Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AUDREY
When I got home from the restaurant, I spent hours scrolling back and forth through Toni’s social media since Christmas, especially Instagram where she was most active. When we returned home from Aspen, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t stalk her online. What was done was done and it was time for both of us to move on. It didn’t take long for work to take over my life and for my curiosity about Toni and what she was doing to only encroach on my thoughts once an hour or so instead of every time I saw something at the office that reminded me of her. ( Everything at the office reminded me of her. A ballpoint pen reminded me of her.) Obviously, I avoided the conference room at all costs.
Toni’s presence was felt despite not being in the office. Longtime employees, and most Fourteener Sports employees were longtime employees, all had Toni stories. Universally funny, oftentimes nerve-racking. My palms would sweat with fear when Ned talked about some of the more extreme stunts Toni pulled as a child, despite knowing that Toni would live through each and every harebrained one of them. There were an almost equal amount of Greta stories. It was an open secret that Toni was motivated to go one step further than Greta to prove herself. I’d never realized that meant that Greta had her own thick volume of athletic achievements, and an equal amount of admiration and respect from her employees. Every day I understood why Willa felt at home here, why she might want to stay.
And how I might have taken that opportunity away from her.
I’m in the kitchen making French toast on Sunday morning, soaking thick slices of French bread in a cinnamon-flavored egg mixture, when Willa walks out of her bedroom.
Her eyes light up. “French toast?”
“Yep.” I pour her a cup of coffee and set it on the kitchen island. She sits on a stool, takes a fortifying sip, and gazes at me over the rim. She surveys the cut fruit, French toast, coffee, and a cute little bouquet of flowers I saw when checking out at Whole Foods late last night. She raises one eyebrow and I’m busted.
“OK, I went overboard.”
“Ya think?”
“Honestly? Probably not. I have a lot to apologize for.”
Willa hums a response, drinks her coffee, and remains silent.
“I shouldn’t have slept with Toni so soon. I handled her kissing me and telling me she loved me horribly, and I’ve been so self-absorbed since I’ve ignored that you’re going through your own stuff and need me to be here for you.”
I exhale, and Willa remains silent. She puts her mug down carefully and says, “Acknowledging all the ways you fucked everything up isn’t the same as apologizing for all the ways you fucked everything up.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Willa. You have every right to be angry with me. You’ve been my rock for so long, supporting me through everything with Shae, always putting me first, that I came to expect it. Not intentionally, because I absolutely don’t think I’m your responsibility. I don’t want to be, and I don’t want you to feel like I am. But, yeah. You’ve been selfless and I’ve been self-absorbed and I’m really, really sorry. I love you more than anyone on this earth, and it kills me to know that you’ve been hurting and didn’t want to come to me about it, that I wasn’t your person. It’s my fault I wasn’t. But I’m here now, and forever. Whatever you need, whenever you need it.”
“We’ll start with a hug, then French toast.”
I go around the counter and, for the first time in a long time, pull my sister into an embrace. She collapses into me and buries her head in my shoulder. She shakes slightly, and I hold her tighter.
“I’m so sorry, Willa.”
She pulls back and sniffs loudly. Her eyes are red and watery. “Stop apologizing. I forgive you.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened with you and Greta?”
“No, actually.”
“Oh. OK.” The denial stings, but this isn’t about me.
“I’m over it,” she says. My expression must show my skepticism because she amends, “Mostly. I just don’t want to go back there.”
Jesus, what the hell happened? I think.
“We didn’t sleep together,” Willa says. “We had a moment, it passed, and now we’ve moved on.”
I’m pretty sure that’s the biggest oversimplification in the history of the world, but I don’t press.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you eventually,” Willa says. I exhale loudly in relief and Willa laughs. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m holding back to torture you a bit.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“You deserve it.”
“I totally do.”
“I’m sorry for what I said to you last night,” Willa says. “I mean, you needed to hear it, obviously, but I could have been a little gentler about it.”
“I probably wouldn’t have gotten the message if you were.”
“True.”
We eat for a few minutes and I’m ginning up the courage to ask her about her date when Willa says, “I channeled my anger with Greta toward how you treated Toni because there are some…slight similarities.”
Willa isn’t looking at me so I know not to probe too directly. “Oh?”
“Very slight. More of a turn your head and squint kind of similarities.”
I hum my response, hoping that Willa will elaborate. When she remains silent I ask the question I’ve been dying to ask for hours.
“So, how was your date?”
Willa glances up at me. “Let’s just say I have a new friend, and only a friend. Probably more of a business contact.”
“Were you not attracted to her?”
“Oh, no. She’s a smokeshow,” Willa says. “But she was also terrifying.”
“In what way?”
“A very sexy way.”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling.
“I’m definitely not ready for that,” Willa says. “Once I told her, she dropped the whole I want to eat you for breakfast facade and we had a great time.”
“Well, it was good for you to get out there again.”
“Agreed. Now, enough about that. How long did you stay last night? Did Greta ever show?”
I fill her in on seeing Shae and the news about Toni.
“Yeah,” she says slowly. “I’ve been keeping up with her social media, too. I wasn’t trying to punish you by not telling you. I knew you couldn’t take the idea of Toni being over everything so soon, so I kept my mouth shut.”
“That’s not it,” I say. “I’m glad she’s moved on. She needs to move on. I just hate how I did it. That I was cruel.”
“You’re a better woman than I am, because I would be livid,” Willa says.
“I don’t have any right to be, though, do I? I broke it off, whatever there was to break off.”
“Oh please,” Willa says. “Don’t pretend you weren’t half in love with her, Audrey. Not with me. You can say whatever shit you want to the world, but not to me.”
I pick at my fruit as my heart clenches in my chest. “You’re right,” I say softly. “When I was saying those cruel things, watching Toni’s face collapse, the other side of my brain was screaming What the fuck are you doing, this is wrong, this woman is worth it .” I lift my eyes to meet Willa’s. “It was too much too soon. I wasn’t ready.”
Willa’s eyes narrow and her mouth goes tight. I’ve hit a nerve. I’m not sure what she’s going to say when she opens her mouth.
“And now? If you were to see Toni tomorrow, what would you do?”
My heart leaps at the thought of seeing Toni, looking into those blue eyes, seeing her sitting on the corner of someone’s desk, telling a story and laughing, looking at me like I’m her Christmas puppy. The way just being around her relaxes me and makes me happy.
“I have absolutely no clue.”
I’m running late, which I never do. But for some reason only God knows I decided to go to yoga this morning for the first time in months. My plan to get ready there was ruined when I opened my bag to shower and saw no makeup and no fresh bra. By the time I ran home to get ready, I had to fight traffic to get to the office and I make it to my desk at 08:55, a good hour later than normal. I texted Willa, so everyone knows I’m on my way. Being late is my biggest pet peeve and I’m almost running down the hall to make the Monday staff meeting, looking down at my phone to check the time, three minutes to go, and do not see the person coming out of the break room.
We collide at full force, knocking my phone across the hall, my bag off my shoulder, and spilling coffee all over the other person’s shirt.
“Shit,” we say at the same time, before everything freezes.
I know who I’m going to see before our eyes meet and, based on her expression, she did, too.
My entire body lights up with joy at the sight of her, those sparkling blue eyes, the flyaway hair that can never be tamed by her braid, the curve of her full bottom lip. And then she smiles at me, open and unreserved and full of happiness, like she used to every time she saw me, and I am bowled over with an absolute certainty.
I am in love with Toni Danzig.
The relief is so palpable I laugh and grin.
Toni mistakes it for something else and joins in. “Yeah, we gotta stop meeting like this.”
It’s then that I notice that it’s her shirt covered in coffee this time. “Oh my God I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. It’s flannel. Practically indestructible.” She turns back into the break room to refill her cup.
I follow her, the fifteen people waiting in the conference room forgotten. “It’s good to see you,” I say. “I didn’t know you were going to be in the office.”
With a new cup, she turns. “I didn’t either until last night. Greta made a pretty convincing case, and it was time.” She looks me up and down, but there’s no heat, no wanting in her expression. It’s very different from her smile moments before. “How are you?”
“Besides running late, I’m good. Pretty good. Busy with work.”
“Yeah.”
We stand there, at a loss as to what to say next.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt.
“Really, it’s OK, Audrey.” Toni lifts her shirt and takes a sniff. “Though I don’t really want to smell like coffee all day.” She puts the cup down and, without unbuttoning the shirt, whips it off over her head. For a split second I think I’m going to see those wonderful abs again and, in a way, I do. Toni is wearing a form-fitting base layer in Fourteener blue that hugs every single one of her curves. It’s like the shirt was vacuum sealed onto her body and I feel so lightheaded I think I’m going to faint.
“Do you want some coffee? Or cider?” Toni offers.
Apparently she’s oblivious to the effect she’s having on me, but how the fuck is that possible? My mouth is gaping open. I know this because when I shut it my back teeth click together.
“Yes, coffee would be great.”
She drapes her soiled flannel across the back of a chair and returns to the coffee bar, her back to me, giving me a clear view of her ass in those confounded hiking pants. Before she reaches for the coffee, she pulls the long sleeves of her shirt halfway up her forearms.
Someone is playing very dirty.
“Here you go,” she says. She sets the cup down on the table. “See you in there.”
“Wait,” I say, touching her arm. Energy hums from her arm through my hand like a current. She stops and looks at me with her eyes, electric blue against the color of her shirt. She shifts her arm so that we aren’t touching, and my stomach falls. “I wasn’t apologizing for the shirt, though I am sorry for that.” OK, that’s a total lie because oh my God I will never regret Toni taking off that boxy flannel shirt. “I was apologizing for Christmas Eve.”
Her expression goes blank. “Oh. If it’s all the same, I’d rather just leave the past in the past.”
“Oh, but I?—”
“You were right. It was too much too soon, and that’s on me. You were right about a lot of it, I see that now. You weren’t ready for anything serious, and I mean, who can blame you after that shitshow with Shae? And I didn’t think I could handle just having fun. With you. We’re just at two different points in our life. We would have had to work really hard to make us work and who wants to do that?” She shakes her head. “I don’t. Over the last couple of months, I realized I really liked my life, my social life, the way it was. So, really. It’s all good.” She holds out her hand. “Friends?”
“Um, yeah.” I reach out to shake Toni’s hand in a daze, and not in the trippy LSD peace love and happiness kind of daze. Shake her hand, for God’s sake! When what I wanted to do five minutes ago was to push her up against the wall and shove my tongue down her throat.
Her hand is strong and thin, with a ridge of calluses where the palm meets her fingers, but her touch is gentle, as if she’s afraid of the contact. As well she should be. Her eyes darken with an expression I know very well, and a lightning bolt of desire strikes deep inside me. She holds my gaze for a second, two, then drops it to my lips.
“Who knows,” she says, barely above a whisper. Her gaze travels back to meet mine. “Maybe we will see each other across the room in a crowded bar again soon.” She drops my hand, steps back, and grins. “Could be fun.”
“Hey, where’s my coffee?” Willa appears in the door. “Oh, hey, Auds, didn’t realize you made it. Come on. We’re waiting on you two.”
Toni hands my sister the forgotten mug. “Here you go, Miranda Priestly.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Willa says. I can still hear her voice as they walk down the hall. “Though I always saw myself more as the Emily Blunt character.”
Toni laughs. “No way in hell.”
What in the world just happened here?
It takes every ounce of energy and effort I have to put one foot in front of the other and follow them. I have fifteen seconds to pull myself together before I walk into the conference room.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it in a lifetime.