Page 94 of Tanner

Unfortunately, I’m going to get my first taste of what the Sexton family is really like.

* * *

My leg is bouncing inside the Uber, and I’m gnawing at my lip as we pull up to a building on the Upper East Side. When Tanner gets out, he holds his hand out to escort me out of the backseat.

There are no restaurants in this strip of Park Avenue. It’s reserved for upscale apartment buildings and high-end shops.

“You said we were going to dinner,” I state.

He twists his lips and glances toward the building where we were dropped off. It’s a prewar building with polished gray granite entrance columns and peacock-decorated balconies.

“Is there a restaurant on the roof?” I ask incredulously.

He laughs and pulls me toward the main entrance where he’s greeted by a doorman, “Good evening, Mr. Sexton.”

I blink at the doorman and then whisper at Tanner, “How does he know your name?”

“Because I lived here for a few months when I first moved to Manhattan,” Tanner says after he thanks the doorman and leads us through a lobby, which is so elegant that I feel like I should take off my shoes to walk across the marble floor.

“You lived here?” I say a little too loudly.

He laughs at my surprise. “It’s my parents’ place. My mom bought it when she was looking to expand the company to the East Coast. She fell in love with the architecture. The building has great history, too. Rockefeller lived here.”

I nod my head like it’s completely normal for him to have lived in the former home of the Rockefellers.

“So, this is your parents’ place? And you lived here when you started Columbia?” My questions come out slower than normal speech as we get onto the elevator.

He hits the top button.

“It didn’t make sense to live in the dorms when we had a home in the city. At least, it was a home. Over the years, Missy has been redesigning it. She wants it to be more Carrie Bradshaw than Woody Allen. Apparently, she thinks my mom had terrible taste.”

“So, she threw everything out to redecorate?” I say in even more shock.

He nods. “I have it in storage at a place on the West Side Highway. You know, the one with the funny space-saving advertisements.”

I try not to dwell on the fact that my boyfriend is probably paying thousands of dollars a month to store his dead mother’s furniture. “Why did you move out?”

“I came here because it was my mom’s place, but Missy wiped every memory away. It just didn’t feel like home. Plus, I wanted to paint, and Missy would have had a fit if I got paint on her ostrich-feather carpet.”

“Oh, yes, God forbid. I mean, because that’s something I would never want to get paint on.”

The elevator door open, and we’re in a small hallway. This building is big—really big—and yet there’s only one door on this floor.

“Is there something you haven’t told me?”

He tilts his head in question. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. This is one of the most sought-after places to live in the city.”

“I told you my family had money.”

When we first met, I thought Tanner was a working artist. I assumed the canvases around his apartment were his products, and he paid his rent on the sale of his artwork. After I learned he was still a student, I figured his family helped him pay the rent. I knew he wasn’t poor. I just thought he was like my family. Comfortable. This? This here is more than comfortable.

He levels his eyes to me. “Does this bother you?”

“Well, um, I mean, no. But …”

“Then, come on. We can’t keep good ole Dad waiting.”