Page 120 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

It’s a Wednesday, and I leave a week from Saturday. The things I don’t do now with Mia and Theo, I might never do them. I have a subletter lined up who travels a lot for work. The woman seems good.

“Yeah, fuck buddies. Whatever you say,” she says when we come back together. “You know you’re gonna go to that banquet.”

The dress arrived this week, as promised. I gave Theo shit about his persistence two days in a row, but he knows how much I love it. He wants me to keep it no matter what. As if I’ll have a reason to wear it in Fargo.

“I vowed I wouldn’t get wrapped up with a guy like him,” I say.

Mia says nothing, like she always does when she disagrees with me on something.

“It’s better for him, too,” I add. “He’s been making great progress with his formula over the past week. He needs that mental bandwidth for his work.”

She just grunts.

“What?”

“It just seems…wrong. You two are good together.”

“We are, but it’s how it has to be.”

“Says who?” Mia says.

“Says the complete crushing of my life that was Mason.”

“Is Theo that much like Mason?”

“They’re both suit-wearing guys who are very into getting their way,” I say. “And I’m still recuperating.”

“Not strong enough to withstand his influence?” Mia asks.

“Exactly,” I say.

We stop at a DON’T WALK sign and wait with a crush of people. She says nothing. Full disagreement mode.

I move nearer to her. “True, he doesn’t try to influence me like Mason always would. Mason thought he knew everything.”

“And Theo, I’m sorry, that dress?” Mia says. “On his own, he bought you a gown you love, in your size. It’s like, an Olympic gold medalist level of boyfriend achievement.” She holds up her hand before I can correct her that he’s not my boyfriend. “I’m just saying.”

“Theo is a scientist. He observes things with laser-like intensity. That’s his job.” Even as I say it, I realize the bullshit of it. It’s not about his job, it’s about his passion.

“It’s sort of funny,” I continue, “I was telling him the story about how I fell into the theme cookie niche, and I kept trying to shorten the story, because Mason would get bored with stories like that, but Theo was all, ‘Wait, back up. I want every detail.’”

“Dude, please,” Mia says. “He’s fascinated with you.”

Goes both ways,I think. “And he never tells me what to do. He respects my instincts. In a weird way, I feel…admired.”

“So weird!” Mia jokes.

I want to go under another scaffolding and cry. I’ll lose so much when I leave. So much.

I pull out my phone at the next light and poke through random things, clearing and organizing. The most recent text from Theo kicks off with a purple devil emoji. I forbid myself to read it.

A few rows down, there’s a text Theo sent from his sister Willow’s phone number when he was out of juice one time, and I think, I should put Willow in as a contact now that I have her number, just in case!

And then I think, what’s the point? I’m leaving.

That makes me want to cry even more.

Meanwhile, Mia is furious at her phone. “Uh!” she says. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

---