A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay with this update. There were some changes in my professional life, and as a result I have had significantly less time to write. But I hope I'll have settled into a new rhythm soon.
Ch 5 – Cardinal Sin (4)
Tony rolled over in bed and groaned. He had the mother of all headaches, and the alarm blaring on the bedside table wasn't helping matters. Propping himself up on one elbow, he reached over and hit the stop button.
Sweet relief.
His head was still pounding, though, and he lowered it back onto the pillow gingerly. He hadn't had that much to drink the previous night – they didn't even finish the bottle of wine. It still sat on the coffee table, he could see it when he closed one of his eyes and squinted through the half open bedroom door.
He shifted his gaze onto the empty pillow next to him. After the events of last night, it had been a unanimous decision to sleep in separate rooms. Not because they didn't crave contact. He knew he did, and he was pretty sure that Angela felt the same way, judging from the lingering looks between them when they parted for the night. But after their ill-advised make-out session on the sofa, sharing a bed had seemed too risky.
Tony cringed inwardly at the memory. Confronting Angela with his infidelity, blubbering like a baby, and then trying to jump her bones … He had lost his head there for a minute and was infinitely glad that she had kept her wits about her and stopped it.
The headache was probably some kind of emotional hangover. Never having been to a reunion before, he had underestimated the impact it would have on him to see everybody again, and to be constantly reminded of his baseball days and everything that had changed since then.
Tony massaged his forehead. He usually felt better once he got moving. Stifling another groan, he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. A glance at the alarm clock – 7:38. Today's game was scheduled for 1 p.m., so at least he could take it slow.
He shuffled to the door and down the short hallway towards the bathroom. Without thinking, he opened the door, only to discover that the bathroom was occupied. Angela stood at the sink in her dressing gown, hair in a towel, brushing her teeth.
"I'm sorry!" he blurted out.
She looked at him wide-eyed, but quickly recovered. Before he could draw the door shut again, she asked around the toothbrush and foam in her mouth, "You need the bathroom?"
"It's alright, I can wait."
"I'm almost done."
Angela resumed brushing, but now something was preventing Tony from closing the door. Just like yesterday afternoon, he stood in the door frame, watching her. Transfixed.
She kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "Or you could join me?" she mumbled.
"Huh?" Tony snapped out of his reverie. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Save some time, I guess."
He stalked into the room, uncharacteristically self-conscious, and picked up his toothbrush. When he looked up and saw their reflections in the mirror, standing next to each other at the sink, it felt as if he were catching a glimpse of the future.
He had had flashes like this on other occasions – when they babysat for little Clint many years ago and were up in the middle of the night, trying to soothe him back to sleep by taking turns carrying him around the living room. When Paul and Isabel exchanged their wedding vows and he and Angela stood up for them. And on that fateful morning, early on during his tenure as housekeeper, when they woke up in Samantha's bed together, and it didn't feel wrong at all to find Angela lying next to him.
The other thing he saw reflected in the mirror was a dark purple bruise low on Angela's throat, just above her collarbone. His hand stilled as his gaze came to rest on it, and finally the penny dropped.
He had given her a hickey last night.
Their eyes met in the mirror, and the corner of Tony's mouth twitched. He almost swallowed a mouthful of toothpaste. Angela raised her eyebrows at him, clearly amused. When she had finished brushing, she turned to face him.
"I'm going to have to wear turtlenecks for a week."
Tony spat and rinsed. Even though he could tell that she wasn't mad, he still felt somewhat embarrassed. Teenagers gave each other hickeys, not adults in their thirties.
"I'm sorry, Angela."
"You're lucky it's November."
He laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, I guess."
"I'm kidding, Tony," she said. Then she smiled and touched her fingers to the spot. "In fact, I think it's sweet. I've never had one of these before, believe it or not. This should have been on my Wild List."
"Oh, yeah?"
Some confidence was returning to Tony's system now, along with the memory of their evening up at Inspiration Point, where he had helped Angela complete her list by leaning over and French-kissing her. Completion had never felt better.
"Yes," she said primly, but with a sparkle in her eyes.
"Well, in that case I'm glad I could … do this for you," he said, trying to strike a balance between flirtatiousness and earnestness. Then he cleared his throat and forced himself not to keep staring at the hickey. "Did you sleep okay?"
She nodded. "You?"
He inclined his head in a way that was supposed to indicate 'so-so', hoping she would understand that he still felt bad about the way things had gone off the rails last night.
"I had some more thinking to do. Now I just need to get breakfast in me."
"I'll let you have the bathroom," she said.
"What about your hair?"
Angela unwrapped the turban from her head and hung the towel on the rack next to the bathtub. "I'll let it air-dry."
Then she left him to it.
ooooooooo
After a cold shower, two aspirin, lots of water, eggs, fruit, and a cup of strong coffee, Tony began to feel more like himself again.
Overall, breakfast was a pleasant, but quiet affair. Many of the guys were nursing hangovers of their own, although theirs were of the more traditional variety. Conversation around the table picked back up where they had left off last night at dinner, with people talking about their careers and families and where they lived, and then segued into some light ribbing regarding everybody's expected poor performances on the baseball field later in the day.
Burl was the only one to ask with a suggestive undertone where Tony and Angela had disappeared to so early last night.
"I went to bed before midnight," Tony replied simply. "Unlike some people, I don't plan to embarrass myself out there."
"Right," Burl shot back, winking at him. "I guess if I had the honeymoon suite, I would want to … go to bed before midnight, too."
Tony looked at Angela. True to her word, she wore a high-collared blouse this morning, which not only hid the hickey from view, but also gave her an almost regal air.
At first, Tony was relieved to find that she didn't seem to be bothered by Burl's crude remark. But when he followed her gaze across the room, he realized why. Angela's attention was elsewhere – with Betty, who was helping herself at the breakfast buffet.
A dull, gnawing ache flared up in his chest, the familiar mix of shame and regret. It didn't have anything to do with Betty as a person. He liked her just fine, in fact. Always had, always would. None of what had happened back then – or yesterday, for that matter – was her fault. Betty was who she was. It was all on him. His younger self had been unable (heck, unwilling!) to resist temptation, and he would have to carry this guilt for the rest of his life.
"Hey, Angela?" Tony touched her knee under the table. "We've got a couple of hours before we have to be at the stadium. Why don't we go for a walk while it's light out? I haven't shown you around at all."
ooooooooo
After getting their jackets from upstairs, they stepped out into the morning sunshine. The hotel was located up the street from the stadium, and it was only a short walk down to the riverfront.
"You want to go take a look at the number one landmark around here?" Tony asked.
"I can't go to St. Louis and not visit the Arch, can I?"
"No, you really can't," he chuckled, and they started walking.
At this time of day, there weren't many other people out and about yet. It felt a little bit as if the streets belonged only to them. Soon, they came to an overpass that bridged the I-44, which ran parallel to the river. In front of them rose the imposing façade of the Old Cathedral.
"Did you know that this was the first Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi?" Angela said as they crossed over the interstate. In the days leading up to their trip, he had seen her with a guidebook, so he knew that she had come prepared.
"Yeah. Pretty impressive, huh?"
"I'll say. Did you ever go to Mass here?"
"Three or four times maybe. When Marie was in town, she wanted to go sometimes."
Angela squeezed his hand as they walked past the church and entered the park that surrounded the Gateway Arch. Her hand in his, his hand in hers – over the course of little more than 24 hours, staying in contact like this had started to feel so natural, so normal.
"What are we gonna do when we go back home?" he asked on an impulse.
"What do you mean?" Angela looked at him, blinking against the sun that was still on its ascent in the sky behind him.
"About this." He raised their joined hands in the air. "It's gonna be weird not doing this anymore. I'm kinda used to it already."
"Yeah, me too," she agreed softly and stepped closer to him. "It feels right, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
They were walking shoulder to shoulder now, and something inside of him hurt so incredibly good at the contact. Tony recalled his silent promise to himself to be brave, to try and get over his fears, so they wouldn't run out of time.
Up ahead, the sun reflected off the stainless-steel skin of the Arch. The worst was already behind them, wasn't it?
He had told her about what had happened with Marie and Betty and the others. The most despicable thing he had ever done to anyone. And she was still here. They had established last night that she trusted him. She had even gone so far as to insinuate that she wanted to sleep with him. Just not under such heightened circumstances.
Angela was his second chance at love, he saw it as clearly as never before, and he would be damned if he let it pass him by.
What was he waiting for?
"I don't want to stop doing it," he said abruptly and raised their hands again. "You know, not completely. I mean, we're here because we're trying to figure things out, right? And I think we've made some progress. But we can't do everything over the course of one weekend. We need more time. More space. What if we … start going out? To the City, or to the country or something, on the weekends. Or after work some days when I'm in Brooklyn. I'll pick you up. Nobody who sees us outside of Fairfield is gonna know I work for you. I can forget that I work for you. And we can just be us. Be together."
"Go out as in … go on dates?" she asked carefully.
"Yeah. I mean, you're my date here, too, so it's kind of the same. Only back home."
"I would like that," she said softly.
"Alright. That's good. Because I like having you as my date. And getting to do things people do on dates."
"Oh? Like what?" she asked, feigning innocence.
"Like … holding your hand. Obviously."
"And?"
"Going on walks."
"What else?"
They were standing directly in front of the Arch now. "Kissing you," Tony said, spurred on by his own boldness and her positive reaction.
He turned towards Angela and brought his free hand up to her cheek before drawing her closer to him and pressing his nose against hers for a moment. "I think that's been my favorite part so far."
"Mine too."
She was so close to him, he couldn't make out the contours of her face anymore, but he felt her smile, and a small shudder ran through him. Then he went in and claimed her lips. He didn't think that he would ever tire of this sensation, Angela opening her mouth to him, warm and delicious, welcoming his tongue with hers.
Part of him was still struggling to believe that this was really happening.
Over the years, he had spent so many hours lying awake in bed late at night, feeling pathetic while he replayed the fuzzy memory of their flour-fight-turned-kiss in the kitchen on Angela's birthday. And of the one after that, in the front seat of the van at Inspiration Point. Sometimes, when times were especially desperate, he even went back to Christmas 1986, to their peck under the mistletoe.
But here they were now, in the city of his broken baseball dreams, giving each other gentle, open-mouthed kisses in the morning sun, celebrating the fact that they had just agreed to keep dating each other once they returned home.
After a while, Angela pulled back and raised one of her hands to his face. "Lipstick," she explained as she wiped back and forth across his bottom lip.
"It does look better on you," he admitted.
"Ruby Red just isn't your color," she said.
"I'm more of a Coral type, I think."
She chuckled and ran her hand down his chest. "Tony?"
"Mh?"
"Should we tell Mother and the kids?" she asked. "About us … dating?"
Unable to contain a small sigh, Tony looked into her eyes. He wished he didn't feel so strongly about this, but he did.
"I'd feel better if we kept it to ourselves for now. Figure things out a little more. I mean, I still work for you, you know? And once the kids know there's something going on between us, they're going to tell their friends about it, and they are going to tell their parents. I'd like us to-," he halted, searching for the right words. "I want us to have a plan. For how we're going to do this. Because I've got to admit: It feels weird, with me being your housekeeper. I wish it didn't. But it does."
"Oh," she said softly.
"I guess we never really talked about this before, huh?"
"No, but I think I understand."
"Don't get me wrong, Angela. I don't want anything to change. I want to stay where I am, where Sam and I are. Which is part of the problem, I guess. At least I'm in school. That's good. Sooner or later, I could maybe find another job. Until then – I don't really know, if I'm being honest. I have to think about it some more. I want us to think about it, how we can do this. Without it being too strange. For us. And for the kids, too. I'm not talking about a long time here, just … for the next couple of weeks at least. Until after Christmas maybe?"
Angela nodded. "I get it, Tony. This isn't … We're not two strangers who just met. You've said it before, and I think you were right then, and you're right now. We have a lot to lose, and we need to be careful. For our own sake, but also for the kids'. And I agree, let's keep this between us for now. Sneaking around for a little while could be fun."
She gave him a playful smile and pulled the zipper of his leather jacket down an inch or two. Tony felt his cheeks grow warm despite the cool breeze that was coming off the river.