Chapter 10 Almost Friends
Almost Friends
JAMIE
As the months passed, I was able to exist without falling asleep replaying each tiny interaction like that one like a lovesick schoolboy.
We had a text thread where we mostly talked about work things, but sometimes she’d drop a hint of something personal, like how she had a rough sleep the night before, and I’d lose my mind a little.
I’d go off in a tailspin picturing her tossing and turning in her bed.
Wishing I could make her tea or get her blackout curtains.
Wondering what kind of pajamas she wore, if any.
I’d write a massive paragraph but condense it into a sad-faced emoji, which kind of encapsulated my feelings about Sarah that first year.
She was my favorite person then, and it fucking killed me.
Almost exactly one year after Sarah started work at Reilly Contracting, we were alerted that the family who owned the Rolling Hills resort were finally ready to embark on their massive renovation.
The hotel, while also the town jewel, was old and reputed to be haunted.
People around the office joked that even our proposal to be the contractors was cursed, since we had to rewrite it from scratch more than once.
The Kelly family took longer than expected to review the proposals—so long it was rumored the project might have been shelved once again.
But just before Christmas, we got the news: we’d won the bid.
It was entirely because of Sarah. While we were close to the Kelly family—Seamus in particular, being best friends with one of the brothers and boyfriend to the youngest, Chelsea, but he stayed out of the process just like I did.
Between that and the family using a private firm to evaluate the bids, it was clear Sarah won it fair and square.
We celebrated by taking the whole office to a new wine bar downtown.
This job would involve us taking on several new staff, including a whole new division which Seamus would lead when he came back.
He’d look after home builds, our bread and butter, while Sarah oversaw the hotel project when it started the following year.
It was a good night. Our group had a private room, where an antique chandelier hung over a table big enough to contain all my staff.
Three of the walls were darkly wallpapered, while the fourth was made of glass.
It was the backside of the wine storage room, where several hundred bottles of wine nested in horizontal racks from floor to ceiling.
Those of us in the private room were permitted to enter the space to view the labels behind the temperature controlled glass panels.
We all gave several toasts, and I congratulated Sarah, to a standing ovation.
She blushed, and not for the first time that night, I found my eyes taking in the emerald green crushed velvet dress she wore, trying desperately not to make a big deal of it.
But as she walked up to me to make a speech, I couldn’t stop staring at the way the fabric slipped over her hips.
Or how the deep V revealed the smallest edge of scalloped black lace, and worse, the smattering of freckles that splayed across her chest.
My eyes burned as she approached, but I kept my expression neutral.
As she grasped my shoulders for one of those professional hugs between colleagues, I held my breath so I didn’t inhale her scent.
I lifted my hands up, but made sure not to touch her dress.
And in our release, as her eyes grazed mine for the briefest second in that too-close, too-public moment, I plundered my thoughts for lukewarm things.
This morning’s crossword puzzle. Stu’s favorite toy. My date a week before, with a nice woman whose kiss I dodged at the end of the night and who I didn’t call back. Just like the two other dates I’d tried in the past year.
I thought about what an asshole I was.
It helped. A little.
After her speech, Sarah took a selfie with the table. When her hand pressed warm between my shoulder blades as we posed, I gritted my teeth in such a way it looked like a smile.
She laughed. “I’m posting this to our socials,” she threatened me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her not to. It was a fine photo. A good night.
Sarah sat down to do it, and I got pulled into another conversation. But a moment later, she stood up abruptly.
I glanced over. She was staring at her phone, her face pale. Then she strode for the door, phone gripped tightly in her hand.
My heart stopped, my stomach tensing. She was upset. She hid her face as she rushed out, that dress swishing against her legs as she disappeared into the hallway.
I should have stayed where I was.
But no one else had seen her go—or had noticed her distress. There was so much going on in the room, no one would notice if I followed her, would they? I didn’t wait to find out.
I excused myself and went after her, trying hard not to run.
To the left was the larger restaurant, loud and raucous on a Saturday night.
I’d been quick enough I would have seen her if she’d tried to leave that way.
To the right, past the glass wine storage, was a T-junction.
To the left of the T were the bathrooms, to the right, a smaller corridor leading to some storage rooms. I headed that way.
I knew I shouldn’t be the one to check on her.
But I had to make sure she was okay. No one else could tell me for sure.
She’d probably gone into the women’s room. I hesitated, debating with myself whether I should wait out here or just be normal and give her space.
Then I heard voices.
Sarah, her voice high and tight.
And Cora, her tone soothing.
Cora must have come out of the bathroom to find her there.
Good. It was in hand. I could turn around and go back to the party.
But my breath was still coming hard, sweat gathering at the back of my neck.
I’d had two glasses of wine, which was mostly nothing with my size, but also not completely nothing, because I ignored that rational voice screaming at me to go back to the table.
I ignored it because I could hear, clearly, what Sarah was saying. And it made my blood fucking boil.
“I know people can change their minds. It’s just…
He told me he wasn’t cut out for marriage.
He said—” Sarah paused, and I had to press my hands against the wall behind me to keep from storming over there.
“He said we shouldn’t have gotten together so young.
We were only twenty when we met. But that was bullshit.
He only said that to try to soften the blow of saying he never loved me. ”
“Honey,” Cora said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Look at him. He looks so fucking happy. She’s got this rock on her finger the size of fucking Jupiter and he looks like he bagged a home fucking run.”
Sarah let out a long, low curse. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or sobbing. Either way, he’d done this. My hands curled into fists. All I knew about her ex-husband was that shit with the dog. And that he was a fool for leaving her. But this clinched it.
“The worst part Cora,” Sarah said, a humorless laugh slipping between sentences, “is that I knew. You know? I knew he probably wasn’t my person. He forgot really basic things about me. Wished me a happy birthday only when I casually reminded him what day it was each year. Who does that?”
“Asshole,” I whispered, at the same time as Cora said it.
I ran my hand over my jaw. I needed to go. But Sarah spoke again, and this time, her words made me ill.
“I wasted my best years on someone who didn’t want me for forever.”
She broke down then, and I knew I needed to move. I couldn’t hear anymore. If I didn’t leave, I was going to crash in there, decorum and rules and policies be damned, because she needed to tell me where he fucking lived. Fuck this asshole.
I pushed myself off the wall as Sarah said, “It’s okay. I’m fine. I just need to… I just need a moment.”
“Of course,” Cora said. “Take as long as you need. I’ll tell them you had to take a call or something.”
My stomach lurched. It was too late for me to high tail it back to the room without looking like I was running away. Which I was.
So I stayed put.
Cora startled when she saw me standing there. She opened her mouth, but I shook my head, pointing my chin at the bathroom.
She relaxed. Guilt tripped through me that I’d been able to lie so easily, without a word spoken, appearing like I’d stumbled into something awkward and not gone out of my way to find it. She stopped me as I tried to pass her, though.
“Don’t let her know you heard anything, Jamie,” she whispered. “She’d be super embarrassed. She really respects you. Always wants you to think the best of her.”
My stomach cinched.
Cora had no clue those words would land like boulders on my chest.
I nodded, then I passed her by, glancing briefly down the hall as I turned toward the bathroom.
Sarah was leaning against the wall, her face in her hands.
I slipped into the men’s room like a coward.
Inside, I splashed cold water on my face as I took in what Cora had said.
When I was done, I grabbed a paper towel and dried my face, staring myself down in the mirror.
“Do not fucking do it, Reilly,” I growled at myself.
I didn’t know what it was, just that it would be disastrous. For me, for my business, but worst of all, for Sarah.
But it was too late. A side of me I’d been trying to squash for a year rose up like a wakened beast. He was strange, my protector self.
Unpredictable. Someone who didn’t always make the most rational choices.
I’d first met him in front of the girl I’d had a crush on in third grade, when the junkyard dog had slipped its leash.
I still had the soft, pale scars on my forearm from where I’d let him bite me so she could run.
The protector had returned several times, like when Kevin was a baby, and I was a teen parent defending Deirdre’s wish for a second after our first mistake.
The protector had failed me only once; when Kevin and Seamus went down to the Quince River to go fishing and only Seamus came back, a coterie of cops holding their hats in their hands behind him.
Twice if you counted how I couldn’t protect my ex-wife from the pain that followed.
That was why the protector rarely emerged now. The pain of his presence reflected that most critical moment he’d failed me, and it was always like a knife to my heart.
But now, he was back.
Except Sarah wasn’t mine to protect.
My knuckles cracked as I clenched and unclenched my fists before pinching the bridge of my nose and trying with every ounce of restraint to calm myself the fuck down.
I gave it a few minutes. Then I pushed through the door.
The hallway where Sarah had been was empty.
Good.
I straightened my shoulders, trying extremely hard to put on a game face. Then I strode down the hall, heading back to the party room.
Except, just before I reached the door, I heard Sarah’s voice.
“Jamie?”