by Lauren Layne
“On?”
He glances back. “Do I get my own bowl of ice cream?”
I let out a mock gasp. “Is it possible? Have I found your junk food weakness?”
He winks, then sits on my couch, not slouching, because this is Andrew we’re talking about.
But the moment is so casual, so natural, so perfect…
I feel the breath knocked out of me, because there’s no more denying it, no more denying my heart.
This is it for me.
This is what I want, not just for as long as I can have it, but for always.
Georgie
SUNDAY MORNING, BRUNCH TIME
It’s official: I’m getting the hang of this relationship thing, and, um, I’m sort of good at it.
Andrew and I’ve somehow achieved the holy grail of getting our fix of each other without losing our prior lives. He still works like a maniac, exercises like Superman. I still have long lunches with Marley and the girls when it suits me. We’ve even taken another step forward in merging our worlds. There was his work party on Thursday, and then last night he came out to dinner with my friends.
He headed home before we went dancing, because…baby steps.
Still, I’m all but skipping as I drop my purse on the entryway table of my parents’ place, humming to myself.
Andrew opted to head for the gym instead of joining me. Something about being behind on workouts, as I was keeping him up all night. I didn’t apologize.
But I’m pretty sure it’ll only be a matter of time until I can coax him into the meet-the-parents phase.
I mean, three workaholics in the same room? They’d all be fast friends. I’m the one who should be worried. Although, on that note, I’ve kind of been considering asking my dad for a job.
I know. I know. You’re like, What? But as much as I love my life, really truly love it, this little part of me has accepted that I’m a tiny bit bored. There are only so many fundraisers, and it’s been bugging me lately that they seem more like a social status thing rather than caring about the actual cause.
I want something I can sink my teeth into.
For now, though, I want a mimosa and to sink my teeth into some bacon, and…
Thoughts of food and champagne scatter when I walk into the dining room as I have a million times before, only the scene is different.
Dad isn’t in his chair at one end of the table. Mom’s not in her chair at the other end of the table, phone glued to her ear.
Both parents are seated beside each other, their hands folded, their expressions frozen.
In other words? The type of scene nightmares are built on.
I’ve seen it once before: when they told me Grandma Georgie had passed.
So whatever they have to tell me now is not gonna be good news.
I feel a little jittery as I slowly sink into my usual chair, opposite both of them.
My eyes flick between the two of them, trying to get some inkling of the news before the bomb drops. Is one of them sick?
Of the two of them, my dad looks worse. He’s pale, and there’s no trace of his usual easy smile. My mom merely looks tense, but then, she’s always had a damn good poker face.
No clues on either side.
“Don’t make me ask,” I whisper, my voice only a little bit shaky.
My dad stares straight ahead, and my mom swallows. “Georgie. Honey. Your father and I have decided to get a divorce.”
My shoulders slump a little in relief. They’re not sick. Not dying. But the relief is short-lived as reality sinks in. Even though on some horrible, in-denial level I’ve known it was coming, it’s still a shock.
“No,” I say. “Why?” I clench my hands in my lap, embarrassed that my eyes are watering like I’m six instead of twenty-six.
My mom forces a smile, but it doesn’t even remotely reach her eyes. “Sometimes—”
I lift my hand. “Please. Please do not tell me that sometimes people just drift apart.”
Mom’s lips press together. “Jack,” she snaps. “A little help?”
My father clears his throat, finally looking at me, and I feel my chin wobble when I see that his eyes are brimming. “I don’t know, Georgie. I just…”
He lifts a hand, running it over his face, and his reaction tells me everything I need to know.
My gaze flicks back to my mother, and though she doesn’t look unaffected, she’s nowhere near as broken by this as he is. “Did you already file?”
She looks away, likely noticing that I’m directing the question to her. Knows that I know exactly who’s driving this divorce.
“So what happens next?” I ask. “This is just…the end of the family?”
“Georgie—”
“What?” I snap, pushing out of my chair and standing. I know I’m being immature, but I just…I want them to be in love like they used to be. At least I thought they were. Or did I just see it all through a child’s eyes?
“Did you even try?” I ask, my voice breaking.
There’s a long moment of silence, and then it’s my dad who speaks. “Georgie, I know this hurts, but you know that even if your mother and I have decided we’re better off without each other, neither of us is walking away from you.”
“Never,” my mom says emphatically.
I wipe at my eyes. I know it’s supposed to make me feel better, but all I can think is that there will be no more Sunday brunches with the three of us. No more family walks down Fifth Avenue at Christmas, or them hosting their epic Oscars party, or summer weekends in the Hamptons…
None of it. It’s all over.
“Sweetie, sit down, please. I ordered some cinnamon rolls. Your father and I thought maybe we could brainstorm some ways that you can get quality time with each of us, and—”
I shake my head, taking a step forward. “Too soon, Mom. Way too soon for that.”
“Georgie—”
“No,” I say, my voice sharp, as I look at my dad. “I don’t know how long you’ve had to adjust to this information, but I need a bit more time before I can talk about it like a rational adult. Just…some space. Okay?”
Neither of them says a word as I walk out of the dining room. I grab my purse and dash out of their apartment, my mood having done a complete one-eighty from what it was when I walked into the room just a few minutes earlier.
A few minutes, really? It feels like years.
Or maybe that’s just because I feel years older.
I wipe my nose on the back of my hand as I burst out onto the sidewalk. I immediately head for home, pulling out my cellphone, thinking that I’ll text Marley. But suddenly I stop.
Texting Marley is what I would have done a few weeks ago. Right now, though, I need someone else. My heart knows that being held by Andrew is the only thing that can possibly fix me.
I make it home, fueled by fury and heartache, and I skip my apartment altogether, going straight to his. Sometimes I stop at the front desk and request his guest key (he put me on his approved list, which is sort of romantic), but I’m too distracted to do that now, so instead I find myself pounding on the door with frantic, open-palmed slaps until he pulls it open.
“Georgiana, what—”
It’s then that I break. All my fear of the future, all the pain for my little family splintering apart, comes out as one keening sob.
He makes a choked sound, and without a word draws me to him, one arm wrapped protectively around my back, his other hand cupping my head, hugging me to his chest.
“I’m here,” he whispers.
It’s exactly what I need to hear, and that only makes me cry harder, my fingers digging into the soft fabric of his T-shirt, which is getting wetter by the minute, thanks to my tears.
I cry and cry, pulling back only long enough to dab at my smeared mascara. “You must think I’m ridiculous,” I whisper, my voice raspy from crying.
“Always,” he whispers, his lips brushing over my cheek. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“My parents,” I say with a sniffle. “They’re getting divorced.”
I’m not expecting him to say much, but at the very least I expect some sort of useless, guy-ish murmurings that he imagines will be soothing.
He says nothing.
I raise my eyes to his, and my heart stops for a full beat at what I see there.
He looks stricken but not surprised. Most damning of all, he looks…guilty?
I take a tiny step backward, my heart beating again, but in a pounding, panicked kind of way. “Andrew?”
“Georgiana.”
I know then. I know.
He reaches out a hand, but I step back with a slightly crazy laugh, staying out of reach. “You knew.”
He says nothing, and suddenly I lunge forward, shoving his shoulder. “Admit it! You knew!”
He inhales, his chest expanding, and then he nods. Just once. But it’s enough. “Yes. I knew.”
Andrew
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, AFTER BRUNCH
Andrew had known this moment was coming. He’d thought he was ready for it. But seeing the heartbreak written all over Georgiana’s face…
There was no preparing for something like this.
No way to brace for the fact that you’d just destroyed someone who’d somehow become everything to you in an alarmingly short period of time.
She shook her head. “How?” she said, her voice so small he wanted to punch himself. “How did you know?”
Then her eyes closed as she put the pieces together. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Did one of them hire you?”
He swallowed. “Your mother.”
Georgina’s laugh was mirthless and ripped at his soul. “Of course. Of course she did. And oh God—oh my God—I planted the seed in her head. I mentioned you, and…oh my God, I somehow did this, all because I was stupid enough to fall for a divorce attorney?”
His mind caught on that just for a second. She’d told her parents about him? She’d fallen for him? For a bittersweet moment he felt a surge of joy so profound it nearly sent him to his knees. But before they could get to any of that, they needed to get through this.
And they would get through it. They had to. He just needed to make her see logic.
“You need to know that I didn’t take the job,” he said, reaching for her. “I passed it off to one of the other partners.”
Her head whipped back around to him. She was hurt, and she was pissed.
“That’s supposed to make it better? You still could have told me! How long ago did she try to hire you?”
He lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, knowing honesty was best, but dreading it all the same. “A couple of weeks ago.”
Her brown eyes went wide. “Weeks?”
“That day when you came to my office and we went to lunch. I got a phone call—”
“And had to leave,” she finished. “Good God, that was my mother?”
“No, it was one of the senior partners. All potential clients go through him first, and he assigns them as he sees fit.”
“But she requested you,” Georgiana said. “On that day.”
Andrew nodded.
“Of course,” she said, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “Because you’re the best, and she’d want the best when she decided to leave my dad.”
Her voice was raw, and he stepped toward her, wanting to hold her, but she batted his hand away. “Don’t.”
It was no less than he expected, but the rejection chafed all the same. “Georgiana, I understand why you’re angry. You have to know that I wanted to tell you, but client confidentiality—”
“It was my mom, Andrew! My family!” she yelled. “I get that you’re a robot sometimes, but do you understand that you were helping my parents get divorced? And that one of them didn’t even know?”
“I understand, but—”
“No but,” she said, exploding into a ball of fury. Her hands were hitting his shoulders now, the frantic gesture hurting his heart a lot more than his body. “To think that just as I was starting to believe in love, you were busy destroying it.”
He swallowed, the pain of her accusation blasting him like an arrow to the heart. “That’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Maybe not,” she said, dropping her head so that her chin rested tiredly on her chest. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t change what you are.”
“Which is?” he asked through gritted teeth, knowing the answer would hurt.
Her eyes were clear. Accusing. “You’re the Tin Man. Isn’t that the character with no heart? You may have been right that day. I’m the Scarecrow, with no brain. I feel like today probably proves it, because I so did not see this coming. But I’d rather be a little flighty than cold. I’d rather be short on brains than short on heart.”
The hurt was sharp and unfamiliar, and it made him angry. “Georgiana. Stop. Just stop. I know you’re upset, but stop overreacting and think about this logically.”
He knew it was the wrong thing to say even before she went deadly still and stared at him. “Overreacting? My family is falling apart, you kept it a secret, and I’m overreacting? And you want logic? News flash, robot. Not everything can be logical. Some things are messy, and—”
“Only because you make them messy!” he shouted, furious that he couldn’t get control of the situation. “You want a news flash? Here’s one: not everything works out like your stupid movies. In fact, most things don’t. This is real life, Georgiana. Grow up.”
His voice was harsh, but not as harsh as the silence that followed his outburst.
She was crying, messy tears running down her face because she was messy. Messy and emotional and…
Georgiana swiped angrily at her tears, smearing her makeup in the process and not seeming to care in the least.
“So,” she said, her voice flat. “We’re done here?”
Done? Hell no, they weren’t done. Not now, not ever.
He inhaled to rein in his temper and frustration. “Why don’t we talk after you’ve calmed down?”
Again it was the wrong thing to say. She let out a short, mirthless laugh, her head falling back as she blinked up at the ceiling.
When she brought her gaze back to him once more, her beautiful eyes were cold and hard, and she looked nothing like the woman he knew. The woman he adored. “You know what, Andrew? If growing up and calming down mean I’ll end up more like you, I’ll take a pass on that.”
“Georgiana—”
She held up a hand. “You know, all this time I thought our biggest obstacle was our difference in schedules, and if we could just figure out how to fit into each other’s life, we’d be okay. But it’s so much more hopeless than that, isn’t it? Because I’m always going to be the girl who wants the fairy-tale ending, and you’re never going to be the guy to give it to me. Are you?”
Andrew’s chest tightened in panic. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to respond to someone who dealt in emotions, not facts. And the facts were that people rarely rode off into the sunset. The sooner she accepted that, the happier she’d be. They’d be.
“We have a good thing,” he said quietly. “Let’s just keep taking it one day at a time, see where things go.”
She was already shaking her head and moving toward the door. “Not good enough, Andrew.”
“Well, what would be good enough?” he said, voice rising again in frustration. “What the hell do you want from me? From us?”
She spun back around, tears gone, face angry. “I want a man who doesn’t have to ask that. I want a man who knows how to use this”—she pointed at his chest—“as well as that,” she said, pointing at his head. “And that’s not you. We both know it’s not.”
Andrew wanted to contradict her. He wanted to drag her back, beg her to give him a chance.
Instead, he let her go. He did nothing and let Georgiana Watkins walk away, because she was right.
He was not that guy.
Georgie
TUESDAY
EVENING
It takes me a couple of days before I’m ready to face the world, and when I’m finally ready, I start with baby steps.
I open my front door to Marley, who’s holding a box of pizza with two blocks of mozzarella on top.
“Um,” I say.
“Well,” she says, pushing into my apartment, “I ordered a pizza and asked for extra cheese. But then I was like, what if that’s not enough cheese, you know? So I stopped and got some extra, because…cheese.”
I nod approvingly. “This is why we’re best friends.”
She sets the box on the counter, drops her purse, and holds out her arms. “Come to Momma Marley. How are we?”
I gratefully accept the hug. “We’re a wreck.”
“About Mom and Dad, or the boy?”
“Both,” I admit. “Although with the divorce, I’ve more or less managed to pep-talk myself into handling it like an adult. It sucks, but I’ll handle it. Andrew, though…”
“He hurt you.”
I lift a shoulder. “Mostly I just feel like an idiot. That entire time I was falling so hard, practically planning our wedding, and he was busy helping other people figure out how to arrange their assets before they leave their spouse. It makes me a little queasy.”
“Sit,” Marley orders, opening my fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine, and then fetching two glasses. “Have you talked to him since the breakup?”
My stomach clenches at the word breakup, although I don’t know what else you could call it.
“No,” I mutter into the wineglass she sets in front of me.
“And it was a breakup, not just a fight?”
I look up miserably. “I don’t know. I think so. I just want more than he can give, I guess.”
Marley’s not listening to me. She moves toward my kitchen table, where there are three huge bouquets of flowers.
She glances at me, pointing from one arrangement to another as she sips her wine. “Explain.”
I sigh and reach across the counter, dragging the cards toward me. I’ve read them a million times and it shows. One has a splatter of red wine, and another looks like it was soaked by tears. Maybe it was; I can’t remember.