Chapter 21
Nora had been staring at her phone for ten minutes. Things were so much better—mostly—with her mother, but this was something different. Asking her mother for practical work advice wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d do.
But who else was there to ask? Normally this was the kind of thing she would have asked Rachel, but—as far as she knew, anyway—Rachel had never been anyone’s boss, and Nora needed to know what Ben was thinking.
She needed to know if she should be grateful or angry at the way Ben was delegating—or dumping off—so much work on her.
They’d been dating for six weeks now, and every week, as they got closer—although not yet close enough to spend a night together—he assigned more and more of his usual duties to her.
The phone wasn’t going to dial itself, was it? If she was going to call, she needed to just do it already.
It only rang twice before her mother picked up. “Hello?”
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Nora, darling! How is my future world class journalist this morning?”
Well, she was in a good mood. That was promising. Maybe she’d actually have some useful advice.
“Confused, mostly. I need—I need your—I don’t know. Insight, I guess? I need to figure out what my editor is doing.”
Her mother laughed. “I’m no journalist, Nora. I wouldn’t know anything about it.”
Nora sighed. “It’s not a journalism thing, Mom.
It’s a boss and employee thing. You manage people.
I need to know how you think when you’re giving out assignments.
Like, when you hand off annoying tasks, are you just doing it because you don’t want to deal with it yourself, or are you trying to help them build up their skills and—I don’t know, teach them something? ”
Saying it out loud, it sounded ridiculous. Was she that insecure? That clueless?
Who was she kidding? Insecure and clueless ought to be tattooed on her forehead.
“Is your editor male or female?”
“Ben’s a guy. What difference does that make?”
There was silence for a moment. No, not quite silence; Nora thought she heard her mother suppressing a laugh and rolling her eyes.
“You did not just ask me that, Nora. Please tell me you aren’t that… unaware.” Nora imagined her mother had mentally run through several far harsher words before settling on unaware . Another word they could tattoo on her forehead.
“I guess I am, Mom. I mean, I just didn’t think about that.”
More hesitation on the line. The silence was uncomfortable and went on much too long before her mother finally spoke again.
“I don’t want to disillusion you. Or discourage you.
But this Ben, there are only two reasons why he’d assign all his unwanted tasks to you.
Either he’s simply lazy and wants to do as little work as possible, so he’s dumping them on you.
” Another pause. “Or he wants to sleep with you, and he hopes you’ll become so tired of the work that you’ll trade yourself to him in return for better assignments. ”
“Mom!” She yelled it out, probably loud enough to hear in the lobby of the dorm two floors below.
“You asked for my advice, Nora. I have worked with countless men, and they all boil down in the end to lazy or horny. And I hate to say this, but you’ll have to learn for yourself how to tell the difference.”
That was—well, horrifying didn’t even begin to cover it. And the men her mother had been with over the last ten years didn’t inspire confidence in her judgement. But she had been running her gallery all this time. Successfully. She had to know what she was talking about, right?
But if she did, then that meant Nora had been completely wrong about Ben going back not just to six weeks ago, but to last year. And if that was true, what else—who else—had she also been wrong about?
“Thank you, Mom. That’s… a lot. But I’ll think about it, I promise.”
She hung up the phone and stared at the wall for a full minute, unsure if she wanted to scream, cry, or laugh. Maybe all three.
Daniel , February 26
“Any news yet?”
Daniel gripped the phone tightly. It was all he could do not to scream at Bianca. But they hadn’t talked in three weeks. She had no way of knowing that he held his breath every day when he got back to his room and the day’s mail was waiting for him under the door.
“Not yet, Bee. It’s driving me crazy. I keep thinking, if they wanted me, I’d already know. And if not, it shouldn’t take this long to send a rejection letter.”
The interview with Quantum Networking Systems had been almost six weeks ago, and he’d thought everything had gone great.
Valerie had asked him tougher questions in her apartment than anyone had in Chicago.
Unless he’d completely misjudged everything, which was possible.
This was the first real interview for a serious, professional job he’d ever had. What basis did he have for comparison?
“Big companies can take forever sometimes, Danny. It took three months for them to get back to me before I got my job, remember?” That wasn’t as comforting as she probably thought it was. But he didn’t need to tell her that.
“Yeah, I remember. I’ll just be patient and keep hoping for the best.”
His cousin chuckled. “Then we can talk about something else. Or someone else. Anything to share about this mysterious girl you barely mentioned last time we talked?”
“She’s—she’s great, Bee. Her name is Valerie, and she helped me prepare for the interview, and we’ve gone out a bunch of times.”
There was silence on the line. He should have known he wasn’t going to get away without more than that.
“And—and we’ve kissed. Well, made out, I guess.” He sighed. “Remind me why I’m telling you all this?”
Now Bianca laughed. “Because who else are you going to talk about it with? So you’ve kissed her. And obviously that means you’ve managed to convince yourself you’re allowed to move on only two years after you broke up with Nora. I guess congratulations are in order.”
He wished she hadn’t put it that way. Not because it was unfair but because it was exactly the truth, and it stung worse coming from someone who knew him so well.
He didn’t feel remotely like he’d moved on. Yes, he could spend time with Valerie, and laugh with her, and kiss her and in the moment it was fine—better than fine. But afterwards, every time, he still felt—not guilty, exactly. But definitely not fine.
“Thanks, Bee. I really do appreciate it. And when I have news about the job, or Valerie or anything else you should know, I’ll call you right away. Fair?”
“Sounds fair, Danny. You take care of yourself. I love you.”
“Love you, Bee.”
He hoped there would be news soon. About the job. About Valerie. About anything that might feel like a step forward.
Nora , February 27
Here she was, in Ben’s apartment. Nora had come up with a half a dozen excuses not to be here alone with him over the last month. She hadn’t even realized herself they were all excuses until afterward.
But there weren’t any more excuses. He was in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine, and she was sitting in the one comfortable chair he had, facing the TV.
It was a studio apartment; the bed was right out in the open. Nora didn’t like that. There was no way to ease into things—you couldn’t pretend that anything else was intended. Especially because she could smell that his sheets had just come out of the dryer. He’d done laundry just for her visit.
Was that flattering, or creepy?
Was he, as Mom had put it, lazy or was he horny?
What had happened to her judgment? Back in high school she’d done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of—but she always knew where she stood. Almost every rotten situation she’d gotten into, she’d walked into with her eyes open.
And now, almost three years later, she couldn’t recognize what was going on right in front of her? She didn’t trust herself anymore.
It was all Daniel’s fault. She’d never needed to trust herself with him; never needed to make snap judgments on his intentions. It was all there on the surface. No pretense, no subterfuge. Just him, for better or worse—and always better.
She’d lost the ability to spot trouble because she’d never had to use it with him. So what did she do now?
Ben came over, handed her a glass, clinked his against it. “To next year’s editor-in-chief, Nora Langley.”
What? She knew she was up for consideration, and she wanted it desperately—but wasn’t this too early to announce it? Ben hadn’t officially gotten the job until the final week of the semester last year.
Was this a test? Did she have to sleep with him to clinch the job, as her mother had implied?
She wanted to sleep with him anyway—at least part of her did. He was ridiculously handsome, he had great eyes—maybe not as pretty as Daniel’s, but still great, and he was incredibly sharp. He was everything she should want.
And now he was taking the glass out of her hand, when she’d only had one sip. And holding both of her hands in his. And…
“Ben, I can’t do this.” She pulled her hands away from him. “I—God, this is hard. I like you. But I have to be honest. I don’t trust…”
He looked—not quite hurt, not quite angry. Sort of a combination of the two, with half a dozen other emotions she couldn’t even guess at mixed in.
“You don’t trust me. That sucks, Nora.” He looked like he wanted to use a stronger word. “But—look, I’m not a jerk. I don’t want to be with somebody who doesn’t want to be here.”
She cursed under her breath. “It isn’t you I don’t trust, Ben. It’s me. My judgment. I can’t go to bed with you if I don’t know how I feel. How I should feel.”
He was silent for a while. She wished there was something she could say to make this less awkward. Less horrible.
“I know there’s more going on with you, Nora. You’ve been cautious with me—with us. Not like you are at the paper, or in the classes we’ve had together. I kept hoping you’d relax, or whatever you want to call it.”