The Strand bookstore on Broadway was packed and buzzy by the time Darlene and Zach arrived. Zach hadn’t RSVP’d, but after he turned on the charm for the woman with the clipboard, the sold-out event wasn’t sold-out for him. Oddly, Darlene seemed irritated by this.
The book launch wasn’t a date. It was a punishment. And Zach had no idea why.
Things with Darlene had gotten a little… cool. It might be his dumb paranoia, but she seemed to take a giant step away from him after The Kiss That Mattered. The first kiss they hadn’t documented for social media (and what a handy excuse that’d turned out to be). The first kiss where he let her have him, all of him, every desperate, driving, needy part of him… but then she’d backed off. Not disappeared, they were still in their stupid fake relationship, which he was both annoyed by and thankful for. But she was no longer asking him to kiss her, with those blown dark eyes and pink parted lips. Instead, he’d begged to be her plus-one for a book launch. Not just any book launch. Awful Charles’s book launch. Her ex.
“He’s in conversation with Rachel Maddow,” Darlene had said, after Zach spotted the invite stuck to her fridge.
“The tennis player?”
“No! The journalist. On MSNBC. You definitely know her.”
Zach maybe knew her. “I didn’t think you were still in touch with Charles.”
Darlene had shrugged, grabbing a bowl of the shrimp lo mein he’d brought over. “I ran into him. He invited me. I said yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t spend all my time with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not actually a couple.” Her voice hitched before she regained control. “It’s healthy to have a wide circle of intellectually stimulating friends.”
Who happen to be your ex. So here they were, front row, in seats reserved with Darlene’s name, which she was obviously impressed by. On the stage were two chairs, a fifteen-foot projection of the book cover—Mistakes Were Made: The Paradox of the Working-Class Revolution—and a photograph of Awful Charles boasting the confidence of a pop star in the pasty body of a garden gnome.
“Look, there’s Jon Favreau,” Darlene whispered, side-eyeing a handsome dude in a suit. “And, omigod, is that AOC?”
More people Darlene knew that he didn’t, perfect.
His beautiful bandmate was a Virgo, and Virgos were cautious with their feelings, unlike his Libran self. Libras were suckers for love, and yes, Zach’d had his fair share of bedfellows. But he never felt comfortable letting those women know the real him. They saw fun Zach, good-time Zach; vacation flings, nothing real. Darlene knew him better than anyone: as a musician, a son, a creative collaborator. She knew all his flaws. He cared about her. Respected and trusted her. But he got the feeling her tight jumpsuit and natural curls weren’t for his benefit tonight. The look she gave his wrinkled button-down was almost derisive. Zach searched the room. “Don’t tell me there’s no bar. Aren’t all writers alcoholics?”
“Charles is sober.”
“Ugh.” Zach grimaced. “Of course he is.”
Darlene narrowed her eyes. “Which I actually really respect.”
“Oh, yeah. Me too.”
“But there’ll probably be wine at the dinner afterward,” she added, patting his arm.
Zach slouched further in his seat. Now, there was a dinner he’d have to attend full of brilliant, bookish people like Awful Charles and Jon Favreau and AOC—people who made him feel as insightful as a loaf of white bread. He grabbed Darlene’s hand and tugged her toward him, feeling needy. “Why don’t we skip it? There’s a good little wine bar up the street. We could get high, play footsie under the table.”
Darlene extracted her hand from his. “I told you we’re here as friends.”
The word slapped him across the face. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because,” she replied coolly, “it’s the truth.”
Zach fought the impulse to scream. When would Darlene admit that they were made for each other, that they were falling in love? She could have his money, all of it. Darlene was his future, and the trust was only important in that it’d enable them to be together as much as possible. Why was she insisting they were “friends”?
Maybe because, for her, it was just about the money. Maybe she wasn’t feeling the feelings he was feeling at all.
The lights dimmed. Awful Charles and Rachel Maddow came onstage to rapturous applause. Charles was preening, activated by the crowd, which Zach found both familiar and sickening. “Wake me up when it’s over.”
Darlene looked unimpressed. “You might want to rethink the whole anti-intellectualism thing, Zach. It’s not very attractive.”
Zach deflated like a sad balloon. That was it: whatever attraction she’d felt had worn off. She’d realized that being open-minded and kind and all those other nice things she’d said that night when she defended him in front of his family just wasn’t enough. His insecurity sickened him—he knew it was about as appealing as the “whole anti-intellectualism thing.” But he couldn’t control it.
Zach’s heart tore at the edges as Darlene trained her gaze on Charles.