Page 86 of The Boss I Can't Stand
I grimaced down at the phone screen. I didn’t want there to have to beanyteams. Word of our breakup had swept through the studio like wildfire, and now people had two reactions. Either they could barely meet my eye as we passed in the hall, giving me awkward, perfunctory smiles, or they pointed me out to their friends and couldn’t stop staring.
It had been two weeks since the breakup, and I was tired of being the freaky little sideshow in the carnival. I just wanted to be done.
Heeled boots clicked down the hall, and I glanced up, knowing it was Brenna just by the cadence of thetap, tap, tap. I was going to miss that. Miss her. Things hadn’t been the same since…
Well, I suppose it would have been hard for us to keep up our old routine of giggling together over some piece of office gossip now that Iwasthe office gossip. In response, Brenna had jumped right into professional mode while ferrying me around from press junket to press junket with the various media outlets Jillian had invited.
“Okay,” she said, slowing next to me as she consulted her tablet. “Jillian’s pushing Kaiden through a series of soundbites right now, so you’ve got about twenty minutes before she’ll be ready for you again.”
“I’m just gonna pop down to craft and grab a coffee,” I announced, wanting to get away from the awkwardness.
She nodded, firing off a message on her tablet. “Sounds good. I’ll come grab you in a few.”
I headed off without another word. Part of me wondered if Finn had assigned Brenna to me, hoping to get me in and out of the building as quickly as possible. He’d been avoiding me completely, but that part didn’t bother me.
It’s not like Iwantedto see him.
That would only have made these past couple of weeks more difficult.
My phone started buzzing in my hand as I made my way down the hall. “Hi, Mom,” I said, ducking into an empty room. “I’m at work, so I only have a minute, but I can give you a call lat?—”
A tremendous sob crackled through the speaker, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, immediately on high alert.
“I just got home from work,” Mom said, sniffling into the phone, “and I couldn’t find Larry anywhere. His keys were gone, he wasn’t answering his phone, and it looked like he’d packed himself a bag, and I—” The rest of her words were garbled by sobs.
“You’re sure he’s not just out with the guys or something?”
“No,” Mom said, her voice shaky. “I found a note on the kitchen table.”
A jolt of adrenaline shot through me as my worst fears about this relationship came to life. IknewLarry wasn’t in it for the long haul. I’d just had a feeling. This wasn’t our first runner.
“He said he needed to clear his head,” Mom explained, “and I don…I don’t…” Her words grew thick, choked. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, Mom,” I said softly, my chest clenching at the sound. We both knew what “clear his head” meant, and I really couldn’t handle two relationships falling apart. Not right now. “It’ll be all right. We’ve been through this before.”
“But Larry was different,” she said. “Wewere different. This…This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Oof. I knew exactly how she felt. But it looked like both our clocks had struck midnight.
She hiccuped, the sob getting stuck in her throat as she croaked, “I just really thought this was my chance, you know? I actually believed he wasthe one. Have I just been fooling myself? Maybe I’m destined to be alone.”
“Don’t say that.” Mom had never been the type of person tonotbelieve love was just around the corner. I needed her to be that person.
“Maybe it’s not supposed to happen for me.” She sighed heavily. “Maybe I don’t get my happy ending.”
Her words struck me like arrows to the heart, and I couldn’t help the rush of sadness that coursed through me. My thoughts locked on Finn, on how wrong my world felt now that he wasn’t a part of it. And just like that, the dam I’d built up around my feelings fell apart, and I burst into sudden, uncontrollable tears.
“Sierra?” Mom said, the shock of my own sobs snapping her into mother mode. “Honey, what’s going on?”
I didn’t even know where to start. The fake engagement or the real relationship? Trey’s interview with Milli or the fight with Finn that had ended it all? It was all too much, but in the end, the only place I could start was at the beginning with In Stitches. By the time I was done, I’d missed my next interview slot and had a dozen increasingly frantic messages from Brenna and Jillian.
“Well,” Mom said, still sounding a little stunned at my confession. “You’ve certainly had a lot going on. I wish you’d told me sooner. I could have been there for you.”
The comforting words broke the last of my composure, and I went back to crying. It was the first time I’d really let myself cry since that first night.
“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” I admitted. “This was never supposed to be anything real. I should just be able to get over him like I have all the guys before. I don’t know why this time it feels so much worse.”
