3. Taylor
CHAPTER 3
Taylor
PRESENT DAY…
“ W here’d you get this couch again?” Austin groans, settling back into the love seat in my office. “It’s so comfortable.” His legs stretch out long and wide in front of him, his body in a heavily slouched position. He runs both hands through his wavy hair before leaning his head back and closing his eyes, just like he does every Friday around the same time.
“For the hundredth time,” I half mumble as I flip through an endless stack of papers in front of me, “I found it online. Someone was selling it.”
“That’s not code for I found it on the street , is it?” His nose scrunches with the question.
“No. I just said someone was selling it. It’s an Audo Copenhagen.” He stares at me blankly. “It’s a ten-thousand-dollar couch I got for less than three.”
“Damn.” He picks at a piece of lint on the cushion before smoothing his hand over the cream material. It’s the same couch I’ve had for almost a year and at least once a month he comments how comfortable it is. “I need to have you help me furnish my place. Not only do you have good taste, but you know how to find the best deals.”
“It was just a casualty of divorce. I’m not particularly good at finding sales. Hey.” I look up from the current contract I’ve been buried in for the last few weeks. “Did Tyson end up signing with us? I didn’t see anything come across from my de?—”
“You know the rule,” he interrupts, lifting his hand, his head still back with eyes closed. “This time is sacred.”
“For the record, I never agreed to your rule. You decided that Fridays at four thirty p.m. in my office was a no-work time for you. I don’t have that privilege.” I try not to let the evidence of my failed relationship seep into my work life but lately, I can’t deny that it’s taking a toll on my mood.
“You have a paralegal and an assistant. I believe I’ve told you more than once to hire on a second attorney so that you can have a better work-life balance, but you’ve chosen not to.”
“Well, if you’d stop bringing in rich assholes with insane amounts of money to manage, I wouldn’t be so stressed.” A smile splits his lips, his eyes still closed as he chuckles. “And hiring another attorney won’t fix my work-life balance; we both know that. It’s a control thing.”
“Then what will?” He eyes me. “Besides removing the giant stick up your ass which we both know you’ve come to enjoy.” When I don’t give him the response he’s looking for, he presses further. “Fine, maybe being in a relationship with a man who doesn’t make you want to work late all the time.”
“Excuse me?” I glance over the papers in my hand.
“Oh, please.” He finally lifts his head with a huff. “Nothing will at this point; you’re a workaholic and we both know it.”
“One of us has to be.” I smile dryly, returning my attention back to the file in my hands.
“Why not finally get that kitten you’ve always wanted?”
I furrow my brow in sadness, Noah’s constant empty promise of adopting a cat with me another one of those carrots he’d dangle in front of me if I wasn’t home enough or performing as I should have been as a girlfriend.
“Maybe.” I shrug.
Since we started this wealth management firm five years ago, it’s grown at a rate that neither of us expected… even if Austin likes to pretend he knew it would happen. We’ve brought on an entire team of financial experts, moved to a high-rise office building in the middle of The Loop in the financial district of Chicago, and become one of the top firms in the city.
“You know, when I met you”—I glance up to catch Austin looking at me—“I thought you were just uptight because you were stressed about finding a job.”
My shoulders drop, my hands drifting slowly back down to my desk. I’ve always been uptight, he knows that, but lately it’s been even worse. Clearly, he’s picked up on it, and while I had hoped I would be able to compartmentalize my professional life from my personal life, which is falling apart… I’m failing.
“And here I thought that’s what you love about me, my uptight status quo.” I offer a genuine smile, sitting back in my chair as I swivel to face him. “One of us has to be the neurotic one so that the other can be the easygoing, charming one.”
“Charming, huh?” He props his arm behind his head, his stomach flexing beneath his shirt. “After five years”—he winks—“she still thinks I’m charming.”
My eyes want to linger, to notice the way his belt sits perfectly at his hips. To imagine that view from above him, his hands on my waist as his voice drops to that sexy, rich tenor that may or may not make my knees go weak.
“Me, obviously. You’re the neurotic one,” I say, rolling my eyes which in turn makes him laugh. That same loud, unapologetic laugh he let out on the train car that day we first met.
“Well, if you ever need to relax and let loose, I promise I can step up and be neurotic for you.”
“I’ll take a look at my schedule and let you know. I might be able to squeeze in fifteen minutes of relaxation somewhere next month.” I reach beneath my desk, pulling off my newest pair of Christian Louboutin Athina heels and let them fall to the floor.
“I don’t know how you women do it,” he says, nodding toward my shoes. “Don’t your feet hurt?”
“Of course they do.” I shrug. “But I don’t buy them because they’re comfortable; I buy them because they’re stunning and they make me feel like a badass when I wear them.”
“You are a badass.”
“Well, we know that, but I have to make sure the men that walk through that door,” I say, pointing toward my office entryway, “know that because they like to think I’ll be impressed with the size of their portfolio. So I like to remind them that I wear heels bigger than their dick.”
His smile widens as he shakes his head. “Fuck me, I love you.”
It hits me right in my stomach every single time he says that. Delivered with the same cadence, same laugh, usually always right after I’ve said something particularly snarky.
He stretches one arm out as he sits up, reaching for one of my shoes. He picks it up, running his thumb along the edge. “You have incredible taste, though, that’s for sure.” I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking as he stares at the heel, his thumb still dragging so slowly along the insole. “What was the occasion this time?”
“What?”
His head tilts, a curious smile on his face as he looks at me. “You always show up in a new pair of Louboutins whenever something’s happened. First day of work after we started this firm you showed up with a new pair. Different than the ones you said you bought yourself after graduating law school. And then that time the girl screwed your hair up”—he flashes me a grimace—“after I convinced you to get a bob.” He gingerly places the shoe back on the floor after gesturing with it. “So, was it good or bad this time?”
He noticed that?
A silly little tradition I didn’t mean to start for myself when I graduated. I saved for three years for my first pair, promising myself that the day I signed on with my first big firm, I’d buy my second pair. Well, I never signed with a law firm, but I did buy my second pair when I met Austin. And the hair situation… well, that was a nightmare I had to distract myself from so after my tears dried and I learned a few in between hairstyles I could pull off as my hair grew out, you bet your ass I bought my pair of fancy fucking shoes.
My breath catches in my throat, making me cough slightly. Even though we clicked the second we met and our business relationship has turned more into friendship, I forget just how much time we spend together. How deeply we’ve come to know one another whether through words or noticing little habits and routines like this.
I debate on telling him, on finally saying the words out loud.
Noah and I broke up.
A fact I haven’t told anyone yet besides my best friend Becca, but I can’t make myself say it. It’s still fresh, too new, and I really don’t feel like crying about it anymore. Not only because Noah doesn’t deserve my tears, but also because it’s been four months; it’s time I start focusing on myself and stop living in the past. I gave him almost five years. He doesn’t deserve another second.
A thought I keep reminding myself of when I find myself yet again crying on the shower floor or in my closet after a particularly long day.
“Bad,” I say with a shrug, my eyes staying focused on his so I don’t seem too upset. I know if I look away or show how upset I still am, he’ll be asking me twenty questions to get to the bottom of it. That’s what Austin does, rushing in as the white knight to try and make everyone’s problems go away.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope. What are you doing this weekend?” I change the subject. “Any hot dates?"
“Actually.” He smiles. “I have a first date and I’m pretty excited about it.”
“Oh?” There’s an unpleasant flick of something in my stomach. Austin goes on a lot of first and second dates… maybe not a lot but enough that it’s rare if ever that he gets excited about a first date. “I thought you were seeing Penelope? Is that her name?”
“ Was ,” he corrects me, “and we went on a few dates. It was nice but neither of us felt a connection so on to the next.”
I scrunch my nose at the sentiment. Not because I’m judging but because I wish for one damn second of my life I had that kind of attitude. Had I really analyzed my relationship with Noah after even six months, I’d have seen that we weren’t right for each other, but I wanted it to work.
I needed it to work. Because he was the one I chose. The one I thought was my happily ever after while Austin was the business risk. At least that’s what I convinced myself back then. Noah was safe. He wanted the white picket fence and the family in the suburbs. He wasn’t making risky business decisions and charming random women on the subway.
That excitement I felt when Austin first spoke to me on the train, his bold outgoing personality was doing exactly what he had crafted it to do. It pulled me in. And somewhere along the way I told myself that excitement and intrigue like that don’t last forever.
“And the new date, where’d you meet her?”
“Running the lakefront. She’s a lawyer too actually—said starting her morning with a vigorous workout has been life-changing.” Stupidly, I feel a pang of jealousy when I have no right to because I’ve blown off Austin’s invites to go running for years, claiming I have no time as an attorney when the reality is, I could have made time like she does.
At first my excuse was born out of a general hatred for running. I had tried to pick it up in college, even joining a few classmates in a running club once a month for several weeks, but it was never my thing. But as time has gone on, even if I had been interested in joining him, it wasn’t worth the fight it would likely cause with Noah. And lying to him about it was out of the question.
“What does she look like?” I regret the question as soon as I say it. I sound jealous, no way around it, but he doesn’t seem to hear me because he doesn’t answer me. He sits up with a smile, like he’s replaying the memory of meeting her in his head.
“I had just finished a few quick miles and was watching the sunrise when she stopped to watch it with me. We made small talk and exchanged numbers so I’m taking her out tomorrow night.”
“That’s romantic.” My heart flutters because it really does sound like the beginning of a movie. “Two strangers sharing a single moment between just them in the middle of a huge city. Sounds like true love if you ask me.” I wriggle my eyebrows at him, making him laugh.
“You know”—he glances down, smoothing his hand over his flat stomach—“some people would say that about how we met.” When he looks back up at me, he has that smirk. The one that’s always managed to snake its way into my thoughts and wrap itself around my brain, squeezing any rational thoughts from it at the most inconvenient times—like right now.
“Oh yes.” I join him in laughter, shaking my head as if it will dislodge the thought of him. “I forget how romantic the train can be. The smell of stale urine and the ever-present threat of being accosted if it’s just you and someone else in the car.”
His smile fades, his laugh tapering off too as his gaze drifts from mine. “Yeah, I guess you’re right; it wasn’t the most ideal setting when we met. What about you? Noah whisking you away for some romantic weekend getaway? Or hey, maybe even a date if he’s feeling generous?” His tone has an edge.
“Austin…” I don’t have to verbalize what he knows I’m going to say. What I always say to him about Noah. “I’m really not in the mood today.”
We’ve had this conversation before over the years, more times than I care to count actually. And while deep down I know Austin is right, that I shouldn’t have had to beg and fight tooth and nail with my boyfriend to take me on a date or spend some quality time with me, I don’t think I’m ready yet to face that reality. To accept the fact that a man I loved, a man I gave everything to over the last several years, cared so little about me. And even harder to swallow… I stayed.
“Right, because it’s never a good time to ask your partner for the bare minimum.” I stare at him with a pleading look. “Anyway…” He pushes himself up from the couch. “I will let you get back to burying yourself in work like you do every weekend.” He pauses when he reaches the door, his eyes finding mine again. “You know, Tay, you can’t use being a workaholic as an excuse for someone not spending quality time with you if they’re never actually trying to spend time with you. At some point, you’re giving them an excuse so that you don’t have to face the reality of their priorities.”
It’s a good thing he closes my door behind him because giant tears start to drop one by one from my eyes onto my desk. I wipe at them furiously, anger building in my chest at the truth of his words.
Then that thought creeps into my brain… the one I’ve had before but pushed aside the second it entered my head. The thought I won’t allow myself to consider because the risk is too high.
The thought that has secretly haunted me for years.
The thought that has tormented me with guilt every time I’d look into Noah’s eyes.
What if I had chosen Austin five years ago?