Chapter 13 Abbie
ABBIE
The day before the anniversary passes without incident.
I notice this the way you notice a car that almost hits you, the jolt comes after, when you're standing on the curb realizing what didn't happen.
I'd braced for something. A call, a text, flowers, a billboard on Sunset declaring his intentions in forty-foot letters.
Gray's capable of all of it. But that day comes and goes with nothing but client emails and a lunch meeting that runs long and Wren asking if I want to grab drinks after because she's "having a week. "
Over drinks with Wren, I keep thinking: he didn’t do anything. Which is worse, somehow. The anticipation is worse.
On the anniversary, I wake at six and drive to Culver City early. A whole year, exactly. I'm still thinking about the silence of the day before when I climb the stairs to Halo's office and stop dead. There's a sticky note on the glass door.
Two words, in handwriting I used to find on bathroom mirrors and Post-its stuck to my coffee mug:
Day one.
I stand there. The smell of carnitas rises from downstairs while I stare at the paper.
"Abs?" Wren's behind me on the stairs, two coffees in hand, frowning. "You okay?"
"Fine." I peel the note off the glass, fold it in half, shove it in my pocket. "Just, fine."
She hands me coffee without pushing. I answer emails and review a pitch, then call our accountant. At ten, the flowers start.
Peonies first, pale pink, thirty stems at least, the exact shade I used to keep on my desk when we lived together. No card. The delivery guy shrugs when I ask who sent them. "Just got an address, lady."
Ranunculus arrive at ten-thirty. Orange and coral and butter yellow, crowding the vase. Then garden roses. Then dahlias. Then something tropical I can't identify, and by noon the conference room looks like we're hosting a funeral for someone very beloved and very dead.
Maya, our receptionist, drops her pen on the front desk when delivery number six arrives. "I'm done," she announces, arms crossed. "My hand's cramping. And whoever this is? They're either proposing or covering up a murder. No in-between with this many flowers."
"Both," I say, staring at the latest arrangement. "Possibly both."
Wren finds me twenty minutes later in the kitchen, shoving stale pretzels into my mouth. She leans against the counter.
"So. Florist explosion in the conference room."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm stating a fact. There are more peonies in that room than at a botanical garden wedding. Pink ones. White ones. That weird dusty mauve color that costs extra."
"I'm aware."
"Are you? Because you walked past them like they were office furniture. Very expensive, extremely fragrant office furniture."
"I saw them."
"You saw them. That's your whole reaction. Abbie, there's a sticky note in your pocket that says 'Day one' in handwriting I assume belongs to your estranged husband, and you're eating pretzels like it's a normal day."
"It is a normal day. And these pretzels are stale."
"Give me those. God, they are stale. Why do we even have these?"
"Someone's desk drawer. I stopped asking questions."
"Okay, but can we circle back to the greenhouse situation? Because I have a client meeting in forty minutes and I genuinely cannot focus with that smell wafting through the vents."
"So close the door."
"I did close the door. Peonies don't care about doors. They're aggressive."
"Fine. I'll have someone move them."
"Move them where? There's no surface in this building that isn't already covered. Reception looks like a funeral home. A very romantic funeral home, but still."
"I didn't ask him to do this."
"Obviously you didn't ask him. That's the whole point. The year ended. He's making a statement."
"The statement is 'I have money and a florist on speed dial.'"
"You don't think it's a little bit sweet? Even a tiny bit?"
"I think it's easy. I think picking up a phone and saying 'send everything you have' is the exact kind of gesture that looks impressive and costs him nothing except money."
"It probably cost a lot of money, to be fair."
"That's my point. Money he has. Money was never the problem."
"I know."
"Do you? Because everyone keeps looking at me like I'm insane for not melting into a puddle over some flowers. Oh, Gray remembered I exist, how touching. Gray can follow a calendar. Revolutionary."
"I'm not saying you should melt. I'm just saying he did the thing. He actually did it. A whole year, no contact, exactly like you asked. That's not nothing."
"By burying my workplace in flowers I didn't ask for? That's not listening. That's performing."
"Okay. Fair point. The flowers are a lot."
"The flowers are a negotiation tactic. This is what he does. Big gesture, public pressure, make me feel like the villain if I don't respond the right way. Everyone in this office is watching me now. Everyone's waiting to see what I do."
I press my palms against the counter, steadying myself.
"What do you want me to say? That I'm angry? I'm angry. That I think this is manipulative? I think this is manipulative. That I still want him anyway and I hate myself for it? There. Happy?"
"Not happy. But at least that's honest."
"And for what it's worth?" She holds my gaze, and there's no joke in it now. "He's hot, he's inked, and he's sorry. None of that is a personality, Abbie. Don't mistake it for one."
"Great. Honesty, my favorite."
"The wanting him part. That's the part that scares you, isn't it?"
"I don't know. Yes. Maybe."
"Because you think if you let yourself want him again, you'll end up right back where you were.
Alone at a table waiting for someone who isn't coming.
Checking your phone every five minutes. Making excuses because something came up, again, because you're never going to be the something that matters—"
"Okay, you can stop now."
"Sorry."
"No, you're right. That's exactly what I'm scared of."
"That's not crazy, Abbie. That's just pattern recognition."
"But what if I'm wrong? What if he actually did change, and I'm just too stubborn to see it? What if I throw away something real because I can't get past the stuff that already happened?"
Her hand lands on my arm, warm and solid.
"Those are both valid fears. They can both be true at the same time."
"That's not helpful."
"I know. But I can't tell you what to do here. No one can. This is yours."
"I wish someone would just tell me. Make it easy."
"Nothing about this is easy. Nothing about it was ever going to be easy."
"He missed my birthday, Wren. Not even a text. No card. Just silence while he closed some deal that could've waited three days."
"I remember."
"And the thing with my father. The investment. Behind my back, like I was a child who couldn't handle the truth."
"All of that happened. All of that was real. You're not making it up, and you're not being dramatic."
"But?"
"No but. Just and. All of that happened, and he also waited an entire year. All of that happened, and he's still trying. Those things can both be true."
"When did you get wise?"
"I'm not wise. I'm just standing far enough away to see the whole picture. You're in it. That's different."
"So what do you see? From your objective distance?"
"I see my best friend standing in a kitchen full of crumbs, holding a pretzel she doesn't want, trying to convince herself that she doesn't still love the man she married. And doing a really bad job of it."
"I never said I didn't love him."
"You didn't have to."
"Love isn't enough, though. That's what I keep coming back to. I loved him the whole time. I loved him when he forgot dinner. I loved him when I felt so invisible I couldn't breathe. Love didn't fix any of it."
"No. It didn't."
"So what makes this time different?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe you'll try again and it'll all fall apart exactly the same way, and you'll be right back here in six months eating my stale snacks and ranting about hydrangeas."
"Peonies."
"Whatever. Or maybe something shifted. Maybe the year apart actually meant something. Maybe he figured out whatever he needed to figure out. I don't know him well enough to say."
"You've never liked him."
"I've never not liked him. I've just never trusted him."
"That's fair."
"But I trust you. And if you decide he's worth another chance, I'll support that. And if you decide he's not, I'll support that too. Either way, I'm here with subpar snacks and strong opinions."
"You're a good friend."
"I'm a great friend. And I have a meeting in twenty minutes, so I need you to decide what we're doing with the conference room situation before my client shows up and thinks we're hosting a garden party."
"Move them to the break room."
"All of them?"
"Spread them around. Give some to people. I don't care."
"What about the sticky note?"
"I'll deal with it later."
"Abbie."
"What?"
"You don't have to decide anything today."
"I have a client meeting in an hour," I say, pushing off the counter. "I should prep."
"Go," Wren says. "I'll guard the pretzels from further stress-eating."
I flip her off over my shoulder. But the flowers keep coming, and in my pocket the sticky note sits like a lit fuse, and at 1:45 I walk into the conference room for my two o'clock with Camila Ortiz and Gray is sitting at the table. My heart stops.
He’s in a charcoal suit, his white shirt open at the collar, wavy hair nearly touching it. He looks up when I walk in, and his eyes, those stupid light blue eyes that I used to wake up to every morning, go soft and warm and hungry in a way that makes my stomach flip.
"Abbie," Camila says, standing to kiss my cheek. "You look gorgeous. Have you met Grayson Valentine? He reached out about the account and I thought, why not hear both pitches? Very sporting of him to suggest it."
"We've met." My voice comes out flat. Professional. I'm proud of it. "Several times."
"Mr. Valentine mentioned you used to work together." Camila settles back into her chair, looking delighted by this development. She loves watching people fight over her business. "I didn't realize you were competitors now."
"Neither did I." I set my laptop down harder than necessary. "Until about thirty seconds ago."
Gray's mouth twitches. "Surprise."
"I'm going to kill you."
"That's fair."
Camila looks between us, eyebrows climbing. "Should I give you two a moment?"
"No." I open my laptop, pull up my deck. "Let's do this. Unless Mr. Valentine would like to go first?"
"Ladies first." He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, watching me. "I'm looking forward to your Q3 projections."
"I bet you are."
The pitch goes brilliantly. I walk Camila through the campaign results and answer every question without once looking at Gray. Then Gray presents. His pitch focuses on VTG’s celebrity connections. Camila looks from him to me.
"Your engagement metrics are impressive," Gray says, pulling up my slide on his own screen. "Really impressive. The organic reach on the summer campaign was, what, forty-three percent above benchmark?"
"Forty-seven," I say. "If you're going to steal my data, get it right."
"I'm complimenting you."
"You're ambushing me."
"Both can be true." He pulls up another slide, his own comparison chart. "But your Q3 numbers, specifically the cross-platform attribution, that's very sexy work, Montgomery."
The room goes silent.
"Don't," I say.
"You’re right. That was inappropriate."
"I came here to pitch my work."
"Then I’ll stop interrupting."
Camila makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be a gasp. "I'm sorry, what exactly is happening right now?"
Gray turns to her, perfectly calm. "Married banter."
"We're separated," I say immediately.
"Technically married."
"Separated."
"The paperwork says married."
"The paperwork can go fuck itself."
Camila's jaw actually drops. "You're MARRIED? To each other? Still?"
"It's complicated," I say.
"It's not," Gray says. "I married her seven years ago. I was an idiot for most of them. She left. I spent the last year figuring out how not to be an idiot anymore. Now I'm trying to win her back."
"By ambushing her client meeting?"
"By showing her I'm willing to compete for her. Not just expect her to come back."
"That’s a conversation for outside this meeting," Camila says, her expression cooling.
"It's not," I snap. "It's manipulative and inappropriate and...
you know what, this meeting is over." I close my laptop, start gathering my things.
"Camila, I'll send the revised deck by Friday.
If you want to hear VTG's counteroffer, Mr. Valentine can schedule his own meeting.
One where I'm not present. One where he doesn't use my business to stage a reconciliation attempt. "
"Abbie —" Gray starts.
"No." I shove my laptop in my bag. "This is my company. These are my clients. You don't get to show up here and make it about us."
"I thought we’d argue like we used to."
"The point is that you're still treating me like a prop in your life instead of someone who has her own."
His face changes.
"You're right," he says quietly. "That was wrong. I'm sorry."
"Great. Tell it to your therapist."
I walk out.
He follows, because of course he does, because Gray Valentine has never let me have the last word in his life.