Chapter 15
ZACH
Midweek after taking Adeline and the girls out for pizza, I was in the boardroom at W&S, waiting for our lawyers to call with the news that Adeline was divorced. It was a phone call that might well determine who I’d be waking up next to for the rest of my life. So far, I’d managed not to bolt.
So proud of myself.
“Relax,” Nate said without looking up from his phone. “You’re vibrating.”
I scoffed. “I am not.”
“You are,” he said. “You’re pacing.”
“I’m sitting still.”
He finally glanced up at me, a half-teasing, half-understanding smile on his lips. “Physically, yes, you’re sitting still, but mentally, you’re pacing.”
I blew out a heavy breath and shoved a hand through my hair. Again. “We’re waiting on legal confirmation, not defusing a bomb.”
Nate’s features scrunched up for a minute as he thought it over. Then he shrugged. “It’s the same energy, man.”
Alex didn’t comment. I wasn’t even sure he was still aware that we were in the room with him.
He was sitting at the head of the table with a folder open in front of him, reviewing whatever document was in there with such extreme focus that it looked like he’d forgotten why he was even here instead of in his office.
I envied him for that today. My brain had chosen complete and utter disarray instead, jumping from one thought to the next like a drunken bunny on a pub crawl.
Louis had signed the divorce papers last night, enthusiastically, as far as I’d heard, which said everything I needed to know about his priorities, but now, it was her turn.
One signature was all it would take. With just one stroke of a pen, she’d be free—for a few days until the next contract was shoved at her, at least. This time, one detailing the terms of her marriage to me.
I cleared my throat, trying to wipe away the nerves, but it didn’t really work. It kind of felt like I’d swallowed something dry that hadn’t agreed with me, so I blew out another heavy breath and leaned back in my chair.
Damn that hurt. Why does even clearing my throat hurt today?
Nate glanced up at me again, one of his eyebrows sweeping up into one of those elegant, knowing arches. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s just the air in here. It’s so dry.”
“Or it’s stress,” he offered. “Just relax. She’s going to sign and it’ll be done. That is what you want, right?”
“It’s just the dry air,” I mumbled, attempting to clear my throat again and wincing when it felt like I had swallowed a handful of gravel.
Nate rolled his eyes, apparently unconvinced by my explanation, but the sudden ringing of Alex’s phone immediately made both of us straighten up. Alex’s hand shot out before he’d even looked up. He shifted his focus from the folder to the device, already standing as he took the call.
“Yeah.” He walked around the table to the door. “Okay. What is it?”
Nate and I watched him go, listening to the faint murmur of his voice just outside the room, but I couldn’t make out anything useful.
My throat tickled, a cold sweat breaking out across my brow.
My chest was also suddenly feeling tight.
I drew in a deep breath, wincing slightly when it felt like the air was trying to stab its way through my lungs.
I rolled my shoulders back like that might somehow fix it, but none of the discomfort disappeared. My entire body seemed to be glitching today. God, if not even air goes in correctly, you know you have a problem.
Naturally, Nate didn’t miss it. “Are you getting sick?”
“No.”
“You sound like you swallowed sand.”
“I feel fine.”
“Denial is a powerful thing, but if you get me sick, I’m kicking your ass.”
“I’m not in denial, and I won’t get you sick,” I said. “I just need this to be done.”
Then I coughed. It was just once, but he didn’t miss that either. “Well, that’s promising.”
“Don’t,” I said. “It’s nothing. I’m just on edge.”
“Nah. You’ve been spending time with Adeline’s children and—”
“And they’re healthy. Maybe you were right earlier and it’s just stress.”
“They’re children,” he argued lightly, like that should explain everything. “They’re never healthy. They’re just incubating.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “I’m not sick. I don’t get sick. I can’t even remember the last time I had to go the doctor.”
He shrugged. “Times change.”
I sighed. “Can we just not do this right now?”
“Sure,” he said easily. “Let’s talk about your impending arranged marriage instead.”
I gave him a look that should’ve said, very clearly, that I didn’t want to talk about that either, but he slid his forearms onto the table and gave me his full attention. “I don’t understand why Alex wanted her to come sign here. Do you think that’s her? Do you think she’s coming?”
He jerked his head toward the door, like I’d needed him to clarify what he’d meant. I shrugged one of my shoulders, the best I could do to appear nonchalant when I definitely didn’t feel it.
“I don’t know who it is, but we’ll know soon enough if it’s her,” I said, though he hadn’t even looked at me before he’d left, which seemed to indicate that it hadn’t been about my marriage.
The fact that he’d wanted her to come sign the papers at W&S though, that was all about our marriage.
They wanted to be able to move forward with our match, and if he saw her sign the papers with his own two eyes, that meant he could instruct our lawyers to start finalizing the paperwork for our engagement.
I didn’t say any of that out loud, though. Nate knew it too, and judging by the fact that he was still leaning forward with his elbows on the table, he wasn’t going to drop it until Alex came back and we found out what that call had been about.
“How are you doing with everything?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.
It took me aback for a second before I finally managed to respond. “I’m fine.”
He sighed. “Funny, that’s what I used to say too and I definitely wasn’t fine.”
“And yet, you kept insisting you were.”
“Only because it was a complicated situation.”
“Like this isn’t.” I scoffed, but the fact of the matter was that Nate knew more than most about what had happened with Adeline back in the day.
Honestly, he and Will had kept me from falling apart completely. Nate had even been the one who’d gotten me into running to begin with, but even then, I doubted either of them really knew what I’d gone through.
Neither of them had ever been in love when it’d happened, and when they had finally fallen, they’d both married those women. As much as I appreciated everything they’d done for me, there was just no way he’d be able to understand what I was going through right now either.
“Look, I know it’s complicated,” he said, tilting his head in that annoyingly perceptive way he had. “I just need to know how much we should be worrying about you.”
“It’s not me you need to worry about at all.
” That much, at least, was true. “Adeline is my only concern and she should be yours too. I don’t want her feeling like she’s being forced into another marriage.
She’s been there, done that, and I’m not interested in being part of her having to go through it again. ”
“Is that why you’re being so weird around her?” he asked after a beat. “You think she’s feeling like you’re forcing her into this?”
I glared at him. “I’m not being weird.”
“You are,” he said firmly. “Just answer the question, Zach. I can’t protect either of you if I don’t know what’s really going on.”
What was really going on was that I’d been in love with this girl since I was sixteen and nothing had really changed except for an almost overwhelming sense of heartbreak and guilt, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that.
“I’m just not sure how to move forward with her,” I said finally, admitting the next best thing. “Given our history, I don’t know what we’re supposed to be to each other now.”
His eyes narrowed in thought. “Okay, I think I understand, but give it to me straight.”
“It’s been eight years, Nate,” I said. “That’s not nothing at our age. We spent our entire twenties apart. That’s as good as a lifetime when you’re as young as we are.”
He didn’t argue with me, thankfully. “So that’s what you’re worried about.”
“We’re not the same people we were back then and we shouldn’t pretend like we are.
There’s no guarantee that our marriage will work out.
It might have, if we had gotten married when we were dating, but now, we just don’t really know each other anymore and I don’t want her to have to go into another marriage with an… acquaintance.”
Nate held my gaze for another second before he moved his slowly toward the windows. “That’s fair. No one ever has a guarantee that it’s going to work out, but it does seem like you’ve got a better shot when you know the person you’re saying yes to.”
The door opening interrupted us and Alex walked back in, his head shaking as he strode toward the table. “She’s not coming.”
Everything in me clenched, but Nate beat me to the punch in actually voicing the question. “What?”
“She’s not coming in to sign the papers today,” Alex repeated, swiping the folder he’d been reviewing earlier off the table when he reached it. “Apparently, she’s sick, so I’m sending a runner to her apartment.”
I pushed my chair back and stood just as Alex turned to leave again. “Give me the papers. I’ll go.”
He looked at me, nodded, and held the folder out toward me without argument. “Call me when it’s done.”
“Yeah. You got it.” I took the thick folder hanging between us, immediately wondering why it felt so much heavier than it should.
Technically, it was just a contract, but it held a weight that had nothing to do with paperwork, ink, and legalese. Nate leaned back in his chair, watching me leave with a worried expression on his face, and I knew that he was going to talk to Alex about it as soon as I left,
Let them gossip. For now, I was focused on getting to my sick ex-girlfriend to deliver papers she’d been waiting a year for. Even I couldn’t believe that the divorce was finally over—and I hadn’t even been in it for a month yet.
As I left our building, it wasn’t lost on me that up until this moment, the full extent of my knowledge or involvement with Adeline’s living situation had been sending a driver to pick her up.
At least that meant I had her address, but I’d never even seen her building until I pulled up in front of it thirty minutes after leaving HQ.
It was a medium-sized block on the outskirts of downtown, in a quiet but slightly industrial neighborhood. After double-checking that I’d locked my car, I headed up to the front doors, surprised that there was no barrier to entry.
I didn’t even need to be buzzed in. The doors were propped wide open. A narrow stairwell led up to the apartments from a tiny room masquerading as a lobby. The faint echo of someone’s television two floors up drifted to my ears as I headed to her apartment on the third floor.
There was no elevator though, but I made it up the stairs without dying, a personal victory considering that the faint scratch in my throat had upgraded to a definite, persistent tightness in my chest on the drive over.
When I finally reached her door, I took a moment to catch my breath, which was ridiculous after only climbing three flights of stairs. I knocked. There was a brief moment of nothing from the other side. Then fast footsteps thundered against the floor.
“Me first!” someone yelled, and it sounded like it might’ve been Jennifer.
“No, me!” That had definitely been Lu. “I said I get to open it!”
“I’m older!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
The door swung open to reveal that Lu had gotten her way. She looked up at me, her face pale and her eyes glassy, but as soon as she registered who I was, she closed the door directly in my face.
I stared at the wood for a second, not really sure what to make of it, but then I heard Adeline’s voice. “Lu, no. We don’t slam doors in people’s faces. What did I say about manners?”
The door opened again with Jennifer standing on the other side this time. She was equally pale, but her cheeks were slightly flushed and her nose was bright red underneath. She smiled up at me through it all, looking genuinely not unhappy to see me.
“We have germs,” she announced almost proudly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand as if she was trying to prove her point.
“Clearly.” I smiled back at her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded like I’d passed some kind of test and stepped aside. “You can come in, but you’ll probably get sick.”
“That seems likely,” I agreed, crossing the threshold into the equivalent of a runaway Influenza A laboratory, but doing it without hesitation.
The apartment was small, but not uncomfortably so. Just compact. It was also lived-in, though. Toys were tucked into corners and there was a blanket draped over the back of the couch, empty bowls and mugs on the counter in the kitchen and the coffee table in what appeared to be the living area.
Adeline was curled into the corner of the couch with a laptop balanced on her knees. She looked up when I walked in, blinking like she needed a second to process. Then she scrambled upright.
“Zach? What are you doing here?” She pushed her hair back from her face, which absolutely did not help to make it look less like her immune system was under attack, and frowned. “You didn’t have to come.”
Her voice caught slightly but not because she was emotional. It was more like it just wasn’t strong enough to get through an entire sentence. She looked impressively unwell. Still gorgeous, of course, but there was no polite way to frame it—she was sick and she looked it.
Her eyes were glassy, her skin a little too flushed, and her shoulders half-caved like she didn’t have the strength to hold herself up properly. I took another step into the apartment and immediately sneezed.
It came with no warning and left me with zero dignity, and Adeline sighed, a tiny smile quirking at the corners of her lips. “You’re sick too, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Of course not, you look incredibly healthy.”
I shook my head. “That was unrelated.”
A soft, breathy laugh slipped out of her. “I told you we were all going to get sick from that pizza place. Welcome to reality.”
I opened my mouth to argue but sneezed again instead. She smiled, her eyes on mine like she was waiting for an admission of guilt.
Finally, I groaned and resigned myself to the fact that for the first time in years, I might actually be sick. “It’s probably just allergies.” I held out the folder. “I came to deliver this. As soon as you’ve signed, I’ll get out of your hair.”
Her smile faded a little, her gaze dropping down to the papers before she looked back up at me. “I’ll get a pen. This is long overdue.”