Page 41 of How Freaking Romantic

I cancel my office hours the next day. I tell the faculty coordinator it’s because I don’t feel well and I tell myself it’s because I have to study, but a small voice in the back of my mind whispers the truth: I’m a coward.

I don’t want to hear any students coming in to talk about Nathan Asher.

I don’t want to be reminded of him at all.

So I stay home, ready to spend the morning on my sofa watching a new season of The Real Housewives of New York City , even though it seems like an odd moniker now since none of the new cast members ever seem to be home.

By episode three it feels like a conspiracy and I’m deep in my online search— How often do women have to be home to be considered housewives? — when my cell phone rings beside me.

I know it’s not Nathan, since I blocked his number—a pathetic attempt to avoid looking to see if he ignored me and tried to call—but the sound still sends my heart to my stomach, my pulse into a free fall.

I wait until the second ring before I reach for it and find Maggie’s face on the screen.

I think I’m relieved. Or maybe I’m just numb.

I don’t take time to figure it out before I answer.

“Hi.”

“Okay, so you have to go to Miami,” she says by way of greeting.

“There’s this restaurant where you’re eating in, like, the middle of a club.

Or it’s a club where you dance around people eating.

Whatever, it’s amazing. I’m so bummed to be back.

The closest thing we have like that up here is the grocery store obsessed with playing eighties power ballads. ”

Dammit. I totally forgot that Maggie and Travis were coming back today. Yet another detail of my life that’s fallen through the cracks.

My head falls back onto the pillow, and I mute the television. “I’ll have to check it out sometime.”

“Get on that,” she says. “So, did everything work out with your apartment?”

“Yup,” I say. My voice is so flat that it’s almost convincing.

“Good, because I need your full attention on wedding planning for at least the next six months.”

“Okay.”

A moment passes, and I can actually feel her frowning at me. “What’s wrong? I just mentioned wedding planning and you didn’t yell at me.”

“It’s nothing,” I say, forcing some levity into my voice even as tears begin to prickle my eyes. “Just tired. This bar prep is really intense and—”

“Your voice is doing that weird high-pitched thing.”

Shit . It totally is.

I was hoping to delay this conversation until I knew that Josh was checked into the facility, or at least on the plane. But I had also promised to tell Maggie and Travis, relieve Josh of that one burden.

“I went to see Josh on Monday,” I reply. “He forgot to pick up the dog and Jillian was worried, so I went to the apartment.”

“And?” Maggie asks.

“We were wrong about that pill.”

There’s an awful gravity in the silence that follows. A beat of understanding. And then a mumbled “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Travis has been trying to nail him down for weeks to ask him about it. We thought it was weird that Josh kept avoiding him, but we’ve all been so busy, I didn’t think…”

Her voice fades under all the familiar words we’ve said before. How did we miss this? Instead, she asks. “What did you do?”

“I yelled at him for a while, and he stormed into the bedroom. Then I slept in front of the front door to make sure he didn’t sneak out.

” I say it with a small smile, and she laughs softly.

“It was better in the morning, though. We talked. Did some research and found a good in-patient treatment center near his parents’ house.

We lined everything up. He leaves Friday. ”

“God, Bea.” She sighs. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“He needs help, Mags. He wants it.”

“Good. That’s really good,” she says, and lets it sit for a moment before she continues. “How are you doing?”

I sit up and push the curls away from my face. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

“You did everything you could, Bea,” she says reassuringly. “There’s nothing more—”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to keep the tears at bay. “I did something epically stupid.”

“Again?”

I don’t want to cry, but I also don’t think I can hold it back anymore. So I stop trying and let out a heaving, miserable sob. “I think I fell in love with Nathan Asher.”

There’s movement, like she’s up and walking to a different room. Then the distinct sound of a door closing before she speaks again, her voice solemn. “Tell me everything.”

So, between the sobs, I do. About my apartment, how I had tried to get ahold of her before texting Nathan.

And then everything else pours out, every detail of the weekend, unvarnished and raw.

It feels good to say it out loud, like it makes it real somehow, and not something that would forever live in my memory. Proof that it wasn’t a dream.

“It was only supposed to be the weekend.” I sniff, wiping away some errant wetness from my nose with a nearby take-out napkin. “Get it out of our systems, you know? But I think we both knew it was more than that.”

“I think you both knew it was more than that weeks ago,” she murmurs.

“Maybe. But I didn’t think I was going to fall in love with him.”

She makes a sound like she doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t push it. “So why are you upset? Don’t tell me he’s shit in bed.”

“No. Definitely not. That was…” I let out a shaky breath. “That was amazing.”

And then I start crying again. The ugly kind that makes me glad I never hung a mirror in this room.

Maggie listens for a moment before she softly prods, “Talk to me, Bea.”

I let out a long sigh as the memory floods my mind again.

“By the time Josh and I finished getting his tickets and everything, I didn’t have time to go home before class, so I just jumped in the shower at the apartment.

And as I was getting out, I heard the doorbell.

I thought it was Josh’s dealer, so I ran out in only a towel and answered it.

But it wasn’t the dealer. It was Nathan. ”

“Oh,” she says, and then I hear a sharp intake of breath as understanding clicks into place. “OH.”

“Yeah.”

“So now he thinks you and Josh are sleeping together or something?”

“Pretty much,” I say, swallowing back another sob.

“So why don’t you just tell him the truth?”

“It’s so complicated, Mags. The truth doesn’t just involve the pills.

Josh also used some of the divorce documents to cover up all the money he’s spent on this.

And Nathan is the one that submitted them to the court.

Josh needs to be the one to tell him, so this is all protected under attorney–client privilege. ”

“Then tell him that,” she says. “Even if you can’t tell him everything, you can tell him about this whole attorney–client thing.”

“I tried. But I promised Josh not to mention the pills to Nathan, so there was only so much I could say.”

“So what happens when Josh finally tells him and he tries to call you?”

“He can’t. I blocked his number.”

“Bea—”

I shake my head. “He didn’t trust me, Mags. That’s the worst part of it. And I understand why, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. So this is for the best. It was never supposed to last, and now it’s over. A clean break. This way no one gets their heart broken.”

She scoffs. “Oh really? Then what do you call this?”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Surviving it.”

For a long moment there’s only silence. I know Maggie is trying to find a way out of this, using the rational part of her brain to work it all out, but the longer the silence goes on, the more I know she understands.

She sighs. “So, it’s over. Just like that.”

I trap my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. “Just like that.”

There’s so much more she wants to say that I can feel the weight of it through the phone, but she stays silent for a bit before finally asking, “And what about the job interview?”

My brow furrows. “What?”

“Didn’t he introduce you to a woman you were hoping to work for?”

I squeezed my eyes together. Shit . I had forgotten.

“Marcie Land,” I say with a sigh. “Yeah, I’m supposed to have lunch with her today at one. I’m going to have to cancel.”

“Why? It’s only ten.”

“Because Nate and I aren’t together anymore?” I say, as if this answer should be obvious.

“But you weren’t together when he introduced you, either.”

“Well, no…”

“And he didn’t make the introduction because you were going to sleep with him, right?”

I roll my eyes. “Definitely not.”

“Then why wouldn’t you pursue it now that you’re back to not sleeping with him?”

My mouth hangs open for a moment before I slam it shut.

“If this was never supposed to be anything other than business, then make sure you at least get the business thing out of it,” Maggie continues. “Otherwise, you’re screwing yourself. And not in the amazing way you did this weekend.”

“Great pep talk,” I mumble.

She doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I can tell she’s weighing her next words carefully. “You’re going to be okay, Bea.”

I nod, more tears suddenly springing from my eyes.

“How did you get so wise?” I ask, a small smile pulling at my lips.

She sighs. “Day drinking.”