Terms + Conditions (Strangers #3)

Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THEN

May 2022

SOMEHOW, I LET NICK talk me into coming with him to New York for an interview. It’s a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of May, and instead of being at work, I’m sitting on the patio at Raised Bistro—a restaurant on the outskirts of Central Park and Columbus Circle. His interview isn’t until tomorrow, but we got here a day early to meet with Dean Monroe, Nick’s friend from Boston University. Dean is textbook tall, dark, and handsome, as cliché as that sounds. Piercing green eyes and dusty brown hair matched with perfectly tanned skin. The kind of tan that isn’t too tan, but just the right amount. Since I met him two years ago, I’ve always wondered if it’s natural or if he goes to a tanning salon. His right arm, covered in black ink, rests comfortably behind his best friend of almost twenty years: Raeanne DeLuca.

His missing puzzle piece, he said when he introduced us an hour or so ago, but I have yet to determine if that means she is actually his girlfriend. I can’t remember him mentioning her in the past, or maybe I just assumed he didn’t have a steady girlfriend considering how many other girls he has always chased after.

Rae has natural sun-kissed skin that most girls pay hundreds of dollars for. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, and her dark hair falls down her shoulders in easy waves. She’s part Columbian, at least I think that’s what Nick said, and she reminds me a lot of Nina.

Dean’s hand grazes her bare shoulder while her hand rests in his lap, and she laughs along to the story Nick just finished telling about a drunken night with Dean. I think it’s the lost-in-a-Boston-suburb story, but I haven’t been listening, my mind wandering to the woman I’ve been missing for the past week. We haven’t talked much. She’s been busy being upset with me because I refused to drop everything and run off to California with her.

Rae excuses herself from the table, Nick waits for the door to close before he turns to Dean. “So, when are you gonna lock it down?”

“What?” Dean laughs.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Rae?” Dean seems shocked, and we both give him a look as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Me and Rae? I told you, it’s not like that. She’s my best friend!”

“Who you sleep with,” Nick says.

So, not his girlfriend, but they sleep together. Friends with benefits kind of deal. Got it.

“I mean…” Dean draws out the last syllable, trying to think of an excuse, but it doesn’t seem like he can find one good enough. “Yeah, so? Friends with benefits is a thing.”

“Dean.” I scoff.

“It’s not that serious.”

“That’s not what you said before,” Nick counters, turning to me to add, “Mr. it’s-not-that-serious here got drunk a few years ago and told me he’s always wanted more with Rae. That was before they ever slept together.”

“That was never supposed to happen!” Dean defends himself.

“You were the idiot who suggested being friends with benefits when you could’ve just told her how you felt.”

Dean sighs. “I just don’t want her to settle. She could do much better than me. You should have seen the last guy she was with; he was some hot shot at a consulting firm. He made killer money. He was always taking her on fancy vacations and buying her nice stuff.”

“You think that matters?”

“Of course it does. Women like that shit.” Dean rolls his eyes.

“You’re a dumbass,” Nick laughs, shaking his head.

“Well, if I am, what does that make you?”

And the point goes to…Dean.

Damn, that was a good one. They are still locked in a glaring contest when Rae rejoins us. She looks at me, confused, and asks, “What did I miss?”

“Not much.” Dean finally breaks the stare and squeezes her thigh reassuringly. “I was just telling Nick that he should come to the cabin for Memorial Day.”

“Yes! Nick, you have to. Everyone would love to have you.”

I didn’t think Nick’s face could fall any further, but I was wrong. His mouth falls into a straight line, and his gaze narrows. “You’re not gonna try and set me up again, are you?”

“Dean, you didn’t.” Rae turns to her best friend.

“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend!” Dean throws his hands up in defense.

Before I can say anything, Nick doesn’t even turn to look at me. He just holds up his finger in my direction and says, “Shut up.” Then he points it at Dean. “Not my girlfriend.”

“May as well be,” Dean says, earning an eye roll from my cousin. “Nick admitted his feelings for this girl and then ran off to Boston.”

“That is not what happened.”

“Pretty much,” I say, laughing when Nick shoots me a look that says Shut up .

“You spent the summer at her family house, slept together, and then you ran,” Dean counters.

“Sounds a lot like someone else I know,” Nick smirks.

Point Nick.

And now we’re tied.

Raeanne looks between them. “So you were dating or…I’m confused.”

“It’s a complicated story, but in the end, we agreed it was best if we spent some time apart…to find ourselves.”

“And I had no idea he had a girlfriend, so I tried to set him up with this girl’s roommate because they were a package deal,” Dean says.

“I wasn’t looking to be set up.”

“Because you still have feelings for this girl?” Raeanne says it as if it were the simplest thing in the world. And it could be if he and Nina weren’t two of the most stubborn people on the damn planet.

“Why don’t you bring her with you to the cabin for the holiday weekend?” Dean suggests when Nick doesn’t answer. Raeanne agrees with him, but I can tell Nick is leaning towards no. It’s been almost three years since he and Nina have seen each other. I thought things would have been cleared up by now, but they’ve held up their “agreement.” Somehow they have even managed to successfully avoid one another at family events.

“We haven’t talked or seen each other in…a long time. Don’t you think it would be a little weird to call out of the blue and invite her on a trip?” Nick asks as if he could hear my thoughts.

“How long is a long time?” Raeanne asks.

Nick’s lack of response catches my attention. He weighs the answer in his mind before finally saying, “A while.”

What does that mean? Have they been talking? I know he’s sent her flowers in the past, but that was on the first anniversary of Ric’s death. Unless they have been talking and keeping it a secret…Does Elizabeth know that? Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t Nick tell me? God, I’m so tired of our lives being filled with so many secrets.

“We talk in our own way.”

“What does that mean?” Raeanne asks for all of us.

“He sends her flowers,” Dean smirks behind his water glass.

Raeanne swoons. “That’s so romantic!”

“Isn’t it?” Dean adds to her swoon. “Roses and peonies. Occasionally throws in something else, but always roses and peonies.”

“It’s weird you know that,” Nick huffs.

“You know those are both flowers of romance and love, right?” Raeanne swoons.

“I’m a secret romantic, sue me.” Nick shrugs, sipping his coffee.

“Just call her, then! It’s been long enough, don’t you think?”

“I’d say,” I whisper, earning a glare from Nick, but Dean smirks behind his water. He didn’t say it, but he sure was thinking it.

“What does she do?”

“She’s an interior designer and decorator but has been helping her brother run their family company for a while now.”

You can tell by the way Nick talks about it he’s extremely proud of Nina. We all are. She has stepped into her own the past two and a half years, opening three new DV offices, and stepping into a bigger role at Villa Inc. to help Kai shoulder some of the weight so he can enjoy being a first-time dad. She’s given a few seminars and guest lectures, all in the hopes of helping others learn how to be successful. I don’t know how she manages to do it all. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

“So, she likes to stay busy.”

“Very.”

But as proud as we are, we all know Nina tends to overwork herself. There have been a handful of times I’ve seen her break down from exhaustion and stress, only to pull herself back together almost immediately and keep going.

“Wasn’t she named Designer of the Year or something?” Dean asks.

“Wait.” Raeanne’s eyes light up, the realization crossing her features. “Are you talking about Davina Villa?” When no one answers, she gasps. “Oh my gosh, you’re in love with Davina Villa? My sister is obsessed with her! Dean, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Not my business.” He shrugs.

“Why are you applying in New York? You could just work with her!”

“I don’t want to use her for that,” Nick says and sinks a little further into his chair.

“I’m sure she—”

“Rae,” Dean cuts her off. “He doesn’t want to.”

“It’s okay.” Nick offers her a small smile when Raeanne sinks back into her chair. “I don’t want to ask something like that of her. She’s given me a lot, more than I could ever repay her for. And I guess I want to do it on my own. Prove something to myself.”

When Nick first told me about their agreement to spend time apart and, quote, “get their lives together,” I called bullshit. They could have made it work, or maybe I just hoped they would. Watching them live apart over the past few years, it was glaringly obvious neither of them was searching for anyone else. They were biding their time until they could find their way back to each other. And anytime someone (ahem, Alex) would bring it up, Nick would tell him the same thing. He wanted to do this on his own; he had to work on himself so he could be who Nina needed him to be.

Every time he said it, I felt like I was listening to myself. I had never said it to Nick before, but I think he knew how I felt about the difference between me and Elizabeth, and now he was going through the same thing with Nina. Maybe it was a Davis man thing…grasping for the women outside of our league. And no matter what we did, we felt like we had to work twice as hard to belong in their world.

It was sweet, though. Watching him and Nina try to make it work despite it all gave me hope that Elizabeth and I could do the same. Nick and I were cut from the same cloth. If he and Nina could find a way to work through those differences…

Except Nick had earned the right to this life the right way, unlike me.

“So, off the topic of Ms. Villa,” Dean changes the subject. “Are you gonna come to the cabin or what? I promise not to try and set you up.”

Nick rolls his eyes but agrees.

When Dean looks at me, I say, “My wife will never leave Nina on a holiday.”

“Won’t have to if Nicky boy over here gets his act together,” Dean says.

Nick walks out of the three-story walk-up and greets me with a shake of his head. Not this one. Not the one before, or the one before that, either.

“How’d it go?” I ask, meeting him at the bottom of the steps.

He shrugs. “Okay, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I don’t know if it’s the right fit.”

“You’ve said that about every single one so far.”

“And every single one just hasn’t felt like the one .”

“Because you’re avoiding ‘the one.’”

Every firm he had interviewed with, from Boston to New York to California to Texas, had yet to feel like the right choice. He said he couldn’t figure out why. He said it was just a feeling .

It was bullshit. We knew why, but I never pushed the issue because I knew he’d give me the same answer he gave Raeanne yesterday.

“Oh, you may want to check your phone.” I try to hide my smirk when I hand it to him. “It was blowing up the whole time you were in there.”

“What in the world?” Nick scrolls through the multitude of notifications on the lock screen. Over five missed calls from Alex, at least fifteen texts, and one missed call from Michaela. “Didn’t they call you?”

“Who?”

Nick narrows his gaze but calls one of them back. Barely after the first ring, I can hear Alex yell, “Dude!” through the other end of the phone. “You’ll never guess—”

“Yes, my interview went fine, thanks,” Nick quips, putting the phone on speaker.

“Okay, cool. Nick, listen.”

“Spit it out.”

“You’ll never guess who is in New York!”

“I don’t know, Alex. The queen? I thought something was wrong. You called me five times and sent me a million texts.”

“No.” Alex scoffs. “Why would the queen come to New York?”

“Alex, I don’t know.” Nick groans, rubbing the crease between his brows.

“Nina.”

Nick almost drops his phone. Wide eyes meet mine, and I can’t hide my smirk anymore.

“She showed up to my graduation after you left.”

“That was nice.” Nick’s voice betrays him. He’s probably wondering what would have happened if he had stayed just a little longer at his brother’s graduation ceremony instead of rushing off to New York. “Alex, you better not be fucking with me.”

“I’m not! Mic and Elizabeth are with her. They’re checking out offices. Call MJ. I’m sure she can tell you—”

Nick doesn’t wait for Alex to finish, hanging up the phone and looking at me. “Did you know?”

“I may have heard something.”

“And you didn’t want to share that information?”

“Elizabeth just told me when I called her while you were in there.”

That part was true; she had told me she landed in New York a little bit ago, and they would be going to look at another office shortly. A space that just came up on the market, and Nina was sure it was the one. But I don’t have to tell him I knew they’d be coming to town last week, do I? I didn’t even know we’d be here until a few days ago.

“Nina found a new office at the last minute and wanted to check it out.”

Nick doesn’t wait. He dials another number. “Mic?” I can only imagine the struggle my sister is facing to keep a straight face while she stands next to Nina right now. That loudmouth is probably ready to shout from the rooftops that Nick is on the line. “I hear you’re in the city.”

Walking down Fifth Avenue toward the park, I can feel the nerves radiating off my cousin. It’s making me nervous. Michaela called back about an hour ago to tell Nick that one, Nina had offered her the opportunity to take over the New York office, and two, Nina would be going for a run before dinner. And, according to Nick, the only place she’d go for a run in the city was Central Park. How he knew where to find her was beyond me, but he said he had a feeling he knew where she’d be.

“The fountain is about fifteen minutes through the park,” I say, standing on the corner of Fifth Ave and 59th. “You’re sure that’s where she’ll be?”

“Positive.” Nick takes a deep breath, staring into the green space before us. “I’m doing the right thing, right?”

“You’re doing what you should’ve done years ago.”

He stonewalls me.

“Yes.” I laugh. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“I’m gonna ask her to marry me.” It comes out in a quick breath, and at first, I think he must be joking.

“Wait. You’re serious?” I ask when he finally rips his gaze from the park to meet mine.

“Why not? I love her.”

It’s simple, but it’s honest and the only thing that matters. And it makes my heart ache at the thought.

I smile and clamp my hand down on his shoulder. “Go get her.”

Nick takes another breath before heading through the park. When he’s gone, I pull out my phone to call my wife. She answers, “Yes?”

Just like earlier, her answers are short and quick. Our relationship has been a little…strained recently. Work has been stressful and I’ve been spending more time in the office than at home. We’ve fallen into a bad routine. Being so busy at work, I’ve missed a few date nights, a few game nights, and a few spontaneous trips; leading to one big fight that we haven’t completely gotten over yet. That she hasn’t completely gotten over.

My job is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) issues in our relationship. I put in a lot of time at the office, not only because I enjoy my job, but because it proves I can be successful on my own. I was given this job because of my connection to the Villas—to my wife—and because of that connection, I’ve felt an even bigger need to prove myself worthy from the first day I started at QC Marketing.

Elizabeth doesn’t get it. How could she? She’s never had to work for what she has, not really.

It’s quiet for a brief moment before she tries to get off the phone.

“Liz,” I interrupt her. “I love you. I know I may not say it often or do the right things all the time…But I love you, Sugar. And I’m sorry.”

There’s a deep breath on the other end before, “Manhatta, eight o’clock. The reservation is under Nina.”

The line goes dead.

While it may not be exactly the response I wanted, it’s a start.