Chapter 39
I sat up in my bed with a gasp. I had been scrolling the apps again. Rejection after rejection. Face after face. It had become my habit before drifting off to sleep every night. My new mind-numbing ritual. A ritual that tonight I was jolted out of with the face I’d been waiting for. Oliver’s.
It didn’t surprise me that as I stared at him, took in his kind eyes, great hair, and heart-melting smile that tears came to my eyes. I missed him so much. This was the sign I was waiting for. The jump start to my emotions. Did I force the sign? Maybe. But still, the universe provided.
I bit my lip nervously, thinking about what my first message to him should be. Fancy meeting you here? So we meet again? We have to stop meeting like this? They all seemed too basic or too flippant. I needed to be sincere. Something like: I miss you. I’m ready to hear you out.
It would be a full-circle moment. We met on the apps, we remet on the apps over and over, and now we’d make up on the apps. Our meet-cute.
I smiled and swiped right.
Nothing happened. No matched message appeared on my screen. Maybe I’d come across his profile first and now just had to wait for his acceptance. Or maybe he swiped left, rejected me.
It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that he could’ve decided it was too weird to date the sister of an ex.
That all he wanted to explain was why he’d lied about it, because he was a nice guy and couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t, and then he’d go on his way.
The fact that he was still on the apps at all was messing with my head.
Had he never gotten off? How many women was he chatting with?
Maybe this was the real sign from the universe. And it was telling me to let him go.
Two people were in line in front of me at the coffee shop Monday when my phone rang. Sloane and Cheryl were supposed to meet me here on an early lunch break, so I pulled out my phone, thinking they were going to tell me why they were running late. The name on my screen stopped me cold.
“Hello, this is Margot,” I answered, doing the best I could to sound professional in the middle of a coffee shop.
“Hi, Margot, it’s James Rosen.” Only one of the very best editors of horror around.
“Hi, James. How are you?”
“I’m good. Good.”
“Next,” the barista at the register said, obviously not for the first time.
Somehow the two people that were in line in front of me had already ordered without me realizing. I lifted my hand in an apology and stepped to the side, plugging my left ear so I could hear better. “Do you have good news for me?”
“This book, Margot, is amazing.”
My chest expanded, close to bursting. “I knew you’d love it.”
“I wasn’t going to read it, but your passion for the project convinced me.” He cleared his throat. “Now, who is my competition, and which boxing gloves do I need to pull out to acquire this?”
I tried not to react. As far as he was concerned, this was what I had expected.
I was confident and calm. “I can let you know in the next day or two.” Now it was my turn to use some leverage.
Not for a different editor—he was the right one for this book—but to drum up more interest, which would result in a higher advance from him. “Put together your best offer.”
“Will do,” he said.
“Oh, and James. She wants to keep all the elements of all the different genres. You’re open to that?”
“I am very open to that.”
“Great. I’ll speak with you soon.”
I tapped the red button on my screen, disconnecting the call, and then silently screamed, spinning a circle and doing a little dance while I did.
“Excuse me, Miss?”
The voice had my head whipping in the direction of its owner, the blood draining from my face.
“I think they mixed up our drinks,” Oliver said, a softness in his eyes. He held up an iced chai for me.
I looked at my hands, which held only a cell phone.
“You were supposed to get a drink,” he said. “You didn’t get a drink.”
“I got a phone call,” I said.
“Shit,” he said.
I stared at the drink he held out for several long beats. It was like both my brain and my emotions had ceased functioning.
He slowly lowered his hand. “I’m sorry. This was a stupid idea that seemed more romantic in my head… I’ll go.”
“No,” I said, and he stopped his retreat.
I took in our surroundings. I’d worked my way over to the side of the café when on the phone and that’s where we stood, out of the way, by a bookcase that didn’t hold a single book. There were plants and packages of coffee for sale and even candles. But no books.
He held out the drink again, and this time I took it, our hands brushing in the exchange.
“You didn’t swipe right on me,” I said, cupping the tea in my hands, like it was the only thing grounding me right now.
“What?”
“That was days ago. Which means you must’ve swiped left. I swiped right. And you swiped left. We weren’t a match,” I said, my throat tight from the memory, from the disappointment I felt.
“No,” he said. “I’m not swiping. I didn’t swipe at all.”
“You’re not swiping?” I asked, a little confused.
“I would’ve deleted the apps, but that’s where our messages are. I reread them a lot. I know it’s unhealthy and obsessive but I do it because… because I miss you, Margot. So much.”
I nodded but couldn’t say the words back no matter how much I felt them.
“I didn’t know you were her sister,” he said.
“I mean, at first, I had no idea. Not three years ago in the car, not all these years of messaging, not the majority of our time together. Not until I saw her first name on your phone and then learned your last name. And even then I wasn’t sure because her sister’s name was Maggie.
So I had to go home and google her and you. ”
“And then you knew,” I said.
He nodded.
“ Before you slept with me.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them again. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to. I was processing. But you two were fighting and I wanted you to make up with her, I didn’t want to be another source of tension, and I’d talked myself out of being with you once I found out.
But you showed up at the gym. I tried to tell you then but you stopped me.
Then you asked me for a ride to Paso Robles.
And I didn’t want to stay away from you.
I thought maybe we really could just be friends.
I wanted you in my life. Then in the silo you said that thing about the past being in the past and it’s been eight years and I thought since we’d already…
” He sighed, his shoulders dropping, as if saying everything out loud revealed just how much he had screwed up.
“I have no excuse. I’m a coward. I should’ve told you. ”
“You should’ve.”
He swallowed hard, a look of concentration taking over his face.
“I can see you thinking,” I said.
“It’s who I am.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m impulsive sometimes… a lot of the time. I’m nothing like my sister.”
“I know,” he said.
“So what conclusions have you drawn?’
“Conclusions?” he asked.
“All the thinking you’ve been doing the last couple weeks. Have you concluded anything?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m stupid?”
“Yes, aside from that.”
He laughed a little, maybe realizing my sarcasm had come out, maybe taking that as a good sign.
“I’ve concluded that you’re good for me.
You get me out of my head and you challenge me and you make me happy.
That you are smart and funny and interesting and sexy as hell.
You’re everything. And I…” He paused and took a breath, then met my eyes with wonder in his. “You swiped right on me?”
I nodded and held up the drink in my hands. “You wanted to give me a meet-cute.”
“I love you, Margot.”
My heart beat hard against my ribs, taking my breath away.
“Aren’t you going to say it back?” came another voice.
I looked to my right to see Sloane and Cheryl standing there, arm in arm.
“That was a really good speech,” Sloane said. “You forgive him, right?”
“Sloane, we’re kind of in the middle of a private conversation here.”
“In the middle of a coffee shop? This isn’t exactly private conversation territory.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not. We’re leaving.”
“What?” Sloane protested. “I’m invested now. I need to see the kiss.”
“This isn’t some movie set,” I said.
She groaned. “Fine, get out of here.”
Oliver held out his hand for me and I took it.
He held on tight as we walked and a fuzzy warmth spread up my arms. Outside, the trees around the coffee shop were being trimmed by a man in a large hat and an orange vest. The smell of freshly cut grass hung in the air.
I took a sip of my tea and the liquid trailed a cool path down my throat.
Oliver turned toward me with a questioning head tilt. “Where are we going?”
“My place is closer.” Which reminded me. “Why are you here?” This wasn’t the closest coffee shop to his house.
He ran a slow thumb over my palm as he continued to hold my hand. “This is where I go for coffee now.”
“Really?” I said. “The one closest to my house?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I wanted to see you, if only for a minute.”
“And what if I want to see you for more than a minute?” I asked.
“Do you?” he asked. “ Can you forgive me?”
We stopped next to his car, which was parked along the curb, and he opened the passenger door for me.
“My car is in the parking lot,” I said. “Meet me at my house?”
“Can I drive you? Please.”
I smiled. “Are you worried I’m going to change my mind?”
“I’m not even sure which side of the aisle your mind is on yet,” he said.
I thought the swiping right and the hand-holding and the inviting him to my house made things pretty clear, but maybe he sensed the lingering bits of hesitancy I still possessed about my sister and how this would make her feel.
And yet as I stood here, staring at him, I knew that when all was said and done, this was my choice to make, not hers, and I chose Oliver. I chose me.