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“Keep your voice down, Maria, damn,” I muttered.
“That’s why you’re acting weird and twitchy! You’re with somebody. Who is she? Anybody I know? Probably not, right? Some IT genius from the Top 30 Under 30 or what?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, bro. It’s obvious there’s someone on your mind,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, fine, there is, but it won’t work. It’s just complicated,” I said.
“That’s the word of the week, I guess,” she shrugged. “First Hailey and now you.”
“What about Hailey?” I said too quickly and wished I could take it back.
“Oh, she was acting jumpy and finally broke down and confessed that she was seeing some guy, but it was so complicated that it was doomed to fail. She was obviously really into him, but she wouldn’t even consider going after him because of whatever reason. Now you’re saying the same thing. It’s like there’s drama in the air.”
“Maybe Mercury’s in retrograde after all,” I said, rolling my eyes, glad she hadn’t made the connection between Hailey’s complications and mine.
“Whatever. I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. If you really like her, then go for it and forget what anybody says,” she said.
“That’s easier said than done,” I replied. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It can be that simple if you let it,” she said with a wise-beyond-her-years grin.
I went back to washing dishes and listened to her talk about the new playlist she made on Spotify. I couldn’t help acknowledging the thrill that went through me when she mentioned Hailey saying she met someone she liked. Not because Hailey was unhappy—I didn’t want that. Because I was on her mind, that was where the thrill came in to play.
I liked that she was thinking about me, that she wished things weren’t so complicated. She had talked to her friend about me. Even if she was speaking in vague terms and even if her friend was Maria, my little sister whose feelings I hadn’t considered at all before taking the drastic step of sleeping with her best friend. I really kicked myself over that one. It was inconsiderate and I prided myself on being a thoughtful and attentive brother. I also kicked myself for hurting Hailey, which I knew I had, despite the fact that she understood logically why we couldn’t be together. I couldn’t go so far as to wish we hadn’t been together, but I didn’t like that I had treated her that way, like her feelings mattered less than the sensible course of action.
I wished two things most of all: that I hadn’t hurt Hailey and that my sister was right. That I lived in a world where this conundrum was completely solvable by simply going after what I wanted and damning the consequences to anyone else. Because maybe I was that single-minded when I started out to build my marketing firm, maybe I took no prisoners then and gave no quarter. But I was wiser now and knew I had a heart, breakable as any other man’s, and that Hailey had one as well. We would have been better off, both of us, if I’d stayed away from her. Since I couldn’t go back in time and change my conduct, I wasn’t going to waste the present in self-recrimination. I had to go forward with a professional relationship, above board and purposeful. Her future and her career were more valuable, more meaningful than my own wants.
CHAPTER25
HAILEY
It was so good to have my car back, and I’d had no other trouble with it since the vandalism. The new tires were better than my old ones thanks to the REM liability insurance, and I also got a direct deposit of a thousand dollars for ‘damages’ which I guess was a sort of ‘sorry your car got trashed while you were on our property’. It wasn’t necessary, and I wanted to tell HR or whoever to take it back, but then I realized what I could do with it. I gave it to my mom.
She worked so hard, living paycheck to paycheck in a little rental duplex, and didn’t have emergency savings or any money for extras. Maybe this could be a little bit of a cushion for her—the knowledge she could afford to eat lunch out or help out with the light bill or something. I convinced her to take it without mentioning the vandalism. I told her it was an unexpected windfall, that it was half the money I got in a tax refund due to a filing error. I lied to get my mom to take extra money. And I wasn’t even a little bit sorry.
She raised me all on her own, and she survived cancer and still had to work full-time. Anything I could do to help her out, I didn’t have a lot of scruples bending the rules about. I urged her to do something to make herself feel good, take a friend to lunch or get a manicure or something. She insisted she didn’t need it, but later she texted me a picture of a beautiful periwinkle blue cardigan.Bought this with part of your windfall, $25 on sale!and I just beamed, so happy. That color would be pretty with her eyes, and she rarely got anything new to wear if it wasn’t to replace something completely worn out.
My car was working, my mom had a new sweater and a few hundred extra bucks to fall back on. My internship was going well, and I was caught up on all the work in my classes. Things were working out. I had even contributed an idea for doing sponsorships with Insta influencers and a few on CleanTok ahead of the product relaunch to get eyes on the familiar brand and maybe trend a hashtag with a contest. My idea went over well, and I got to contact a few of the influencers we targeted and get them to accept advance-release products in the new packaging in exchange for a review and public posting. If the brand’s social media or our firm shared the post, thus giving it our endorsement, then a compensation package would kick in based on click-throughs to the web site.
I felt good about my position on the team and like I’d added something to the creative concept we built. So when I went over to Maria’s for a girls’ night in, I was in a great mood, excited to see my bff and ready to kick back and watch some comfort movies and talk shit about the characters. I brought the wine, and she popped the popcorn.
We were about twenty minutes into a viewing of La La Land when Maria went, “Ugh, he is so damn hot. I love Ryan Gosling. Love him.”
“Eh,” I said, lukewarm, “he’s not my type. I like them darker, and maybe a little taller. He’s not even that much bigger than Emma Stone.”
“Ha, just date my brother. He’s tall and dark,” she laughed.
I choked on a kernel of popcorn that was trying to suffocate me and put me out of my misery. I thumped my chest and gagged and finally coughed it up, my eyes streaming and face red, sniffling as my nose ran.
“You okay?”
“Popcorn,” I croaked out, wiping my face on a napkin, and I passed the bowl to her and took a drink of wine. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, good. I can do the Heimlich you know. I’m CPR certified for work at the diner in case old Mr. Stanley inhales a chicken bone or something.”
I coughed again and took another drink. “Thanks, but I’ll pass on you cracking my ribs. I’m fine.”
