The faint glow of the stars above provides enough light for me to make out her delicate features and catch the glimmer of light in her eyes when she looks at me. All evening, she’s kept her distance—physically—but she’s opening up like a flower, even if she doesn’t realize it. One petal at a time.
If we aren’t friends yet, we will be by the end of tonight.
And if she doesn’t trust me yet, she will by the end of the week.
She takes a slow drink. “I was raised by a single mother. Her name is Sybil. And I have a sister. Three years younger. She has muscular dystrophy, so she lives at home. We’re a pretty tight-knit little group.”
Her full lips arch for a moment.
“Do you define yourself by those things?” I ask. “The circumstances of which you had no control?”
“No.” Her smile fades and her brows narrow. “Why?”
“When someone asks me about my family, I don’t start out by saying my parents died in a fiery plane crash when I was fifteen. It’s interesting to me that you included the fact that you were raised by a single mother and that your sister is disabled.”
“I thought we were getting to know each other?”
“We are.” I sip my bourbon, unable to take my eyes off her. I’ve rattled her. But it’s an experiment of sorts. I want her to push back, to challenge me. To speak up. This is never going to work if she can’t. “It’s interesting, is all I’m saying.”
She draws in a long breath, as if she’s carefully choosing her response.
“I’m not going to discount the things that made me who I am.” Sophie lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “I was raised by a single mother. My sister is disabled. I’m choosing to share those things with you not because I’m defined by them, but because I thought we were getting to know each other …”
I smile in the dark.
Unapologetic, this one.
I like it.
“Fair enough.” I take another drink.
With my attention above, I still feel her watching me. I get the impression she isn’t sure what to make of me—yet. And that’s fine. Intrigue and curiosity is going to light the path, it’s going to get us exactly where we need to be.
“What about your father?” I ask since she mentioned her single mom. “How does he fit into the picture?”
“He doesn’t.” She takes a sip, unflinching.
“He passed?”
“No,” she says. “But he’s dead to me.”
The weight of silence that settles between us tells me to lay off the topic, so I do. For now. I’ve dated women in the past with “daddy issues,” and most of them want to talk about their father to an almost obsessive degree.
But not Sophie.
“Brutal.” I glance up at the sky to catch vivid streaks darting through the blackened sky. “Meteor shower is beginning.”
Sophie sits her drink aside and lies back on the cushions, tucking her hands behind her neck as she takes in the earthly show, but while the veins of light reflect in her deep blue eyes and she rests mere inches from me, her quietude tells me a part of her is worlds away.
“Tell me more about you, Sophie,” I say.
She blinks back into the present moment and turns to her side, facing me. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“I doubt I’m as interesting as you think I am …”
I relax on the cushions, turning on my side to face her. “Let me be the judge of that.”
She rolls to her back, watching the comets above, her chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths as if it’s been forever since she last lived in the beauty of a single, simple moment.
“It’s been a long day. You mind if we sideline that conversation and just enjoy this?” Sophie points above.
She isn’t wrong.
We’ve been chatting nonstop all afternoon, most of the conversation pointless on the surface but all of it serving the greater good.
I told her about my obsession with astronomy as a child. The awful German tutor I had in sixth grade. The memorable summer my family spent in Lebanon.
She told me about her years at Princeton. The charities she started. The organizations she chaired. All things I’d already gleaned from her HR file. But not once did she share a treasured family remembrance or defining childhood. There was no talk of relationships. Friendships or otherwise. No mention of hopes or ambitions for the future. Sophie—the real Sophie—is still buried deep inside.
This woman is a fortress.
And I intend to dismantle her brick by brick.
Eighteen
Sophie
Past
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nolan over the phone Friday afternoon. I’m hiding in the bathroom, and I left the faucet running so my mother can’t hear. “My mom planned this last minute. She just told me about it today.”
He exhales into the receiver. “And she won’t let you stay home? You’re eighteen for Christ’s sake.”
I’ve never heard him like this—frustrated.
“It’s a two-hour drive to my grandma’s … it’s a lot for Mom to do in one weekend,” I say. She’s doing better, but she’s still not quite one hundred percent. Until then, she needs me.
“You can’t tell her you have to work?” He knows I’ve yet to mention that I quit waiting tables months ago.
For a while, I debated telling her the truth. Living this lie makes our relationship feel wrong, and it’s anything but.
Nolan talked me out of it.
He said he loves things exactly how they are, and he didn’t want to chance her getting upset.
“If I do, she might call my work and try to talk my old manager into giving me the time off.” I keep my voice low.
“You really think she’d do that?”
I shrug even though he can’t see me. “Maybe? I don’t want to risk it.”
He’s quiet. My stomach sinks. Gone is the excitement that normally colors his tone when he tells me what time to be ready each weekend.
Usually I Uber to a restaurant of his choosing and we kick off our date night with a fancy dinner before holing up in our favorite hotel suite.
Tonight we were supposed to see a movie, and I spent all of eight period today daydreaming about cuddling into his arms in a cool, dark theatre, munching on popcorn and Red Vines—normal boyfriend and girlfriend stuff.
“Please don’t be mad,” I say.
Nolan says nothing.
“I can text you,” I add. “All weekend. As much as you want. I’ll keep my phone on me the whole time.”
“It’s not the same.” His voice is monotone.
“Soph, you ready?” Mom calls from the next room. She’s finished packing for Emmeline.
“I have to go,” I tell him. “I’ll text you, okay?”
He’s silent, not giving me a single goodbye. When I glance down at my phone, I realize he hung up.
Tears sting my eyes, hot and sharp.
“Sophie …” Mom calls for me again.
“Coming,” I yell back, praying she doesn’t hear the break in my voice. I shove my phone in my back pocket, splash cold water on my face, and dab it dry with a hand towel. When I emerge, I hurry to my bedroom, grab my Nike duffel bag, and slide a pair of sunglasses on before Mom has a chance to notice the red splotches on my skin.
Ten minutes later, the three of us are loaded up in the van, headed west to my grandmother’s house for the weekend.
“Why are you so quiet today?” Mom asks when we merge onto the interstate a few minutes later. “Everything okay? I feel like you never talk to me anymore.”
I force a smile, hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two. “What are you talking about? I’m totally fine.”
But I’m lying.
I’m not totally fine.
I’m confused.
The next two hours are tortuous as they are endless since I can’t text him. And when we arrive at my grandmother’s, she has dinner on the table.
Three times I sneak off to check my phone, but Nolan hasn’t sent a thing.
Is this a fight?
Or are we over?
Nineteen
Trey
Present
I drop her off shortly after one AM. We spent nearly twelve full hours together and I still feel as if I hardly know her. I know things about her, yes. But I don’t know what makes her tick. What gets her excited. What she wants out of this lifetime.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight,” I say, parked outside the awning of her apartment building.
“It was definitely a night to remember.” With heavy-lidded eyes, she offers a sleepy smile. I offered to put her up in a guestroom but in true Sophie fashion, she refused. Drawing in a slow breath, she sighs. “Thank you for sharing your home with me tonight. I liked seeing this other side of you. Makes you more … human.”
“I wasn’t before?”
“You’re kind of … super human.” She winks. “You accomplish more in one day than most people will accomplish in their lifetime.”
“It’s called prioritizing.”
And taking time to get out of my head. An hour in the gym six days a week. A handful of nootropics every morning. It’s amazing what someone can achieve if they eliminate their excuses and commit to a lifestyle of self-discipline.
“The average person prioritizes going to kickboxing class. Sticking to their diet. Calling their grandma once a week,” she says. “That’s not you. You’re about a hundred notches above that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She laughs; soft, drowsy. “Anyway …”
The dash clock shows we’ve been sitting here six minutes now. I’d hoped to get a few more minutes out of her, but I’m content to end this evening on a playful note.
“See you tomorrow, Sophie,” I say as she climbs out.
She gives a wave and closes the door of my SUV with a gentle click. I could have called my driver, but he’s set to wake in four hours to take me to work, and I’d rather he get his sleep. Besides, there’s something intimate about a man and a woman sharing a late-night drive, confined to the front seat of a car with nothing but each other to fill the void.
I wait for her to disappear inside before pulling away.
Half of me is certain tonight was an enormous step in the right direction. The other half of me wonders if I’ve yet to scratch the surface of this enigmatic woman.
Still, progress is progress.
Twenty
Sophie
Past
“I’m so sorry, Soph.” Nolan cups my face, kisses the top of my head, and pulls me tight against him. We’re outside a little Italian restaurant on the north side of the city. It cost me thirty dollars to Uber here, not that I can’t afford it. I wasn’t sure if I should come.
He went radio silent on me for six days—but it might as well have been an eternity.
Every night, I waited for my sister to fall asleep before crying into my pillow wondering what things were going to be like going forward. What my weekends would look like. If my friends would still want to hang out with me despite not seeing me for the last several months. What I’d do if the stockpiled cash runs out and we get another unexpected medical bill.
“There’s no excuse for the way I acted,” he says. “I was an asshole, and you didn’t deserve that.”
It’s my turn to be silent, but mostly because I don’t know what to say. I’m upset, but I’m also all cried out. I want to tell him I’ve dated boys my age who were more mature than that. And I think he should know that I was days away from calling the café and begging for my job back.
But for whatever reason, I say nothing.
It’s like everything is frozen. My heart, my body, my words.
“I was just looking forward to seeing you,” he adds. “And when I couldn’t, and there was no way around it, I got angry and I took it out on you. It’ll never happen again. I promise.”
There’s a fullness in my chest that overpowers the tightness that had been there all week. I want to forgive him and pretend like nothing happened, but I also want him to know he can’t do that to me again.
I also want to ask him what he did last weekend without me, but anytime I think of asking, a stab of jealousy cuts through my middle. The thought of Nolan spending an ounce of his free time with anyone except me makes me strangely sick to my stomach.
He brushes the hair from my forehead and kisses my mouth, slow and lingering, depositing the familiar aftertaste of Wrigley’s spearmint gum as his signature cedar and ambergris cologne cloaks the oxygen around me.
I close my eyes, and the world around me disappears the way it always does when we’re together. The symphony of city traffic around us fades into the background. The warm scent of heated asphalt disappears from my lungs. There are no barking dogs or construction jackhammers or city buses humming past.
“What do you say we get dinner to go and head back to the hotel?” he asks.
His eyes search mine, hopeful.
“I know I hurt you.” He exhales. “Tell me what I have to do to get back into your good graces and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. What do you need from me? Name it and it’s yours.”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “The only thing I want is you.”
“Baby, you’ve already got me. I’m all yours.”
Twenty-One
Sophie
Present
I plaster my hair with dry shampoo, sweep it into a bun, and almost forget to zip the fly of my pants on my way out the door the next day. Sleep refused to come last night. For hours I lay awake in bed, tossing around and replaying my time with Trey like a movie in my head.
Everything about the past week has been surreal.
Never in a million years could I have imagined bumping into Trey Westcott would lead to a multi-million dollar proposal and a personal tour of his estate.
It’s so absurd, I almost laugh out loud.
I speed-walk the four blocks to the office and make it to my desk with a minute to spare. But no sooner am I signed in does my inter-office messenger ping.
TREY WESTCOTT: Rough night?
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Were you literally waiting for me to get here so you could message me?
TREY WESTCOTT: Of course not.
TREY WESTCOTT: I have the system set to alert me when you arrive.
I’m not surprised he can do that …
SOPHIE BRISTOL: That’s not creepy at all.
TREY WESTCOTT: Actually, I happened to glance out the window in the conference room and saw you sprinting in. You about bowled over that poor lady walking her dog.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: I wasn’t sprinting.
TREY WESTCOTT: Semantics. Either way, you were in a hurry.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: I don’t like being late.
I wait for him to respond, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. But a minute passes, and another, and nothing.
I don’t take it personally. He probably has a calendar of back-to-back meetings and more important things to do than play message ping pong with me all morning.
Closing out of my messenger window, I pull up our payroll software and work my way through a handful of tasks my boss sent yesterday while I was out. When I’m finished, it’s a quarter ‘til noon.
Grabbing my work badge, I head to the cafeteria to get a quick bite to take back to my desk so I can eat in peace. Lunchtime at Westcott reminds me of high school some days. It’s clique-y and impersonal and every once in a while, some random person I’ve never seen before sits down across from me and starts showing me pictures of their cats on their phone.
I’m not in the mood for small talk today—I spent twelve hours engaging in it yesterday.
I respond to a handful of group texts from some friends, inhale my salad in my office, toss the cardboard container in the recycling bin, and log back into the system only to be met with a messenger alert.
TREY WESTCOTT: What are you doing tonight?
&
nbsp; SOPHIE BRISTOL: Busy. Why?
TREY WESTCOTT: Prove it.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: 555-836-8826
SOPHIE BRISTOL: I’m going to my mom’s for dinner. Feel free to call her to verify that.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Actually, don’t. She’ll think it’s some kind of phone scam and then she’ll probably call the police. That or I’ll have to explain why you’re calling her and I really don’t want to do that.
TREY WESTCOTT: Are you going to tell her about my offer?
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Absolutely not.
TREY WESTCOTT: ???
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Why would I do that?
TREY WESTCOTT: So she could talk some reason into you and tell you what a horrible mistake you’re making.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: You don’t know her. She’d probably give me a gold medal for saying no. I’m one hundred percent positive she would be against your proposal.
TREY WESTCOTT: Give me an hour of her time and I promise I can change her mind.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Your confidence is impressive, but you have no idea what you’re up against. If you think I’m a hard sell, wait until you meet her.
TREY WESTCOTT: So you’re saying I can meet your mother?
SOPHIE BRISTOL: I didn’t mean it like that … it’s a figure of speech.
My cheeks ache, and it takes me a second to realize I’m grinning.
Weird.
And more importantly, why?!
I wipe the ridiculous smile off my face and check my email in an attempt to distract myself with actual work. Despite seeing him in a new light yesterday, my answer is still no. Friendly conversation isn’t going to persuade me otherwise.
TREY WESTCOTT: Fine.
TREY WESTCOTT: What are you doing tomorrow night?
SOPHIE BRISTOL: Meeting some Basics at Starbucks for our weekly meeting.
TREY WESTCOTT: Liar.
SOPHIE BRISTOL: ;-)
It doesn’t matter how much my brain screams at me to disengage with this man, my fingers type lightning-fast responses before I have a chance to talk myself out of them.
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