Beautiful Stranger
Page 41
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I nodded. “I actually am.”
“Does Andy call?”
I stared at the paintbrush in my hand and then dropped it back in the can. “No.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Maybe a little. I wish I’d left and he’d realized how he messed up. It would be nice to hear him grovel. But the truth is, I probably wouldn’t answer, anyway. I would never go back to him.”
“What did he do when you told him you were leaving?”
“Yelled. Threatened.” I looked out the window and remembered Andy’s face contorted in rage. His anger used to make me calmer, but that last time it made something in me snap. “He threw my clothes onto the street. Pushed me out the door.”
Chloe surprised me by dropping her paintbrush on the plastic tarp without even bothering to look where it landed. She walked over and wrapped me in a tight hug. “You could ruin him.”
“I suspect he’ll do that himself eventually. I just wanted out.” I smiled against her shoulder. “And I had the family attorney evict him. I think the papers liked that one. It was my damn house, remember?”
It had been good to get it all out. Chloe wasn’t a stranger to heartbreak, and the entire time we talked about Andy, I remembered how a little over a year ago, when she’d abruptly left Ryan Media, she’d sequestered herself in her apartment and hadn’t been in contact for a week. When she finally called, she told me everything that happened between her and Bennett—how they’d started off their secret fling, and how she’d decided that she needed to leave him.
It had been a revelatory moment for me, but in the completely wrong way. Her decision to leave her job and potentially sacrifice her relationship only strengthened my resolve to see things through with Andy. I’d wanted to work hard enough on it for both of us. The thing is, Bennett was the right guy for Chloe to work things out with. Andy would never have been that for me, not really.
Thinking about my ex always left me with a hangover, but talking about him coiled a lead ball in my gut that wouldn’t seem to disappear no matter how many rooms I helped Chloe paint or how many miles I ran along the river later that day.
For a brief moment I considered calling Max, but the answer to one man problem was never to create another. He might have wanted dinner the other night, but it wasn’t because he wanted depth. He wasn’t going to be that guy, either.
Monday and Tuesday flew by. Wednesday was a wall of meetings with new clients, and it felt like every minute ticked by in the span of a year. Thursday was worse in a completely opposite way: Chloe and Bennett left to take a long weekend over the Fourth of July holiday, and George went home to Chicago. The offices grew silent, and although we were a booming business, my entire team had been strangely too efficient. I had nothing to do and all around me the halls echoed.
Why am I here, I texted Chloe, not even expecting an answer.
I asked you the same thing before I left yesterday.
My footsteps echo in the hallway when I get more coffee. I’ve had enough coffee now to stay awake for a month.
So text your beautiful stranger. Booty call. Use that energy for something useful.
It doesn’t work that way.
My phone buzzed immediately.
What does that mean? How does it work??
I slipped my phone back in my purse and sighed, staring out the window. I hadn’t told Chloe anything else about the arrangement with my stranger, but I could see her patience wearing thin. Thankfully she wasn’t in town; I could put my phone away and keep the secret all mine, at least for a few more days.
New York weather in June was beautiful, but the moment July arrived it was unbearable. I began to feel like I never got away from the mazes of high-rises and more than a little like I was being baked in a brick oven. For the first time since I’d moved, I missed home. I missed the wind off the lake, tunnels of air so strong they would push you backward as you walked. I missed the green sky of summer storms and outlasting them at my parents’ house, hunkered down in the basement for hours playing pinball with my dad.
The best part of being in Manhattan, however, was how I could just walk aimlessly for a while and randomly stumble upon something interesting. This city had everything: yakisoba delivered at three in the morning, men who found warehouses full of mirrors for sexual escapades, and pinball in a bar in walking distance from my corporate office. When I saw the hint of the machine’s lights through the window, I faltered, feeling like the city had given me precisely what I needed.
Maybe more times than I really gave it credit for.
“Does Andy call?”
I stared at the paintbrush in my hand and then dropped it back in the can. “No.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Maybe a little. I wish I’d left and he’d realized how he messed up. It would be nice to hear him grovel. But the truth is, I probably wouldn’t answer, anyway. I would never go back to him.”
“What did he do when you told him you were leaving?”
“Yelled. Threatened.” I looked out the window and remembered Andy’s face contorted in rage. His anger used to make me calmer, but that last time it made something in me snap. “He threw my clothes onto the street. Pushed me out the door.”
Chloe surprised me by dropping her paintbrush on the plastic tarp without even bothering to look where it landed. She walked over and wrapped me in a tight hug. “You could ruin him.”
“I suspect he’ll do that himself eventually. I just wanted out.” I smiled against her shoulder. “And I had the family attorney evict him. I think the papers liked that one. It was my damn house, remember?”
It had been good to get it all out. Chloe wasn’t a stranger to heartbreak, and the entire time we talked about Andy, I remembered how a little over a year ago, when she’d abruptly left Ryan Media, she’d sequestered herself in her apartment and hadn’t been in contact for a week. When she finally called, she told me everything that happened between her and Bennett—how they’d started off their secret fling, and how she’d decided that she needed to leave him.
It had been a revelatory moment for me, but in the completely wrong way. Her decision to leave her job and potentially sacrifice her relationship only strengthened my resolve to see things through with Andy. I’d wanted to work hard enough on it for both of us. The thing is, Bennett was the right guy for Chloe to work things out with. Andy would never have been that for me, not really.
Thinking about my ex always left me with a hangover, but talking about him coiled a lead ball in my gut that wouldn’t seem to disappear no matter how many rooms I helped Chloe paint or how many miles I ran along the river later that day.
For a brief moment I considered calling Max, but the answer to one man problem was never to create another. He might have wanted dinner the other night, but it wasn’t because he wanted depth. He wasn’t going to be that guy, either.
Monday and Tuesday flew by. Wednesday was a wall of meetings with new clients, and it felt like every minute ticked by in the span of a year. Thursday was worse in a completely opposite way: Chloe and Bennett left to take a long weekend over the Fourth of July holiday, and George went home to Chicago. The offices grew silent, and although we were a booming business, my entire team had been strangely too efficient. I had nothing to do and all around me the halls echoed.
Why am I here, I texted Chloe, not even expecting an answer.
I asked you the same thing before I left yesterday.
My footsteps echo in the hallway when I get more coffee. I’ve had enough coffee now to stay awake for a month.
So text your beautiful stranger. Booty call. Use that energy for something useful.
It doesn’t work that way.
My phone buzzed immediately.
What does that mean? How does it work??
I slipped my phone back in my purse and sighed, staring out the window. I hadn’t told Chloe anything else about the arrangement with my stranger, but I could see her patience wearing thin. Thankfully she wasn’t in town; I could put my phone away and keep the secret all mine, at least for a few more days.
New York weather in June was beautiful, but the moment July arrived it was unbearable. I began to feel like I never got away from the mazes of high-rises and more than a little like I was being baked in a brick oven. For the first time since I’d moved, I missed home. I missed the wind off the lake, tunnels of air so strong they would push you backward as you walked. I missed the green sky of summer storms and outlasting them at my parents’ house, hunkered down in the basement for hours playing pinball with my dad.
The best part of being in Manhattan, however, was how I could just walk aimlessly for a while and randomly stumble upon something interesting. This city had everything: yakisoba delivered at three in the morning, men who found warehouses full of mirrors for sexual escapades, and pinball in a bar in walking distance from my corporate office. When I saw the hint of the machine’s lights through the window, I faltered, feeling like the city had given me precisely what I needed.
Maybe more times than I really gave it credit for.
