Chapter 39
Some days, it was easier to remember that we were rivaling interns and I’d basically lost already.
Like when I saw Ronnie or Melissa and remembered their conversation all over again.
When Elliot was working diligently or arguing on the phone and throwing words around I’d never even heard, never mind used.
When he wasn’t Intern Elliot, but Elliot Ashwood.
Confidence and authority in everything that he did.
Other days, it was harder. When he whispered “I told you so” into my ear while Daphne danced circles around her dress.
When he very nearly kissed me once she was gone, and only decided to throw his arms around me at the last minute instead.
When I realized, with all the might in the world, that I would’ve let him.
Then, when he groaned at my request to take the dozens of diamond samples home with us, but insisted on finding the perfect match for Daphne’s dress with me.
Sitting on our living room floor, with small diamonds worth more than my childhood home’s mortgage scattered across the coffee table.
With a half-eaten salad on the floorboards on one side of me, and his knee, continuously grazing mine, on the other.
“This is as awful as I imagined it.” He stretched his neck out, blinking furiously. “I can’t even tell the difference between gold and silver anymore, and don’t lie to me right now—neither can you.”
Even with the big lights on, it was getting harder to spot the difference between 0.2 mm and 0.8 mm. We’d been at it for hours. Shapes, sizes, and colors were starting to blend into one another. “Might be time to call it a day,” I admitted.
My head fell back against the couch, neck straining, eyes burning.
I wanted to sleep so badly, I could do it right here.
But—“At least let’s choose our favorites.
We’ll look at those with a fresh perspective tomorrow, give the jeweler our pick, and tip him handsomely so he’ll have the job done by next week. ”
“And by next week”—Elliot sighed—“you mean the end of this week?”
I grinned.
“And when you say we’ll tip him handsomely,” he continued, “you mean Rowen will?” Elliot must’ve still been cut off, so . . .
“You know me so well.”
A startling realization despite the humor in my tone. To be known by the one person who could and should use it against you. Who’d wound their way into your life so effortlessly, you only realized once it had already become a problem.
I stood. Quickly. “I know it’s late,” I started. “And New York is a very scary place at night.” He was already scowling before I added, “But I’m going for a run.”
I needed to, if I wanted to clear my head of that particular realization. That Elliot Ashwood knew me—probably deeply and intimately. Enough to recognize the way I thought and accurately predict it.
“I’ll come with—”
“No.” The point was to clear my head of him, not hear him huffing and puffing beside me. That’s how this entire mess had started. With him, inviting himself to my run on the first day of our week together.
A week that, in hindsight, changed a lot between us.
“Maeve,” he warned.
“Send someone with me, if you have to.” I rolled my eyes. He knew how stupid this was, and he wouldn’t let it go regardless.
“I cannot subject them to your seven-minute-a-mile pace. That’s torture. They’d sue.”
My laugh rang through the apartment when I was already halfway to my room to get changed. “I’m not going to ask how you know my pace.” Because if I knew one thing about Elliot, it’s that he had his ways. And my Strava was public.
There’d been a black SUV following me the entire three miles, so he’d clearly figured out a way around the pace problem. Unfortunately, the problem I’d tried to outrun in those three miles took up more mental space than I would’ve liked.
Usually, running cleared my mind. Made my lungs burn and my legs ache until I had no capacity to think about anything but the rhythmic pounding of my feet on pavement. Elliot had been right; sometimes I did overdo it—overworry, overthink, and overwork. Running helped with that.
Until it didn’t, apparently. He had set up permanent residency in my head, living rent-free. Nothing would get him out. Not even when my feet slowed and my finger scrolled through my recent call history until I found their contact.
A Texas area code, followed by a sequence of numbers that hadn’t changed since I’d first memorized them. Three beeps later, the line rattled. “Mimi?”
“Honey!” Her southern drawl immediately soothed me, but did nothing to get rid of the problem in my head. “What’s going on? Are you okay? It’s late.”
Fuck, even with the time difference, it must’ve been past midnight. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Gosh, no.” I imagined she waved me off despite the fact I couldn’t see. “Pops is knocked out on the couch. I was just watching my murder mystery.” Quickly, she added, “No, I don’t want you to call me later so I can finish watching it. Yes, you may continue talking now.”
I chuckled despite myself. Every phone call with them was a bittersweet reminder that a piece of my soul was still back home. After this internship, maybe I could go back for a couple months to work out a plan B I’d never expected to need. It started to seem more inevitable by the day.
I sighed at the reminder, tried to swallow the lump in my throat, and failed as I mindlessly walked back to the apartment. The black SUV was still there, but I didn’t mind anymore. “What’s wrong?” my grandmother repeated, growing increasingly worried and restless on the other end of the line.
“I don’t even know why I called,” I said, which she wasn’t having.
“Yes, you do.”
As always, I knew exactly who Mom had gotten it from. That no-bullshit attitude.
“Okay, maybe,” I admitted. Sighed again. Why was it so damn hard to get the words out? “Remember that roommate I mentioned a while ago?”
“The cute one?” I could hear the smile on her face, even though she was trying hard to sound cool, calm, and collected.
“I guess.” I shook my head, if only to convince myself the admission wasn’t a big deal. I’d always known Elliot was cute; it was a widely acknowledged fact. The root cause of my predicament. “We may have . . . I don’t know. I think, maybe, that I—” I cut myself off.
Like him? Want him? Don’t know what to do about that constant buzzing in my chest?
I decided on a different approach, settled on, “I feel bad.”
“What about, honey?”
“Mom.” And I knew the silence that followed wasn’t deliberate.
I didn’t remember the last time I’d brought her up this way.
“She always—I don’t know.” I didn’t remember the last time I stuttered this badly, either.
“She was always so independent. Didn’t let anyone mess with her mood. Had a handle on everything.”
A few more seconds ticked by. “And?”
“Lately, I don’t think I do.” I stopped by our brick building, sat on the stoop instead of going up like a pouting child. “I keep messing up. I keep letting him in. Every time we fight, I feel awful, and I don’t even know why. We don’t like each other.”
The words shot out of me like they were long overdue. Letting it all out, putting into words what I couldn’t even put into feelings before.
“You and said roommate?” Mimi asked in clarification.
“Me and said roommate.” I nodded, letting my head fall back, eyes on a starless sky.
The only light came from the high-rises in the distance and the streetlamp right in front of me.
The corner store had closed by now. “I just don’t know how Mom did it.
Not getting attached, not letting anyone close. ”
Mimi’s snicker sounded through the speaker. “Oh, come on, Maeve. What do you think your mother did every morning when she told us she was going on those trail runs?”
I tried to blink my confusion away and failed. “What?”
“She came home smelling like a different shampoo every week. You just didn’t realize because you were too young to pay attention to things like that.
Your mother visited boyfriend after boyfriend, then cried in my lap when it ended.
” She delivered the words matter-of-factly, like I should’ve known.
Like the only way I’d gotten to know Melanie Peterson wasn’t the independent single mom who didn’t need a man.
Like it should’ve been obvious. “I don’t understand. She never said—”
“She’s not going to introduce her only daughter to men she doesn’t trust, now, is she? Your father did a number on her; that much is obvious. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t let herself love again. That’s never an option, honey—not really.”
My surroundings were spinning. It was hard to grasp what she was saying.
That my mother wasn’t this cold, heartless woman who’d roll in her grave if she knew that .
. . I might have caught feelings for Elliot.
That she’d been in the same situation more than just once, and that she’d cried the same way I had.
“All she ever wanted was to protect you. To make sure you know that you can always rely on yourself and that you should prioritize yourself. Maybe she just forgot to mention that it’s okay to let others take over every once in a while, though.
You can’t do it all, Maeve. You’re only one person, darling. ”
In sync with a single tear, that boulder of guilt that had permanently lodged itself into my chest fell, too. The relief I felt was unmatched.
I was only one person, and maybe Elliot could take over every once in a while.