Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Izzy
One week later
“What about these?” Simone says as she leans over the coffee table in my hotel room, reaching for the black envelope of photos that I printed a few days ago.
“No!” I flinch instantly, grabbing it just in time before she can get to it. Fixing my voice to have a more even tone, I try to play it off. “Those aren’t from the shoot.” I hug the envelope to my chest, protecting it.
Her eyes widen, and she tilts her head with obvious suspicion.
We’ve known each other long enough that I can predict exactly what’s going through her mind.
She’s a creative director, and we became good friends years ago after working on several different projects together.
I purse my lips, knowing that she isn’t going to let it go until I either show her the pictures or tell her what they are.
“They’re from the Wyoming trip.”
“The Wyoming trip,” she clarifies.
I close my eyes, nodding slowly. “The Wyoming trip.”
“You already showed me those. They were gorgeous,” she points out, confused over why I’m hoarding the stack in my hands if she’s already seen them.
“You haven’t seen these. No one has, if you catch my drift.”
She dramatically holds a hand up while picking up her glass of wine and taking a long sip. “Girl, you got freaky in the mountains with your camera?”
“Maybe,” I laugh.
Her eyes soften. “You really like this guy. If you didn’t, you would have just shown them to me, and we would have had a good laugh over it.”
It’s true. I’ve told her enough about my car breaking down and staying with Ledger for a few days, so she knows the gist of the situation. Maybe not all of the dirty details, but I think she got the hint when I told her I missed him.
I shrug, moving the envelope to my lap. “Yeah, I do. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“Has he called?”
The smile on my face is instant and laced with wistfulness. “He calls a lot, actually.”
“Say less. Can I be a bridesmaid?”
“Shut up,” I joke, throwing the nearest pad of sticky notes at her.
My hotel room is a bit of a mess at the moment, with mood boards, photo shoot equipment, and overflowing luggage scattered all around.
Simone’s stack of notebooks leans to the side, not far from tumbling off the cluttered coffee table.
My print proofs from yesterday’s styled shoot are pinned to a random bulletin board that leans against the window.
Our half-drunk glasses of wine have lipstick stains, and the end-of-day light filters through the crystal.
In the distance through the window, the Alps take up half the sky. They’ve been a perfect backdrop these last few days, but I quickly learned they don’t hold the same rustic beauty as the ones I left behind in Wyoming.
Simone stands, brushing down the front of her charcoal blazer. The puffed sleeves and rhinestone buttons are perfectly on-brand for her. She’s always dressed to kill on the job. I, on the other hand, have been in leggings and a hoodie since we got back to the hotel earlier this afternoon.
Her expression is calm, but it’s the fiercest I’ve ever heard her speak. “Girl, you’ve got to slow down and book some domestic jobs. Get a place to stay that isn’t a million miles away from him. You’ve wanted to find a new place for a while now anyway, right?”
I nod with a sigh. “Isn’t that a little premature, though? I mean, it hasn’t even been a month. I can’t just upend my entire life for this guy. I don’t even know what we are, technically.”
“Why? You’re not twenty-one and trying to figure your life out. You have your shit together, and the least you could do for yourself is give it a fair shot with him.”
“I don’t really see myself compromising my lifestyle for a man just so we will miss each other less,” I laugh. “You know this about me.”
“Yes, I know this about you,” she groans. “And I respect it. Believe me, I do. But what about for the right man? Babe, he’s not telling you to quit everything and give you his full and undivided attention 24/7, is he?”
I shake my head. He’s never asked me to change a single thing about myself or my life.
“Love and compromise coexist,” she adds. “You’d be hard-pressed to find one without the other.”
My fingers close around the claw clip at the back of my head, adjusting it to distract myself. She makes a good point. There might be a flaw in my reasoning, I’ll admit. I can’t expect to live the rest of my life without re-molding little parts of it to give love a fighting chance.
Love. I internally eye roll and stop my thoughts before I get too far ahead of myself. It’s too quick for that sort of talk.
Simone tops off our glasses of white wine and then places the bottle back in the mini fridge behind the couch.
“So, just put myself out there? Move and change my schedule? Lay it all out on the line? It’s risky.”
“I don’t know, I wouldn’t go that far,” she jokes.
Her hand grips the stem of her wine glass, and she sits back down across from me.
“You don’t have to do all that. But what if this is it?
What if he’s the one, but you’ll never know because you’re too damn stubborn, and you never had time to even hang out again? ”
“God, this is brutal,” I moan with a hand on my forehead.
“Could you meet up when you get back next week?”
“His parents are going on a cruise for their anniversary, and he can’t leave the ranch. Plus, I have that job in Vermont before the awards gala.”
“Has it come up in conversation about what you’re going to do? Like, are you going to start dating over FaceTime and not see other people or…?”
I throw my head back in a laugh. “Not exactly. He did slip a surprise in my suitcase that I didn’t know about when we were packing up my things to leave.
I don’t know what it means, but he put his favorite book between a few of my sweaters.
I read it while I was there. That book means a lot to him, so I can’t for the life of me think about him giving it to me without crying. ”
My eyes glass over with liquid at the reminder of the unexpected gift.
I’d quickly finished the book shortly after finding it, only to sob in the middle of my hotel room bed for the remainder of the night.
Each tear had felt like a thread connecting me to something bigger.
Every line in the brilliant novel had unraveled me and stitched me up all at once.
But it wasn’t her grand gesture or his yearning in the story that twisted my emotions. It wasn’t even the love notes tied to tumbleweeds between the two main characters that did me in.
It was pure reverence—the significance of holding that book in my hands.
The one he loved.
The one he gave to me.
“Damn,” she sighs. “Well, it sounds like you need to talk with him about it and figure this out before too much time passes. I want to see you happy, is all. I’d be so excited for you if this worked out and he’s as amazing as you’ve told me he is.”
“You’re right. I know, I just— I don’t know, I don’t want to force it. I don’t want to lose it, whatever it may be”
“Yeah, I get that.” She crosses one leg over the other, resting her tilted head on one fist. “Maybe he’ll bring it up and take the initiative.”
That very second, my phone dings from the corner of the coffee table, making its glass top vibrate with the notification. I swipe it up quickly to see a text from Ledger.
Ledger
Good morning.
How’d the shoot go?
A puff of air leaves my nose in a satisfied laugh. My fingers type at lightning speed while I grin down at the screen. Gagging noises come from the chair across from me, and I lift my gaze to shoot Simone a glare.
“I’m kidding.” She giggles. “Your cheeks are pink, and that’s the happiest I’ve seen you all day. It’s cute,” she says, exaggerating the last word.
Hi! It’s afternoon here, and the shoot went really well.
Ledger
Send me some pics
What kind? ;)
Ledger
I meant some of the ones you took at the shoot lol
And maybe some later when you get in bed.
You want to see some of the pictures I took this morning?
Ledger
Of course I do.
Okay. I’ll send some and you can give me your expert critique.
Ledger
All of your pictures are 10/10 you don’t need my opinion
I miss you, Iz.
I throw the phone to the right, and it bounces on the couch cushion.
“What?” Simone gasps.
“I’m so fucked.”