Chapter 5
Five
AUGUST CURRENT DAY (MONDAY)
A shiver runs through me when he steps beside me. As everyone takes in the view from the top of the hill where the restaurant sits for the first time with awe, we both take a deep breath. It’s different being back here with him, being here feels right again. The surrounding park is where he asked me out for the first time, and this restaurant was our first date—it was our spot.
“How did you find this place?” Jason asks, standing on my other side, so close that his hand brushes against my thigh and I subtly step closer to Warren just to get further away from him. “I had no clue this was even here.”
Small, conspiratorial smiles bloom on both Warren’s and my lips as I answer. “A friend showed it to me.”
Thankfully our table is called, and I don’t have to answer any more questions. But as we take our seats, I quickly realize there’s nothing to be thankful for. I don’t think I could be in a more uncomfortable spot if I tried. I’m sitting between Warren and Peter, with Jason directly across from me. And since Warren and I are in the middle of the table, we’re squished together tightly. Our arms keep brushing and it’s threatening to make me lose my shit in front of everyone.
Polite conversation flows until everyone has a menu, then it’s obvious everyone’s hungry because it gets eerily quiet.
Warren leans toward me and whispers, “Did they get rid of the lobster tortellini?”
I laugh softly at the panic in his voice. “They removed it from the menu, but they still stock all the ingredients so it can still be ordered. Like a secret menu item.”
“Oh, thank god, I’ve been dreaming of that dish since I moved.”
Since you left me, I want to correct.
A flash of pain runs through me, but I smile. “You always did say it ruined all other pasta for you.”
He laughs, loud enough to draw attention to us, and Serge, who is sitting on Warren’s other side—who we didn’t realize could hear us the entire time—says, “Do you two know each other?”
Jason’s head snaps over to us. His eyes lock onto Warren and narrow, sizing him up like he’s suddenly been revealed as an enemy. Fuck me. Figures we couldn’t even make it twelve hours without everyone figuring out we knew each other. Not that it was a secret, but it was a hectic day and there wasn’t a good time to bring it up.
“Yeah, I used to live here in Hartford,” Warren says.
“We both worked at Triniti for a few years together,” I add quickly and notice that Peter has a smile on his face. If Serge heard us, Peter must’ve been able to as well, but he doesn’t look surprised. Maybe Warren wasn’t lying when he said Peter walked in as he spit out his drink on his computer, and maybe he told him . . . What did he tell him?
That he knows me? That we used to date? That we used to live together? That, to me, he’s the one that got away, and I wonder daily what life would be like if he hadn’t left?
Although, Warren doesn’t know the last part so he probably wouldn’t have said that.
“Why didn’t you tell us you knew him?” Clara asks, and I laugh.
“Because you told me his name was Mitch, not Warren Mitchell so I didn’t know it was him until they walked through the door.”
She smiles sheepishly, as if just now noticing she told me the wrong name. “Sorry, I misheard on the call.”
Everyone laughs at that, and the topic fades away into new ones. I let out a silent sigh of relief that we moved on, but Jason doesn’t stop watching us all night.
* * *
As everyone begins to pile back into the two cars we took to the restaurant, I hang back. “I think I’m just going to walk home.”
It’s been too long since I’ve walked through the park, and it’s prettiest at night, with twinkling lights scattered in the trees and the view of the city becoming a beautiful sea of lights. Even though it’s an extremely long walk, it’s worth it.
Jason’s face turns to stone. “It’s not safe to walk home alone this late.”
I almost laugh at the irony. I’d feel safer walking home alone than being alone with him.
“I’ll walk with you.” Warren moves to stand next to me and I smile. I was hoping he’d volunteer to come. We should talk outside of a work environment—sooner rather than later.
Jason’s face contorts into rage and his voice comes out gruff and aggressive. “I’ll come too.”
I roll my eyes and hope that I’m far enough from the streetlamp that the shadows hide it. “You drove, Jason. You have to take them back.”
I begin to wonder if this was subconsciously my plan the whole time, because something pushed me to make sure Jason was the second driver today. I even pulled the “I want to ride in your Tesla, it’s so cool” card. That’s what sealed the deal. Little does he know that I spent the whole ride focused on Warren, who was in the backseat with me, instead of on his precious Tesla.
After grunting and grumbling, Jason finally gets in the car, and everyone drives away. Warren falls into step beside me and muscle memory has us turning down the path to the bench— our bench—without a word.
“I’ve missed this place,” he whispers when we’re overlooking the city from our favorite spot.
“Like a sea of stars,” I whisper back and see the corners of his mouth curl up from the corner of my eye.
“Exactly.”
The brush of his hand against mine is as soft as his voice, but it hits me like a bus—head-on, going sixty miles per hour. All the breath leaves me, and I stumble a step away from him. This is too much—him being here, how quickly it feels normal, how much I still want him, how angry I still am. But for some reason the words that bubble up and blurt out of me are, “Are you seeing anyone?”
He chuckles uncomfortably. “I see your small talk hasn’t improved.”
The amount of panic that washes over me is embarrassing. “Is that a no?” I squeak, feeling foolish for asking, but knowing it’ll drive me mad to not know.
“Analise . . .” His voice is small. “Is this really a good idea?”
“Please.” I’m breathing heavier. “If I don’t ask now, it’ll be on my mind all night. I just need to know, so I can stop wondering.”
He eyes me a moment longer before saying, “No, I’m not seeing anyone,” and I let out a silent sigh of relief.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself, nodding.
Why do I care so much?
Scratch that, I know the answer to that one. The better question is: Why did I let him see that I care so much? Why did I bring this up?
It gets quiet between us again and we turn to go.
After a few steps he stops walking and hesitates. “Are you ?”
I don’t know what makes me say it—if it’s being here where he first asked me out, where we had so many date nights—where our fall out began—but I tell the truth. “No, it seems I never quite got over the man who broke my heart six and a half years ago.”
He looks up at me, shock and then pain flashes across his face. I look down, a sad smile on my face.
“Ana—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut him off, not sure I can handle hearing my name from his lips again when all I can think of is all the times he whispered that name against my own skin. “We don’t have to talk about this—we shouldn’t talk about this. You’re only here for two weeks. You’re leaving again. We broke up. We?—”
“Analise.” He cuts off my rambling of why this isn’t a good idea. Or at least the reasons I’m trying to convince myself that this isn’t a good idea.
“Stop,” I practically scream, on the verge of tears. “You need to stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” He’s taken aback, completely unaware of what he’s doing, and it only makes it hurt more.
“Like you did back then,” I say as the first tears fall down my cheeks. “Like it’s a plea. Like it’s a promise. Like it’s a prayer. Like I’m your salvation.”
“I—” He shakes his head like he can’t comprehend my words, but his eyes tell me that he feels them. They reflect a deeper truth that he might not have discovered yet. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” I suck in deep breaths until I have better control of my emotions. “You’re here. We have to work together these next weeks. We can keep it professional.”
I don’t know who I’m trying to convince, him or me. Maybe the more I say it, the more likely it is to be true.
He still looks like he’s fighting an internal battle where both sides are taking severe casualties, but he follows when I start walking again.
“So, tell me everything about D.C. How do you like it there?” I break the silence after we walk halfway back without speaking.
“It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.” His face lights up in a way it never has when talking about Hartford. “In the spring, the cherry blossom trees bloom and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. There’s this path along the Tidal Basin that passes the Jefferson Memorial, and the cherry blossoms form a canopy over the trail. You would love it. It’s breathtaking.”
“Seems like you have a new favorite season,” I say, softly.
He shrugs, one corner of his mouth pulling down into a frown. “Well, summer hasn’t been the same since I left.”
My body gets stiff. Each step feels foreign, like I no longer remember how to act like a normal person. Like his words have short-circuited my brain and stolen my ability to function . . . and my will to keep things professional between us.
Why is he saying things like that? He left me . He walked away from us and never gave us a chance to make things work.
What is happening?
“What happened to the company you originally went to work for out there?” I ask, desperate to shift the conversation to anything else. And because I’m curious. Vitality wasn’t a name I recognized, and I never heard that he changed jobs.
He glances over at me for a moment before answering. “I’m sure you remember that they had this incredible vision for the company, and that’s what sold me on them. But a few years in, things weren’t quite working out as planned and the company kept changing directions just to stay afloat. It wasn’t the same, and I didn’t believe in the direction it went.” He looks sad as he talks, and I remember how bright his smile was whenever he talked about it back then. “Peter was actually my boss there—it’s how we met. We both had the same vision for what we wanted to achieve, so we took a risk and tried to do it ourselves. It took us over a year to develop the business plans and get funding, but here we are.”
“And that vision is value-based care?”
“That vision is creating a system that puts the members at the center. That makes sure people get the right care, at the right time, for the right price. And when we saw the impact Transcend has been able to make on the markets it’s in with value-based care, it was a no-brainer to reach out and see if we could team up.” He stops walking with a laugh and turns to look at me. He runs his hand through his hair, leaving it only slightly messed up, but in a way that makes him look so much more attractive. “Why does this feel more like an interrogation than a conversation?”
“Because it is.” I cross my arms across my chest and turn to face him, trying to keep my boss bitch face on and not get distracted by thinking about running my hands through his hair. “I wasn’t involved in the negotiations or discussions for this deal, so I’m trying to figure out what your intentions are here.”
A smile pulls at his lips and he drops his voice. “Your dad asked me that too, the first time I met him.”
All of the air in the world disappears with the words. It feels like someone just took a knife and plunged it into my stomach. I’m gasping for air, clinging onto reality with a shaky grip.
He doesn’t know.
I mean why would he? I never reached out, even though it would’ve been easier to run back to the arms I always felt safest in when my life flipped upside down. Instead, I dealt with it on my own, because I’m not the kind of girl who’s going to beg someone to stay in my life if they choose to leave. I had assumed that someone would’ve told him over the years though. It’s a stark reminder that even though I had my friends, I didn’t have him.
Hands landing on my shoulders ground me and I look up to find wide eyes full of worry staring back at me. I step back out of his reach and take a deep breath.
“Just so you know.” I jump back to the previous conversation without explanation. “I don’t care that I know you. I’m going to do what’s best for my people and the company I’ve spent five years building into something I’m so fucking proud of.”
He narrows his eyes that are still full of concern, but eventually just sighs. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” A small, sad smile rests on his face as he looks me in the eyes and adds, “I guess you finally found your thing in this business that you’re passionate about.”
I blink, flashbacks of that Labor Day, when we walked around the city, talking about our lives and why we chose this profession before we ended up on the hill in Buena Park where he finally asked me out, cutting in and out of my vision. He remembers that? I just nod, unable to speak and unsure what I’d even say if I could, and start walking again.
I keep asking him questions about his new town, his new life, even though every answer cuts right through me. But I want to know what he’s been up to, what he left me for, and I kind of despise the fact that it might’ve been worth it. He might love his new life more than he ever loved me.
I lead us back to the hotel the executives are staying at and his face twists in confusion when I start to say goodbye. “You’re going to walk the rest of the way by yourself?”
He must be remembering our place on the east end of town—that would be a long, concerning walk to take right now by myself. But I don’t live there anymore, I haven’t for years. “I’m in Solana now, just down the street.”
His eyes widen with surprise at the name; it’s a building we always used to love. It’s the place where we wanted to live, together. “How fancy.”
I smile but it’s half-hearted. “Well, goodnight,” I say, giving a half wave and starting to turn away because I’m not sure how to act with him. In some ways, it’s the same, but in others, so horribly different.
He laughs, a big, real laugh and my eyes close at the sound. “Can we not be friends?”
“Friends?” I turn to look at him and his eyes are deep pools sucking me down into the depths of his panic and desperation.
“You do know what the word means, right?” he teases, and I shoot him a glare. “We were always friends, weren’t we?”
“We were never just friends, Warren.” I shake my head, hating that I’m saying this, but there’s a difference between being friends and what we were before we dated. “I knew I was going to love you from the first moment we met, and I’m pretty sure you’ve said the same thing before. We’ve never been just friends. I don’t think I know how to just be your friend.”
His face falls so fast it feels like a weight dropping on me, crushing me. His voice is so small when he speaks, it’s practically nothing. “Can we try?”
My eyes close, my breathing gets hard. I’ve wanted so many times to hear him say those words, to try to make things work, but to hear them now, knowing he wants to try, but as only friends, isn’t what I want at all. But we have to work together for the next two weeks—there’s no avoiding it—so I sigh, and even though each word feels like acid in my throat, I say, “Yes, we can try.”
His blinding smile has a tear forming in my eye and before I know what’s happening his arms are around me and I’m pulled into his chest. I don’t know if he realized what he was doing until it happened because we both freeze. But then his arms are tightening around me and it’s like every single pore on his body is reaching out to me, pulling me in, trying to absorb me so I’ll never leave again. Or maybe it’s my body doing that to him.
I suck in a breath when his hand moves into my hair and holds me against him, but then I breathe in his scent and I’m unravelling in his arms. He smells the same, bright and warm and comforting, like the perfect summer day. I can’t handle it. I push away from him and stumble back a few steps. There are tears in my eyes and there’s pain in his—both of us breathe heavy. I can see the rise and fall of his chest through his perfectly tailored suit and I have to force my eyes away from how well he’s filled out over the years.
“Goodnight, Warren,” I say.
He dips his head towards me. “Goodnight, Analise.”
A shiver runs through me because he still says my name like it’s something to be worshipped. I can see the moment he realizes he must’ve done it again because his whole face shifts into sadness. “See you tomorrow?”
I only nod, then turn and walk away. I stop when I get around the corner to catch my breath.
What is he doing to me?
When I get home, I flop down on my bed and groan. I pick up my phone to text Ali, but there’s already one waiting for me.
Ali
So, was Mitch cute? I want to hear everything.
I laugh, forgetting that she has no idea who Mitch really is—that there is no Mitch.
Me
Kallia tomorrow, early. I have A LOT to tell you.
Ali
I’ll be there!