Chapter 11 #2
“I’d like to believe in soulmates,” I admit, flopping onto the sofa.
“When my ex and I survived college without breaking up, I really thought it was fate. High school sweethearts, destined for more. I think our love was coasting on who we wanted to be rather than who we were. We let it live in the clouds and had nothing to grab on to when the storm came.”
Sterling takes the seat beside me. Outwardly, his expression is calm, but now that I know where to look, I can see the cracks—slivers of pain peeking through. It’s all in the eyes.
“For a long time, the only friend I had was loss. Then I met Lucky. He was everything I wasn’t—confident, optimistic”—he knocks my knee with his—“friendly. Being near him was like standing under a sun lamp. Falling for him was easy; everyone who knows Lucky falls for him sooner or later. It’s part of his charm.
It damn near killed me to leave, and I haven’t let myself get close to anyone new in a very long time. ”
I stare at the point where his knee rests on mine. I want to reach out, but I’m scared to break the moment by doing the wrong thing.
“If you could go back, would you change anything?”
“No,” he says, more certain than I expected, and my pulse jumps when he places his hand on my knee—the very thing I’ve been too scared to do. “I regret hurting him, but I can’t regret making the choice I did. It’s what led me here.”
Look at us, two lonely hearts with trust issues. What a pair we make. I cover his hand with mine, trying for any small bridge across the vast ocean we’re both swimming in.
* * *
Two days later, time stops.
It’s on every single news channel: Armed robbery at Chance’s Reserve Bank. Eight assailants, over fifty hostages, including The Observer’s own Sterling Ross.
I’m in the elevator before Monica can yell at me. If she finds out I used department records to find Sterling’s address, I’ll be out on my ass so fast that I’ll reverse the clocks.
I’m stunned when Sterling opens the door. There’s dried blood on his shirt and a bandage over a cut on his cheek.
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
He guides me inside and closes the door. “I’m fine, physically.”
I balk. This is fine?
With his hand on my elbow, he leads me farther into his apartment. It’s a lot smaller than I expected. I pictured big windows overlooking the city, where he’d sip whiskey and grumble about the state of corruption.
Instead, it’s plain and a little cramped and absolutely overrun with books. There’s one left open on the sofa, a collection of poetry, titled Love Poems and Death Threats. The pages are dog-eared and well loved. This isn’t his first read of it.
“Picked it up while on assignment in Australia,” he says.
“I’ve never left the country before, but I’d like to. Do you miss traveling?”
When I first started reading his work, I loved discovering all the new cities he’d visited. It was the closest I ever got to exploring.
“No. I’m where I want to be. There’s as much work to do here at home than anywhere else, and if I want to eat takeout in an empty room, I have my apartment for that.”
I take a second look. It’s a little sparse, but there are signs of history everywhere. Foreign language titles and a bouquet of dried flowers in an intricately painted vase.
“It doesn’t look empty to me.”
“It isn’t—now that you’re here.”
He hasn’t looked away from me since I walked in, and, sure, he’s always been intense, but there’s something else going on.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
He lets out a sharp exhale. “I’m more annoyed that I missed out on the story. Cox will surely move his money now, and I’ll lose the one good lead I had.”
“Nothing more important than the story, huh?” I ask, not expecting the tortured look he gives me.
“No, there’s one thing more important.”
He cups my cheek with his palm, and I’m so distracted by the heat of him that I don’t realize we’re kissing until his tongue grazes my bottom lip.
It’s electric, and I surge into him, convinced this is a trick my mind is playing on me. How else can I explain the feel of his fingers in my hair? The heady taste of him on my tongue?
The way he’s pulled me close, tilting my jaw with his thumb, kissing me longer, deeper.
I reel back.
“It’s the shock.” It’s got to be.
“It’s not. I’ve been unfair to you by keeping my distance. I thought it was for the best—for both of us. I had no idea when I convinced Monica to hire you that she’d take it out on you, and I thought if she knew how much I favored you, it would make things worse, but I was wrong.”
“How long have you felt this way?”
“A little over a year.”
A year? He didn’t simply hide it well; he buried it.
He continues, “It was close to midnight, the latest I’d ever seen you work, and you were curating a care package from the PR you’d been sent.”
I remember.
“Before each item went in, you added a date on a label to note when they’d expire. It was a small detail I don’t think many would consider. For a month after, you pitched partnerships with brands that all had one thing in common.”
Monica was confused by my apparent turnabout, but didn’t put the pieces together. But Sterling did.
“Did the shelter give you a list of what they needed, or did you put it together yourself?”
I’m proud of what I did, proud of sneaking it past Monica’s nose, proud of being able to use my work to help people, and I’ve kept that pride to myself—until now.
“Myself,” I say. “I interviewed everyone there who agreed to it and went from there.”
“That’s why,” he says, stepping closer. “You’re incredible.”
“What about Lucky?”
Sterling’s palms are warm against my cheeks.
“I won’t lie; I miss him, but what we had is in the past. When you arrived, wide-eyed and impassioned, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.
I’d already fallen for your writing, and here you were, this beautiful comet, ready to take on everything.
I had to keep it professional; I wanted to make sure you had the best chance to succeed without making it about me. ”
“It’s always been about you.”
“God, I’ve been so stubborn. I’m sorry.”
I pull him into another kiss. “You’re forgiven.”
* * *
That was lovely.
Wait! I want an epilogue (go to 83)
go back (go to 8)