10. Zane
10
Zane
With the End in Sight
I fold the blanket back beneath the pillows, attempting to make it look as neat as when housekeeping does it, but my results are less than perfect. All that matters is when we fall asleep together again in this bed, there won’t any barriers between us.
There’s no way I’m letting her sleep in the terminal tonight. What objection could she possibly have at this point?
She comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “I would’ve helped,” she says when she sees that I’ve already put the clean sheets on the bed.
“You were in the shower. I can make a bed.”
Her eyes scan the job I did. The overhang of the blanket isn’t exactly equal on both sides.
“The sheets are even,” I assure her.
“I believe you.”
Her smile says she doesn’t trust my claim, but she’ll see when she climbs between them later.
She opens her carry-on and rifles through the few clothes she has inside.
“You can borrow one of my shirts if you just want to be comfortable.”
“Thanks.”
I toss her a t-shirt from my bag. It looks so much better on her. And I love that she doesn’t bother with pants. There is something incredibly sexy about a woman wearing nothing but an oversized shirt, especially when it’s mine.
The food arrives. I uncork the wine while she peeks at the cake. Then she runs her finger through the frosting and licks it off.
“Warn a guy next time.” I pass her a glass of wine. “I didn’t even have a chance to get my phone out.”
“No photos.”
“I knew you weren’t going to be any fun.”
“Nope. I’m a total bore.”
She sits cross-legged on the bed with the excess material of my shirt bunched between her legs while she eats. I wheel the desk chair over in front of her again. There’s not a chance I wouldn’t get sauce or chocolate on the bed. She could spill her plate and I wouldn’t care. It’d be worth it to see her sitting in front of me like this. But I try to keep my eyes on hers as we talk.
I get her to open up a little about her life. Both parents are still alive, and she gets along with them. Not overly close, though. Never been married. No kids. Workaholic from what I can tell.
“You want to talk about what happened with your job?”
She sighs, and I worry I’ve pried too far, but she keeps talking. “The owner gave his fiancée’s son a job. He was fresh out of college with no real interest in being a PR rep, but apparently, he couldn’t land any other job, so I got an assistant I never asked for and didn’t need yet. And the joy of trying to train a twenty-two-year-old who thought he already knew everything. He’s charming and quick-witted, but he’s also kind of a dumbass, and he can’t handle any form of confrontation, so I cleaned up more than a few of his blunders. The next thing I know, I’m being told we have to downsize, and since I’m the newest hire, I’m the first to go.”
“Did the guy you trained also get fired?”
“What do you think?”
“You might have a wrongful termination case.”
“I don’t have the time or the money to explore that option. Besides, everybody knows everybody in the PR industry. The last thing I need is to be known as the rep who sued her last employer.”
“Fair enough. Can you poach your clients when you land at a new firm?”
She gasps, bringing her palm to her chest. “I would never. But if they happen to get my new contact information and decide to follow me . . . there’s certainly nothing I can do about that.”
“And you will send them all your new contact information. I’m guessing with a friendly note mentioning all the ways you can better serve them with your new employer.”
“Hey, you’re good. If that actuary thing gets old, maybe you can come be my assistant. I’m an excellent trainer. I trained the last guy so well he took my job.”
“You’ve got to learn to be more of a slacker.”
“Said the guy who checks his emails on vacation.”
“Guilty. But I bet your clients will be glad to hear from you.”
“I think a few of them will follow me right away. And I might be able to win over a few more. It’ll all work out.”
She’s not great at optimism. The wince gives her away.
“You’re right,” I say. “It will all work out. I checked the weather while you were in the shower. Looks like the storm should end in the next few hours. If that holds, they’ll be deicing the runways in the morning and lining up planes.”
I want to believe that’s disappointment I see in her eyes. I’m torn. I want to get to Florida to see Mom, Izzie, and Dad. I need to be there for them as soon as possible. But the thought of my time with Darby coming to an end makes my gut twist.
“Yeah,” she says. “But then we’ll be at the mercy of the airline’s scheduling. It’s going to be a madhouse all day, I’m sure. Have you gotten anything about your flight yet?”
“Not yet.”
It seems neither of us really wants to talk about leaving. She tells me about a trip she took a few months ago to attend an old roommate’s wedding. We joke about what seemed like travel problems for her then, agreeing that after this storm, we probably won’t even notice regular travel inconveniences anymore. Not for a while, anyway.
Eventually, we end up talking about a few of our exes, nothing too deep, just random facts and anecdotes about people we’ve dated. It’s a treacherous topic, and we’re both clearly treading lightly, but I like talking about relationships with her. She has interesting perspectives on why people do the things they do.
It’s possible I find them interesting because I agree with most of them.
I ask her what she loves about the beach.
“It’s calming. It’s where I want to be when my head gets too full.”
That’s funny. When her head gets too full. But I know exactly what she means.
“I get that. My mom always went to the beach when she needed to think, to work through something. She just sits and stare at the waves. As a kid, I thought that was the most boring thing in the world someone could do at the beach. As an adult, I find myself missing the beach more than I ever thought I would.”
“Will you go with her while you’re home visiting?”
“I’ll probably go, but she’s not really up to it anymore. I might take Izzie. She loves the beach, probably spends even more time there than I did growing up.”
“Still too young to appreciate the restorative benefit of staring at the waves, though.”
“You’d be surprised. She loves to go with friends, but I’ve found her sitting alone the way Mom does more than once. Sometimes, she seems wise beyond her years. Other times, I want to grab her and shake some sense into her.”
“She sounds right on track for fourteen. Is your dad not a beach guy?”
“No, not at all. He loves to sail, but hanging out on a sandy beach is not his idea of a good day.”
“Sailing sounds relaxing, too.”
“You’ve never been? Text me so I have your number. Maybe I can get away long enough to take you.”
“You probably need to be with your family.”
“I do. And I will be. But if there’s an opportunity, I’d love to take you sailing.”
I watch her walk to the desk to take her phone off the charger. Her hair’s still damp, but it’s started to air-dry into loose waves around her face. She looks beautiful. She’s beautiful with her hair blow-dried and makeup on, too, but it feels like a privilege to get to see her like this. Especially wearing nothing but my t-shirt.
She sends me a text.
No one has ever made me squirt twice before.
Damn, she knows how to work the element of surprise.
I look up and catch her devilish smile.
“I’m clearly your soulmate,” I say with a shrug, as if her suggestive message didn’t just make me feel like a teenage boy with his first girlfriend. That’s not an exaggeration by much. The words may have been entirely unlike anything a young girlfriend ever said to me, but it’s been a long time since anyone excited me the way she does.
“I don’t think our souls had anything to do with it,” she quips.
“Oh, come on. The entire atmosphere conspired to introduce us. It was practically divine intervention.”
“A blind date, courtesy of catastrophic weather conditions.”
“Snow-blind.”
“Snow-blind date sounds like the title of a romance novel.”
“You read romance?”
“Don’t say it like you just found out I sell my dirty panties on the internet.”
“Do you?”
“Not yet. But if I don’t get another job soon . . .”
God, I love laughing with this woman.
“Speaking of panties, put some on, and let’s go take one last stroll through Rome. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find departures on the boards already.”
“I’ve never had a guy tell me to put my panties back on.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take them off again as soon as we get back to the room.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Unless I find a buyer in Rome.”