by Sophie Love
“Why not?” Elliot said. “It’s the best your writing has ever been.”
Keira floundered for an explanation. “I haven’t gotten his express consent yet to be in the article. And I’m supposed to not rebound, remember?”
“Ah, screw it,” Elliot replied. “So what if a focus group says they want to see you independent? You do romance, Keira, and you do it well. We’ll turn Meredith into the Anti-Romance Guru if that’s what has to happen. You stick to what you do best.”
Keira let out an exhalation. No wonder she was always in such a perpetual state of confusion. It must be filtering down from Elliot! And his casual attitude toward not having obtained consent irked her.
“So?” he pressed. “What’s next for you and Mr. Hunk?”
Keira sat back on the bed, her mind spinning. She felt dizzy from the mistake she’d made, and didn’t know now how to backtrack, how to undo whatever she’d unleashed. Indeed, it seemed impossible now. Elliot’s thirst had been quenched for something and her job was to deliver it. She didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, the frustration audible in her tone. “I wasn’t supposed to be writing another love story so I cooled things off with him. The narrative wouldn’t make sense if we added it in so let’s just leave it.” She added, desperately, “I mean, I didn’t get his consent beforehand so I really don’t feel comfortable putting any of that stuff in the final draft.”
But Elliot seemed to have heard only one thing she’d said, because he commented, “You cooled things off because of the magazine?” He sounded surprised, as if it had never occurred to him that Keira might actually be bending her life to suit his whims, even though she’d said it expressly to his face.
Suddenly, it all got too much for Keira.
“YES!” she exclaimed, growing increasingly more annoyed.
“Well, don’t do that. I mean, we thought you wanted a break so the whole no-rebound thing was to take the pressure off. But if you’ve found a guy, jeez, don’t let me stand in the way! Keira, I’d give anything for my own Milo. He sounds like a treasure. Arrange another date and get that approval, okay? The world NEEDS to read this!”
Keira took three very slow, deep breaths. She felt like she could explode with fury.
“Elliot, if you want me to make my own mind up about Milo, then stop giving me your opinion. Okay? Stop telling me I should fall in love, and then I shouldn’t fall in love, and then that I should. It’s driving me crazy. If I call Milo, I’ll do it for me, and I won’t write about it for Viatorum. AND, while I’m at it, can you STOP printing that cover! It’s everywhere I go! I can’t stand it!”
As soon as her tirade was over, Keira felt awful. She’d never spoken so abruptly to Elliot. His long silence made her stomach churn with anguish.
“Goodbye, Keira,” Elliot said, simply.
The call ended. Keira sat there, staring at her cell in her hand, wondering what she’d just done.
*
It took her awhile to recover from her outburst. She felt drained from the expulsion of emotion, and needed a Swedish-strength coffee more than ever. She grabbed her bag and headed out of the B&B, stopping in the first cafe she found.
She ordered coffee and took her position by the window. As she sat, she thought about Milo, about whether she should call him. Whether she should bend to Elliot’s demands and get his consent to put him in her article, even though she was ambivalent at best, and would prefer to keep that stuff private, just between them, if she could. Her mind was too clouded with Elliot’s opinions to sort through the muddle of thoughts. Calling Milo was exactly what he wanted, and she didn’t much feel like doing him any favors at this point in time.
When her coffee arrived, she took a deep sip, letting the caffeine help focus her mind. But even coffee couldn’t bring her any clarity.
Then her phone began to ring, and with horror, Keira realized it was Viatorum calling again. Was Elliot ringing back to give her a piece of his mind? To chastise her for blowing up at him like that? She half wanted to ignore the call, but she knew it would just make everything worse.
Swallowing her anxiety, she picked up her phone and answered the call.
“Yes…?” she said in a small, terrified voice.
“Hey, it’s Nina. How’s it going?”
Keira blinked with surprise. Not only was she not expecting to hear Nina’s voice, but she sounded very much like the old Nina, the friend that Keira missed, rather than the editor she’d grown to sort of dislike.
“What do you mean?” Keira asked, uncertain.
“What do you mean what do I mean?” Nina laughed. “I just asked how you were.”
Keira stayed silent, her mind whirring. “But why?”
“Why? Because I’m interested? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Keira ran her fingers around the rim of her coffee mug. She felt suddenly inspired by Milo’s candor, and replied, boldly, “Actually, I’m not always sure we are.”
There was a pause. Then Nina sighed. “Okay. I deserved that. I’ve been a bitch recently, I know. I’ve been getting super focused on work and taking it out on you. I’m sorry. Okay?”
It felt so good to hear her say it, to know that Nina had also recognized the growing issues between them. To say they’d cleared the air might have gone a bit far, but Keira felt like something had changed between them, even if it was just the sensation of unspoken irritation being lifted from her shoulders. It wasn’t always easy to have difficult conversations, but Milo was right about keeping things aboveboard and honest. It did make life easier.
“Can you tell me how you are now?” Nina asked, trying again.
Keira softened a little. “I’m good. Sort of. Actually, no, I’m in a weird place, to be honest.”
“What’s going on?” Nina asked. “Elliot was whistling this morning, then he spoke to you on the phone and stormed out of the office.”
“Oh,” Keira said, deflating. “Yeah, I gave him an earful.”
“You did?” Rather than irritated, Nina sounded impressed. “Why? What’s going on?”
“He keeps changing his mind about what he wants from me,” Keira said, venting her frustrations at Nina just like she’d once done in the past. “It’s driving me crazy. And I can’t get my own thoughts in order because I’m always instinctively trying to please him.” There was a long silence. “Nina?”
“Sorry, I just got an email in from Elliot. He said he’s changing the cover of the last magazine? Ditching the Paris one. What the hell is he thinking? It’s already in circulation!”
Keira’s stomach twisted. “I think that might be my fault. I kinda shouted at him about it. It’s everywhere I go. It’s like it’s haunting me.”
“Well, I guess that goes some way to show you how much he values you here,” Nina said. “Because changing the cover is going to lose him a ton of money.”
Keira could hardly believe it. Never in a million years did she think he would actually pull the cover on her behalf. But the fact he would, for her, made her feel infinitely better about everything. It felt like, for the first time, her company was actually looking out for her rather than just exploiting her love life.
“Hey, Nina, can I ask some advice?” Keira asked.
“Sure. Fire away.”
“I’ve met a guy. He’s funny, smart, and so, so handsome. But I don’t whether I should pursue it.”
“Do it,” Nina said without missing a beat. “Wanna know why I’ve been such a bitch recently? Well, the guy who proposed to me when I was younger, the guy I turned down, the love of my life, he just got married. He’s only person I’ve ever really loved and I turned him down for my job, for meaningless encounters. So if you want my very jaded advice, then you should grab hold of any and every opportunity in life you can.”
Keira felt terrible for Nina. She had always viewed her as so fearless and put together. It surprised her to know she was harboring secret heartache.
“But what if it
’s just a rebound?” she asked timidly. “What if I end up hurt again?”
She thought of Bryn’s couch, of the evenings she’d spent watching TV and eating junk food. She never wanted to go back to that place of inertia again. She didn’t even want to take the risk of her heart breaking.
“You can’t be scared of that,” Nina said. “You can’t let the possibility of heartbreak stop you from taking a chance.”
Keira nodded, listening to Nina’s advice intently. There was still a suspicion lingering in her mind that Nina was talking on behalf of the company, rather than for Keira’s sake, but either way, she was right.
“Thanks, Nina,” she said.
She ended the call, knowing exactly what she needed to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Keira was surprised by how calm she felt now that she’d finally made the decision to call Milo. She thought her hands would be shaking, or her heart beating faster, but she was calm in her decisiveness.
She listened to the sound of ringing on the other end. It kept ringing and ringing. Finally, the call cut to voicemail. Milo hadn’t answered.
Keira ended the call and put her cell phone down, looking at it ponderously. She wondered if Milo was deliberately avoiding her. It didn’t seem likely, considering what she knew of him. He didn’t seem like the avoiding type. He’d be far more likely to answer the call and tell her outright he didn’t want to speak to her than to just ignore her. She wondered if perhaps he was at work.
Either way, he would see he’d missed a call from her at some point, and she was confident that once he did he’d get in touch to let her know how he felt either way.
With nothing left to do but wait, Keira decided to spend the rest of the day getting the final few Christmas presents for Shelby and David, Felix, Maxine, and Nina, who’d made it back onto her Christmas gift list following their reconciliation.
She headed toward the busy shopping center of Stockholm, going in and out of stores, selecting appropriate gifts for her nearest and dearest. Then her stomach grumbled and she realized she hadn’t eaten yet today. She stopped in a trendy cafe and ordered a salad.
As she was eating, Keira looked around at the people in the cafe. There was a woman, Bryn’s age she guessed, breastfeeding her baby at her table. She looked so confident, unashamed to be feeding her child in public, and Keira wondered whether she’d be a good candidate for an interview. She waited until she’d placed the child into its stroller before approaching.
“I’m a writer,” she explained after introducing herself. She was getting used to this pitch now, of interrupting people and asking to speak to them. It had become almost second nature. “Do you mind if I speak to you?”
“Not at all!” the woman said. “I’d love it. I don’t get anywhere near enough adult conversation these days. There’s only so much baby talk one can make without going a bit crazy.” She gestured to her baby, sleeping contentedly in its stroller.
Keira took a seat. “You’re taking charge of the childcare? Is your partner working?”
“Yes, it made sense. I know, it seems so patriarchal.” She rolled her eyes. “But I wanted to be with my baby at home. It’ll only be for a year, and it’s not an experience I want to forgo.”
Keira nodded. She started writing down the young mother’s words. “And may I ask if you and your partner are married?”
“You may,” the woman said, laughing. “We’re not. And we don’t plan on it. We live together, and we planned to have a child, but we have no intention of marrying.”
“I’m learning that this is quite a common setup in Sweden,” Keira said.
“It’s very common in Scandinavia. Honestly, I find it strange other countries find it strange, that other cultures don’t do the same. What does marriage achieve? What’s it for? Just some paper and legal stuff. It doesn’t change anything.”
“I think people want security,” Keira said, feeling the need to defend her own culture, or at least, a position she’d previously held, before having her belief system shaken. She laughed then. “And a party.”
“Parties, yes,” the woman said. “But we throw them all the time, for all kinds of other things, so there’s not enough impetus there to marry. Security, well, that’s another matter. I for one would not want to be in a relationship where I felt that the other person was only with me because we signed a piece of paper a few years ago. If my partner doesn’t love me anymore, I’d prefer he leave. I have a right to be in a relationship with someone who adores me, not someone who’s just there because of a sense of obligation.”
“What about your baby, though?” Keira asked. Though she understood the woman’s position, part of her couldn’t help but feel it was a little selfish. Her own father had left, not paying heed to his obligation, and she’d had a myriad of difficulties in her life since. She couldn’t fully get behind such a self-centered way of being.
“There are some things I won’t be able to protect her from. The best I can do is be happy, work on myself, and show her what resilience is. She deserves that in her mother.”
Keira thought of her own mom, the long-suffering Mallory, who used guilt to get her own way, who always seemed to be harboring some kind of resentment, who had a tendency to slip into melodrama. Her dad leaving had been awful, yes, but Mallory’s martyrdom attitude had certainly made it worse. She recalled Heidi’s and Ulrich’s words, about no one appreciating a martyr. They were so right.
“I wonder though,” Keira said, focusing back on the woman, “whether the symbolic gesture of marriage is important to relationships? And to a child’s sense of well-being?”
The woman shrugged. “Maybe in a culture where it’s considered weird not to. But most kids are born out of wedlock here. It’s not unusual or frowned upon. So they feel just as secure as the next kid. My parents were married and it never bothered me.”
Keira nodded, writing down the woman’s words. She wasn’t sure how much she agreed with the young mother, but her comments had certainly given her food for thought. She had always dreamed of marrying one day. It had always been at the back of her mind, just like it had for Shelby and Maxine. But why? Because that’s what people did? Because she believed marriage meant something specific when it actually didn’t mean much at all? She mulled the thoughts over and over in her mind.
*
Keira didn’t hear from Milo for the rest of the day. She decided to head back to the B&B, bringing some takeout sushi back with her. Just as she was settling down to eat, her phone rang. It was Milo.
Keira’s heart leapt into her throat. She answered the call.
“I’ve been working all day,” he began. “I’m glad you called. How are you?”
“Me?” Keira replied. “Well, my mind is less scrambled than it was yesterday morning, that’s for sure.” She took a deep breath, taking a leaf out of Milo’s book of honesty. “So I was calling to tell you I really like you.”
He laughed. “Good. I like you too.”
“You do?” she replied. “I wasn’t sure if I’d offended you. You didn’t try to get in touch.”
“I was giving you space,” he said. “I made it clear where my intentions lay. It was you who needed to work out how you felt. So I respected your need for space to do that.”
Keira couldn’t help but burst out laughing. It was so crazy how much those mind games were so ingrained in her head that even with someone as upfront as Milo she’d been agonizing over whether he really liked her or not.
“So, just to clarify, you’re into me?” she asked, giggling.
“Oh yes, big time,” Milo said. “I’ve never met someone like you. It’s been very difficult not seeing you. I wanted to call you very badly.”
Keira was so relieved. It was also so thrilling and exciting to know he liked her so much.
“Shall we meet tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’d like that,” he replied. “And you do mean for a date, right?”
“Yes,” Keira replied, laughing.
“You can show me more of Stockholm.”
“I’ll pick you up from your hotel and take you to breakfast. How about that?”
“That sounds perfect,” Keira replied. She was about to finish the call when she remembered the situation with Elliot, with him being in possession of what were supposed to be private diary entries. Milo needed to know. “I have to tell you something.”
“Oh?” he asked.
“It has to do with my article.” Keira bit her lip, anxious to break the news. “I wrote about you. I wasn’t going to include the passage without your consent but I accidentally sent it to my boss. And, well, he loves it. Now I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t mind,” Milo said, before she’d even finished her sentence.
“You don’t?” she asked, surprised. “You don’t mind people reading about some of our intimate moments?”
“Well, how intimate did it get? I mean, you didn’t mention that, did you?” he asked.
Keira barked out a laugh. “NO! It’s romance, Milo, not erotica.”
He laughed too. “Then I don’t mind at all. If anything, it’s exciting. I’ve never had a woman write about me. It’s quite romantic.”
Keira felt a smile spread across her lips. She should’ve known he’d be cool with it, that he’d see it through the rose-tinted glasses rather than feel betrayed, or as though she were profiting from him. Still, she was ambivalent. Even with Milo’s consent, she still wasn’t completely certain that she wanted this particular aspect of her life out there. But then she realized she was probably just being contrary because she was annoyed with Elliot!
They finished making arrangements and then ended the call. Keira had a warm feeling in her stomach, a sense of peace, like everything was finally right in the world.
She tucked into her sushi and wrote up her notes from the day. Then, that night as she slept, she dreamed again of her flowing white gown, the snow, and Milo, her perfect groomsman, waiting for her at the end of the aisle.
