27. Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Baz shrugged off his suit jacket, dropped it on the living room floor, and fell face-first onto his so-beautiful-looking, fucking uncomfortable couch. He gathered a throw pillow under his face and released the loudest, most heartfelt groan-turned-scream of his life.
His phone taunted him with complete silence. At least there was one thing it was still good for. The tub of Peanut Butter and Cookies ice cream was at his doorstep in less than twenty minutes. He wanted to drown in the sugary sweetness, prayed it would freeze his brain beyond repair.
Bzz bzz.
Baz sat up with a gasp. Sami?
He scrambled to reach his phone on the coffee table, nearly fell off the couch—oh. Just an email. From the lab he had sent the Captain Green sample to. They couldn’t be serious.
The small, blue ring chasing its tail demanded patience.
A document popped up, full of numbers, chemical formulas…
There. Dangerously high levels of TCDD were found in the sample.
Of course he got the smoking gun, the final piece of leverage to turn this ship around, hours too late, because why would anything ever work in his favor?
He forwarded the attachment to Aya. His mistakes shouldn’t cost her the win and deepen the stain on her impeccable reputation.
Bad enough people knew she was Baz’s mentor.
He had been kidding himself, thinking he could play in the same league as her.
Hopefully, she could forgive him for embarrassing her, one day.
He dug his teaspoon in the half-empty tub and shoveled more regrets into himself until his brain ached from the cold.
Pain was good. It was the right consequence for making everyone around him miserable.
Sami. Aya. Eevee especially, with his stubborn hatred of their dad, with how he had leeched onto her light and made her life much more difficult.
She had just been an eighteen-year-old kid when they moved to the city, too, had barely found herself, and Baz had burdened her with the responsibility of caring for her teenage brother because he was scared to be left behind.
She had always been there for him, and for what?
So he’d get fired for not keeping it in his pants? How humiliating.
It was an unfortunate trait he had inherited from his father, hurting people. Using them. Except even Jack had managed to get his shit together. Would it take Baz fifteen years too?
Perhaps he was better off just staying away from everyone, locking himself up in his sad, bare apartment and finding a remote job that required no human interaction. Or he could buy some farmland in Wisconsin and shear sheep. They ought to be more forgiving of his inability to human correctly.
More buzzing on his thighs—Aya. If Baz were a stronger man, he would face her anger and vow to make it right, work thrice as hard to get back on track, but… what even was the point anymore?
He silenced the call, put his phone down screen first, and sank back into the hard pillow. All he could do was eat the sugary soup and numb his mind with sitcoms that used to be funny.
The flickering screen was the only light source in the living room, battling against the ever-darkening sky.
He should have followed Sami’s lead and covered his walls with fairy lights.
Better yet, he shouldn’t have alienated him in the first place.
In another world, they’d be cuddling underneath hundreds of tiny lights right now.
They’d tease and laugh with each other, and shake off a bad day.
Yet another dream Baz had destroyed at the courthouse.
He missed Sami’s smile. The sparkle in his eyes. His softness.
He hugged a pillow against his aching chest and curled tighter into himself. It smelled too clean. He needed to track down that damned cologne to have something tangible to hold on to.
Knock knock.
“Baz? It’s me,” Aya said.
Groaning, Baz pressed the pillow on his face. He wasn’t ready to face her wrath just yet.
Metal scratched at his door. He sat up as Aya entered, balancing a small, pink box on her palm. That damned key.
“Oh, good. I was worried you’d drowned in self-pity by now.”
She hit the light switch. The brightness exploded like a bomb, violently illuminating Baz’s shame that was better left hidden in darkness.
“Working on it,” Baz groaned, squinting to see her. Light was evil.
“What a day, huh?” She stepped out of her heels. He pulled his knees to his chest, and Aya dropped onto the free cushion.
The sound of the sitcom’s laugh tracks made for a grotesque contrast to the heaviness in the air.
He awaited the inevitable ass kick, the reality check that Baz had screwed up so spectacularly, he’d be better off quitting to retain some dignity.
The farm idea sounded more appealing by the second. Somewhere so remote, no one would ever stumble upon him. Just him and his sheep, no cancer patients to let down. No Sami to put in danger.
“I brought you basbousa. Sugar will help.” She opened the box, revealing four square pieces of syrup-soaked cake neatly arranged next to each other. Kindness, when Baz had screwed up? He drew a deep breath. No use; the tears flooded his eyes.
“Go ahead. Yell at me.”
“I’m sure you’re already beating yourself up more than I ever could. It’s time we both cut you some slack.”
He didn’t deserve slack. Or basbousa. He deserved a smack to the back of his head for losing his focus.
“Why am I so stupid?” His voice came out shaky.
“Been asking myself that. The only answer I can come up with is that you found something that matters to you more than your career. Someone.”
“That is stupid.” And worse, it was true. He would have quit on the spot and run after Sami if Aya hadn’t held him back. Hell, he should have. If she had handled the hearing, it would have gone better. She was infallible, cool-headed, smart.
Baz was an impostor.
“Not really. And I bet you’ve learned to never confront your secret boyfriend in public minutes before having to argue a case again, so there’s that.”
She was right about that, because he’d never have either ever again. Some people were meant to be alone, and he was one of them. Some people were meant to break records and be remembered as one of the greats, most weren’t. Turned out, he didn’t have what it took to make the cut.
“I messed it all up.”
“I guess we’re no longer concerned about him lying to you?”
She just assumed he was talking about Sami? He was, but when had Aya stopped thinking of him as a workaholic who only cared about his promotion? When had Baz stopped being one? He should have stuck to what he knew.
Still, Baz shook his head. He shouldn’t have doubted Sami in the first place. “I don’t know what his deal with Ian is, but it’s not good, Aya. Ian openly threatened to ruin his life with I don’t even know what! And Sami looked so scared. All because of me.”
Aya blinked. “Okay, putting that bombshell aside for a moment. You didn’t threaten him, Ian did.”
“Only because he caught us making up! It’s my fault.”
“Do you have any reason to believe what you saw today isn’t their normal relationship?”
Well, no, but that didn’t negate the fact that being discovered was on Baz’s head.
“I want to help him, but I don’t know how without making it worse again. I don’t even know what’s going on between them.”
“Clearly his relationship to Ian is much more complicated than you could have possibly known.”
“Does that make it better?”
“Maybe. He knew you don’t know what’s at stake for him. If he feels the same way about you as you do about him, he’ll come around.”
“He said he doesn’t want me.”
“You said you hate him. Things change. You have changed. The Baz from a year ago would have never compromised a case by pining over a guy.”
Baz huffed. Yeah, he was pathetic.
“It suits you.”
His eyebrows twitched together. “What?”
Which part of him eating his weight in sugary treats after letting down everyone was flattering?
“This is the most authentic version of you I’ve ever seen. I kind of like the guy who doesn’t just live to please others.”
And that from her, the very person who had told him an eighty-hour week was the minimum if he wanted to get ahead?
“You liked it when I tried to please you.”
“Because I’m awesome and you should try to live up to my standard. But there’s more to life than work. I wasn’t always sure you knew that.”
“Wonder where I got it from. You’re just as bad as I am.”
Six years, and aside from him, the only friend he knew she had was Erika.
“No. You just never were all that interested in my life outside of work.”
Baz felt his jaw dropping. He couldn’t catch it in time.
That wasn’t true. Of course he cared. Aya was his best friend, certainly his longest. If he had known she was interested in sharing more, he would have loved that.
Or had she tried, and he had been too busy reducing her to a tool to feed his ambition instead?
“I’m a dick,” Baz realized.
“No more than the rest of us. You had a goal, I was happy to help you get there. Though this change of course was a curveball, I’ll admit.” Aya smiled. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Baz nodded. He was sorry too, about so many things. “Thank you for coming by.”
“I figured you needed a friend again.”
Baz sniffled through his stuffed-up nose. Aya had every right to be furious with him; after all, she had struggled and fought to get where she was now, and Baz had wasted her time. To receive kindness instead…
He knuckled a tear away. “Thank you.”
Aya pushed the cake box closer. Screw it. On a day such as today, there was no such thing as too much sugar.
The basbousa stuck to the napkin he grabbed it with. The sandy texture melted in his mouth, leaving a buttery taste behind. A slice of heaven that, yes, did make the pain in his chest slightly more bearable.
“I love you, you know that? And I appreciate all you do for me. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.” Certainly not enough.