Jake
“So you’re still sulking?” Beth asked me. I was sick of sitting at my desk in our guest bedroom all day and had decided to change my surroundings. It may have been a bad idea because now I had my papers spread across the dining table, and Beth had more access to me to give me a hard time. She rarely needed an excuse to bust my balls but since Haven and I had stopped seeing each other—assuming we had ever really started—that was where her attention was centered. She thought I’d given up too easily. She thought I should fight harder. I was trying not to think. I had Elemental Energy to concentrate on.
“I’m not sulking. I’m working. There’s a difference. I have a million things to do if I want Elemental Energy to achieve what it’s capable of.”
“I thought you had a month before the Palo Alto guy started?”
Could she not stop pushing? She’d been like this since I got back from California. Couldn’t she just leave things alone? Haven had made this decision, not me. I ignored her.
“So you have some time. I thought the new photographer at Rallegra didn’t start for a while? I’m sure Robert could still do with the help,” she continued.
“I have a lot to do. Robert will call me if he needs me. I’ve finished the Sandy piece. I wasn’t assigned to anything else.” I was pretty sure that the last place I should be was Rallegra. Haven wanted us to be “friends” but that was not something I could comprehend. If I couldn’t be with her, then I couldn’t see her.
“Keep telling yourself that, Jake. You should go in there, scoop her up in your arms and tell her how you feel.”
She had gone way past irritating. Haven had decided, it hadn’t been my choice. There was no point in revisiting all this stuff. Maybe I needed to go for a run. “Will you back off? Haven and I were . . . it was . . . It’s over. I’ve had far longer relationships. You didn’t seem to have a problem when Millie and I split up.”
“This is different and you know it. You like Haven. Millie . . . wasn’t worth it. I think you’re punishing her for pushing you away.”
There was no point in talking about this. Haven had been clear. She didn’t want anything from me. At least she’d responded to my email. When I saw she’d replied, I’d thought she’d finally come around and we would be able to move past this misunderstanding. After reading her very cool, calm response about how she accepted my apology and wanted us to be friends, I knew she was gone.
The shutters had come down.
Haven was no longer mine.
“How am I punishing her by giving her what she wants?” It was true I was angry at Haven. She’d not trusted me, or how she felt. She’d just shut down and pushed me out. I could cope with her crying in my arms or being mad with me, but just to walk away as if we’d been nothing? Maybe I was punishing her.
“Perhaps you’re determined not to allow yourself to be happy.”
“Thank you, Dr. Daniels. I’ve allowed myself to be happy with a lot of women. It’s not like I don’t date.”
“No you haven’t. You’ve fucked a lot of girls, but you’ve always been the one in control. You’ve never lost yourself; found a great love. More than that, you choose women that you are never going to fall in love with deliberately.”
“I’m going for a run,” I said, standing up and staring at my papers strewn across the table. Worse than having Beth bust my balls, was Beth making sense while she did it. I didn’t want to think Haven might have been special, or right for me, when such thoughts were entirely futile. She wasn’t mine anymore.
Losing Haven hurt in the pit of my belly. I’d never felt like that after a break up before, but I figured it would pass. Our paths weren’t likely to cross again after I finally finished up at Rallegra. We would be just memories for each other, or at least she would be for me. I didn’t know if I’d ever been anything to her.
My phone vibrated against the table. Beth glanced at the screen and grinned. “That, my dear brother, is what you call fate. I don’t want to hear any excuses about how you’re too busy.”
“Robert,” I answered.
“Harry. How was the US? Make another ten million while you were out there? Bang a supermodel?”
“You have a twisted view of what my life really is.” I would have normally found Robert’s assumptions about my life amusing, but today it just seemed a little sad. The life he was jealous of wasn’t a life I recognized or wanted. “You remember I live with my sister, right?”
Robert chuckled. “We’ve got a couple of new pieces for you to work on. The first is on celebrity lookalikes. It’s going to be great. Emily is working on it with Jenny. They’ve found some proper crazy people who dress to look like their idols. Some have even had surgery.”
I rolled my eyes. How utterly pointless. Sometimes it surprised me that Haven liked her job. It seemed to jar against the rest of her—it was so superficial. Haven was the opposite. You couldn’t look at the surface of Haven and know anything about her. It doesn’t matter anymore, I reminded myself.
“I thought we could do that as a studio shoot; it’ll take less than a day. Are you good with that? We’re thinking Thursday next week,” Robert said.
“Yeah, that will be fine,” I said, as Beth stood over me. She gave me the thumbs up and I gave her the finger.
“The second one will be a bit more time consuming. It’s a piece about dating agencies that only accept millionaires or something. Haven has the details. You’ll need to go along to the meetings and a couple of dates.”
My throat tightened and I tried to push down a swallow. Robert seemed oblivious to anything that might have happened between Haven and I, and there was no need to tell him. “Right. Well, you know it will depend on Elemental Energy,” I said. Beth glared at me. I ignored her.
“We’ll work around you on this. If it runs long, I can just get our new guy to take over. Really appreciate it, mate.” He wasn’t giving me much of a choice and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
“And Haven’s happy with me doing it?”
“Yeah, she told me she thought you were very talented when she saw the Sandy Fox photographs. Coming from her, that’s huge. You know what a ball buster she is.”
I had no idea whether or not Haven knew Robert had asked me to be involved in this piece specifically. Did she want to see me?
“Okay, let me know when you need me in the office,” I said.
“I’ll get Haven to call you.”
“Happy now?” I turned to Beth as I hung up.
“Not happy, but I don’t want to kill you, so that’s a start.”
Beth would get used to the idea that Haven and I weren’t together. I just wasn’t sure I would.
Predictably, Haven arranged the details of our meeting. Jenny called the day before the shoot to say when and where I needed to go. I knew Haven would be early, so I planned to arrive fifteen minutes before our appointment. Glass Introductions was a high-end-dating agency. I didn’t really understand why we were going, or what Haven’s article was about. All I knew was I had to turn up and take some shots.
I had done everything that morning to distract myself from coming face to face with Haven. Nothing had worked. As much as I was trying my best to get over her, the thought of seeing her again was like a punch to my stomach. How could she have just walked away so easily? I couldn’t stop the images of her that were running through my head like a slideshow. Was she still angry with me? Would we get the opportunity to talk about what had happened, or to talk about anything at all? Hell, I’d settle for hearing about Luke and Ash. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was looking forward to seeing her despite myself. And more than that, something in me wanted to know she was still the same. She might have called time on anything between us, but I couldn’t bear it if she’d cut her hair or started wearing red to work. In the short time we’d been apart, I needed her not to have changed. I didn’t want to see evidence that she’d taken what she needed from me and moved on. I wanted to believe a part of her was still mine.
I checked my watch when I arrived. Glass Introductions was on one of the beautiful Mayfair Squares that surrounded a small garden. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping—it was enough to induce a good mood . . . almost. I was early, so I crossed the road and wandered into the greenery, hoping to find a seat where I could try to calm the pulse thrumming through my body. I passed between two bushes at either side of the entrance, and found Haven sitting opposite me on a bench. I saw her a split second before she looked up. From the moment our eyes met, she was all I saw. I wasn’t sure if I was still walking, breathing, or whether all my energy was used to look at her. She was so beautiful. I couldn’t help but grin at her.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Harry.”
Her voice was clipped and I couldn’t help but wince. She hadn’t called me Jake. Harry was the name my friends used. Haven would never, could never, be just a friend. She glanced away from me as I sat next to her on the bench. At least she was wearing her severe bun and funereal clothes. Maybe my Haven was still in there somewhere.