Page 121 of It's Not PMS, It's You

I wasn’t really looking forward to the party, unfortunately I couldn’t skip it.

And taking Nick wasn’t even close to romantic, but I didn’t want to cancel on him either.

I wanted to see him.

Walking back over to the screen door, I slid it open and stepped outside.

Brandon and Nick were finishing up the soil around the first palm tree they had just planted.

Nick glanced toward me and waved me over. “I’ve got something for you.”

“What is it?”

“You have to come here if you want to find out.”

I followed him to the gazebo and waited while he opened a cardboard box, pulling out beautiful wind chimes with long silver tubes. He undid the fasteners that held them together inside the box and carefully hung it on the hook above his head.

He stood back and grinned. “It’s a Himalayan echo wind chime.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Nick nodded. “Many practitioners of feng shui believe a wind chime’s sounds can have a positive effect on the energy around your house.”

The timing of the ocean breeze was perfect, moving the wind chimes just enough to give off a pleasant, peaceful melody that made me want to kick off my shoes, close my eyes, and listen for a while.

I smiled. “It’s working. I feel positive.”

“Me, too.”

I stepped closer to Nick and hugged him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. No charge.”

I smacked him playfully on the arm with the back of my hand. “Quit sayingno charge.”

“Hey—I like to have things crystal clear with my clients, so there are never any misunderstandings.”

“Your clients . . .”

Nick hesitated and leaned closer. “That’s not all you are to me, but we can discuss that when I see you this evening.” He winked.

“Speaking of that . . . I completely forgot about a work event that I need to attend. Actually, it’s a party.”

Nick’s face went blank. “Oh . . . okay.”

“I want you to come with me. It’s Stansfeld’s company cocktail party to celebrate closing two of our deals, Amsterion and Caltonic. It’s customary for us to have a party after every big transaction and milestone and this time it’s for the two deals that I collaborated on.”

Nick ran his fingers through his hair, sighing, not looking very excited about the idea at all. “I’ll be honest with you; I’ve been to those types of parties before in the past and they’re not really my thing.”

“I can appreciate that, butyouhave never been to one of those parties withme, so it would be a different experience.”

“I don’t know . . .”

I crossed my arms. “Don’t make me beg. I really want to see you tonight, and it was my fault that I forgot about the event. I promise that if it gets too boring, we can leave early and do something else alone. How’s that?”

He nodded. “Really?”

“I promise.”