Page 121 of Try Hard
I nodded, swallowing hard.
She didn’t need words from me, simply holding me and pressing another kiss against my shoulder.
Was that how love was supposed to feel? Impossible and wondrous?
“Don’t wait up,” she called to my parents and her dad as we grabbed our coats. Her tone was playful, amused, like nothing in the world was wrong. It was as if we were simply running out to the shop or the pub, nothing that invited worry. Without seeming to think about it, Eve was protecting me from attention I didn’t want.
Ironic, really, that in dating the most famous person I’d ever met, I was with the person most dedicated to my privacy. Maybe it wasn’t all that unusual, actually. Eve knew better than most what that invasion felt like. Perhaps it made perfect sense that she was attuned to it.
She held the passenger door for me before jumping into the driver’s seat, and, once she took off driving, a wave of exhaustion overtook me. I wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going. It didn’t matter whether there was a destination. What mattered was her and me, and nobody else.
“I think I have to quit my job,” I said eventually, my voice loud in the quiet car.
Eve didn’t seem surprised. “How are you feeling about that?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out.”
“That’s fair.” The silence was loud in her pause, but not in a way that scared me. “I’m sorry I’m costing you your job.”
“It’s not your fault. They’d have tried for this angle regardless of who I was dating.”
“Yeah, but they might not have been so insistent about having you on camera. And they wouldn’t have been trying to cash in on your sudden celebrity.”
“Not a celebrity,” I said quickly. “They’re cashing in on your fame, but it doesn’t really matter. I think we’ve just come to the end of the road together.”
It hurt more than it should. I’d loved my job for so long. It had been perfect. But I’d made a promise to myself when I’d broken up with my ex that I wouldn’t stay in situations where I wasn’t valued or respected. And work no longer felt respectful.
“I know you love your job,” Eve said quietly as she joined the motorway and reached to take my hand briefly, setting it down on her thigh as she drove. She was so generous, so open. She was everything I’d ever thought she would be and so much more.
“But I don’t love where it’s going. And I don’t love how my comfort is so unimportant to them. Sure, your boss isn’t there to coddle you, and it’s unreasonable to think everyone can just leave a job when their boss makes a decision they don’t like, but… I’ve been there long enough that I should be getting some say in whether they’re allowed to monetise my private life. When they start messing with your personal life and insisting it’s now part of your job, it’s not a safe workplace anymore.”
She dropped one hand from the wheel again to squeeze my hand softly. “What do you think you’ll do instead?”
I let out a confused laugh. “No idea. I guess I’ve built enough of a name for myself that I can apply for other writing jobs. We’ll see. I mean, falling into this was kind of an accident to begin with.”
“It was?”
“Yeah. I thought I’d write for a more scientific magazine—anthropology, history, geography. But then I got that job and it was amazing.” I huffed. “Seems churlish to be complaining about a job that sends me all over the world reviewing places most people dream of visiting.”
Eve shook her head. “People can want that and you can give it up when it’s no longer what you need. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Hm. I can already imagine the comments.”
“Screw the comments,” she said, and I was surprised to hear she got more American on that one rather than more British in her emotion. “They don’t know your life. They don’t know what you need.”
Her conviction was like a safety blanket wrapping around me. She’d always had so much certitude. It was a gift to be one of the things she believed in without doubt.
I stroked her thigh, marvelling both at being able to and at the muscles underneath flexing as she drove. “You do, though,” I whispered.
The smile that took over her face was radiant, like all her smiles. “Paying attention to you is not a hardship.”
I was already so emotional that unexpected tears prickled in my eyes. Those who had come before her sure made it feel like it was.
She glanced my way, seeming to understand exactly what I was thinking. “You made your mark on me when we were kids and every day since then that I’ve got to spend in your orbit has been breathtaking.”
I breathed a laugh, wiping at my face. “I think you’ll find you’re the breathtaking one.”
“Nope. It’s you. And, believe me, I’ve been paying enough attention to know.”
