by Josephs, Mia
I drudge up my chipper voice, which shouldn’t be so freaking hard. “Hello?”
“Hi, Brooke. How are you?”
I tap the home keys on my computer, not really typing anything, but giving myself something to do so he thinks I’m incredibly busy and should appreciate the time I give him. It’s all part of the plan.
“I’m great, Joshua. It’s good to hear your voice.” The words come out, and I thought I’d mean them, but I’m not sure if I do.
“I wanted to make sure we’re still good for tomorrow night. Seven o’clock?”
Second date. The fun date. Yes, please, I need a fun date. “You’re in my calendar,” I say with a smile so maybe my voice will sound enthused.
“Excellent. I’ll see you then.”
“Can’t wait.”
We hang up, and I pull out my task list and put in Wash Rockstar Jeans. Then I clack in a few other routine things to keep my calendar filled to the brim with distractions up until 7:00 tomorrow.
But when I put in my date itinerary, staring at the 10:15 slot that says Have an epic kiss! I feel like I could very well check that off already, and it would be one-hundred percent true.
Chapter Twenty
Nate
As my vision comes in and out of focus, I know this is stupid. I know it’s stupid when at strip club number four, I still don’t care about seeing naked women. How when Xavier tries to get me a lap dance, I turn it over to the bachelor party next to us. The groom hollers a thanks to me over the music, and I think I wave back.
Have fun while you can, buddy. You want to get married now, but one day she’ll screw your best friend and leave you hanging.
“You’re no fun.” Xavier hands me another shot, which I take even though it burns like fire all the way down.
“Piss off.” I’m too drunk to care if I’ve made him mad.
“Mom said you went out with that hot girl. The makeup one. What happened with that?”
“Nothin’” Because makeup girl—Celeste—she’s not the one I want, and the one I want is Brooke, but she’s too deep in my head. I can’t go there right now.
Xavier hauls my sloppy ass out of the chair and I stagger against him as he half drags me from the club. Normally our positions are reversed, and I’m sort of impressed my little brother can half carry me.
“Nothing because you don’t like her, or nothing because you haven’t done anything to get closer?” he asks.
Actually none of the above. “The second one.” I poke his chest but it feels soft and he yells a few curse words so I’m thinking I got his face instead.
“Gimme your phone.” He holds his hand out.
I’m confused for a moment because I haven’t pulled out my phone all night. The people on the sidewalk are blurry and the sound of the cars is killing me. “Why do cars have to be so loud,” I groan.
Xavier is seriously feeling me up.
“You gotta buy me another drink if you want a piece of this ass,” I tease.
Now he’s staring at his hand. Phone.
“Isss tha’ mine?” I reach for it, but he pulls away.
And then he’s talking. “Yeah. This is Nate’s brother. Your name was at the top of his contacts list so I thought it would be a good place to start… You don’t know why that is…? Okay. I know this is sort of weird, but he’s hammered and needs a place to sleep it off… You’re awesome, no wonder my brother talks about you so much… Kay, thanks your address just came through… Yeah, we’ll see you in ten.”
“Wha…?” The pieces are smooshing together, but it’s still not making sense. “Brooke?”
“No, dumbass. Celeste.” He shakes his head. “Isn’t Brooke that tight-ass chick who works with Mom?”
“Yeah… She does have a tight ass…”
“You’re an ass. Come on.” He hauls me to his car and ten horrible minutes later of Xavier taking turns too tight in his Porsche, we’ve stopped in front of a condo.
“Come on.” Xavier’s to my side so fast I’m thinking maybe he does have some magic in him.
“Wow,” I whisper as he drags me from the car.
Celeste’s face appears, and I realize I’m not by the car anymore; I’m next to a door.
“Why can’t he be at your place?” she asks Xavier.
He shrugs. “My girl is there, and we have, uh, plans.” Xavier wiggles his eyebrows, which makes me scoff, which unsettles my stomach. Not good. I’m not a drinker. This was not smart. None of it.
“I gotta lay down.” I grasp the doorframe as the room spins.
Celeste looks at me with amusement rather than a scowly frown, which is what Brooke would do. Or what most people would do.
“Come on, Nate. Let’s get you to bed.”
“You can thank me later,” Xavier whispers before he claps my shoulder briefly and jogs down the stairs.
I look behind me but the stairs go so far down. I mean, really, really far down... and I stumble as I lean over to get a better look.
Celeste puts a skinny arm around me to lead me inside.
“You live in a tower?” I ask.
“Oh, Nate.” She sighs.
Celeste’s hot. So perfectly hot. So perfectly my type. Tall, thin, dark hair… Why don’t I feel it? Why don’t I want to wrap her legs around my waist? She doesn’t know my insides. She doesn’t see through me. It would be simpler.
“You’re so pretty,” I say.
“You’re so hammered,” she says back with a half smile. “Take the couch. Here’s a bowl. Don’t puke on my carpet.”
I give her a salute, which throws off my balance again before falling onto her couch.
The lights are on when my eyes close and my world fades into blissful nothing.
***
The light is just…who invented the sun anyway? I reach around me until I find a pillow and try to cover my head with it, but it’s a tease of a pillow. A small pillow. A decorative pillow.
A decorative pillow?
Where am I?
I sit up, the room spins so hard and fast I nearly fall over. I’m gonna be sick. There’s a bowl. I reach for it, and barely get it in front of me before my stomach empties its very few contents.
This is a really shitty way to wake up. I blink a few more times while trying to ignore my death-breath, and an apartment comes into view. I mean. I’m in someone’s beige and white apartment. Boring. Can’t be Brooke’s place. I half laugh until I realize it’s splintering apart my brain. I blink again as the splintering turns into more of a dull ache, and set down the bowl only it lands on a piece of paper.
Huh. I tentatively reach all the way to the floor and pick up the paper.
There’s Advil and a room temp glass of water on the side table. I have crackers set out on the counter, and I’ll make sure there’s coffee in the pot. It might be lukewarm when you wake up. I’m at Neiman Marcus today for a MAC thing. You can come take me to lunch and explain your night if you like. Only shower first. Help yourself.
Celeste.
Damn. She’s way nicer than I’d be. I grab the glass of water with shaky hands and pop the three Advil into my mouth. Last night is slowly coming back to me, and I cringe as I think about what I must have looked like to Celeste. Why don’t I like her?
I pull off my clothes and set them in her dryer with a dryer sheet. It’s a great trick I learned freshman year in college. I jump in her shower in her very pink bathroom and smell like flowers when I get out, but it beats smelling like vomit and strip-club so I take it.
She has more hair product than anyone I know, but I finally find something to rub in my hands and put on my head. The hair stuff is also slightly floral, but I’m feeling like I should find her, and at least take her to lunch to say thanks.
I pull my clothes from the dryer Springtime Fresh!, grab a few crackers, and head out to find a cab.
Turns out she lives two streets away from the strip and The Fashion Show Mall. Huh. Don’t need a cab. Since the makeup counters are the first thing
you see and smell when you walk into a department store, it’s easy to find her.
She’s sets a handful of makeup stuff next to a girl in a MAC apron thing and I watch. Celeste is sweet. Soft-spoken. Quiet. Nice. Stunning. Like, model gorgeous. That tall build I wanted until I found something different I wanted.
My stomach twists up at the thought of Brooke and how I don’t know how to face her, but how desperate I am for things to be normal between us when I do.
I don’t see Celeste walk up to me until she’s there.
Her smile is amused. “You smell like gardenias.”
I shrug. “No man products in the shower of the awesome girl who apparently let a very drunk Nate pass out at her place last night.”
“She is pretty awesome,” Celeste says with a breathy laugh. “Come on. Let’s try some food in you.”
“A very little amount of food.” I run my hands over my head not sure what I should say.
She arches a slim brow. “I’d ask for an explanation, but you were with Xavier so I figure that’s explanation enough.”
I’m trying to figure out how honest I should be here. I really can’t tell her that I kissed an amazing girl and then panicked. And because of that panic, I’m afraid that I’ve created the exact ending with her I was trying to avoid by pulling away.
“You’re thinking hard there, Nate.” She pauses in front of a Thai place.
I love Thai. Not sure my stomach will love Thai today, but it’s something else Celeste and I have in common. I should so want to be here.
“Yeah. Thinking too hard probably.”
“I just had a nasty split, too.” She puts her hand on my arm for a moment. But it’s just there. It’s not squeezing or teasing or tickling or grabbing. Just there. “It takes a while.”
Viv. Right. Funny thing is that in the mess I made with Brooke, Viv got pushed back. At least a little. “Uh, yeah,” I say because I feel like I should respond.
“You should call her,” Celeste says.
“That didn’t go so well before.”
“I’m just saying that Mace and I finally talked it all through a couple days ago, and he was right. We didn’t fit anymore, it was just hard because we had such strong feelings for each other, you know?”
The thing that’s different is, “Viv and I fit.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.” I’m not sure of anything. “You and I fit, too, but I don’t think—”
“I know.” Her eyes widen. “Every time we talk I think, I should totally be falling for this guy, but you’re a mess I want no part of. I mean, friends is fine, but…”
“That extra…whatever isn’t there,” I say.
She nods slowly. “It’s the extra that breaks your heart.”
Don’t I know it.
She orders and I step forward. “I got lunch. It’s the least I can do.”
Now I just have to unscramble my brain because I’m standing next to a girl who is everything I thought I wanted, I’m still hurting over a girl who I thought I was going to marry, and I can’t get a girl out of my head who is the opposite of everything I thought I’d be with. I’m beyond relieved I have so much Photoshop work to do because I can’t imagine facing Brooke so soon after I bolted. I’m such an ass.
I really need to take a step back and get my shit together.
Chapter Twenty-one
Brooke
I walk in Tuesday morning with two caramel macchiatos and a straight black coffee, looking as Normal Brooke as ever, and Ms. Marks greets me with a slight frown.
“Oh, Brooke, I forgot to tell you…Nathaniel’s working from home this week to wrap up the photo session for the Tahoe wedding.” She eyes the three cups of coffee, and I bury the kick to my gut and put on a smile.
“No worries, Ms. Marks.” I hand her one of the macchiatos then settle in one of the leather chairs. “I take it you’ll be running the 11:00 with future Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton?” That was supposed to be me and Nate taking the lead on that one. I was hoping that would help jolt us back to the normal we had before our weekend.
She shakes her head, tipping her cup back. After a dainty sip, she licks her bright red lips and taps the edge of the table. “Actually, I think you’re ready to take care of that by yourself.” She smiles when my eyebrows go sky high. “Nathaniel thinks so as well.”
I should be elated. I should be yanking out my phone to type in Rock first independent meeting! Instead I squeak a small, “Thank you.” And as soon as she’s in her office, I take the black coffee, march outside, and dump it all over the stupid perfect flowers out front.
***
Joshua kissed me right at 10:15. I led him into it when the alarm went off, and he took his cue. It was soft, nice, fingers on my cheeks and our stomachs pressed together. It was the perfect lead in to date three. But instead of scheduling that, I booked us another date two. Something fun and far away from my apartment or his place.
That date went the same. Everything on time, in place, we had fun…but…but…it felt so…forced. I don’t know how to fix it, so I continue to go with my comfort zone dating habits, and I’ve scheduled our date number three—technically four—not leveling up at all. Just… stuck.
I feel like I’m running through pudding. Work seems weird without Nate there, and Ms. Marks says Nate gets this way when he’s deeply involved in his photo-editing. I should relax and take her word for it, since she’s known him his entire life, but whenever I think about him—which is every forty-six seconds…or less—I picture his beanie covering his dark unruly hair and a cigarette near his lips. Even in my mind I want to yell at him for pulling that stick of death up to his perfect mouth.
I’ve tried talking to my friends about it. Tasha came over yesterday and helped me pick outfits to wear to get out of my dating slump. Morgan wants to take me clubbing this weekend. All I want to do is sit in my pajamas and show them pictures of Nate so they understand just how hunky this guy is, and it’s perfectly okay for me to be a little off my game.
Or maybe it isn’t okay, but as my friends they should tell me it is.
I pull out my phone as Snickers hops in my lap, and I try not to think about how Nate hasn’t been to work for four days now. After double-checking the schedule for tomorrow, I go to my goals and add in what I hope gets me through the rest of the week. I’ve been fumbling left and right because while Nate has been physically absent, he’s taken up a lot of head space.
This guy should not have messed up my plan. He wasn’t even on it.
Chapter Twenty-two
Nate
Half of my two weeks out of the office has passed me by. Everything feels stilted and off without having Brooke around to harass. I can’t do this right now. Not yet. My chest feels ripped apart and we haven’t even started yet.
I tighten my running shoes and fly out the front door. There are a few more days before I’m needed back in the office, and I have to get myself sorted out before then.
I’m coughing after one mile and dying after two. My lungs feel like they’re trying to strangle me, and I flop on a park bench to catch my breath.
Chain smoking for the past week probably hasn’t helped. I’ve got to stop. I push the damp hair off my forehead knowing that it’s definitely time for a cut. Instead of running the two miles back, I pull out my phone and dial Viv. I think this is what you’re supposed to do when you need to move on. Get closure or something.
“I got my jewelry,” she answers.
“I…good.”
Now I don’t know what to say. Her voice doesn’t feel achingly familiar anymore. It feels old…like my past maybe. Maybe I didn’t even need this call. Maybe I just feel like shit because I’m an idiot.
“So…you’re calling…” she prompts.
“I’m…” I pause. “I’m about to sound pathetic. I don’t know what went wrong with us, and it’s like until I figure it out, how the hell do I put myself in that position again?”
Viv laughs a little. “You�
�re sweet, Nate.”
I’m so damn confused.
“I wasn’t ready for sweet. I wasn’t ready for normal or routine or…”
And I thought it was nice. I liked knowing she’d be at home every night. I liked our stack of takeout menus and that I knew what she’d want at all our favorite places… “And I was.”
“You thrived on our routine, and I was suffocated by it.”
I stop shuffling on the sidewalk. This hits me just as unexpectedly as me walking in on her and Shane. “Why didn’t you say anything, Viv?”
“Because I knew you’d do whatever I asked.”
I tighten my hand into a fist. “But… How is that a bad thing?”
“I wanted you to want what I wanted, only I wanted you to want it, too.”
Impossible! “But if I’d known that’s what you wanted, I’d—”
“Nate!” She doesn’t sound angry, but frustrated. “I know. I know you’d have done everything.”
“I’m not trying to get you back or anything.” And holy shit, I’m not. Not even a little bit. This conversation is giving me a frustration headache. “I’m just trying to understand.”
The pause is long enough that I check my phone to see if she’s still there.
“You met someone,” she says.
I open my mouth to lie, but Viv and I have known each other for way too long for that. “Maybe.”
“I loved you, Nate. I still love you, just not in the right way, and I hated you a little until I got my jewelry back.”
I scratch my forehead. “This really didn’t help.” Or it did, just not in the way I expected because in this moment I don’t miss Viv. It’s not her I’m still getting over, it’s our split. The way we split. It’s the idea that you can turn your heart over to someone and they can destroy you for it.
“We just weren’t right, Nate. I put you in an impossible situation by wanting you to simply know what I wanted and not only to know, but to want it too.”
“What’s different with Shane?”
“He thrives on the new thing. The different thing. To be honest, I don’t know how long I’ll last with anyone. Don’t take it personally.”
