Page 74 of Electric Blue Love
Todd was waiting for me upstairs at the library. The same prime study spot as last time, but sans the friends.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as I sat my things down on the coffee table in front of the couch. The whole setting too intimate with just the two of us. Busy library or not.
“They all bailed on me to stay at the house and study.”
I moved to grab my bag. “Oh, well you should have called. Tasha was asking if I wanted to study with her anyway.”
He stood and lifted a hand in front of his chest in a gesture to stop. “No don’t go. Please. I lied. I didn’t invite anybody else. I wanted to talk to you.”
I sat hesitantly. “Okay.”
Todd raked a hand through his hair and took a seat opposite of me. The coffee table was between us, but it didn’t seem like a big enough obstacle to keep my heart out of his grasp. He brought both hands together and clasped them almost casually between his knees.
“Look, this is all really shitty timing and I know you’re set to move back to New York in a few weeks and I’m staying here for another four years and then who knows where I’ll have to go, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to you. I know you said you were sort of seeing someone else and I respect that, but if it’s only sort of then maybe there’s still a chance for us?”
I opened my mouth to speak and no words came out. He’d stunned me.
“Would you at least consider it – keeping me, or us, as an option. I’ll come to New York when I can, and you can visit me, we can talk and text. You’re going to be busy with work and your family and me with school so maybe it could work.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted finally when he looked at me expectantly.
“Will you just promise me you’ll think about it?”
I nodded and stood with my bag. “I think I should go back to the apartment until –”
I had no idea what I was going to say, but he nodded in understanding and stood. “I’ll walk with you.”
We walked in silence, me mulling over how quickly things had changed in the last week, and him giving me space, I assumed. When we reached the parking lot where his BMW was parked in a meter spot, he motioned to the shiny, red car. “Can I give you a ride?”
It felt like the least I could do, just a ride, not a promise of anything more, and I slipped into the passenger seat. It was only a few blocks to my apartment and Todd was pulling up outside the complex before I’d had little more time to think about what he’d asked. He put the car in park, but left the engine running. I swallowed hard and looked over at him ready to tell him I didn’t think there was any way I could get involved right now, but before the words could leave my mouth he captured my mouth with his. It seemed to be his signature move.
The kiss was soft, and I allowed his lips to guide the pace as he moved slowly. His hand moved to my chin and I stiffened with the additional contact before forcing myself to relax. To explore, to discover, to savor, and ultimately to judge. There was no jolt of electricity like there’d been with Court. His hand felt intrusive and forceful where Court’s had always seemed safe and loving. And when Todd finally swept his tongue into my mouth, I didn’t have the desire to tangle mine with his. I was analyzing, and I hated myself for it.
He pulled back and smiled at me, a lazy smile like a man who’d just given a girl a kiss she would never forget. And I wouldn’t, but for all the wrong reasons.
May and Junewent by without Bianca and somehow, I survived despite the ache in my chest. With July came the warm weather, dinners out on the patio, and a new team of wide-eyed and eager recent graduates and college kids to manage all on my own.
I hadn’t had to deal much with Allen Sterling. No visits to Connecticut, just a couple conference calls where I waited for him to fire me, his own nephew, but if Dr. Sterling had said a word to him, Allen never let on.
I’d started to prep one of my new team members to take over the account; I was itching to be free from all ties to the Sterling family. I’d never been so grateful that my mother had given me her last name instead of his. Maybe she’d known he’d never accept me as his own. Had that been why she’d named me after his mother? A silent fuck you for abandoning us?
Things marched on exactly like they’d done before, only I wasn’t the same. I was now painfully aware of the solitude I’d created for myself. Work didn’t satisfy me like it had before, but I threw myself into it anyway desperate to distract myself.
And so, I settled back into things. Almost as if Bianca had never happened. But she had, and it was the little things that hurt the most. The way I checked my phone first thing in the morning waiting for the good morning texts I’d gotten used to her sending. Every woman I saw –sitting across from me on the subway, the barista at the coffee shop, even Nancy in HR – they all wore blue around their eyes and I wanted to wipe it from their faces. It belonged to her and to her mother. Ridiculous, I know, but that’s where I was.
And Leo. He’d been hired as an intern, placed on my team as I’d asked, and now I saw him three days a week. It made me feel closer and further from Bianca. A million things rattled around – things I wanted to ask him, about Bianca, about their mom, about him, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Didn’t think I deserved to know any of it.
I was the first one into the conference room for our weekly team meeting, followed by Leo. His hair was a shaggy mess as I’d come to learn was his style, but he wore a nice pressed pair of khakis and an oversized button-down shirt that I guessed was probably his father’s.
“Hey, Leo.”
He gave a small wave and took a seat a few chairs down from me. “Hi, Court.”
“How are things going?” I asked, leaving it purposely vague so maybe he’d tell me about more than just how work was going for him.
He nodded a little too enthusiastically. “Really great. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your getting me the job.”
My face warmed because I hadn’t meant to make him feel like he owed me or needed to thank me. Fuck. It was a shit intern job.
