Page 50

There He Is

Abi

I knew it had to happen sometime.

Still, it felt like a gut punch when I checked the schedule and saw I had to clean Declan’s apartment that night.

He must be in New York , I thought, which I couldn’t let myself think about because even though I was healing, anytime I thought of our trip, or pictured his beautiful SoHo apartment, it was impossible to keep the emotions at bay.

I hadn’t heard a word from Declan.

Not. A. Word.

Because I’d blocked his number.

I knew hearing from him wouldn’t be great for me.

Because as I wrote the Daphne story, filling in all the gritty details that made it work, I realized I needed to be stronger. Daphne had been susceptible to the charms of Connor and his family because she was weak and lonely. She let them in because she’d been hungry for love and attention.

And I suspected I’d been the same way.

But Daphne’s ultimate failure had been her inability to learn once things started changing; she’d been incapable of even considering that Connor and his family weren’t worthy of her trust.

The brief dalliance with Declan had weakened me momentarily, like Daphne, because before him, I didn’t have delusions of romance or daydream about love.

That was something my mother did.

I was more of a work-my-ass-off-and-make-things-happen person. I was working two jobs and going to school because I was going to be a college professor, own my own home, and depend on myself for the things I wanted.

I’d seen my mom spend her entire life being reactive, moving about the world in hopes of something—or someone—giving her the things she wanted, and that was bullshit.

But I’d become a version of her—and Daphne—when I was with Dex, daydreaming and begging for heart crumbs, and that was unacceptable.

I mean, I’d almost walked away from a great story idea because I’d lost the ability to disseminate truth from fiction. Somehow, Daphne’s story had felt a lot like mine, so much so that I couldn’t think about it without crying because it’d made me feel empty inside.

The brief Declan chapter in my life had been self-indulgent, where I’d allowed myself to absorb him into every empty hole and crack in my life, taking them and expanding them but filling them more in turn so that after him—when his existence in my life quickly disappeared—my aloneness felt more amplified than it ever had before, and the holes left larger and empty once again.

So now I was trying to remember how to get back to the old me.

Which was why I hated that I had to clean his apartment that night; no way would that not set me back a few steps.

Before we met, I’d been able to enjoy how gorgeous his place was when I cleaned it. I’d imagine what it’d be like to live there, but when I thought of the person who actually lived there, this stranger I didn’t know, I mocked the idea of him.

The idea of somebody who was never there but spent a fortune on a gorgeous condo.

It had to be someone with zero respect for money and all the wrong values, right?

And now I knew that was absolutely true.

I was filled with dread as I took the service elevator up to his floor. I knew his place was going to look different to me now than it had before. I was going to remember making food in the kitchen, watching TV with him, dropping my raincoat and having him tell me I was stunning.

It was like my movie had been filmed in that apartment, my favorite rom-com in the entire world that I’d rewatched a hundred times.

But now it was over, those characters weren’t real, and the apartment was just another set. Abi and Dex were people who’d been playing their parts and now they’d moved on to their next show, leaving this set vacant and ready for whatever the next act was going to be.

I used my key and let myself in, ready to concentrate on work and nothing else. I was going to scrub surfaces without really seeing the place; that was the plan.

Eyes down, mops up.

But as soon as the door closed behind me, I heard Declan’s voice, and it shook me to my core. It felt like the worst déjà vu.

“Abi, is that you?”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t know what to do.

Part of me wanted to just run out the door like I hadn’t been there, yet there was another traitorous part of me that was hungry for the sight of him.

But I didn’t want him to see me, not like this.

Somehow the thought of him seeing me with a cartful of janitorial supplies, not to mention my bird’s-nest bun and I LOVE NEW YONK T-shirt and shredded jeans was too much.

“Abi.”

It wasn’t a question this time, and he walked out of the office, his unwavering gaze on me. He was wearing black slacks and a button-down with a tie, and my favorite watch.

He looked so beautiful it made me want to cry.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wishing I was anywhere else. “It looked like on my schedule you were going to be gone. I can clear out of here and just have them reschedule when you’re—”

“I’m here because of you,” he interrupted.

“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you and couldn’t get a hold of you, so I lied to Masterkleen and said I was going to be out of town on the off chance you’d show up.”

“What do you want?” I asked, feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

Did he need another weekend? I wanted to puke at the thought.

“I want you to tell me why you didn’t take the money.”

Oh, he’s here about the money.

“Because I realized it was ridiculous,” I said. “It was madness that someone would have to pay a small fortune for a weekend companion. It wasn’t difficult work, so it was ludicrous to take money like that.”

“Bullshit,” he said, his face unreadable.

“I’m sorry?” I managed, hating him for how much he’d made me like him, for how much I missed him.

For how much the memories hurt.

“That’s bullshit,” he repeated. “It’s what we agreed upon and you knew it was going to be easy money; you said that the day we agreed upon it.”

“So you’re mad I didn’t take your money?” I asked, unsure of what exactly he seemed irritated with me about. “I’m not going to sue you if that’s what you’re—”

“Roman told me he saw you at Benny’s.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Yeah. He was buying supplements.”

“I know,” he said.

I waited for more, but he gave me nothing. He didn’t say a word, so finally I said, “We get wholesaler prices, so we’re able to sell them for way less than every—”

“I don’t care about Benny’s supplemental price points,” he said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I care that my friend stupidly suggested something that might’ve made you feel like a commodity.”

“He—” I stopped myself from saying more, because I didn’t know what to say to that. He’d just explained exactly how Roman had made me feel. “You didn’t know he was going to do that?”

“I would’ve fucking destroyed him for the proposition,” he growled, looking straight up pissed now. “And if you’d said yes, it would’ve destroyed me .”

I blinked fast as his words crashed into me, jump-starting the heartbeat that’d been frozen since I’d walked in. Suddenly my heart was racing and my face was hot and my hands might’ve been trembling because what did this mean?

“It, uh, it would’ve?” I asked, my voice coming out sort of husky. “Why, exactly?”

“You’re going to make me say it?” he asked, stepping closer, closing the space between us.

And suddenly, it was too much. I could smell his cologne and see his Adam’s apple and hear the ticking of his fancy watch and I couldn’t get sucked back in again, I couldn’t.

I wasn’t Daphne, goddammit.

I cleared my throat and shook my head, stepping back. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s cool.”

His eyebrows went up and he frowned. “It’s cool ?”

I couldn’t do this. I was finally starting to not think about him incessantly, to throw myself into my writing, to force myself to find my own happiness. I needed to get away from him. I said, “It’s all water under the bridge and we’re good.”

“It’s ‘cool’ and now ‘we’re good.’?”

He was air-quoting me again, damn it.

“That’s right,” I said, nodding and giving him what I hoped was a carefree smart-ass smirk. “We’re ‘good.’?”

I air-quoted myself.

Or I was air-quoting him air-quoting me.

Whatever.

I said, “It was really good seeing you, but I’ve got to get to work before I get fired. Obviously they got it wrong and you’re in town, so just let me get my stuff out of here and I’ll be—”

“What if I’m not good?”

His words hung there, in the air between us. He swallowed and I saw his jaw flex before he said, “I’m the opposite of good. I’m fucking miserable without you, Abi.”

I wanted to run to him, to kiss him, to bury my face in that strong chest while he wrapped his arms around me—I wanted it so badly I could almost feel his warmth—but that would only make things worse.

I wouldn’t survive when he eventually got bored and shrugged his shoulders at me like I’d seen him do with cars and money and jewelry.

No, this was simply a boy not accepting he wasn’t getting something he foolishly thought he wanted.

“That’s only temporary,” I said, a weird part of me feeling bad for him. “You’ll find someone shiny who makes you forget all about the one that you thought you wanted.”

His eyebrows screwed together. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” I said, trying to keep my thoughts in order when his presence was messing with my emotions and making it hard to process anything, “that you live in a world where you get every single thing you’re ever remotely interested in.

You might enjoy it for a while, but eventually you end up just giving it away or not caring for it because it no longer matters to you. ”

“Careless?” he said, and we both knew he was referring to what I’d written. He stared down at me, his eyes everywhere on my face, and I had to force myself not to fidget.

Then he said, “Tell me why you think that.”

“I mean, you did offer me your car multiple times, you didn’t blink over my demand for a small fortune, you didn’t care about the diamond necklace—you have so much that nothing retains its value. You buy things that you ultimately just walk away from because you’re done with them.”

His eyes narrowed and he said, “Those are things , Abi, possessions with actual price tags. You can’t lump yourself into that.”

“I think I can, actually,” I said.

“No, you can’t,” he growled, dragging a hand through his hair. “Because I’m not Connor. I don’t give a shit about possessions—I’m happy to give them away because it’s just stuff. Material bullshit. I work my ass off so I can give things away. But you aren’t a possession.”

I sucked in a breath when he reached out a hand and pushed my hair behind my ear. “I can’t walk away from you.”

I wanted, so badly, to close my eyes and rub my cheek against his big hand. But instead I said, “You’ll get over it.”

“I won’t. I can’t.” As if reading my mind, he stroked his fingers against my cheekbone and said, “Because I’m in love with you, Mariano.”