Chapter 49 In My Feelings #2
“I’m not asking you to choose,” I said, standing so fast my chair scraped the tile. “I’m asking you to try. Because right now, it feels like you’re already gone.”
She stood too, bag over her shoulder. “And if you cared about me, you’d let me figure out what I want without your fingerprints all over it.”
The bell over the door jingled as she left—cheerful and wrong. I sank back into my chair, the space across from me suddenly too heavy.
Half-empty plates sat between us, the remains of a truce. Outside, I caught one last glimpse of her—head high, steps sure—before the crowd swallowed her whole.
Friday
The LA Convention Center’s ballroom buzzed with innovation and ego. Screens flashed, voices overlapped, and I stood at the edge of the stage, mic in hand, suit suddenly too tight.
This should’ve been my element—keynote speaker, hundreds of eyes locked on me. Instead, all I could think about was Harlee. Was she packing? Signing the contract?
My mouth delivered the lines I’d rehearsed—AI integration, cross-platform synergy—but my brain was 2,500 miles away.
Polite applause. Offstage, I shook hands on autopilot until Richard Dixon cornered me, tumbler in hand. “Killer speech. Heard Optix Innovations is expanding. Could be huge for you.”
A week ago, I’d be all over it. Now, I could only grunt.
“You staying in LA?” he asked.
“Heading back to Chicago,” I lied. The truth—I couldn’t stomach being in the same city she might be moving to without knowing where we stood.
As he melted into the crowd, the room felt like it was closing in—lights, chatter, constant pings from every device in the place. I pushed out into the hallway, loosened my tie, tried to breathe.
Kelley appeared. “You okay? Bolted like your ass was on fire.”
“Fine,” I said.
He didn’t buy it.
“I think I liked you better when she was ghosting you.”
I scoffed. “She’s not returning calls. Says she needs space to decide.”
Kelley nodded, slower this time. “Yeah… that sounds like the point.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means she’s trying to make a big decision,” he said. “People don’t do that on your timeline. They do it on theirs.”
I exhaled, sharp. I hated how much sense that made.
“Maybe she just needs to know you’ll support her,” he added. “No conditions. No pressure.”
I huffed out a laugh. “When’d you get so wise?”
“90 Day Fiancé,” he said, grinning.
Monday
The glow of my desk lamp painted the cluttered workspace in amber, shadows pooling around my laptop, tablets, and scattered notes. The low hum of the AC was the only sound—reminding me I was alone.
8:43 p.m. Another night chained to my desk, pretending campaign metrics meant something. Clicks, impressions, revenue… numbers that once fueled me now blurred into static.
All I could think about was Harlee.
My phone sat beside the keyboard. No new messages. No missed calls. Last night I’d texted her after landing, fingers hovering forever before I hit send. Still nothing.
I scrolled through our old conversations. Playful banter. Inside jokes. Photos that once felt like the start of something permanent. Now they were just artifacts.
The whiskey bottle on my desk caught the light. I poured, took a slow burn down my throat, hoping it would clear the knot in my chest.
I should’ve been out with the guys—Monroe pounding a heavy bag, Kelley charming some stranger. Instead, I was here, drinking alone, trying not to picture her packing for Burbank.
This wasn’t just about a job. It was the fear that if she went, she wouldn’t come back.
Before I could think better of it, I called.
It rang. And rang.
“Hey, this is Harlee. Leave a message…”
The sound of her voice—cheerful, recorded—hit harder than I expected.
“Harlee,” I said, my voice low, cracking on the edge. “I don’t even care what you decide anymore—just don’t disappear on me.”
I hung up. Stared at the screen. Nothing.
“Fuck.”
I drained the rest of the whiskey and leaned back in my chair. I couldn’t keep living in this limbo. I needed an answer.
The phone buzzed. My pulse jumped.
Not Harlee.
Kelley.
Friday (again)
The rooftop was quiet except for the hum of the city below. Cool spring air slid against my skin, cleaner than the burn of the whiskey in my hand. Chicago stretched in every direction—glass, steel, streetlight—but from up here it felt… far.
Didn’t make it easier to breathe.
I gripped the railing, staring out like the skyline might give me something back.
All I could see was Wednesday morning.
Her jaw set. Eyes hard.
Telling me she didn’t want my fingerprints on her decision.
The last thing I said was defensive.
Of course it was.
She walked out without finishing her coffee.
That should’ve been the moment I fixed it.
It wasn’t.
The condo emptied in pieces after that.
Her mug.
The sneakers by the door.
The blanket she kept stealing from my bed like it belonged to her.
Even the smell of her was gone.
The scent wiped away with today's housekeeping sweep.
Like she moved in and out just as quickly.
Then the envelope.
Plain. White. Sitting in the middle of the counter like it had something to say.
Inside—her key.
I stared at it longer than I should’ve.
Like it might explain itself. It didn’t.
My phone’s been a problem all day.
Every time it lights up, my chest jumps like an idiot.
When her name finally came through—
I didn’t even think.
Just opened it.
Harlee: August, I think we need to end things…
I stop reading halfway through the first time.
Start over.
Slower.
End things.
That’s what sticks.
Not the explanation. Not the timing.
Just that.
She didn’t say if she’s leaving.
Didn’t say if this is temporary.
Didn’t say anything that would make this easier to understand.
Just… stepped back.
And expected me to respect it.
My thumb hovered over her name.
I almost called.
Almost said something I couldn’t take back.
Told her I loved her.
Told her she was wrong.
Told her I’d wait.
Quédate conmigo.
The thought hits before I can stop it.
Stay with me.
My grip tightens around the phone.
I could say it.
I could push.
Make my case. Close the gap. Give her a reason to stay.
I’ve done it before—in boardrooms, in negotiations, in rooms where the outcome mattered.
But this isn’t a deal.
And she’s not something I get to win.
If I push her now—if she stays because I asked instead of because she chose it—
she’ll resent me for it.
And if I don’t respect what she asked for…
I might lose her for real.
That lands heavier than anything else.
I exhale, slow.
Let the moment pass.
Then I drop my hand.
Let the phone sit there like it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to look at.
I let out a laugh.
Didn’t sound like me.
I can close eight-figure deals without blinking.
But I couldn’t get her to stay.
The phone buzzed.
Hope moved through me before I could stop it. Before I could remind myself — don't. Before I could do anything but feel that pathetic little lift in my chest that happens every single time, like some part of me hasn't gotten the news yet.
Not her.
She hasn't reached out in days.
Email. Graduation party. Time, place, casual dress.
I read it twice. Then a third time. Like the words might rearrange themselves into something that mattered.
Like maybe buried somewhere in the font and the formatting was a message meant for me specifically — not a mass invite, not a mailing list, not the quiet confirmation that I have been gently, efficiently filed under people from before.
Casual dress.
I set the phone down and didn't move for a while.
The condo has a sound now that it didn't used to have.
Not silence exactly — the city still comes through the windows, the refrigerator still hums — but something underneath all of that.
An absence with texture. A frequency I feel more than hear.
It lives in the kitchen most, which makes no sense and makes complete sense, because that's where she was most herself.
That's where I'd find her — bare feet on the tile, stealing tastes of things before they were finished, talking with her hands about something that had nothing to do with what we were making.
I don't cook anymore. Not really.
Which is ridiculous.
It’s a kitchen.
I don't know what day it is. Monday looks like Wednesday looks like Saturday — just calendar blocks and conference calls and the mercy of being needed somewhere, by someone, for something that has nothing to do with her.
I stay late. I take calls I would've let go to voicemail six weeks ago.
I have become extraordinarily available to everyone who is not the one person I keep reaching for in the dark out of pure muscle memory, waking up with my arm across nothing, the sheets cold on her side in a way that feels personal.
Fourteen days since I found the key on the counter. Twenty since she received the offer of a lifetime.
I don't know when she left it. That's the thing that won't leave me alone — I don't know when she came back to leave it. I was here. I was in this apartment, in this life, and she slipped in and out like a ghost and I didn't hear a thing. Like I wasn’t even part of our us anymore.
The key was cold when I picked it up. Really cold. Which meant it had been sitting there for hours.
I held it in my palm for a long time. This small, ordinary piece of metal that used to mean something.
That used to mean come home. That used to mean you belong here.
I closed my fist around it until the cold transferred into my skin, and then I put it in the junk drawer because I couldn't throw it away and I couldn't look at it and those were the only two options I had.
Her graduation party invitation sits in my inbox the same way. Unopened. Not deleted. Just — existing. This quiet, terrible thing I return to without meaning to, the cursor hovering, never clicking. Going means something I'm not ready for. Not going means something worse.
I don't know how to want both things this much simultaneously.
My phone lit up.
Sadie.
I answered on speaker without picking it up.
Too numb to move. Too drained to manufacture the energy it would take to bring it to my ear.
I have crossed oceans for work. I have landed in cities where I didn't know what continent I was on and been functional by morning.
I have never in my life been this tired.
Not the body kind of tired. The other kind.
The kind that lives behind your eyes and makes simple things feel like calculations.
"Yeah."
"Still breathing over there?"
"Surviving."
"Mmm." A beat. The particular silence of a woman who knows better.
"As much as you'd like me to pretend I don't know what's going on with you and Miss Prince — I can't keep watching you disappear like this.
You haven't been an actual person in weeks.
And we both know it has everything to do with her no longer being employed here. "
Something moved through my chest. Slow and leaden.
I wish that were the case. I almost said it out loud.
Her not being my employee anymore would have at least simplified the wreckage — that was the obstacle I'd built an entire architecture of restraint around, the thing that made all of it feel impossible and necessary at once.
If that were still the problem, at least I'd know what I was fighting. At least it would have a shape.
"Sadie." I closed my eyes. "I know I am your business. But not today. Please."
She made a sound in her throat — low, unconvinced, the specific noise of a woman preparing to dismantle something.
"I wish I could let that go," she said. "But it would be deeply out of character for me not to mention that her graduation party is today."
"It's Sunday," I said. "Take a day off."
"As long as you have a calendar, I have a job." She didn't even pause. "So. The party."
"What about it?"
"Are you going — or are you going to keep sulking around that condo like a petulant child instead of going to talk to the woman?"
I pressed the heel of my hand into my eye socket. "Aren't you supposed to be my assistant?"
"Exactly. And I'm assisting you toward that party."
"I'm too tired. Just RSVP no and send a gift. Money is not an issue." It sounds worse out loud.
Even to me.
"I've heard that one before." Her voice shifted — practical, unbothered, already moving. "It starts at four. Clean yourself up. Wear something that doesn't scream existential crisis. Gift's handled."
I sat up slightly. "Excuse me?"
"Chile." The word landed flat and final, the way only Sadie could deliver it. "I just left the Lord's house. Keep that energy off my phone. Wear something other than self-pity."
The line went dead.
I stared at the ceiling.
What the—
I let out a sound that had no name — somewhere between a groan and a surrender — into the wide, indifferent emptiness of my apartment. The condo that still had her absence built into every room. The condo that still hadn't figured out how to sound normal without her in it.
Several hours later I was standing outside Loridonna's house.
Not wearing self-pity. Not exactly.
I made an effort—showered, stood in front of my closet long enough to make a decision that wasn’t pajamas.
Which, apparently, was progress.
But if I’m being honest with myself, what I’m wearing could only be described as melodramatic man with an unreasonable number of feelings for a graduation party.
Specifically a graduation party for his ex-girlfriend.
Specifically the ex-girlfriend whose satin pillowcase is still sitting on her side of the bed, smelling like shea butter and lemons because I haven’t been able to do anything with it except pick it up and put it back down again.
Like that’s helping.
Bass thumps through the walls. People laughing inside. Everyone living.
Too much energy for my current state.
The gift box weighs like concrete in my palm. Sunlight glints off the silver bow.
I ring the bell.
Wait.
Nothing.
I ring it again.
Still nothing.
I knock this time—harder than necessary.
Immediately regret it.
Footsteps. Closer.
My heart kicks up, sudden and violent, the sound rushing in my ears like I’ve just run a mile instead of standing still.
Which is ridiculous.
It’s a door.
Just a door.
Click of the deadbolt.
The door opens—