Chapter 2
Two
Zoey
“ W ait a minute,” my cousin Zara says, slapping her hand on the table in front of her, “you told him what?” She’s flabbergasted. Her eyeballs look like they are going to jump out of their sockets.
I put down the cup of coffee I’ve been holding in my hand since I got on the FaceTime call with her two minutes ago. I sent her an SOS text in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep because I was replaying the worst night I’d ever had in my whole life. The minute she read it at nine o’clock in the morning, my phone was ringing. “We were having dinner.” My hands start to shake when I relive it out loud and put it out in the universe. I mean, it’s already out in the universe, but it was just between Josh and me, and now that I’m telling Zara, it’ll be sort of reality. “I looked over at him and asked him where this was going.”
“Just like that?” she balks. “Hey, can you pass the salt, and by the way, Josh, where are we taking this?”
“I mean, not in those words, obviously,” I state. “More like, we’ve been with each other for over two years now, and it’s like we’ve just started dating. You live at your place; I live at mine. We see each other a couple of times a week, but there is nothing more. I want to know where I’m going in the future.”
I didn’t think Zara’s eyes could get bigger, but I was wrong. “And what did he say?”
“He was like, I love you, Zoey, you know this. I just, I like having my space, doing my own thing,” I repeat the words that made my heart sink. “What we have is perfect. So I told him it wasn’t perfect. Nothing that we had was perfect. Did we love each other? Yes, I know we do, but I want to know he can’t live without me. I want him to want to rush home to be with me. I want him to be like, I don’t know, my parents.” I throw up my hands.
My parents met when my mother found a picture of her boyfriend’s engagement photo online and then tweeted my father to crash the wedding with her. Well, that worked out so well they ended up not even going to the wedding but planning their own. “I want to know this relationship is going somewhere and I’m not wasting my time with him. Like, are we in this forever or is it just for the moment? Am I being selfish by giving him an ultimatum? I guess you can say that, but let’s not waste anyone’s time.” I’m trying to give myself a pep talk without giving myself a pep talk.
“You’re not being selfish.” Zara tries to make me feel better. Our mothers are twin sisters and we are both named after the other sister; it is what makes our bond so unique. I mean, all of my cousins and I grew up more like siblings than cousins, but Zara and I, we were always just the two of us. “And you're right. If you don’t know what you want after two years, then he’s the problem and not you,” she says softly, watching my face. “So how did you end it?”
“I ended it with, perhaps we need time and space away from each other. You do your thing, I do my thing, and we’ll see if we are really meant for each other.” I say the words as my stomach tightens.
“For how long?” She asks the loaded question I’ve been asking myself all night long.
“I never said.” I pick up my cup of coffee again, my mouth going dry. “I waited a whole five minutes for him to talk me out of what I was saying.” I swallow down the coffee that was hot but is now warm. “But he said nothing and just stared at me. It was more of a me saying this and more of him nodding and not saying anything. I mean, I gave him time, and when he didn’t say anything, I just got up and left.”
“You what?” she shrieks, and I have to admit that me leaving shocked even me. “Did he chase you?”
“He did not,” I admit sadly.
“Fuck him,” she snaps. “Fuck him and his bullshit horse he rode in on.”
I laugh because it doesn’t even make sense, but it makes enough sense to me that I get it. “Since he’s in finance, I think he rides the bull down on Wall Street.”
“Well, whatever he is riding, it’s not going to be you.”
I point at the screen. “He is definitely not riding me anymore.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep inhale. “How are you feeling, for real?”
“Sad,” I admit, blinking away the tears that threaten to come on full force. “I mean, I came home and took a bath with a bottle of wine.”
“Oh my God.” She puts her hand to her mouth.
“And then I cried for about two hours straight. I almost busted out Celine Dion’s ‘All by Myself,’ but I refrained,” I say proudly.
“You should have busted out Beyoncé and the ‘Hold Up’ song where she smashes everything with a bat.”
“I should have,” I agree, “but now it’s said and done.”
“I’m shocked he didn’t even come to your place after you left him in the restaurant. I mean, maybe he was in shock, but when the shock wore off, he should have chased you home,” she replies to me hopefully, and I just shake my head. “I mean, what a dick. Even if he did, you wouldn’t answer.”
“I would have.” I don’t bother lying to her. “I would have. I one hundred percent would have opened that door and taken it all back. If he gave me even one inch of indication he wanted me, I would have.”
“We should go away this weekend,” she says. “Go away to a spa.”
“We are already leaving in a couple of weeks for our annual family vacation,” I remind her, and she groans. “Exactly. We need to conserve all our energy for that one.”
I’m about to say something else when I see a text come through on my phone. It goes away after a second, but I think my eyes are deceiving me.
I click on my messages and see his name right away. Nash.
Nash: Hey, Zoey, I have a question for you. Call me when you get a chance.
My head literally spins at his message. Nash and I met a couple of years ago when he crashed one of our family vacations. He tagged along with his brother, Caine, who had just married into Matty’s, my cousin, in-laws’ family. To say I spotted him right away would be the understatement of the year. He had one of the best bodies I’ve ever seen, and most of the men in my family play professional hockey, so I’ve seen my share of good bodies. But it was his crystal-blue eyes that were mesmerizing. I could picture myself just being sucked into them. I won’t even tell you about the number of tats all over his arms. The minute he shook my hand, I got butterflies in my stomach, which I thought was the stupidest thing ever. Then I did what any normal woman would do when they meet the hottest man they’ve ever set eyes on—I avoided him the rest of the vacation. Over the years, we’ve passed each other once or twice, and each time, I’ve tried not to spend any time with him. But every time I’m around him, I’m drawn to him, which I try to one thousand percent ignore.
“What are you doing?” Zara’s voice makes me blink my eyes a couple of times. “You look like you’ve spaced out.”
“Yeah, I just got a message is all. I have to get to work.”
“Okay, well, if you need me to come over and bring Chinese food, just say the word.” She smiles at me. “We can make a voodoo doll and stick needles in his junk.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “That actually sounds like fun. I’ll call you later.”
“Love you,” she says, disconnecting.
I look down at the text again, reading it for the second time. He has a question for me. “What does that even mean?” I tap the table around the phone, wondering if I should even answer him. I don’t think he’s ever texted me since he took my number down the first night I met him.
I’m about to say something else when my phone pings loudly with another text, and I see it’s from him. I about jump out of my chair and duck for cover, like he’s right in front of me instead of in my phone.
Nash: Just in case you are wondering who it is. It’s Nash.
I shake my head at his second text.
Me: Who?
I press send and wait for the bubble to come up, letting me know he’s texting me, but instead, my phone rings with his name flashing across the top. Nash Griffin. Why does seeing his name excite me?
I think about sending it to voicemail, but I just literally responded to him.
I slide my finger across the bottom of the screen. “Hello,” I answer and close my eyes for sounding too cheerful, like I’m happy he called.
“Well, well, well…” I hear his smooth voice across the phone, and I can picture his smirk as he talks to me. “If it isn’t the Zoey Richards.” I literally bite my lip not to smile but then fail.
“Well, well, well.” I smile. “If it isn’t the Nash Griffin.” I play his game. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Griffin?”
“Oh, I like that,” he says. “You need to call me Mr. Griffin more often.” I roll my eyes. “Heck, I’d take you saying more than fifty words to me before you avoid the shit out of me.”
I open my mouth in shock, looking down at the phone in the middle of my desk. “I do not avoid you.” I can’t believe he caught the game I was playing. I mean, I wasn’t really playing the game, but still he actually realized what I was doing.
“Really?” He stops talking for a second. “Interesting.”
I want to be not interested, nothing about this is interesting, but instead, I go on the defense. “Is this the question you had to ask me?”
“It is not.” He chuckles. “I was calling because I need to discuss something with you.”
“With me?” I ask, shocked. “What would you need to discuss with me?” My heart speeds up from a soft beat to a full-blown thumping.
“Caine and I were thinking of updating our social media and making it less…” He trails off as he thinks of a word, so I help him out.
“Dry?” I fill in the blank.
“It’s finance. It doesn’t get drier than that,” he jokes with me. “But we need someone who can revamp the website and do some social media for us.”
“Okay.” I lean back in my chair in my home office. “And you want me to do it for you?”
“Well, you always go with the best in the business, so yes, we want you to do it.”
“You don’t even know what I do.” I stare down at the phone, watching the time go by, telling me how long we’ve been on the call.
“I know that you do public relations for all, if not most, of your family’s social media accounts,” he replies. “I know you have single-handedly turned three companies’ PR nightmares into yesterday’s news, and not one person even brings up the shit they got in trouble for.” This man just shocks the shit out of me. “Now, do you want me to give you names, or are we good?”
I tap the table in front of me. “We’re good.”
“Good. I know you do most of the work remotely once you have everything settled. I also know you like to work one-on-one with the person at the top of the company, so that would be me.” My stomach gets the same butterflies it did the first time I met him. “I know staying in LA for a couple of weeks or months while you work on our file would be a little bit of an inconvenience. But we would make it worth your while.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I answer him honestly.
“Why don’t you do something?” He cuts me off before I can say no. “Come down and take a tour of the office.” I close my eyes because this is exactly what I need to do. Get out of New York City and away from Josh, not be here for him. As if I’m waiting for him to get his head out of his ass. I need to be unavailable for him is what I need to do. I need to focus on me and take what I need and not what he wants. I can hear myself cheering me on about being all brave and shit.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Maybe I should hang up the phone and think about it before I just give him an answer. Except today, after the emotional events of last night, my mouth, my brain, and my heart are not on the same page. I shock even myself when the words come out. “Fine, I’ll come out.”