“Do you remember how I said I could never love a man with no poetry in his soul?” I ask as I stir my cocktail with the tiny red straw they give you.
“I remember.” Alanna puts her forehead to mine in sympathy. “Are you ready to talk about him?”
When I burst into Alanna’s apartment, I told her everything. Well, mostly everything. Some of it is too crazy to even believe. And I left out the part about Gage kidnapping Lila, because it’s just too disturbing.
And I told her I wasn’t ready to talk about how I feel about Archer. Not now, maybe not ever.
We went for drinks when I was done. Thank goodness she’s got a cool bar right on the corner. And after two Manhattans, I think I’m finally ready to face my traitorous heart.
Because I do love him too. In all his reserved, withholding glory. He’s entirely wrong for me, but my heart doesn’t care. It wants him.
And I do too.
“He said he loved me.” I push a piece of ice past another with my straw. “Well, first he said he thought he loved me. Then he definitely said he loved me. It was the only thing that explained how he felt around me.”
Alanna winces. “Jesus. No, he’s definitely not a poet. In fact, he sounds like kind of a jackass. He thinks he loves you? Who says that?”
“He’s not a jackass,” I protest. “He just has trouble with figurative language.”
“Zara, honey, that’s not figurative language. There’s nothing more simple and straightforward than saying I love you. And he couldn’t do that.”
“At first. That first one was pretty bad,” I admit. “And he lied to me. By omission, yes, but it was a lot of it.”
“Am I supposed to talk you out of loving him or are you going to do it all by yourself?”
I fish out my maraschino cherry and bite it in half. “I don’t know that I can be talked out of it by anyone. It just is. And it’s very frustrating.”
“So why can’t you go back to him?”
“Well, for one, he’s in the middle of some tech-dystopian Agatha Christie novel.”
Alanna’s brow screws up. “I don’t even know how that would work. But okay. What else?”
“That one thing is more than enough.” But it doesn’t quite feel that way to my heart, which isn’t listening to good sense. “But also, after my reaction to him saying he loved me…” I look down at my drink, seeing his face in my memory. “He’s not going to forgive that. He doesn’t open up easily and he just… He practically ripped open his chest for me. And I said no.”
“So, he’s involved in a murder mystery.” Alanna ticks off on her fingers. “And unable to forgive. Yeah, that’s not great. Have you talked to him since you kicked him out of the car?”
I lift a finger. “He kicked himself out of the car, let’s get that straight. And no, I haven’t. I sent word through his assistant that he can only talk to me through my agent.”
Alanna’s mouth drops open. “You’re still doing the imprint thing?”
“I wasn’t. I thought it was dead, but the morning after he kicked himself out of the car, I got a call from my agent. She said she’d just talked to Archer himself and he was very, very committed to moving forward and that I should be hiring people now.”
“Huh.” Alanna shakes the ice in her empty glass. “So maybe he might forgive. If you talked to him.”
He might. The thought is desperately appealing. I could go to him, say I was sorry…
But for what? What do I really have to apologize for? He said he had noble reasons, but he still lied to me. And although she did betray my trust, I can’t get the image of Lila out of my mind. Where is she now?
I’ll have to contact Archer to ask about her at least. And I can’t do that through my agent.
“I don’t know,” I say, swirling the ice in my glass. There’s something soothing about the ting of the ice against the glass, the light swish of the liquid as it moves over the cubes. “Actually, I do know.”
I miss him. I miss him terribly, how he’d argue with me in that oh so dry tone, how he could be so absolutely feral when he was aroused and so utterly vulnerable at times too.
I want him here right now so we can share a drink and talk about the amazingly crazy week we’ve both had. And what’s happening with the notebooks. And what Lila was up to when she pretended to be my friend and what she was up to in that bank. And how insane it is that Tynan is still alive.
Afterward, when we were all talked out—or, let’s be honest, when I was talked out—we’d go back to his place and lose all our worries in each other.
It sounds like a too-perfect dream. Because it is.
It’s a dream that leaves out all the messy details of being with him, like the conspiracies and deaths and people coming back from the dead. Messy details that I’m not equipped to deal with. Messy details that he didn’t think I was worthy of knowing about.
I’m worth more than that, and that’s not only my ego talking.
“What do you know?” Alanna asks.
I fill my lungs, feeling fresh oxygen move through me. I fill them until it almost hurts, because sometimes it does hurt to do what’s necessary.
“That it’s over,” I say. “That it can never be.”
Wow, that did not feel good to say. The crack in my heart widens into a fissure, and I put my hand to my chest as if I might actually be able to stop it.
Alanna’s expression veers between concern and relief. “I know what he did sucked, but… Are you sure you want to be so definite? Maybe someday…” She lifts her palms, unable to come up with anything that could paper over the gulf between Archer and me.
“I have to be so definite. And you have to hold me to it. If I start to waver, you have to slap me out of it. Promise.” I hold out my pinkie to her.
She stares at my outstretched hand, then finally nods. “Okay, you’re right. He’s scum and good riddance.” She hooks her pinkie around mine, strong, resolved. “And I promise to slap you whenever he comes up.”
“Wait, not whenever he comes up. This isn’t a free slaps card I’m giving you.”
She puts her forehead against mine, and I think I might cry I feel so loved. And because I still miss that bastard even after deciding that I’ll never make up with him.
“Come on, just one little slap,” Alanna says. “You might like it.”
She’s trying to cheer me up, and while I appreciate it, after Archer’s teasing it’s not quite the same. But I’m not going to have Archer again, so I’m just going to have to suck it up and appreciate my awesome friend. Who isn’t involved in a murder conspiracy. And really wants to slap me.
“How about instead of doing that,” I ask, “we figure out the branding for my imprint? You know I want you to do the logo, right?”
Her arm comes around me and she squeezes tight as if to say I know how hard you’re trying right now not to think of him.
I’m probably going to be wrestling with that conundrum for the rest of my life.