How could I move on after a morning like that?
How could I move on, period?
I’d somehow managed to peel myself off Roman’s office door and find my way back to my desk, going through the motions of the morning, all the while still picturing my boss’s hands on my body… his mouth as it devoured me.
Holy shit.
My thighs involuntarily squeezed together as I just thought about it.
He wanted me.
He wanted me to want him.
Well, news flash, Mr. Cavenaugh… that was not a problem.
Every neuron in my body was currently fine-tuned to his unique signal, and had he continued to kiss me like that for much longer, I was fairly certain I would have just died right there in his arms.
Could women actually die of orgasmic bliss?
Something else to research… maybe later.
But something was stopping me from running back into that office, locking the door, and doing the nasty with my boss.
Something important.
And it most definitely had to do with the crater of emotional baggage currently lodged in my head. Shacking up with another man, right after my boyfriend of eight years had cheated on me, sounded like something out of a daytime soap opera.
And I was better than that.
The way Roman had looked at me, I felt like he truly believed I was better than that as well.
So, when I came to him—which I thoroughly planned on doing and soon—it wouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction to Tyler’s misdeeds.
It would be because I wanted to.
Hell, it would be because I damn well needed to.
My internal monologue of confidence lasted about an hour.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was a basket case.
Holding back tears, I rushed out of the building, seeking the shelter only an overpopulated, overly self-involved city could provide. Getting lost in the crowd, I let my tears loose, knowing no one around would dare approach me. Not when they had their own boatload of drama to deal with.
Rounding the corner, I made it to the deli Roman loved and prepared to brave the line that had already formed. Lunch in this particular area of town always meant a line.
Even for the assistant to Roman Cavenaugh.
Deli meat favored no one.
As I became like the rest of my line dwellers and began putzing around on my phone, I was surprised to see an incoming call from Melissa interrupting my endless search for funny cat videos.
“Hello?” I answered, curious as to why she would be calling in the middle of classes.
“Cat videos? Again? You could at least do something useful with your time, like research a cure for cancer. Oh, wait, that’s me.”
“How did you—” I began to say, suddenly looking up with frantic eyes.
It took mere seconds for me to settle on that familiar petite frame. She’d cut her hair since the last time I’d seen her. The sandy-brown locks now barely touched her shoulders, but those effortless waves I’d envied for years were still there.
Along with her beautiful smile and open arms, waiting for me to hug her.
“Oh my gosh!” I screamed, not caring one bit that I’d stepped out of line and lost my spot. “What are you doing here?”
“You called me, remember?”
I thought back to the night before—Tyler dropping his cheating bomb, me grabbing a few articles of clothing before I’d disappeared into the freezing rain. Somewhere in between all that mess, I did recall leaving a somewhat cryptic message for Melissa.
“Now you remember.” She laughed, seeing the realization spread across my face.
Her arm draped across my shoulders as we began walking away from the deli. Where to, I had no idea, but there were too many people to just stand around.
“I missed your call because it happened to be the one night I actually managed to get some sleep. Between exams and roommate drama, it’s been a precious commodity. Have I told you lately how much I love you? If not, I do. So very much.”
“Is it bad?” I asked, remembering her mentioning her roommate the last time we’d spoken.
She was a perky girl from Colorado. She sounded nice enough, but apparently, their personalities just didn’t mesh well. Melissa was ready to kill her.
“Bad,” she answered. “She’s just too happy. No one can possibly be that happy, Cara. No one. And I lived with you.”
“Hey!”
“I mean that with love. Lots and lots of love. Anyway, you called, and I was sleeping.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
She shrugged, looking around at the city like it was a zoo. It kind of was. “It’s okay. I got your crazy message when I woke up to work out. But, instead of going to the gym, I went to the airport. I figured I needed a little break from the roommate, and you needed… well, me.”
I sighed, leaning my head on her shoulder, as we walked. “I do. Thank you.”
“Good. Now, where am I staying? I took the train into the city from the airport, and left my bags in a locker there, so I need to go back and get them. But I need to know where I’ll be sleeping.”
Oh, crap.
“So, here’s the thing.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, turning to me with her hands on her hips. “We’re homeless. This is what you’re about to tell me, isn’t it? Oh God, Cara Hamilton, you did not sleep on the sidewalk last night, did you? If so, I am going to march right over to wherever that douche canoe works and give him a piece of my mind. Kicking you out in the middle of the night,” she began to mutter incoherently, her temper taking over.
“We’re not homeless!” I nearly shouted, grabbing her shoulders to gain her attention. “I’m staying with Roman.”
“Roman? Your hot boss Roman?”
I nodded, my checks instantly inflaming.
A devilish grin spread across her face. “Nice, Cara-saurus. Didn’t think you had that in you.”
“Cara-saurus? Really? You said you wouldn’t call me that after graduation! You promised,” I whined as she headed back down the street.
“No, I didn’t. You only thought I did.”
“Cheater,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my body like a five-year-old child.
“You love me. Now, are you going to tell me where we are, or am I going to have to pull out a map?”
“Dear God, no.” I flinched at the very idea of her pulling out a gigantic old map in the middle of lunch hour in Manhattan.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her back toward the deli line.
“Just follow me, and I’ll get us a hotel for the night.”
“No hot boss?”
“Not for you!”
“You’re no fun,” she laughed, garnering the attention of several suits as we passed by.
“Yes, well, you called me Cara-saurus, so I win.”
“You’re just jealous you could never come up with anything to call me in return.”
“Asswipe.”
“Clever.”
I couldn’t hide the smile that spread across my face as we bantered back and forth. We hadn’t seen each other in months, but it was as if not a single day had passed.
“I missed you, Mel,” I said.
“Right back at you, Cara-saurus.”
I rolled my eyes and punched her in the arm.
Because that was what best friends did.
True to my word, I booked Melissa and myself a hotel not too far from work. At exactly five o’clock, I made a beeline for the elevator, knowing I was chickening out of explaining my absence to Roman. I hadn’t exactly said I was moving in, and although he’d been gracious enough to take me in for one night, the idea of moving in with my boss was… well…
Enticing.
Exciting.
Inappropriate.
Yes, there was the word I was looking for. Inappropriate.
I might have been sticking my tail between my legs and running away, but I had things to attend to. Friends to entertain. A mangled life to repair. A hot boss with an equally hot body and a set of lips that could set a forest ablaze.
Well, that would just have to wait.
For now…
Knowing I had limited time with Melissa, I relied on old standbys to get us through the evening. I knew she’d never been to New York, and she would probably enjoy a night out, seeing the sights and enjoying a crazy expensive meal or maybe even visiting a club, but this was my night.
My only night with her.
And I was being selfish.
So, armed with candy, pizza, and copious amounts of beer, I arrived at the hotel, prepared to keep her indoors if it was the last thing I did. Not having a hand free, I knocked on the door with the tip of my shoe. As pain radiated through my toe, I quickly realized it wasn’t the smartest idea I’d had to date.
“Ouch,” I mumbled, balancing several bags and a pizza box in my hands.
“Think you’ve got enough stuff there?” she asked after opening the door.
I looked her up and down. She was in a ratty shirt she’d had since freshman year and a pair of scrub bottoms.
“You don’t want to go out?” I asked.
She took the pizza box and began to dive right in.
“No,” she answered, a slice of pizza already halfway to her mouth. “I came here for you. Not the city. I can come back anytime. Preferably when you’re happier and not a freaking disaster. We’ll do the touristy crap then. For now, I’m trying to put this train wreck back together again.”
And by train wreck she meant me.
I had the best friend ever.
“Thank you,” I said, dropping the bags on the sofa to envelop her in a hug.
“You did it for me when Jeremy broke off our engagement.”
“I know,” I said, “but that was then.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t know if things had changed.”
She rolled her eyes, sitting down on the spot of the sofa that wasn’t covered in bags. “Things between us will never change. For four years, we managed to live together and not kill each other. Believe me, that’s a huge success. We’re friends for life now.”
I snorted, reaching out for a piece of pizza to call my own. “She must be really horrible.”
Melissa sighed. “She’s not that bad. She’s just not you.”
“Well then, maybe you should give her a chance,” I suggested with a wink.
“I don’t wanna,” she whined, grabbing another slice.
I’d always been envious of Mel’s amazing metabolism. She could sit down, eat an entire pizza with a side of ice cream, and wake up the next morning, weighing a pound less. But then again, she was also the one running five miles or more every morning while I was stuffing down a bagel and considering my three-block walk to the subway a workout. But it was that get-up-and-go attitude that always kept her motivated and pushing forward, and because of that, I knew she’d someday make an incredible doctor.
Whether she currently believed it or not.
“So, tell me more about the hot boss,” she requested after we’d finished scarfing down the pizza and moved on to dessert, which consisted of basically every single kind of candy I could find.
“Would you stop calling him that?”
“Why? Because it offends you? Or because you agree?” she asked.
She dug into the bag of M&M’s. They were her favorite, especially the kind with peanut butter. I didn’t know how many times we’d sat around, talking about boys, homework, or God knew what else, while I watched her squash a bright little morsel in between her thumb and pointer finger before popping it into her mouth.
“Your silence is answer enough,” she said with a smirk. After a moment, she added, “And I happily agree.”
Shaking my head, I replied, “How would you even know? You haven’t met him.”
“I have a computer. And hello? Google! You think I didn’t look up the guy after hearing the way you talked about him over the last few weeks?”
“I haven’t talked about him that much, have I?”
“Remember when I first started dating Jeremy our sophomore year, and I couldn’t stop talking about his hair and the way it looked in the morning—”
“And after he ran,” I added.
“Exactly. I swear, I had a love affair with that boy’s hair alone. I could have written sonnets about it in that first month. I was obsessed.”
“It really was disgusting. But you were in love. That’s what we do when we’re in love. But I’m not,” I said, thinking back to those first few months with Tyler and comparing them to now. I might not have been obsessed with Tyler’s hair, but I’d had an affinity for his smile.
I still did.
Or at least, until last night, I had.
“You might not be sonnet-worthy yet, but if you were me and you had a chance to hear yourself, you’d see it.”
“See what?” I asked.
“The pull he has over you. The connection that’s there. The way you include him into a conversation without even realizing it. You’ve become infatuated with this man, and it has nothing to do with work, Cara. When you finally stop denying the truth to yourself, just do me a favor and make sure he’s deserving of you.”
I had no response, but I gave a small nod.
“Oh, and one other favor, as a friend.”
Our eyes met.
“When you do, you know, decide to seal the deal… take pictures. Please? ’Cause that man is… damn.”
Laughter burst out from both of us and didn’t cease for the rest of the night.
It was good to have my best friend by my side once again even if everything in my life was lopsided.
She was my constant.
Melissa decided to prolong her stay by another day when she discovered I wasn’t kidding about having nowhere to stay beyond Roman’s.
“Nowhere?” she yelled loud enough for the entire hotel floor to hear.
“Well, there is this coworker who said I was welcome to crash at her place, but I don’t think it was an offer to move in indefinitely.”
“We need to find you a place and fast,” she said, already pulling out her phone and tapping away.
For a Midwestern girl, she was incredibly tech savvy and pushy. Something told me she’d fit in better in this city than me. Within seconds, she pulled up nearby apartments, complete with ratings, rent, and openings.
“Wow, I’m impressed.”
“Be more impressed when I can actually get you into a place. We have our first viewing in a few hours. These places go fast. Let’s get over to Tyler’s and start packing up your stuff. Maybe we can get in and out of there before the cheating dickwad gets home.”
“Good idea,” I said, thankful for once for Tyler’s grueling work schedule, which happened to include weekend hours.
And very late evening hours.
Good to know my bitterness was firmly intact.
After a wholesome breakfast of leftover pizza we’d somehow managed to cram into the small fridge along with whatever candy we hadn’t eaten, we packed up and headed out to my—Tyler’s apartment.
The tension was palpable as we drew near. I was so fidgety by the time we turned the corner that I was nearly jumping out of my own skin.
“Could you let us off here?” Melissa softly asked the driver.
He pulled over to the side of the street and Mel paid as I calmly waited, feeling like the worst friend on the planet.
She’d flown out here on a moment’s notice. God knew how much money she’d spent that she probably didn’t have. Plus, she’d blown off important classes, and she was probably now behind on hours and hours of homework.
“Thank you,” I said after we’d climbed out of the taxi.
“For what?”
“Everything. Coming out here, talking me off the ledge, being here with me now.”
She turned to me as yellow cabs zoomed by, passing each other in a race to get their customers to their destinations on time.
“Listen,” she said, “I didn’t have to talk you off any ledge. You were doing fine all on your own. You would have figured this out without me. I just like to think that you do better when I’m around.” She laughed.
A gust of wind raced through the trees, making our teeth chatter.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Cara. I know you think I came out here because I didn’t believe you could do this on your own, but that’s far from the truth. I came here because I heard the pain in your voice and couldn’t imagine being anywhere but by your side. So, yes… I might be a little bossy and demanding, but that’s only because that’s how I handle these kinds of situations.”
“That’s not how you handled Jeremy,” I reminded her, shoving my hands into my pockets for warmth.
“Sure I did. After several weeks of self-loathing and wishing harm and ill-will to several parts of his lower anatomy, I eventually got up and took care of things.”
“Mmhmm,” I agreed, rolling my eyes.
She grabbed my arm, tightly linking us together. We began the one-block stroll toward my apartment. How she knew what direction to go, I’d never know. She’d probably Googled it while I was in the shower. It was what I would have done.
We were oddly similar in that way.
“Let’s just consider my experience with getting over Jeremy a crash course for you on what not to do. Don’t sit around in your pajamas for weeks on end. Don’t blame yourself, and definitely don’t convince yourself that chocolate is a major food group before trying to fit into your skinny jeans. It’s not good for the ego.”
“Duly noted.”
“On that note, let’s go get your stuff, and find you a place. Then, if we have time, maybe you can take me out to dinner?” she said with a flicker of hope.
“Sounds like a plan.”
As we’d predicted and hoped, the apartment was quiet and dark when we entered.
“What the hell?” I found myself saying immediately as my eyes scanned the empty walls, the bare floor, and the nearly barren kitchen.
“Does it always look like this?” Melissa asked as she took a walk around the living room where the couch used to be.
“No,” I said in a daze. “Not at all.”
My first thought was that we had been robbed, but as I looked around, I realized that the only things missing were Tyler’s. The afghan my grandmother had given me on the day of my high school graduation was folded neatly on the floor by the rug I’d found at the flea market just a week earlier.
“Cara?”
“Yeah?” I choked out.
“There’s a note.”
When I looked up, Melissa was holding a handwritten note in Tyler’s familiar angular penmanship. He’d written it on the back of a cable bill, obviously in a hurry.
Cara,
The apartment is paid for through June of next year.
I’m truly sorry.
Tyler
“He left,” I said, still not believing the words as they fell from my lips.
“Well, I figured that much out for myself. The note wasn’t very long. Are you going to stay?”
I looked around, remembering the brief time I’d spent in this place. I’d only lived here for a couple of short months, barely enough time to even consider it a home. But, in those short few weeks, I’d laughed with Tyler, made love to him, and hoped for a future with the one man I’d thought would be with me until the end.
Was it enough to haunt me if I stayed?
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Should I?”
Her footfalls were audible against the aged wood as she took a look around the small apartment. It wasn’t much. A small front room made up what we’d considered the living room, and the kitchen could barely hold both of us, but we’d made it work. The bedroom was big enough to hold a bed and basically nothing more. I’d shoved as many clothes into the closet as I could, and the rest had gone into storage bins under the bed.
It had been a hard adjustment, but I’d done it. It wasn’t the ideal life I’d pictured when I watched Friends or Sex in the City reruns, but it was mine. I’d thought it would be something Tyler and I would share together, but I could see now that it would be my adventure alone.
If I still wanted it.
“I think it’s a great place—or at least, it could be if you allowed it to be. Want some help?” she asked, taking another glance.
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Great. Let’s get started.”
I was slowly starting to realize that life was never what you intended, but as my best friend and I went from Goodwill to every thrift store we could find to decorate my first apartment, I discovered this unpredictable new life had left me a little scarred and perhaps a tad bitter, but also full of hope.
And that was the most beautiful thing of all.