Amy
I wake up on the carpeted floor of my room, light peeking out from under the thick blackout curtains. I'm still naked, my clothes bunched up under my head. I must have gathered them in the middle of the night.
As I sit up, I see red glowing numbers on a clock across the room: 3:11 a.m.
Ah. It’s still the middle of the night. The light at the window must be from streetlights.
For a few sweet seconds, I'm confused about my state, wondering why I'm on the floor by the door, but then–
I remember.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God, why did I tell him? Why, why, why?” I groan into my shirt, muffling my mouth with it.
How could the most joyful experience in my entire life be followed five minutes later by the abject worst?
The worst experience possible?
Every time I've thought about telling a guy I'm a virgin, since I turned twenty-two or so, I've imagined being laughed at, or taken advantage of. Or not believed.
I never imagined it would go like that.
Because I never could conjure a guy I'd care about so much that we'd be so close, so intimate, so perfect.
And then be rejected.
Tap tap tap
I cover my mouth to make sure the squeal of surprise doesn't come out.
“Amy?” Hamish says softly from the other side. “Are ye there? Please?”
He's still up? Still trying?
Why?
Why would he keep trying when he said he couldn't sleep with me? What fresh hell is this?
I don't want to open the door. I can't see him, can't look him in the eye after that. In addition to breaking my work contract, I've broken my heart.
He didn't. I did. I did this to myself.
None of this is his fault. It’s all on me.
For trusting him.
For trusting anyone.
There are four people in the whole wide world I still do trust. I reach for my phone and press Call on a very important person's contact information. Then I crawl on all fours, naked, to my hotel room bed. It seems like a decent strategy for managing my current mess.
“Hello?” says a tired, but always there, voice. Hearing it makes me feel like maybe the world isn't ending, after all.
“Shannon?”
“What's wrong? You sound hurt. Amy? Are you okay?”
“I–I need someone.”
“I'm here. Where are you?”
“L.A.”
“Okay. I'll find a way to get there as soon as possible. What happened?”
“It's Hamish.”
“What did he do now?”
“He–we–and then he… I can't say the words.”
“What did he do?”
“It's what he didn't do that hurts so much.”
“Huh?”
“He rejected me.” That's as much as I can get out.
“Oh, honey. I'll be there.”
“No. I want to come home. I can't stay here a minute longer.”
“Hang on.” She fades away, but I hear footsteps, then muffled words as she says, “Declan!” and a man's lower tones bounce between her own muttering.
Suddenly, she's clear again. “Grind It Fresh! has a jet share. Go to Burbank Airport. You can be on a flight in eight hours.”
Pure relief pours through me.
“If this happened two years from now, we'd have our own jet!” Declan calls out from the background.
“Who cares?” Shannon snaps at him. “This isn't about your wounded pride at only having a jet share and not your own jet, Dec! This is about poor Amy!”
“I'm just saying this is temporary,” he insists. “Wait. Even better. Andrew just got back to me. They can send the Anterdec jet. One of them is in Seattle with a VP and can be in L.A. in about six hours.”
“I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Shannon says.
“Seriously? You texted Andrew at three in the morning and he answered that fast?”
“God, no. I texted Gina, who figured it all out, and Andrew approved it. Plus, it's six a.m. here,” Declan says. “Not three. By noon tomorrow L.A. time, the Anterdec jet can pick you up at Burbank and bring you to Worcester or Boston. Gina will text details.”
“You're the best. That gives me time to wrap up some details here. I can't leave Hamish and the team in the lurch. There's some scheduling I'll need to do first thing in the morning.”
“Always. And where is Hamish, by the way?” he asks, clearing his throat after.
“I don't know and I don't care.” That's a lie. I do know, and I do care.
Care too much.
“Why?” Shannon asks him.
“Andrew and I just need to know so we can find him and kill him.”
Normally, I'd laugh, but instead I start to cry, my diaphragm pulling up hard, stomach caught in a spasm so deep, it makes it hard to breathe.
“Oh, Amy,” Shannon whispers, sounding like she's crying, too. “I'm so sorry.”
“He–he–he didn't do anything wrong. Don't kill him.”
“We can just nick his Achilles tendon, then. Make it look like an accident. No one will be the wiser,” Declan says so dispassionately about his own cousin that I instantly believe my brother-in-law could be the head of a Mafia organization.
“NO! Don't do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because–because–”
“Because she loves him, Dec,” Shannon says in a half-annoyed, half-wondrous voice.
“Oh,” he says, voice going deep. He pauses, then sighs. “That makes this so much worse.”
I've never felt more understood by my billionaire brother-in-law in all the years I've known him.
“I revealed a really private piece of myself to him,” I blabber, unable to reel my words back in. “And he rejected me for it.”
“You had the courage to share that with him, Amy,” Declan says, compassionate and sweet, with an older-brother tone I've never heard from him before. “I know that breaking through the ice fortress you've built around yourself was hard. From experience, I know it. Private people decide to reveal themselves very deliberatively. Being vulnerable is hard. It's a sign of your strength that you did so.”
His words make me cry harder. He's so right.
And I'm so broken.
“I thought he was the one,” I whisper.
“He may still be,” Shannon says, though Declan makes a sound that reminds me of his Mafia potential. “Let's get you home. Can you take a couple of days off from work? Sick days, maybe? We'll have a summit.”
Now Declan outright groans. “Not the Asshole Boyfriend Summit!” he blusters, sounding so much like his father.
Everything goes on mute.
Her words, a couple of days off from work, are a gut punch.
Hamish is my work.
How can I justify flying home like this, spur of the moment, without warning? Quintana will fire me.
And if Hamish spills the beans about our being in bed together, I'm fired regardless.
He won't, though. For as hurt as I am, he's a man of integrity and won't.
I know it.
“Amy, just get on the Anterdec jet. Andrew has a short time to use the privileges before he leaves as CEO, so let's milk it for all it’ s worth. Come home and you'll be fine,” Shannon says, returning to the call.
“But, I have a job! My job is to make sure no one sleeps with Hamish, and now I almost slept with Hamish!”
“Technically, you did your job,” Shannon says, clearly trying to make me feel better. “No one else did.”
“NO ONE DID! That's the problem!”
“So you.... didn't sleep with him?”
“We, uh... stuff happened.”
“That's some serious detail. How granular is this conversation about to get?”
“You asked!” I sniff. “And besides, my job is here. I refuse to quit because Hamish... because Hamish...”
“Made you his next scandal?”
“We didn't do anything in public!”
And we didn't do everything in private, I don't say out loud.
“I just did a quick search. Plenty of pictures of you guys, his arm around your shoulders, sitting close at a pub...”
“None of me, naked, in a hotel hallway, right?”
“WHAT?”
“I'll take that as a no.”
“Why would you be naked in a hallway? What on Earth happened to you tonight?”
“I'll tell you all about it when I get home. Promise.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
“But I have one problem,” I say, realizing my mouth is dry and I'm still naked. Neither of those are the biggest problem I face, though. “How do I justify being away from my job?”
“Can you come up with some excuse for coming to Boston? Anything at all that isn't personal?”
Before I can answer, Declan cuts in. “You have time. You're not leaving until noon, your time. Sleep on it. You're smart. An idea will come.”
Bzzz
A text from Dad interrupts me.
Let's have a call, honey. Shannon told me you're hurting.
“SHANNON!” I blast into the phone. “YOU TOLD DAD?”
“I told him not to tell you!”
“OMIGOD MOM KNOWS NOW!”
Bzzz
I haven't told your mother, Dad texts. Pinkie promise.
“Nothing is private in this family. NOTHING!” I hiss.
“See? Told you. Enmeshed beyond belief,” I hear Declan say to Shannon.
“Do you still want sex tonight, buddy? Because this is not the way to go about it,” she snaps back at him.
“I do not want to hear about other people having sex,” I hiss. “I'd rather talk to Dad than listen to you two bicker. Thank you, though, for getting me a plane. I'll be home tomorrow night.”
“I'll get Carol and Amanda together and start ordering the Thai food. And I’ll get the hand-packed ice cream pints from the microcreamery in Hudson.”
The call ends abruptly as Dad appears on Call Waiting. I accept his call.
But my phone also buzzes with a text.
It's Hamish.
Amy? Please? I'm an idiot. Just talk to me.
When I view it, I see the forty-seven before it, all within the last two hours, all variations on the same theme.
I ignore them.
Hamish is doing everything “right.” Banging on my door. Calling, Texting. Apologizing. I know he is, and it's killing me.
Because I should let him.
A better woman would suck it up and face him, go to his room and talk this out. He wouldn't be making the effort if some part of him didn't care.
But I just not only violated the clause I put in my own employment contract, I also violated my number one rule: don't get vulnerable until you're one-hundred percent sure.
And I was so sure.
Yet I was wrong.
“I know,” Dad says immediately, “that this has something to do with Hamish. What has he done, and do I need to call James and borrow the corporate jet so I can kneecap him? Tell me now.”
Alpha Dads are adorable.
Now I see why Declan and Dad get along.
“I–I destroyed my job.”
“You made a mistake? Everyone makes mistakes. How bad could it be? Did you let Hamish sleep with someone?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Well, the guy is, as you've said, a walking hormone. He probably couldn't help himself. His standards aren't exactly high.”
“HEY!”
All I can hear is my own breathing for about five seconds. My dad isn't stupid.
“Oh,” he says in a perfect little puff of a syllable. “It was you. You let yourself sleep with, uh...”
“Hamish. Yes, Dad.”
Kind of. I don't add the whole virgin part.
“Well.”
“And now I'm going to lose my job! I already lost my heart. The only thing I haven't lost is my–”
“Pride, honey. I know.”
I was about to say virginity, but we'll go with pride.
“I just want something that's mine. Mine! All mine.”
“You wanted Hamish all to yourself?”
“I'm not talking about him!”
“What do you mean, honey?”
“I'm the baby. The youngest. I've spent my whole life in Carol and Shannon's shadow. Carol was always the pretty one, the bold one, the kid who wasn't afraid to try anything. Shannon was the sweet one, friendly and a bit scattered, and I was just the baby. The one who looks just like you.”
“Is that... bad?”
“No. It's not bad. It's just... I wanted something that's mine.”
“You have an MBA! You're the first Jacoby to get a master's degree. I only have an associate’s, for Pete's sake. You're amazing, Amy. We're so proud of all your accomplishments.”
“I'm so amazing, I broke the biggest rule in my job contract and slept with the guy I'm supposed to stop from sleeping around. I failed on so many levels. All the levels.”
“You didn't fail. You just fell in love. You're allowed to be human.”
“No, actually, I'm not!”
“Well, then, kid, I've got news for you. You're failing at that, too, because you are human, like it or not.”
“I hate this! I hate how out of control I feel!”
“What's so great about being in control?”
His words feel like an ice bucket poured over me.
“What?”
“What's so special about being in control all the time, Amy? Why do you hold yourself to some standard like that? Who picked it?”
“Who picked it?”
“Yeah. Who declared that being in control was how you're supposed to live your life? Or organize your inner state, or view the world?”
“Are you kidding, Dad? Do you know what happens when you don't control yourself?”
“What?”
“MOM HAPPENS! THAT'S WHAT! Mom breaks her leg in a sex swing and I get called to pick up the pieces!”
“That, uh, only happened once,” he says, suddenly contrite. “And we promised to help with the therapy bills.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Ah. Is that it? You view your mom as being chaotic, so you want to be the opposite?”
“Maybe. I don't know. When did this conversation go from being comforted by my dad to turning into a therapy session?”
“Your mother might be chaotic, but she is a fundamentally happy woman. You can have chaos and be happy. The two aren't mutually exclusive. And you can be in love with Hamish and also be a good, high-achieving career woman.”
Career woman sounds so old fashioned, but out of Dad's mouth, it's sweet. He's trying.
“Look. Shannon texted me that you're coming home tomorrow. Try to figure it all out, find a way to make all of this work for you. You're smart and capable. But honey?”
“Yeah?”
“You don't have to be.”
“That's contradictory, Dad.”
“I know. What I mean is: Find a way to make your job work for you. You haven't blown it. You’re just feeling too many feelings all at once. As you calm down, you'll get clarity. Use it. Then come home and fall apart. We're here to pick up the emotional pieces.”
I start crying again.
“I am such a fool.”
“No, sweetie. It's a relief to see you like this.”
“A relief?” I gasp.
“You've been wound so tight for so long. So focused. So... taut. I don't know what happened, exactly, between you and Hamish, but whatever it is, it's changing you. Opening you up. Giving you a different perspective on life. Even hard parts of our lives have meaning, and I know you can do hard things.”
“It hurts.” I press my palm over my heart. “My heart actually hurts, Daddy. How can it hurt so much?”
“Because you feel so much. Because you love so much. Because you are so much, my dear.”
Bzzz
A text from Shannon.
James is in St. Louis. Can you handle the jet going from Burbank to St. Louis and picking him up? I'm sorry.
It's fine, I text back. While a two-hour plane ride alone with James McCormick when I'm hurting isn't exactly my idea of fun, beggars can't be choosers. I'm grateful for the jet ride home.
“Amy?”
“I'm here, Dad. Thanks. Shannon helped me get Andrew to send the Anterdec jet. I'll be home by seven p.m.”
“I'll be at the airport to get you. Just text me when you arrive.”
“I will. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, sweetie. You're going to be okay. In fact, you'll be better than okay after this. You have it in you to find depth in everything you're experiencing.”
“I know.”
“You sure?”
I smile and wipe my eyes. “Yeah. I know because you and Mom have loved me enough to know.”
He chokes up. “Now I'm crying, too.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“Go to sleep. Rest up. Find your way. Only you can do that.”
Find your way.
I go to the desk and jot notes on the pad of paper, making sure I don't forget anything.
James–St. Louis
Burbank
Worcester or Boston
Email Quintana
I open my laptop, still naked, still ignoring texts from Hamish, and check my work email.
There it is: an email from ExpertCourse. It’s a reply to my initial inquiry to their product-line manager, marked confidential, and it has an attachment.
Dear Ms. Jacoby, it begins.
And then my jaw drops, because sometimes, the world lines up in ways we never, ever expect, even in misery, even in pain.
It turns out James McCormick is one of the biggest financial backers of ExpertCourse, and my inquiry is being directed to his team.
A team I won't need.
I open a new email to Quintana and tell her my idea. I explain that I’ve been able to set up a meeting with James McCormick and ask her permission to leave L.A. for a few days.
That's it. If she likes it, I've covered my ass, and life has serendipitously given me a true series of unfortunate events to piece together and try to come out on top.
With a huge sigh, I close my laptop, move over to the bed, and wrap myself in the coverlet.
Sleep comes eventually, but is interrupted twice by tapping on my door.
Dad's right. I can do hard things.
Really hard things.
Like ignore Hamish.
But I can't do the hardest thing of all right now.
Talk to him.
Hamish
I've made a mess of everything.
Everything.
Pictures abound online of me with Amy at the pub. Jody's blowing up my phone. Amy won't answer her door. Or my texts, or my calls.
I've even resorted to email.
Nothing. She's answering nothing.
Might as well go lift out my frustration.
As I throw on workout clothes, I force myself to relive every wonderful, painful moment from last night, the final five minutes so horrible, it's as if someone else did what I did. How could I say that to her? How could I take the one secret she's held about herself for so long and react like that?
I know how.
Because virgin?
Really?
She's twenty-nine. It's the last thing I expected to hear in the heat of the bed, naked and yearning, eager for more of what we'd just given each other. She was so lush, so wanting. It was like every piece of myself aligned with every piece of her.
Every bit of her wanted me. Needed me. And the hardest person in the world to get to know opened up and gave herself over and I–
Ah, God.
My phone rings. It's Jody.
“You saw the pictures of you and Amy?”
“Aye. It'll blow over.”
“You're together?”
I stupidly hesitate, the pain too much.
“Aye. Naw. It's... complicated.”
“Jesus, Hamish, she's not a jersey chaser. You slept with the woman hired to make sure you don't sleep around! I don't even have words to describe how bizarre that is!”
“It's no’ bizarre, Jody.”
“Yes, it is! She'll be fired, first of all. And–”
“I dinna sleep wi' her.” Technically, it’s the truth. “She didna break her contract. And I assume full responsibility. I'll face whatever I need to face.”
“You were caught on camera being awfully chummy.”
“We–we have feelings fer each other.”
“Both of you? Does Amy feel the same?”
How do I answer that?
“Jody, are ye asking me as a manager, or as a friend?”
“Which one do you need more right now?”
“A friend.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Aye.”
“This is new territory. You've never asked me for help with... a woman... before.”
“I certainly have! Ye’ve helped me through loads of messes of the female persuasion.”
“Not a woman you cared for.”
“I cared fer all of them! What d'ye take me fer? If I sleep wi' a woman, it's because I give them fun. Pleasure, laughter. A sweet little memory that leaves them smiling when they think o' me.”
“Is Amy smiling right now when she thinks of you?”
Gut punches are always unexpected and painful. Sneak attacks inspire rage.
I canna breathe.
I canna think.
“Fuck ye, Jody! That's a shitty thing to ask.”
“Oh, God,” he groans. “You're in love with her!”
Too much is building up inside me. At best, I put together two hours of sleep last night. The skin on my knuckles is half worn off from knocking on her door last night, and my neck aches from texting. I stopped at sixty-one, all unanswered.
She's shut me out.
The only woman I've ever truly, deeply, insanely fallen for has shut me out because I wouldn't sleep with her.
If there's a God in heaven, not only is he pointing and laughing at me, he's formed a betting pool with half my home town and they're all wagering on my future stupidity. What's next? Winning the lottery and turning down the money?
“What have I done, Jody?” I groan, bashing my forehead against the wall. The rhythmic thumping accomplishes nothing, other than a dull pain that mitigates some of the ache in my heart.
But not really.
“I don't know. You haven't told me what happened. You didn't sleep with her, and she's mad at you–you!–for drawing a line?”
“It's–it's personal, Jody. I canna reveal the particulars, but–yes. Basically, ye've hit the nail on the head.”
“She's mad you didn't nail her?”
“Let's leave it at that.”
“It seems like this is a problem that isn't a problem. Go sleep with her.”
“It's no’ that simple.”
“No kidding. She has a contract clause that says she can't sleep with you, remember? And she's the one who put that clause in there.”
“Aye. Good point.”
“This is super weird, Hamish. The man who sleeps with anything that has breasts and breathes–”
“HEY!”
“–won't sleep with the woman who put it in her employment contract that you can't sleep together, and then she gets mad at you when you... don't.”
“Yer hurtin’ ma head tryin’ to dissect this, Jody. But aye, that's about the measure of it.”
“I'm reaching for my own bottle of aspirin, Hamish. Man, I'm glad I'm off the market. Being married to Cori is no picnic, but it beats what you singles go through.”
“Amy won't answer her door, or any of ma texts, calls, or emails.”
“You emailed her?”
“Aye.”
“You're that desperate?”
“I am.”
“I never thought I'd see the day. The Striker, struck down by love. I figured your number would be retired long before your dick was.”
“HEY!”
“We're in friend mode now, not manager-athlete mode. You said so.”
“I didna know ye'd be so blunt. I wasna that bad.”
“Your nickname is McWhoremick.”
“I havena slept with a woman since Maddie.”
Jody coughs. “That was, what? Seven months ago?”
“Almost eight.”
“Ha ha.”
“I'm no' kidding.”
“Why didn't you tell us this before they hired a handler for you?”
“Would ye have believed me?”
“No.”
Blunt again. I deserve it.
“It's Amy, huh? Been Amy all along?” he asks.
“Aye. When she showed up in yer office that day, I was horrified, but I was also excited.”
“That's quite a combination.”
“Trust me, it was. Ma todger didna know whether to rise or run screaming.”
“I suspect your todger is capable of doing both at the same time.”
“Hm. I'm close to switching ye back to manager mode, Jody. Yer a bit of a prick as a friend.”
“I think if you love her this much, you need to go find her.”
“I'm trying! She's no' answering anything! I'll have to wait until the shoot, later today.”
“She's not answering because she left, Hamish.”
“WHAT?”
“She emailed Quintana. Something about a new deal. Needs a few days to work on it. You've been behaving yourself so well, and the jersey chasers are all going crazy with pictures of you and Amy, so Quintana agreed it was fine for Amy to go do this other deal.”
“She’s GONE?”
“Yes.”
“Where'd she go to?”
“Boston. I can't say more because the deal’s still confidential.”
“So it's no’ personal? She's no’ going home?”
“I don't know anything more.”
“Christ, Jody, yer killin' me! I need to get on a plane and find her! The longer she's away from me, the more she'll build a wall to keep me out. If I don't get to her soon, it'll be too late. She'll have an underground bunker complete with two bedrooms, a reading nook, five cats and – ”
“Then get off the phone and go find her, ye numpty.” The last two words are said in a miserable Scots accent.
“Yer a lousy friend, Jody, but a great manager. I need to leave the photo shoot. Can ye arrange it?”
“I'll try.”
“And book me a ticket to Boston? First direct flight possible. I'm on my way to LAX and I'll do standby, if need be.”
“That's going to take some time. Economy tickets are–”
“FIRST CLASS! BUSINESS CLASS! WHATEVER IT TAKES!”
“Whoa. You really do love her. On your own dime?”
I end the call and start shoving clothes in my bags. A quick shower is all I can manage before checking out. I have to get to LAX. She's likely there, waiting for a flight, and if I can get there in time, I can fix this.
If not, I'll find her in Boston.
And if I can't find her in Boston, I'll just keep trying.
First class feels very different when you're paying for it yourself.
And when you're dying inside.
I called Amy again–straight to voicemail. Marie and Jason as well. I don't know if they're shutting me out, or just busy. As we reach hour five in the air, the in-flight wi-fi finally stabilizes enough to check my email.
Nothing from her.
Which means I have to wait until I land to accomplish anything.
Chances are good she's gone straight to Mendon, but that's not a given. If she's really on business, she could be at the Maartensi offices, at some other company, or–who the hell knows.
All I know is that she's not with me.
I stand, pacing like a caged animal. If I don't stop, they're going to duct tape me to a seat. My need to move is so great, I'm ten seconds away from grabbing my football out of my carry-on and kicking it around in the toilet.
“Good news, folks,” the pilot announces. “Tail winds are stronger than normal, so we're about to start our descent. Please fasten seatbelts and...” His voice fades out as I force myself to sit back down, scrubbing my scalp with my fingers, downing the rest of my water.
If I can't get anyone on the phone, I'll just go to Declan's Grind It Fresh! office and torture her location out of him.
The landing is uneventful, and my seat is right by the exit. I'm sprinting through the terminal the second I'm off the plane, the stretch feeling good, my heart crying out for more. Nothing's checked, so I race to the car service area and try Declan's phone.
He picks up.
“What the hell do you want, dead man?”
“I see Amy's been talking to ye.”
“What did you do to her?”
“She–she didna tell ye?”
“She told us enough. Leave her alone.”
“I need to talk to her, Declan. I'm here in Boston. Plane just landed. Where is she? At Marie's? With ye?”
“You think I'm going to tell you where she is? Andrew and I had to get her out of L.A. because of you!”
“Get her out... what d'ye mean? She's in Boston on business!”
“That's the cover story, dumbass. She called me crying at six in the morning because of you. We–”
Someone with a deep voice in the background says, “Shhh. Don't explain anything to him.”
“Who's that?”
“None of your business.”
“Look, I'm desperate. I need to talk to her. To patch this up, fix it.”
“Too late, man. Too late.”
“We were in bed together, ye see? And it got complicated.”
“Complicated?” they both ask in unison.
“Who is that?”
“Andrew,” Declan snaps. “What the hell was complicated?”
“She–well...”
“Be very, very careful about the next words out of your mouth, Hamish,” Declan says in a deadly voice. “That's my sister-in-law you're talking about.”
“Ach, nae, Declan. I dinna want to brag or boast. No’ telling tales, but it's–what happened is why she ran.”
“You hurt her?”
“GOD, NO!” I bellow, glad there's no one else in the taxi line. “No!” I hiss.
“Then what?”
“She–it turns out she's–”
“What?”
“I dinna want to talk about this in public, cousin. Let's just say I need to make amends now, and yer no' helpin’ the matter by stallin’.”
“Andrew?” I hear a woman's voice in the background. “The jet arrived in Bedford from L.A., and the helicopter is landing in Worcester? Car's taking Amy to Mendon? And the jet'll be at Bedford for your trip to White Plains with your father?”
Gina. His assistant, the one who says everything like it’s a question.
Bless Gina.
“My father? What does he have to do with this?” Andrew hisses at her.
“Remember? They stopped in St. Louis and picked him up?”
“Did she just say Worcester?” I ask, certain I heard right. “Headed to Marie and Jason's?”
“Oh, shit!” Andrew exclaims. The phone goes on mute, but I've got what I needed. I hit End Call just as the attendant waves a taxi forward.
I can find her. I can explain. I can convince her.
I can do all of this because I don't have a choice.
I never did.
She's the only woman I want. Not right now. Not for a weekend, or a week.
Forever.
And I may have lost her already, but I have to try.
Try to get her to give me what I need.
Her.