Page 57 of Last First Love
My eyes flick between the two of them. There's obviously some back story there, and I'll weasel it out of them eventually. Just maybe not right this very moment when I'm still feeling extra spicy after some shit talk from the random woman next to me.
Delilah leans over to fake-whisper to me, "If it wasn't about you, what did set you off?" Their eyes light up with sudden interest, and I can feel my face heating again.
I squirm a bit under their scrutiny, but finally stand up straight and answer her. "She said some shit about Daniels that didn't sit well with me."
The group of women stare at me until my chin dips and I move to readjust myself in my chair.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Darcy's voice is low, but carries enough for me to hear her clearly.
"Think about mean girls some more? No, I'm not sure about that at all."
Darcy raps on the table with her knuckles. "I mean are you sure about your choices? Are you going to go for it, or are you going to let this slide past you?"
I want to answer her right away, but she's asking me a serious question, one that I've been chewing over since I went to New York for my vacation and interviews. It's not an easy answer, even if I'd rather that it were a crystal clear choice.
"I don't know, to be honest. I really don't know if this is going to be for the best or if it's going to be the biggest mistake of my life thus far. But high end fashion photography is my big dream and if I don't chase it, I don't want to sit around and wonder what would have happened if I had gone for it. Because what if I could succeed? What if I could have made it?"
Darcy shakes her head, a small smile playing around the edges of her eyes and mouth. "No honey. I'm not talking about the photography job." She takes a deep breath. "I'm talking about the thing between you and Daniels."
"Oh." The word falls out of my mouth and sits there between us. "That." Way. to play it cool Lily. Not.
I paste on a heavy fake smile and then wave off the question like it's a pesky fly. "Well the only thing I'm sure of with me and Daniels is that there's nothing going on between us."
Even if I did dump a beer on some nasty woman to defend his so-called honor.
I let my face relax into a hopefully more normal looking version of itself rather than pained grimace."I'm sure he's probably at work right now. Saving lives and not thinking twice about me or what I'm doing."
Darcy gives me a look like she pities me for being as stupid as I obviously sound. "Actually, he called in sick. He faked the worst cough I've ever heard faked, and unless I'm very much mistaken about what kind of man he is, he's probably sitting at your house right now waiting for you to come home so he can have the chance to talk to you again."
My pulse kicks up again. Her words start a little river of hope bubbling through my veins, and suddenly, I'm dying to go home and see if what she says is correct.
My eyes flick toward the door.
"He's not here, Lily." She says, thereby making it clear that she watched me look for him. "Maybe you should go see if you can find him."
I sigh and look back at the women I'm lucky to have as friends. "Maybe I should." And with that, I head out of Riddles to do exactly that.
Ken
The first ten times Elliott calls, I send it to voicemail. Maybe I should answer so he can go ahead and laugh at me, but I don't think I could deal with any more humiliation today.
Frankly, I wish I were asleep. This day has gone on way too long already and instead of apologizing to Lily, making out with Lily, or even being around Lily, I'm at my place staring up at the ceiling and trying to come up with some sort of version of my daydreams that won't end with Lily in New York and me still here in Valentine feeling very deeply sorry for myself as I have to watch all of my friends get married.
Maybe Lipstick and her sidekick and all the other women I'd apparently scorned were right about me and I deserve this. It figures that I'd wait this long to fall in love for the first time only to have to it blow up in my face. And the worst part is I can't even be mad about it.
I so deeply regret every single misstep with Lily that I don't even have the vocabulary to apologize to her, even assuming I could find her and get her to listen to me. There's got to be some word that's bigger than sorry. What am I missing in this equation? A grand gesture? No, that’s only been more trouble for me.
But even if I manage to solve the puzzle of how to adequately explain to Lily that I didn't mean to do the wrong thing, there is a zero percent chance of us finding that happiness together that I crave so deeply.
I can picture a perfect future with her in my mind so easily. The two of us smiling at each other over dinner, where I feed her a little bite of whatever I'm having. Us cuddling up to watch a movie. A happy little family of me, my best girl, and our cute adopted puppy Squiggles heading to the park together for an afternoon walk.
But what sucks about my daydream Lily is she's not living the life of her dreams in these scenarios. Even if I can convince her to accept my apology, and even if I could talk her into taking a chance on me, I can't come up with a way that we get to live happily ever after here in Valentine unless she were to give up her dreams of making it in the fashion world.
And I'm not the type of man who would do that to her. Hell, half of what's so appealing about her is that she's full of ambition and optimism, she's always trying to do better in her own life, even when she's afraid. And because of her example, I'm pushing myself to do better every single day too.
Unfortunately, that means I've got to get out of her way. I can't be the type of man who blocks her path to her dreams because I want to keep her all to myself.
I do though. I desperately want to keep her close to me, to show her all the happiness to be found in each and every possible scenario where we end up together and she allows her crush to blossom into something bigger, something that lasts.
