Page 67 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Her voice cracks, she brushes a hand against her face, glances to the right. “Was I really that naive?”
I shake my head rapidly, reach for her other hand. “It wasn’t your place to notice and it wasn’t your job to fix me, Phoebes.”
“You was my boyfriend,” she whispers and I never thought a past tense word would hurt me the way it just did. “You were with me more than you were with anyone else. I should’ve known.”
“We were kids.”
Her eyelids flutter, she sucks in a shaky, gasp of a breath. “Maybe but you were my whole fucking world, Arthur and I feel like I failed you in every way possible.” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that to you again.”
“Where is this all coming from?”
Something final about this conversation that I don’t like.
She sighs, resigned. “I can’t be with you and I’m not asking you to wait for me, either.”
“You don’t need to ask because I’ll be waiting, anyway.”
“You’ll die waiting,” she tells me like it’s supposed to make me stop.
“People say dying doing what you love is the best way to go.”
She wipes away her tears, stands up straight.
“You’re my best friend but I’m with Digby now.”
And then before I can say anything else, she spins on her heel and walks towards the bathrooms and I stand there, waiting for her even though I know she’s not going to come back. This is us, this is our game, this is the way we love each other—from a distance with a million fucking things between us—and I don’t see it getting any simpler because this is the ghost of my curse rearing it’s head in like a cliff in the middle of the sea. We can’t go around it, through it, over it, or under it. We just have to figure out a way to make it work with it between us.
When me and Con get back to his apartment, the girl behind the reception stops me, hands me a parcel, shrugs when I ask who sent it.
“I don’t know, the courier just dropped it off.”
I nod, take it from her—like a book or something.
I turn to Connie. “Have you been ordering on my Amazon again?”
“No,” he smiles, proudly, pressing the button for the lift. “I finally upgraded to Prime.”
Maybe it was me? Or Carter, even?
I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately, maybe I ordered something when the sun was coming up and then forgot all about it.
“Here,” Con nudges me when we step out of the lift. “What’s up with Phoebe? Looked well mardy today.”
Sigh, squeeze my eyes shut for a second. “Me—pissed her off.”
“You two slept together or something?”
“No,” scrunch my face up even though that isn’t impossible. “She’s with Digby.”
“So?” He shrugs. “That’s never stopped me before.”
He throws his blazer onto the floor by the door. It lands in a heap beside the box of unopened hooks.
“Oh, right,” I laugh, throw my parcel onto the table. “And how many relationships have you ruined?”
“You know,” he blows out a breath, shrugs airily. “A few.”
“Okay,” I nod, pat his shoulder.
