Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
OLIVER
“Whoa, man,” Chase says when I finally stop talking. “That was a lot. Also”—he pauses to release a loud yawn that rattles my ear pods—“I’m in LA.”
“Shit.” I look at the time on my phone and count back eight hours. “Sorry. It’s only seven fifteen with you?”
“Yeah. Just here for a few days. And I had a painfully late night because the studio guy, who’s on the brink of agreeing to take my movie, wanted to go to the opening of this cool new bar after we’d had dinner. So I kinda felt obligated to. Didn’t get to bed until two.”
Chase Cooper is very much an early-to-bed, early-to-rise guy. I doubt he’s seen two a.m. since he was in college.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, mate. I’ll go. We can talk another time.”
“No, no,” he says. “It’s fine. It means I’ll have time for the gym before today’s meetings.”
I could not be luckier to have this man as my friend.
In fact, all three of the guys I bought the Boston Commoners with have turned into the best, most real friends I’ve ever had.
They were the first people outside my family who I’d trust with my life.
Hell, I trust these guys a lot more than some of my family.
Especially now I know there’s a mystery spy in the building.
“Okay, I’m sitting up now,” Chase says, amid some shuffling noises. “So, it’s official—I’m awake and at your service. And my first question is, do you think she slept with you because she hopes you’ll give her better material for the book?”
“Gee, thanks, mate. You mean, the only reason any woman on the planet would want to shag me is because there might be something in it for them? My sparkling personality, gorgeous bod, and legendary lady skills aren’t enough?”
“I’ll back you up on the personality thing. But I don’t want to think about either of the others for even a nanosecond. Where are you anyway? You sound all echoey.”
“My childhood bedroom. It’s been empty a long time. I needed to call you from somewhere quiet and out of the way where no one is likely to hear me or stumble across me.”
“Out of the way? When you were a kid, did they put you in a room in a far-flung corner of the castle where you couldn’t bother anyone?”
I gaze out of the window at the garden. “Um, never thought about it like that. My sister was in the next room though.”
“So they put you both in a far-flung corner of the castle where neither of you could bother anyone? Sounds like something from a dark fairy tale to me. One where the kids grow up and seek to right the wrongs inflicted by their parents.”
“Wow. Definitely never thought about any of it like that before.” And is that what I'm doing? Trying to right things I think are wrong? That’s the exact opposite of the selfish asshole, waste of space the press thinks I am. Or at least the character they’ve created who sells their papers.
“Anyway,” Chase says. “The matter at hand. Sleeping with the enemy.”
“I’m not sure Lexi is the enemy. For a start, she’s writing this book for me. So she has no choice but to be on my side.”
“Have you ever met a reporter who was on your side?”
I try to think.
“See,” he says when I don’t reply. “Both you and I know they never are.”
“But she has to be. Because if she doesn’t write a good book, she doesn’t get the new job she wants.”
“Well, if you’re her meal ticket to a new job, wouldn’t she want to get the juiciest stories out of you she possibly could? And isn’t it possible she’d sleep with you to try to sucker you into giving them to her?”
“God, no.” I recoil at the hideousness of that thought. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know? You’ve known her for how long? A week? You can’t possibly be sure what she’d do for a story.”
The idea that anyone could think that poorly of Lexi, even someone who knows no better because they haven’t met her, is physically painful. It’s like my insides are twisting into a tangled mess.
“Look, mate, I realize you’re trying to help and everything.
But I’m sure she wouldn’t do that. I know you’re going to ask me how I can be certain, and I can’t give you an answer.
I just am. There’s something between us.
I can’t explain it. I can’t define it. I don’t think I can even describe it.
To say it’s a connection is too much of a cliché and isn’t enough.
It’s more than that. But I don’t know what it is because it’s uncharted territory for me. ”
It’s only when I stop talking that I realize I’ve been walking back and forth in front of the window, thumping the edge of the sill with my fist. And my breath is vibrating with energy.
Not pissed-off energy at Chase for suggesting that Lexi might be manipulating me, but a buzzy energy of hope and excitement.
After giving me a moment to calm down, he says, “I know what it is.”
I lean forward, rest my elbows on the windowsill and gaze out over the large rectangular flower bed that’s currently a sea of leafless brown stick-plants but in the summer will be in the full blue-and-white bloom of the Scottish flag.
“Are you going to tell me?” I ask. “Because I might be going out of my fucking mind over here.”
“It’s the feeling you get when you’ve met ‘the one.’”
“Well that was a swift one-eighty,” I scoff. “Now tell me what it really is.”
“I wasn’t kidding. All those things you just described, or rather didn’t describe because it’s not possible to describe them, that’s how it feels.”
“But doesn’t it take ages to figure out if someone is the one? Like you need to date them for a year or whatever before you know?”
“You are a thirty-seven-year-old man, not a teenager. How can you not know this?” he asks.
“Because maybe the way my family raises every generation to be exactly as fucked up as the last means we’re all about twenty years behind in our emotional maturity.”
“Well, take it from me, that’s the way it goes.”
“So you’ve felt all these things?”
“A very long time ago. And never since. But this conversation is about you. And, yes, you’ve brought me a full one-eighty here with just a few sentences.
You’ve turned me from thinking you were being used and abused by the enemy to thinking you’ve met her—the woman who will either make you happy till the day you’re six feet under, or smash your heart in a way that will make you think it will never recover. ”
“I’m guessing yours was a case of the latter.”
“Like I said,” he hedges quietly, “this conversation is about you.”
“Well, Lexi is going to be on assignment in Eastern Europe after she’s written the book.”
“Then all I can do is tell you I’m here for you if you ever need me. And in the meantime, I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, Chase.”
“Damn shame she’s a reporter though. But it’s up to you to see if you can figure that out.”
“Ten minutes ago, I couldn’t have imagined I was ten minutes away from a life-changing revelation.”
“Yup, I am quite the hero,” Chase says with mock pride. “And also, if I’m going to get to the gym before this meeting, I have to go now.”
“Yeah, yeah. You go. And thanks. For everything.”
“Take care,” he says and hangs up.
Christ. Is he right? He might be right. But these are new and overwhelming feelings. Maybe it does mean Lexi is my person.
I let my eyes rove over the lawns and the hedges and the raised beds and the trees beyond while I contemplate the possibility of looking at the future in a whole new way.
Over to the right, most of the vegetable beds are empty, but there are still some bits of unidentifiable greenery growing in a couple of them.
There’s movement by the greenhouses, and the door of the longest one opens. But instead of seeing one of the gardeners emerge, it’s Lexi. And she’s shoving her phone into her pocket.
She pulls her sweater tight around her and trots back toward the house.
My heart picks up the pace at the sight of her.
Not only because I’m more attracted to her than I’ve ever been to anyone in my life and because I can’t wait to make her laugh and hear her next smart quip.
But also because Chase’s initial fears make me wonder why she’d go to the greenhouse to make a call.