Page 89 of Hearts on the Table
She groaned, resting her forehead against my car. “The project is withhim. I can’t shake him even if I wanted to.”
“Do you? Want to?” I peeked around her to take another look. “I wouldn’t shake him off if he was stuck to me…”
“Hey. We’re here for your crisis, not mine. Focus.” She sighed, tilting her head to look at me. “It sounds like you have a lot of thoughts about what’s happened. Maybe instead of talking to me, you talk to Sam about it?”
“I’m still mad at him. And sad.”
“You’re allowed to be mad and sad. He did a stupid thing. Boys are stupid. I validate this.” She held her palms out like she was trying to calm a raging beast inside my vehicle. “But it sounds like you said a lot of things in anger. Maybe now that you’ve gotten a little distance from it all, it would be nice to revisit things with a calmer head.”
I slumped in my seat. “I miss him.” It was a whispered confession while I watched June make yet another trek from her car, this time hauling one bag on each arm. “I miss him and I’m mad at him.”
Tess’s eyes flickered to the man across the parking lot. “Both things can be true at the same time, unfortunately.”
We looked at each other for a moment, commiserating.
“Boys are stupid.”
“Boys are stupid,” she agreed.
I stayed up too late that night, tossing and turning and thinking about monster trucks and morals, and how good intentions can still have bad consequences. I thought about my work, my career, and the things I loved about it and hated about it. Sam, so much Sam. How much I wanted to be curled up on hisporch, pouring all this out to him. He’d probably know what to say. And maybe we’d be able to work past it and move on.
The problem was, I was still terrified. He’d shattered my trust. Besides, how could I move forward with him now, when I was still reeling from things that happened years ago? Nate and Katie’s faces flashed in my brain more than I wanted to admit. How many betrayals did I have to go through until I got the picture and left well enough alone?
Maybe I’d said some wrong things to him out of anger, but I’d been right about at least one thing: I couldn’t do it again. Losing him, losing everything? I wasn’t strong enough. And I hated myself for it.
I wanted to give him a monster truck, but I felt like my emotional bank was empty. He deserved someone who could give him everything he wanted without a second thought, and I had second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts.
I laid awake for a long time, thinking about anger and fear. And how sometimes they feel the same.
Chapter 33
Lainey
Perched on the edge of an uncomfortable pleather chair, sporting my white coat and a pencil skirt, I waited to be called in for my third and final interview at Cedar. My foot jiggled while I stared down at my phone. My thumb compulsively toggled back and forth between two message threads.
One from Blake this morning:
He’d attached a PDF of the official offer from Mercy. I didn’t have to click into it to visualize that big, fat salary and all the significant benefits they’d offered me.
I flipped back to the messages from Sam. I’d yet to respond to him, but the fact he kept sending them was a lifeline. However lost I was in my own feelings, topsy-turvy with the need to punch him and kiss him (perhaps simultaneously), his continued attempts to contact me felt steady. I liked seeing his name over and over on the screen. My call logs looked very similar.
I wanted to respond, to answer one of his calls. But what would I even say?
I’d been wracking my brain for the last few days and still didn’t know where to start. And time was running out. He was on the other side of that door, and the most I’d come up with so far was “hi.”
Down the hall, the elevator chimed and Nate McDaniels stepped out. As if this day wasn’t weird enough. He faltered when he saw me, but continued ambling forward, ending up uncomfortably close as he seated himself in the other chair in the waiting area. Only a small end table and a bright pink plastic orchid separated us. He cleared his throat.
This was the first time I’d gotten a good look at Nate since I’d left Texas. I’d only had a second to glance at him at the gala before I’d bolted. I wish I could say he was balding or pudgy or something, but he wasn’t. His curly brown hair was longer than it used to be, yet the style suited him. I wondered if it was Katie’s doing. He’d dressed like me for the occasion—white coat and business attire. He clutched a leather folio in his lap.
He cleared his throat again, and I realized I was staring at him. He, at least, was making an effort to ignore my existence, like a good cheating ex should.
“What time is your interview?”
His cheeks flushed at my question as he checked his watch. “Ten. I know I’m early but…wanted to make a good impression, you know?”
My interview was at nine, which meant he was over an hour early. I blinked down at my phone. Well, that blew past a good impression and straight into desperate territory, if you asked me. Then again, now that I thought about it, his extreme punctuality had always irked me when we’d been together. The man had no concept of flexibility or being fashionably late.
Katie had been that way, too, come to think of it. I couldn’t count how many dinners or study sessions I’d shown up to on time, only to find both of them had already settled in, drinks inhand. Something about the recollection shamed me. Maybe they really had found each other. Those little idiosyncrasies meant a lot in a relationship.
