiss me soon, I will start breaking them—one by one—until you do.”