by Lauren Layne
“No,” Ian corrected. “You’re the only one who needed it. It’s like I told you the other day, she’s like a sister to me. I didn’t need some weird bro agreement not to touch her.”
“Same,” Matt said. “I always just figured you were a rules guy, and without setting up that rule for yourself, you’d have been all over our assistant, thus risking . . . Well, hell. Risking her not showing up to work.”
Ian reached for his cell. “That’s it. I’m calling her.”
“Already on it,” Matt said, his cell phone to his ear.
“Put it on speakerphone,” Kennedy demanded.
Matt ignored him, then slapped at Kennedy’s hand when he tried to take the phone. “Knock it off. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear from you.”
Matt said it jokingly, but the words clawed at Kennedy all the same. Was his friend right? Was Kate avoiding him?
The other guys were right. It didn’t seem like her. He could see her taking yesterday to think things over. Hell, he’d needed a beat to sort things through himself, and he still wasn’t completely there. He had no idea what was next for them or how to make any of this work. He didn’t know how to reconcile that they wanted different things out of a relationship—that he would never be the wild, passionate lover she wanted, and she would never be the uncomplicated woman he wanted.
And yet, he did want her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything.
“Voice mail,” Matt said with a frown.
“That’s it,” Kennedy said decisively, standing.
“That’s it?” Ian repeated. “What is this, a Nicolas Cage movie? What are you going to do, go scale her building? Sit down, Dawson. Let’s make a plan.”
Kennedy ignored him and headed to the door.
“Hold up,” Matt said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to her place to check on her.”
“That’s an HR nightmare, dude. A boss can’t go storming over to his assistant’s apartment because she’s late.”
“I’m not going as her boss,” Kennedy said. “I’m going as her friend.” He suspected they all knew that he was really going as a hell of a lot more than that.
Kennedy had been to Kate’s apartment in the Village only once, right after she’d moved in a couple of years ago and thrown a housewarming party. And even then, he’d been only on the rooftop deck.
Privately, he thought they should pay her more if the best she could do was a small studio atop a SoulCycle building, but from what he’d been able to tell, she loved the place.
And he had to admit, as he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, it wasn’t without its charms. The hallway was tiny, there was definitely no air-conditioning, and there was a baby stroller outside one of the doors, through which he could hear baby screams. But it was clean and smelled vaguely like cookies, and almost everyone had a welcome mat.
He stopped outside door 402, and if he wasn’t so worried about her avoiding him, he might have smiled at her doormat, that said WELCOME. PRICE OF ENTRY: and then a wine bottle.
Next time. Next time, he’d bring wine. And there would be a next time. He’d make sure of it.
Kennedy lifted his hand and knocked, feeling a little nervous in a way he hadn’t since senior year when he’d asked Regina Morris to prom, even though he wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t been interested in the far more popular Pat Delaney.
She’d said yes to Kennedy. Then spent most of the dance trying to make Pat jealous.
In hindsight, Kennedy realized it was a double win for him. He’d gotten the cute date, and he’d been right about her and Pat.
But right now, he wanted to be right about Kate. Right in thinking that they’d just barely scratched the surface of the chemistry between them.
No answer. The knot of dread that he’d been trying to ward off all morning doubled in size.
He pulled out his cell phone to call her, even as he lifted his hand to knock again—
The door opened, and Kennedy started to close his eyes in relief, only to freeze when he saw her face, red and streaked with tears.
“Kate. What’s—”
Acting on unfamiliar instinct, Kennedy stopped talking, sensing that words weren’t what she needed. He stepped into her apartment, shutting the door with one hand and reaching for her with the other. She came easily, her face pressed to his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist as she let out a sob.
His throat knotted as he slid one hand to the back of her head, the other wrapping around her, trying to absorb her shaking.
For long moments he just held her, absorbing her pain as best he could, even as he bit back demands to know what was wrong so he could fix it.
“Sorry,” she said around a hiccup. “I keep thinking I’m all out of tears, but they just keep coming.”
He bent his head lower, his lips brushing the side of her head. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Just hold me a little bit longer.”
He did. He held her a lot longer, through another round of tears, until finally, all cried out, she eased back and looked up at him with heartbroken eyes. “I’ve got to go.”
He brushed a tear from her cheek. “I know better than to tell you what to do, but respectfully, you don’t seem to be in any condition to go anywhere.”
“I’m not,” she said, wiping away more tears. “But I have to get home.”
“Home? To your parents?”
Her face crumpled again, but she regained enough composure to speak through her tears. “I got a call from my sister. My dad had a heart attack.”
“Kate.” He tried to pull her in, but she resisted.
“He didn’t make it, Kennedy. My dad died this morning.”
PART TWO
19
Friday, May 10
Three-ish weeks later
“Okay, it’s decision time,” Kate said, holding up two DVD cases. “Do we go old-school with your favorite or new-school with my favorite? Because while I’ll grant you that Sleepless in Seattle gets high points for originality, the banter in You’ve Got Mail is pretty top-notch.”
Kate’s mother looked up from her reading chair, studied Kate for a moment, then slowly placed a bookmark in her novel and set it aside. She patted the ottoman. “Sweetie. Sit.”
Uh-oh. She knew that tone. Anytime her mom made Sweetie its own sentence, Kate rarely liked what followed.
Sweetie. I know you wanted a dog for Christmas, but this goldfish needed a home!
Sweetie. You could always just go to the prom with your friends.
Sweetie. Your sister did a load of laundry and accidentally put a red sock in with your favorite white blouse . . .
Maybe this was it. Maybe her mom was finally going to have a breakdown and tell her that she just didn’t know how to go on anymore without her partner. Kate was ready for it. She’d been living with her mom for the past two and a half weeks and had read every book on grief there was.
“What’s up?” Kate asked with a forced smile, setting the DVD cases on the end table next to her mother’s tea before sitting on the ugly mustard-colored ottoman.
Her mom reached out and tucked a strand of Kate’s hair behind her ear, her smile a little small. “I’ve been so grateful for you these past few weeks. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Kate reached up and squeezed her mom’s hand, her eyes watering a little. The day of her dad’s death, Kate had come up to be with her mom and sister and hadn’t left. Mostly because she hadn’t wanted her mom to be alone in the house she’d shared with Kate’s father for the majority of her life. But the truth was Kate had needed to be here for her own sake as well.
She’d known, of course, that her parents wouldn’t live forever. That eventually she’d have to say goodbye. She just thought she had so much more time. That her dad would be there to walk her down the aisle someday. To meet Kate’s children.
To be there when she needed him.
Kate blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling. The nights were for crying. The days were for being strong for her mom.
She forced a smile. “I’m here as long as you need me. The guys found someone to cover for me at work, and Lara and Sabrina cleaned out the fridge in my apartment so I don’t go home to spoiled milk and moldy cheese.”
Eileen smiled. “You have good friends.”
Kate nodded in agreement. They hadn’t come to the funeral, because there hadn’t been a funeral. For as long as Kate could remember, Archie Henley had good-naturedly griped about funerals, saying they were depressing as heck. And he didn’t buy into what he called “that celebration-of-life nonsense.”
Celebrate me when I’m alive. Let me have a long-overdue nap when I’m gone.
The Henleys had honored Archie’s wishes. No funeral. And Kate was secretly glad for it. She was aware and appreciative of the love and support she knew was just a text or phone call away, but she needed space and time. From work. From New York.
Even from whatever was happening with her and Kennedy, because Kate wasn’t sure she could survive two emotional roller coasters.
The details of the day her dad died were a blur, but Kate remembered breaking down in Kennedy’s arms. Remembered him packing a bag while she lay curled on her couch. She remembered him hiring a town car to drive her to her parents’—to her mother’s—holding her hand all the way. By the time they’d arrived, her mom and sister were home from the hospital, and friends and extended family had already heard the news, stopping by with the intention of helping but clueless as to how to do so as they wrestled with their own grief.
Kennedy had taken Kate up to her parents’ bedroom, where her mom sat unmoving and uncomprehending on the bed, Kate’s sister looking as shell-shocked as Kate had felt. Hours later—Kate had no idea how many—she’d gone back downstairs. Kennedy was gone, as was, thankfully, everyone else.
Days later, Kate’s aunt had told her that a “serious man in a blue suit” had kindly but firmly ushered out everyone in the house with instructions to come back in a day or two. Somehow, Kennedy had known what Kate and her family needed, which was solitude and time, and he’d made it happen. If she had to guess, she’d bet that it had also been him who’d taken charge at Wolfe, finding a temporary replacement for her, as well as getting in touch with Lara and Sabrina to make sure her mail was collected and her plants watered.
She kept meaning to thank him. To thank all of them, but her mom needed her more. Her place was here in Jersey, close to her father’s memory.
“Kate, I think you need to go home.”
Kate blinked and stared at her mom, who seemed to have aged a hundred years in the past few weeks, and yet . . .
Kate looked closer, looking beyond the grief, the slightly red-rimmed eyes, and saw something else she couldn’t quite identify.
“I am home,” Kate said.
Her mom smiled and took Kate’s hand in hers. “Of course you will always have a home here—my door will always be open.”
My door. Not our door. This was her mother’s house now, not her father’s.
Everything had changed. The home that had once seemed to burst with joyous chaos was almost unbearably quiet. Her parents had had the noisy, messy kind of love that never let you doubt it was real because you could feel it. It had been in the unembarrassed kisses in the kitchen, the bear hugs, the little gifts they’d get for each other. Even the way they’d argued about who’d had the car keys last, if Mom had snuck vegetables into the spaghetti sauce, whether Harrison Ford’s most iconic performance was Han Solo or Indiana Jones—it had been full of passion. Kate had always thought she wanted that for herself. Her parents were the very definition of all in—they’d given everything to one another.
But she was seeing another side of that now—the dark side.
Because when you gave everything to someone else, and then it was taken away, what were you left with?
“If this is home, why do I feel like you’re kicking me out?”
“You know your father would be so pleased that you kept me company those first couple days. I don’t know that I’d have had the strength to get up without knowing you would be there to have those first sips of coffee with.”
“And yet still with the kicking me out part . . . ?” Kate said with a smile.
“Your dad would be pleased to know you were by my side those first few days,” Eileen repeated. “And appalled to know you’re still here.”
Kate’s mouth dropped open. “Mom!”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I love you, I love your company, but it’s been almost three weeks.”
“He was my dad. Your husband. I think we’re allowed for the mourning process to last longer than three weeks.”
“The mourning process, yes. The avoidance process, no.”
Kate tugged her hand away from her mom’s, feeling defensive. “Meaning what?”
“We’ve both been avoiding getting back to our real lives, because we know life is irrevocably changed, but it’s not going to get any easier the longer we wait. It’s time for me to start figuring out what my life will look like without my partner. And long-term, that’s not my daughter living in her childhood bedroom. I don’t want that for you, and neither would Dad.”
“But—”
“You can of course take a couple more days if you need.” Her mom reached out and retrieved Kate’s hand once more. “Take a week. I never want you to feel unwelcome, but I wouldn’t be doing a good job as your mother if I didn’t nudge you out of the nest.”
Kate smiled. “You know, I’ve been thinking that I would eventually need to have this talk with you, to gently tell you that your life will still go on, just differently. But it sounds like you’re wiser than I am.”
“Age does that to women.” Eileen smiled. “Not that I’m saying any of this will be easy. I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel completely shattered inside, but I loved that man and everything we built far too much to dishonor it by becoming a hermit who can’t even get her roots done.”
“You’re right. Dad would hate knowing you let those grays show. I mean, surely he still believed you’re a natural brunette?”
Eileen swatted her shoulder. “Darn straight he did. Now about you . . .”
“Also a natural brunette. No grays . . . yet.”
Her mom was watching her closely and clearly knew she was dodging. “Kate.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Well, no. I mean, I miss Dad. I still can’t believe he’s not here. That’s normal, though.”
“It is,” Eileen said slowly. “Have you spoken to that man you were seeing?”
“Jack? No, we broke up.”
“Oh.” Her mother’s disappointment was clear. “I so hoped that when you returned to the city, you’d have someone to lean on.”
Kate patted her mom’s arm. “It’s like you said: I have really great friends.”
“Not what I meant, and you know it.”
Kate did know it. She knew that her mother was hoping she’d have a man to return to, a romantic partner to help her through the grieving process. A month ago, Kate might have had that same thought.
But that was before Kate had had her naive vision of the perfect type of relationship turned upside down. It stung a little to realize that all of this time, it had been Kennedy who’d had the right approach to relationships after all. Caution was better. Holding back was better.
Love at first sight didn’t guarantee you happily ever after. She knew that now. Just like she knew now that giving all of yourself to another person was foolish.
Because when they left, they’d take everything with them.
20
Monday, May 13
Her first day back at work, Kate arrived at 7:59 a.m. and not a minute before. A far cry from her default of beating the guys into the office so she could get a head start on email and the necessary calendar updates that cropped up in
the wee hours of the morning as various Wall Street big shots closed down bars and realized their chances of making it to a nine a.m. meeting were slim.
Not today, though. She had too much self-respect to be late, but she’d done some thinking over the past three weeks and had had a realization of sorts. It was time for a change. Not just her hair and makeup, though that had been a step in the right direction.
Instinct told her she needed to lean even further in to her gut belief that it was time to change things up, starting with the job front. Not that she wanted a new job. She loved her job, truly. But it was demanding as heck and not just because she managed three guys. Ever since she’d gotten her business degree and been promoted to office administrator, she’d become the go-to resource for all of the other admins—the one who trained the newbies, who mentored the juniors, who handled the crises. She loved that part of the job and took pride in not just doing her job well but showing others how to do theirs well, too.
But she’d also just seen how short life could be, and as much as she loved coming to work every day, she didn’t want her entire life to be work. She didn’t want to wake up one day and realize she’d spent the prime of her life behind a desk.
Something had to give.
Kate stepped off the elevator, braced for the overwhelming sense that she wasn’t ready, but instead she felt a layer of calm seem to settle over her at the familiarity of the Wolfe offices. She headed toward the kitchen to put her lunch in the fridge, then to her desk, where . . .
“Oh.” She skidded to a halt. “Hello.”
The boy—and yes, that really was the best word—stood up so fast, the wheeled chair shot backward, and she was pretty sure he’d been tempted to salute but caught himself just in time. His blond hair was thick and just a little bit curly, his eyes enormous and green. He had the lanky awkwardness of a colt and the perfect smile of someone with an excellent orthodontist.
“You must be the new guy,” she said with a smile. She knew her temporary replacement would be here today so they could transition, but she’d expected him to be a nine a.m. and not a minute before kind of guy. Instead, he’d beat her in.
