Page 76 of Lessons in Forgiving
Henry stood where I had left him. On the passenger side of his car, door still open, one hand on it, the other probably in his pocket. Eyes on me. Typical half-smile on his lips that told me perhaps he wasn’t regretting it at all.
CHAPTER 30
NOW
PRESSLEY_PROFILE_V1.
I had stared at the blank page for hours, with no movement except the cursor blinking. That first draft was a lot harder, now that whenever I thought or read or tried to write about Henry, all I could think about were his lips on mine. My fingers interlaced with his. The undeniable lust in every single breath we had shared.
And although it must’ve been the man on my mind and not the color of my walls that kept me from producing coherent sentences, I’d opted for a change.
I’d been holed up in theHBPoffice for about a week since then.
With everyone else around me writing, I felt like I had to be doing the same. After I’d been begging to be one of them for almost a year now. Typing away until my fingers bled, until my lips dried out because I’d forget to drink. In a strange way, I’d missed that.
The office also reminded me of the fact that I wanted to sit in one a few months from now and actually get paid to be there. This profile wasn’t just to graduate with a good grade or to prove something to my parents once they’d inevitably find out about the whole thing. It was to restore my reputation, and to hopefully write something so great, future employers wouldn’t care about that hiccup in my record last year—the minor complaint from the source I had apparently misquoted.
Spending my entire week at thePosthad been worth it, though. Not only because it meant no accidental run-ins with Henry, but because I’d actually managed to produce a coherent draft. I was working through lunch, trying to make it into something more than half-decent before my appointment with Eddie in half an hour.
Which wasn’t a lot of time. And it was stressing me out more than it would’ve a year ago. I was distracted, jumpy. I couldn’t keep my legs still.
Alfie got up from his desk beside mine, and suddenly that seemed so much more interesting than the sentence structure I’d been trying to figure out.
The ginger strolled past me with a shrug. “Lunch,” he said, and it was explanation enough. He didn’t bother wasting his breath on an invitation he knew I would decline.
“And then there were two,” Lacy hummed four desks over, playful amusement in her perfect voice. She’d probably be a good singer if she gave it a try.
When I only answered with a forced, uncomfortable laugh, she spun her chair in my direction. “How’s the profile going?”
And I did not expect myself to groan so candidly. By the look on her face, neither had she.
“Sorry.” I tried to recover from my outburst. “It’s just… I’m trying to fix this draft, and then someone asks a question or leaves the room, and I—” The ding of an incoming email cut me off, and I grandly gestured to my screen. “See!”
Lacy huffed, nodded as if she totally knew the feeling. As if she could possibly understand the stress I was putting myself under—the stress of my entire future being tied to one stupid profile about my ex-boyfriend, and that it could salvage the career that had been hanging by a thread since last year. It needed to be perfect.
So far, it was half decent.
“Just one of those days,” Lacy said, giving me an encouraging smile. A shadow danced across her face, her brow furrowed, her mouth twitched, and for a second, I’d imagined a tinge of jealousy in her tone when she said, “You’ll manage, Paula. You always do.”
I hummed gruffly. “Thanks.”
We both turned back to our screens. While Lacy probably continued writing or researching or doing something else incredibly productive, I opened my emails.
1:36 PM
Got your pictures for the profile! I’ve attached the headshots as well as some candids like we talked about. Hope there’s something useful between them and looking forward to reading this thing.
X, Hallie
“It’s work related,” I muttered in Lacy’s general direction, just so she knew. I didn’t know why I felt it was important that she did.
The blonde gave me a confused thumbs-up in return, and my eyes drew back to the screen. I scrolled through the attached pictures half-heartedly.
One of Henry frowning into the camera, then with his lips turning upward reluctantly. I was surprised to see a genuine smile in the next take and wondered what she’d said to get it there. Either way, Hallie was good at what she was doing because those were rare.
I clicked through the folder distractedly, until I got to the candids she was talking about in the email and—sneaky little woman! I hadn’t even noticed her set up camp behind me. Judging by the angle of the pictures, it’s where she must’ve taken them from.
Most of them were zoomed-in photos of Henry kicking, dribbling, shooting at the goal and scoring. In another one, he stood in the middle of the pitch, looked up at the sky, the lens sofar away you could barely make out his face on the empty field. Some of the seats filled out the background.
