Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Aurora
Every chance I get I walk the streets of the city.
And with every step it feels like I’m becoming part of it.
I love it far more than I thought I would.
London is only a couple of hours from Woolton, but I never felt like it was my place.
Whenever I visited London, I always went with Darcy who knew it extremely well.
I always felt like her guest in the city.
But getting to know New York on my own is unexpectedly fun.
Maybe it’s all the fantasies about Deacon Black I’m having. If I was a guy, I’m pretty sure I’d have a permanent hard-on at the moment. It’s definitely worse when I’m at the hotel, but this feeling of desire that Deacon has stoked in me is constant. I’ve never known anything like it.
Thankfully, I have a day off today. The worst things about hotel work are the hours.
Working weekends, working evenings, and having split days off are what I hate the most. I’ve agreed with Avril that when I start as director of rooms, I won’t have split days off.
It was a complete non-negotiable for me.
But during these few weeks of training, I do have to put up with it.
Although today isn’t really a day off. I’m meeting Avril and Poppy for brunch. They both seem lovely and I’d probably be friends with them if I knew them outside of work, but the fact is, they’re my bosses. But they invited me to lunch today and I can’t exactly say no.
I make my way up to Central Park and Tavern on the Green.
As the hostess takes me to the table, I see Avril and Poppy grinning at me. They both stand and we all give each other hugs.
“I’m sorry this isn’t the New York brunch we promised. Lunch will have to do,” Avril announces. “I’m excited that you could make it.”
“Me too,” I say, as I sit down and take the menu from the waitress.
“Shall we do mimosas?” Poppy asks. “As a tribute to brunch?”
“Definitely,” Avril says. “Unless you don’t drink, Aurora?”
“Not usually at lunchtime, but I’m happy to make an exception, given this is a tribute to a New York brunch.”
“I knew you were a good hire,” Avril says.
Poppy puts her hands up, palms facing the table. “Stop right there. We need to lay some ground rules.”
“We do?” Avril asks.
“We absolutely do. First rule is, no talk about work. This is our day off, I don’t want to talk about work for at least a couple of hours at a New York brunch tribute.”
“Agreed,” Avril says.
I nod, but I’m a little unsure why I’m here if we’re not going to talk about work.
“And second,” Poppy continues, “nothing we say here can be repeated at work.”
Avril makes a circle with her index finger. “Circle of trust right here.”
Poppy nods. “Yeah. We’re in the friend zone. We’re not signing your paychecks and you’re not having to make a good impression. Agreed?”
I smile but narrow my eyes. “Okay, but you do sign my paychecks. I hope.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be a boss over a mimosa. So anything that happens at a brunch tribute, stays at a brunch tribute. Let’s just be friends these next few hours.”
Warmth gathers in my chest. “That sounds good to me. You can be my first friends in New York.” I’ve still not managed to catch up with Ryder and Scarlett. They’re still in Colorado.
“I’ll drink to that,” Avril says, glancing around for a waiter. “If only I had a drink.”
We place our orders, then Avril leans forward and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I know it hasn’t been long, but have you met anyone since you’ve been here? Been on any dates?”
Suddenly, my neck heats where Deacon’s fingers pressed against my throat as he kissed me. I’m not about to tell them about that. We might be in a friend zone, but some things are best kept to myself.
“I did join an app and I went on a date.”
Avril’s eyes light up. “How was it?”
“He didn’t show.”
“Asshole,” Poppy says.
“Did he give an excuse? What did he say? Do you have his address? Can we TP his building or something?”
I hadn’t even thought about my date who didn’t show up. My brain has been way too full of Deacon’s kiss.
“He didn’t say anything. Our last messages were arranging the date and then he didn’t show up, and he didn’t message to explain why.”
“He didn’t even apologize?” Poppy asks.
“You didn’t message him to ask him where the hell he was?”
“There was no way I was going to message him.” Definitely not when I had a much better evening because he never showed up.
“I would have told him I was going to hunt him down and kill him,” Avril says.
“And that’s why there are five different guys with five different restraining orders against you,” Poppy replies.
“Really?” I ask.
Avril laughs. “No, no restraining orders, but I don’t hold back. I probably should, but I’m just sick of these guys being pathetic and getting away with it.”
“I dated a guy last year for three months and it turned out he was married,” Poppy says.
“You didn’t know before you went out with him?”
Poppy shakes her head. “He told me he was divorced. And then I ran into him and his not-so-ex-wife at a restaurant in Tribeca.”
“Thank god you didn’t tell Worth until we’d left,” Avril says. “Our brother would have gotten arrested.”
“How did you know it was his wife and he wasn’t just cheating on you?” I ask.
“Because I went up to the table on my way out and introduced myself.”
Avril starts to laugh. The kind of uncontrollable giggles I haven’t had in years.
“I marched up to the table and said, ‘Hi, Brad, good to see you.’ Then I turned and offered my hand to the woman and asked her name. Then I asked her if she was Brad’s wife, and she said she was, so I said that her husband had told me that he was divorced, and that we’d been dating for the past three months. ”
I wince. “Then what happened?”
“Then I left. I hope he ended up wearing his entrée and losing a lot of money in the divorce.”
“When our brother found out, he said we weren’t allowed to date anyone again until he’d done a full background check on them.”
I laugh. “I like that idea. So, is that what you do now?”
Poppy sighs. “Honestly, it’s made me a little gun-shy. I’ve only gone on a few dates since and my heart hasn’t been in it.”
“I get that,” I reply.
“You do?” she asks. “Were you seeing someone back in the UK?”
“No one serious. And I think when enough things don’t work out, you start to wonder what you’re doing wrong.”
“Nothing I can see,” Poppy says. “You’re gorgeous and so fun.”
I smile. “Same with you girls. I guess we just haven’t found the right guys.”
“Yet,” Avril says. “I have to believe it’s going to happen.”
I pull in a breath. “You know, part of the reason I came here was because I thought my life would turn out differently. I thought I’d be married and have a family by now, and it hasn’t happened, so I decided I couldn’t stand around waiting for it to happen. Something had to change.”
“And so you came to New York,” Poppy says.
“Right. Not to find my person, but to be proactive. Instead of letting life happen to me, I wanted to make a choice.”
Poppy nods enthusiastically. “We know how that feels. You make a plan and then you’re on the road to that plan, and you don’t think about it too much. That was like you as well, wasn’t it?” She nods at Avril.
“Yeah, I was studying economics, can you believe it? Hotel on Ninth Street wasn’t even a dream. And now, here we are.”
“It’s so nice that you get to work together.”
The two sisters exchange a look. “It is. Most of the time. And our brother keeps out of it, so that’s good too. He and his wife have a baby, so he’s all about that or his other businesses.”
“Cute,” I say. I feel like I’m surrounded by talk of babies and giving birth. Maybe I’m just hyperaware at the moment.
“But he’s going to invest if we get another hotel,” Poppy says. “We’re looking in Boston. He used to have a place there, but it was too small. We’re on the lookout again.”
“We’re not talking about work,” Avril reminds Poppy.
“We’re talking about Worth.”
Avril shrugs. “We’re in the friend zone.”
“In a good way,” I say, grinning. These two funny women are starting to feel like friends. They’re the first new friends I’ve had in a while and the only friends I’ve ever made without Darcy right by my side. If you don’t count Mr. Black.