Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Shaye
Water droplets splash onto the countertop and down the front of my shirt.
Leftover scrambled eggs from this morning fight against the current but eventually drop into the garbage disposal. It growls as it eats the debris. The sound is a little more metallic than it used to be, like metal-on-metal.
I turn off the disposal and the water. My favorite hand towel embroidered with lemons that I got on sale at Marshall’s is soft on my hands as I dry them.
The kitchen is filled with the soft glow of the sun’s setting rays. It’s my absolute favorite time of day in this house, specifically this time of year. I walk to the window overlooking the backyard and soak in the warmth.
The fence separating my backyard with the house behind me will eventually fall down during a storm.
I’m surprised it’s still standing. The yard is tiny and uneven, and the overhang on the back stoop creaks when the wind picks up.
Still, I love this little house and its cheap rent and chipped paint because it’s mine.
At least until my lease runs out.
I toss the towel on the counter.
My body fills with a peace that I’ve welcomed in my life in lieu of the sadness and anger I used to feel. It isn’t sunshine and rainbows in my soul, but it’s not fire and brimstone either. My best friend, Lisbeth, says the rainbows will come. I just need to give it more time.
I say she’s more of an optimist than me.
The doorbell jolts me out of my head.
“Coming,” I call out as I walk around the corner of the kitchen island.
“Hurry up! This is heavy!”
I yank the door open and nearly get trampled by Lisbeth Kline. Her cheeks are flushed as she rushes in like a bull, her arms loaded with bags.
“What in the heck are you doing?” I ask with a laugh.
The bags hit the floor with a thud.
“I said I would take a couple of bags of lettuce. I didn’t say you could bring me all the food you’ve ever bought,” I say.
“I went ahead and cleaned out my fridge and my deep freeze.” She wipes a chunk of blond bangs off her forehead.
“You know how I do when I get going. It was supposed to just be perishables that would, well, perish while I’m in Florida for a week.
But then I thought it was a good time to just go all-in.
I mean, I am going to see my parents after the wedding.
You know how hard Mom makes it for me to leave once I’m in Ohio again. ”
I take in the number of containers in front of me. “Tell me this is it. There’s not more in your car, is there?”
“This is it. But we better get it in your freezer before it melts.”
I help gather the bags from various department stores filled with frozen food items and carry them into the kitchen.
“I need a grocery store monitor,” she says, setting the bags on the island. “Or at least one of the new fancy refrigerators with a camera so you can see inside it while you’re in the dairy section.”
I laugh. “Or, you know, you could just make a list.”
She scoffs at me like I just asked her carb-loving self to go gluten-free.
Lisbeth pulls out boxes of Hot Pockets, cartons of milk, and bags of frozen pearl onions from a Macy’s bag.
“When are you leaving?” I ask, putting the items away.
“In a few days,” she fake cries. “Why did I have to RSVP to this damn wedding, Shaye? And why won’t you come with me?”
“You RSVP’d because you and Lydia are friends. And I’m not going because I’m not throwing away that much money on a destination wedding that’s not my own. Also, I wasn’t invited.”
“But you could be my plus-one.”
“No.”
She rolls her eyes.
“But weddings are fun. I mean, I think they are,” I say, taking a half-gallon of unopened orange juice from my friend. “I’ve never actually been to one.”
She makes a face. “They are usually fun. This one held a lot of promise until The Break Up.”
I make the same face back to her.
“I wish I could say that I wasn’t dreading seeing Thomas and the starlet who shall not be named,” she says, her grip clenching so hard on the bundle of bananas in her hand that I think I’ll have to throw them away. “But let’s be real.”
Lisbeth is right. It would be futile to even try to play the devil’s advocate.
Her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Raines, is the talk of professional baseball.
He’s leading the league in a variety of statistics—a fact that I know because he’s a hometown boy.
But Tommy is also the talk of every rag magazine in the world because he was caught with his fingers literally inside the starlet at an award’s show earlier this year.
While probably great for YouTube replay numbers, it wasn’t so good for Lisbeth’s relationship with Tommy.
It also doesn’t bode well for their mutual friends’ wedding.
“I think you should go and enjoy yourself,” I tell her. “You obviously learned an important side of Tommy that you didn’t know before it was too late. Let the starlet find out on her own. This is definitely your win.”
“I just wish I weren’t going alone.”
“So find a date.” I toss the carrots into the crisper. “There are a million guys you could call.”
“Yes. True. But I don’t want to have to entertain someone. I don’t want to have to be nice to them. I’m going to be pissy and self-conscious, and having to dance around someone else’s feelings doesn’t seem doable.”
I raise a brow. “But going alone does?”
She shrugs.
We work silently for a few minutes, trying to find room for all of Lisbeth’s groceries in my refrigerator. I pause every now and then and examine items. Beet juice shots? Okay.
“You really don’t want to go?” she asks out of nowhere.
“No.” I laugh at her. “I can’t. I …” I set a box of ice cream on the counter and try not to smile. “I got a job offer today.”
Her blue eyes light up, and she raises her hands up in the air. “You did? Why didn’t you lead with that when I walked in? We could be celebrating right now.”
I force a smile and turn back to a bag of frozen peas.
My insides go bananas as I let my mind flip back to the interview this morning. It feels so amazing to have hope that I might be able to turn things around. It’s the light at the end of a disastrous tunnel that I’ve been begging for.
But, then again, it has my stomach in knots because I don’t know how to navigate this anymore.
“Where is it?” Lisbeth asks, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Is the commute awful? You can always sleep over if it’s closer to my place, you know.”
“I’m not sure I’m taking it, actually.”
“Why?”
The million-dollar question. Or, at least, a hefty-salaried question.
I take a deep breath. “Do you know the guy who I hit yesterday?”
She nods.
“Well …” I blow out my breath. “It’s for him. As his executive assistant.”
It’s as though the room gasps, waiting for an explanation. Lisbeth leans back as if the distance will help her understand.
“Okay,” she says slowly, her lips threatening to split her cheeks. “This is an interesting development.”
“It’s an odd coincidence. That’s what it is.”
“Or kismet.”
“Or a coincidence.”
She sets her jaw and tilts her head. “You said he was hot—a word you don’t throw around lightly. That leans this entire situation into the kismet realm.”
I scoff.
“What happened?” she asks. “Like you just walk in, and he’s sitting there?”
I abandon the ice cream on the counter and sit at the kitchen table.
I might as well get comfortable. Lisbeth and I have been friends for almost ten years.
There’s nothing she doesn’t know about me and vice versa.
She loves a good kismet story, and I can tell by the look in her eye that she thinks that’s what this is.
Poor girl.
“The interview has been scheduled for three days with a woman named Toni,” I say, using the time to replay the scenario for the six-thousandth time today.
“I’m sitting in a conference room, and Toni comes in.
She sits down for a few minutes. We chat.
It’s going well. Then she leaves, and a few minutes later, Oliver walks in.
We were both dumbfounded.” I narrow my eyes, trying to hide the way my heartbeat just picked up.
“Well, I was dumbfounded. He seemed to be surprised but less … shocked.”
I think back to the way his eyes widened ever so slightly and how a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He was definitely pleased to see me. But shocked? No.
My stomach turns itself inside out.
“So,” Lisbeth says, poking me along as she sits across from me. “What happened? What did he say?”
“He … he sat down. We talked a little bit. I accused him of being a cop and—”
“What?” she shrieks.
“I mean, isn’t that really Occam’s Razor here?”
She snorts in frustration. “No. No, it isn’t, Miss Conspiracy Theorist.”
I shrug at the accusation. It’s not totally wrong.
“So you accuse him of being the po-po, and he still offers you a job?” Her eyes widen. “The job? His trusted confidant job?”
“Well, yeah. I think that’s a little over the top in the description, but basically.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, smirking happily.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say, pointing a finger at her.
Her smirk deepens.
“I didn’t take it,” I admit.
“And why the eff not?”
I rub my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“I’m … thrown off,” I tell her before dropping my hand. It hits the table with a thud. “Can I do the job? Absolutely. Do I need it? One thousand percent. Is it an amazing opportunity? Clearly. But …”
I look at my best friend and silently plead for help. She reaches across the table and puts her hands on mine.
“Look, I know this is a lot for you at once,” she says softly. “A new job is enough to freak anyone out. But you chose this guy to be your first crush since Luca—”
“It’s not a crush. And I didn’t choose anything.”
She brushes me off without a thought. “If you weren’t panicking a little, I’d worry.” She withdraws her hand.
“I am. Don’t worry.”
She laughs.