Page 15 of Love.V2
“Liar, I look like shit. Alright, enough about us. How’s it going with Tess? Have you seen her yet?”
I paced across the orange Jinx carpet, letting out a grunt. “Yeah. I saw her.”
“And? How did it go? How does she look?”
I peered out the window, looking at the Chicago skyline without really seeing it. How did she look? Perfect. Even totally petrified and avoiding my gaze, seeing her had made my gut clench up. Her blue eyes, soft cheeks, thin nose…The face of my favorite person in the world.
Then I remembered her expression when I’d walked into Eric’s office. The tears. The bright anger. I winced. “She looked good. We didn’t get a chance to talk.”
She had run away. Again.
I tried not to blame her. I could tell from the second I’d walked into that conference room she hadn’t been prepared to see me. That was all part of the plan, I reminded myself. Keep my visit to Jinx hush-hush so she didn’t have time to bail before I even walked through the door. I’d told myself it was the right move.
But then I’d seen the shock splashed across her features. Maybe even a little panic, too, and I’d known I had to be careful, play it cool. I’d practically ignored her, which was ridiculous. I could be in a coma and still pinpoint exactly where she was in the room.
“Well, get on it, Morris. Auntie Tess needs to come meet her new niece,” Lexi huffed. Since the day Mac had started dating Lexi, it was like she’d always been part of our group. They had mourned the loss of my relationship with Tess almost as much as I had, and I knew they were hurt by how she’d left—quietly, out of nowhere, without saying goodbye.
I’d heard there were five stages of grief, but there were only three when I lost Tess.
Desperation. Countless phone calls that always went to voicemail. Undeliverable texts. Half-formed prayers that this would all be some bizarre dream and life would go back to the way it was.
Anger. She was just going to throw our whole life away? Everything we’d built? I’d stopped calling.
Finally, the gut-wrenching realization that I’d have left me, too. Noticing just how much time I spent at the office. How little attention I gave to my family and the people I loved. One revelation snowballed into hundreds, and I had spent months in an avalanche of guilt and regrets. Until the only thing keeping my head above it all, keeping me sane, was the knowledge that I could be better. For her.
I could show her I’d changed, win her back. If only she’d let me.
“Dylan has a plan, babe. He always does,” Mac said. “What’s the play, man? Flowers? Groveling? Finally getting down on one knee?”
“I’m, uh, going to ambush her in her office.” I glanced around the bookshelves, looking at the items so familiar they may as well have been mine. The brass frames that had once held pictures of us now held tiny watercolor prints. The ceramic pen cup she’d made in college. Her color theory books displayed in the same chromatic order they always had been.
It had taken about two days without Tess for me to realize those books had been the only splash of color in the whole house.
“That’s the plan?” Mac sounded incredulous, which was fair.
“That’s the plan.” Granted, it wasn’t romantic or over the top, but it was all I had at the moment. She’d practically sprinted out ofEric’s office after he’d told her I was going to be Jinx’s CEO. Then she’d come down with a very convenient and unspecified illness and hadn’t showed up at work for two days. I knew because I’d spent each morning in her office, pacing, staring at those frames, and waiting.
I’d do it again today, and the next day, and the next, if I had to. I wasn’t letting her run away again. This morning, though, I had an extra ace up my sleeve.
“If you’re sure…”
I wasn’t sure of anything. All I knew was that six months without her was six months too long. Losing Tess had been the wake-up call of a lifetime, and I needed to show her I wasn’t the man she’d left. Not anymore.
The door to her office opened and there she was. Her eyes widened, mouth popping open into a lush, surprised “o” when she saw me standing there. Our eyes connected. Lightning struck.
I’d missed that.
“Hi,” I said.
Her gaze darted around the room like she was looking for an escape route. I held out my phone before she could make a run for it. “Lex had her baby. It’s a girl.”
“She…a girl?” Tess stared down at our friends’ faces. “Lexi?”
“Tess, look at my new baby!” Lex squealed, wrestling the phone away from Mac.
“Whoa, careful, babe, you just popped out a kid. Lay back down, Jesus.” Mac sounded alarmed as Lexi flipped the camera to show the baby’s little squishy face.
“Oh, Lex, you got your girl!” A breathless smile spread across Tess’s face as she took the phone from my hands. Sparks danced across my palm where her fingers brushed. I peered at her, wondering if she felt it, too, but she was too enraptured by the baby.
