Page 130 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

Which makes two of us.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she says.

“No,” I say. “And now it’s too late.” I call security to escort her out.

I go over to Lizzie’s building on Friday night, but nobody’s home. Supposedly. She might be ignoring me. After all I’ve done, I’m not going to bust in, too.

“What did you do?” Willow asks when I call to tell her that Lizzie is gone, that she for sure needs to be my date for the banquet.

I tell her how I engineered things to make Lizzie stay. How I scoured the different walking routes she and Mia take for a space she’d like. How I found one and bought out the current tenant to make it available. How I figured out the timing of her walks so my broker could be there.

“Wow. It’s impressive. Not in a good way.”

“I know,” I say.

“She was going to move temporarily. It didn’t have to mean the end of a relationship.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I say.

“She was different.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“She’ll be back in eighteen months.”

I nod. It’s not entirely helpful. “On the upside, I’ve taught myself to make omelets. You want one?”

Thirty-Six

Lizzie

I walkhome from my catering gig enjoying the rich tapestry of noises and smells that make the city feel so alive. I’ll miss that. I’ll even miss the people who stand at the top of the subway steps.

I probably won’t miss the conundrum window.

Mia and I put on fun outfits and hit happy hour at our favorite place for one last time, a fusion taco place that has crazy margaritas.

She doesn’t have any auditions this weekend and my catering job is really slowing.

After margarita number two, Mia talks me into going to the old restaurant where we used to work, which seems like a great idea at the time. But then everybody finds out I’m leaving in a week, the drinks are suddenly lining up in front of us.

And we’re laughing and feeling wild, except for the time when we cry so hard about how we’ll miss each other that we get mascara spiders under our eyes, and then we laugh-cry.

The restaurant closes, but we stay around, having wild fun with our old coworkers. Mia dances on top of a table, but I’m not in the mood.

It’s around 4:30 in the morning that I’m outside the bathrooms calling Theo. Or at least trying to call him. The numbers on my phone are so stupidly close together.

“No, no!” Mia rips the phone from my hand.

“What?”

“Friends don’t let friends drunk-dial.”

“I’m not drunk-dialing; I’m doing a wake-up call.”

“You can’t call him.”

“I’m rethinking this leaving thing.”

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