by Roxy Reid
I feel the grin spread across my face as I let that sink in for the first time. Stella wants something serious. With me.
“Yeah, man. I think it is.”
“Dude. Is she hot?”
I shovel noodles into my mouth. Duke does not want to know the answer to that one.
“Does she make you happy?”
“Yeah. So fucking happy. It sounds corny, but I literally don’t care what I do when I’m with her. She has me watching romcoms and furniture shopping, and it makes me happy.”
“Duuuuuuude.” Duke sighs heavily. “Another one bites the dust. You’re a fucking goner.”
It’s hard to argue with that.
“Well, when you invite me to the wedding, make sure there’s some hot bridesmaids.”
I choke on my noodles.
Because that’s the logical conclusion of all of this. If Stella and I get serious, and we don’t break up, she will eventually want to get married, because that’s the kind of thing women want, and then Duke’s going to find out I’ve been dating his sister behind his back for years.
I’ve been so focused on how mad Duke would be with me when Stella and I eventually broke it off, I didn’t think through how mad he’ll be if we don’t break up, and he finds out I’ve been lying to him about something as important as Stella.
I have well and truly stepped in it.
But when I think of Stella, I can’t bring myself to regret a single thing.
“So what’s up with you?” I ask, and settle in to listen to Duke’s long rant about various stocks and apps and people he refers to as fucking idiots. I don’t understand a word of it, but it’s fun to listen to him talk, and give each other shit, and pretend I’m not sitting on a big secret that is undoubtedly going to blow up in my face.
“You put the new chair there?” Stella asks on Sunday morning. She’s wearing nothing but my shirt, and surveying my increasingly furnished living room with dismay.
A bunch of the stuff we bought was delivered yesterday, and I spent the day scooting stuff around. Technically Stella saw it all last night but we were, um, occupied.
I come up behind her and wrap an arm around her stomach, dropping a kiss on the base of her neck. She steals a sip of my coffee.
“Tell you what,” I say. “We can rearrange the furniture if you do it naked.”
“Wade! We literally had sex ten minutes ago.” Stella smacks my arm, and I release her laughing.
“Sometimes nudity isn’t about sex. Sometimes it’s just about appreciating a beautiful woman.” I take my coffee back from her and take a sip, looking at her over the mug.
“A beautiful woman you want to have sex with,” she says, hands on her hips.
I crack a grin. “I have layers, Marigold.”
Something flickers across her face that I can’t read.
“What is it?” I ask.
Stella shakes her head firmly in that way that means I won’t be able to get her to talk about it. “Nothing. Let’s move the furniture.”
So we do. Or rather, I do, while Stella drinks my coffee and directs the proceedings. I almost drop an ottoman on my foot when she catcalls my ass while I’m squatting to pick it up.
God. I can’t get enough of this woman.
If you’d told me a month ago I’d be rearranging furniture I didn’t know I wanted while a pink-haired demon steals all my coffee, I would have run for the hills. But now it’s pretty much my perfect Sunday morning.
Although that could just be the sex talking.
There’s a knock on the door, and Stella disappears to go see who it is.
And then she comes skidding back into the living room like the hounds of hell are on her heels.
“It’s Duke. He’s on your doorstep.”
The knocking gets louder.
“Shit. Ok, it’s fine. I told him we were friends. We’re just friends rearranging furniture. That’s all.”
“I’m wearing your shirt.”
“Ok. This is fine. Go get changed. We’re just friends hanging out.”
“Right,” she nods. “We’ll just tell him I’m helping arrange the furniture since I helped pick it out.”
“Yes–NO! Don’t tell him about the furniture. Or watching romantic comedies together.”
She looks at me suspiciously. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“ANYONE HOME???” Duke calls from the other side of the door.
“Go!” I tell Stella, and she races upstairs to change. I give her as much of a head start as I can, before heading over to open the door.
“Duke!” I say. “What a surprise. What are you doing here at …” I check my watch. “Ten in the morning?”
We slap each other on the back in the manly way of finance bros who used to play football, even though only one of us fits that description, and then Duke strides past me into the living room.
“I had some airline miles, and nothing to do this weekend, so I figured I’d come down and surprise Stella. But she wasn’t at her apartment. I tried calling, but she didn’t answer her phone. She actually rejected my call.”
Oh. That’s whose call I rejected. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time. More like blindly slapping at her phone to try and get it to shut up.
“So I figured I’d visit you!”
“Oh. Well, funny you should think that—”
Stella comes into the room only mildly out of breath, wearing yesterday’s ripped jeans and the black concert t-shirt I stole from her.
Wait, I think. Don’t take that back. I like it.
“Duke!” Stella throws her arms around him. “What are you doing here?” She’s flashing her toothpaste grin, and I wince, sure we’ll be caught now, but apparently Duke hasn’t observed her smiles as closely as I have, because he just hugs her back.
“He’s here to surprise you,” I say meaningfully, making eye contact with Stella over Duke’s shoulder. “But you weren’t at your apartment this morning.”
“Oh! I was at brunch with a friend. And then I stopped here on my way back to … return a book.”
I mouth What the hell? at her, and she makes a face at me, before breaking the hug with Duke.
Luckily, Duke’s attention is elsewhere. “A friend you say. This wouldn’t be the friend we talked about?”
“Oh my God, Duke, don’t be such a dad. Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” Duke says, and follows Stella into the kitchen. I jump in front of them, before Stella accidentally shows off just how well she knows my kitchen.
When we’re all sitting around my new kitchen table with our coffee, making small talk about Duke’s trip, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m bummed Duke’s stealing Stella for the rest of the day—I barely got to see her yesterday—but it helps that I can tell Stella’s also a little disappointed.
I mean, she hides it from Duke. But I can tell.
I’m trying to mentally telegraph Please come back for dinner, I already miss you to Stella when Duke says, “So Stella, have you met this girl Wade’s in love with?”
I choke on my coffee, and Duke pounds me on the back while Stella watches me with a raised eyebrow.
“We … we don’t need to talk about that,” I say weakly.
“Oh no, I think we do,” Stella says with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Tell me more, Duke.”
I glare at her while Duke leans over the table, excited to have the scoop and an opportunity to make me uncomfortable.
Of course, he has no idea how uncomfortable.
“She’s got him picking out furniture and watching romantic comedies and he likes it,” Duke says.
Stella sips her coffee impassively. “I don’t know, those sound like normal things to like.”
“Not for Wade. He said, and I quote, ‘I’m so fucking happy, I don’t care what I do as long as it’s with her.’”
I can feel my ears turning red. “That’s not exactly what I …” but Stella’s watching me with a look that steals my breath.
“Is that tr
ue? She makes you that happy?” Stella asks, so carefully it’s like she’s putting her own heart on the table between us.
I’ve never wanted to take her hand more and I can’t.
Whose idea was all this lying again?
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “She makes me that happy.”
For a moment we just stare at each other. And then her face breaks into a brilliant grin, so radiant I’m sure we’re busted.
Duke makes a gagging sound. “Ok, enough of that. It’s no fun to tease you when you’re not embarrassed. Come on, Stella, let’s go grab lunch. See you around, Wade.”
I follow them to the door. “Yeah, see you around.” I hug Duke goodbye, mostly so I can have an excuse to hug Stella goodbye too.
“Come back for dinner, Marigold,” I say in her ear, and she stills.
As Stella walks off with Duke, she looks back over her shoulder, and smiles.
I hang on to that smile like the fool I am.
11
Stella
Sunday night I drop Duke off at the airport. He’s about to go through security when I launch myself at him, clinging to him the way I used to when I was little and he was leaving for summer camp.
He makes an “ooof” sound and stumbles back a few steps, but then he hugs back, tight. “What’s the matter, kid?”
“Nothing. Everything.” I don’t like lying to you. “Nothing.”
I know Wade and I have been lying this whole time, but somehow Beverly figuring it out and having to lie to Duke’s face have both made it more real.
Wade acts like he cares about me. But he’s ashamed to be the kind of man who dates his employee. And intellectually I know that’s not the same thing as being ashamed of me.
But it feels the same. I want to be patient and chill and live in-the-moment, but Wade’s asking me not to tell the truth to the one person who always talks me off the cliff when I’m having a bad day.
Duke sets me back so he can study my face. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Duke waits, but I don’t say anything.
“Right. Advice without knowing what the problem is.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Ok. Listen to your gut, Stella. You’ve always been good at knowing what you need, no matter what anyone else tried to tell you. You know when it’s time to take a risk, or cut ties, or stay and fight. So whatever it is, listen to your gut.”
He chucks me on the chin, the way our dad used to. “You know what to do, kid.”
I nod, my throat tight.
Duke checks his watch. “I’ve got to catch this flight. Are you going to be ok?”
“Yes and always,” I say.
Duke laughs. “Wow. You really have been spending time with Wade. He says that all the time, too.” He kisses my cheek, and heads off to security.
I clench my hand into a fist, then slowly relax it. I didn’t even realize I’d picked that up from Wade.
I check my cell phone. I still have time to make it to Wade’s for dinner.
And the thing is, if he called me right then and there, I’d be over in a flash. If he’d texted me at all today, about anything, I’d be looking forward to it. But he hasn’t called or texted. Because if he did, Duke might have seen Wade’s name flash across the phone.
So Wade didn’t text, and I kept the secret, and now that Duke’s gone I’m left with this emotional cavern around me. It’s not rational. But it’s there.
I slip my phone back into my pocket.
And I don’t go to Wade.
Instead, I walk the near-empty public area of the airport. I grab a greasy burger and fries, and people watch. I watch kids jumping up and down, waiting for Mom or Dad to arrive. I watch an older woman with a horrible perm pick up a woman who looks like her identical twin, complete with an identically horrible perm. I watch a woman in army fatigues greeted by a man who sobs like a baby and kisses her for all he’s worth.
Maybe it’s the years on the road, but I’ve always liked airports. It’s lonely, but it’s a comfortable kind of loneliness. And every now and then you get to see slices of joy. Glimpses of where people are going, where they’ve been.
It helps me remember the world is bigger than me, and that’s calming, in the same way that other people find the vast depths of the ocean calming.
But tonight it doesn’t work. Tonight I’m restless.
Something’s wrong.
I toss my hamburger wrapper in the trash, and drive home.
It’s not until I’m walking into my apartment that I realize what the problem is: the place I go to feel okay isn’t a place anymore. It’s a person.
For a moment I just stand there, my key in the lock, about to let myself into an empty apartment that doesn’t feel like home. The blankness of the space used to feel like possibility. Now it feels like a hole.
I hesitate. I could go to Wade right now. Just seeing him would make me feel better.
No. I shove my door open. I don’t want to be that girl, needing something that’s not good for her, just to feel ok. I don’t want to be that girl ever again.
W.S.G. is OBSESSED with this Home Sweet Home deal. I swear he’d do anything to make it work. Work for Wade, they said. He’s a relatively-sane-billionaire-tech-genius they said.
O.M.G. this FUCKING HOSPITAL GALA. Why is WSG making us go to it? He never used to make us go to stuff like this in California. Why does he care so much what people think of him in this town? THE WINGS OF THEIR HOSPITAL ARE NAMED AFTER CIGARETTE COMPANIES, WADE. WHAT KIND OF SOUTHERN HELL HAVE YOU MOVED US TO?
HALLELUJAH PRAISE JESUS. W.S.G. went on his ONE SINGLE VACATION A YEAR with Duke what’s his face. Thank God for Duke, or I’d never get a break. I swear it’s like Duke’s his only real friend this side of the Rockies.
I close the Rants About Wade document and turn back to the rest of the work on my desk. I was hoping for something funny, that might break me out of this funk I’ve been in since last night, but every rant I come across is just a reminder of all the reasons Wade and I are doomed. How much he’s staked on the Home Sweet Home deal, with its fucking morality clause. How much he cares about his reputation in the community. How the only thing he values more than those two things might be his friendship with Duke.
I stare glumly at the computer screen without seeing it. What am I doing falling harder and harder for a man who’s put strict boundaries around what we can be from the very beginning? I let myself get my hopes up with Beverly’s Marigold thing, and Duke’s He’s-in-Love thing.
But Wade’s had plenty of opportunities to talk about the future. So have I. And neither of us has said anything. I think that says everything I need to know right there.
A frantic assistant from Home Sweet Home calls, asking for a copy of a contract they can’t find, and when I send her a copy from our files, she nearly weeps for joy.
At least I’m making someone happy today.
An hour later Wade calls me into his office. He’s furious.
He slams the door and wheels to face me. “What the hell, Stella?”
I blink.
“I know you’re mad at me for something, but why would you take it out on my work? This company is everything I am, and you threw it under the bus because you’re in a mood?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“You sent Home Sweet Home an early contract draft. One they never saw. Because our bid was too high, and it would require tech that doesn’t exist yet. And to top it all off, someone wrote snotty comments about Home Sweet Home when they were editing it. So now I’ve got a very angry CEO who feels insulted and cheated demanding I make it up to him by adding technology that doesn’t exist to our existing deal.”
I blanch. “I’m so sorry Wade. It was the most recently updated version in that file, I thought—”
“This whole time I’ve been worried about all the ways I could ruin your professional life if something went wrong with us. If you felt uncomfortable in the office, or if you ever nee
ded a reference, or if rumors got out and hurt your reputation when you’re starting over in a new city. I never, ever thought I had to worry about what you could do to me.”
“I didn’t do anything to you!” I bury my hands in my hair to keep from screaming. “It was an accident! Their administrative assistant called me in tears, and I was trying to fix it—”
“And you didn’t check the document before sending it over? Why would you do something so stupid!”
I feel like I’ve been slapped.
Immediately he realizes he’s gone too far.
“I’m sorry, Stella I … Maybe this my fault. You’ve never had a job like this before, and I gave you too much responsibility.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This man who always assumed I was competent is now acting like it’s his fault for believing in me.
“Wade … it was one mistake. I was distracted.”
“You can’t be distracted, Stella. Not in a company like this.” He closes his eyes and laughs at himself, but there’s something vicious about it. “I’d send you to H.R. for more training on company procedure, if I wasn’t worried you’d let it slip we’re screwing.”
Something snaps inside me. And suddenly the decision that was so hard yesterday is as easy as breaking a window in a house set to be demolished anyway.
“I’m leaving. We’re done here.” I grab the doorknob.
“You’re done when I say you’re done.”
I whirl back to face him. “No, let me clarify. I quit. And I’m dumping you.”
He looks like he’s been punched in the gut. “Because of one fight?”
“No, because you flinched yesterday. Every time you thought Duke might find out. I respect your friendship, but I’m done being your secret. Especially when you are so fucked up about it you assume I’d sabotage you.” I straighten. “And I’m done using you as my crutch. Because frankly, you’re not that good at it.”
I yank the door open. “I can believe in myself way better than you can, Wade St. George.”
I grab my stuff and storm out without looking back, leaving nothing on my desk but a wilting marigold.