by Linde, K. A.
Court frowned. Even I frowned. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My life was to think about the campaign and how this would affect us through November. English was thinking long-term. Past the election. To how all of this would go down in the press. And it looked bloody from my perspective.
“Do you want to be the sympathetic ex or the accomplice?” English asked. “Because how we react and shape the narrative determines how Hollywood portrays you years down the road.”
“Fine,” Court spat. “Whatever.”
“Good,” English said with a satisfied grin. “I thought so. We’ll start in the morning.”
Court laughed and downed his drink. “I don’t wake up before noon.”
English seemed undeterred. “Noon it is. Most creatives I work with aren’t morning people anyway. Plus, I’m still on West Coast time.”
“Are we finished?” Court asked. “I’d like to go back to getting shit-faced. Thanks.”
I frowned at him. He was such a mess. Jane’s betrayal had really fucked him up. I knew that English would help. That she was the best at this and she’d get him back on track. But right now, I actually…pitied him. I wished there were more that I could do. But I could see that he just wanted us to leave.
“Thanks for hearing us out,” I said.
Court waved me off, and I followed English to the elevator. We were silent as we headed back to the ground floor. I could see that the wheels were working in English’s head. That she wanted to get back to the apartment right away, so she could get started with all of her ideas. I just wanted to give Court a hug and ask how he’d gone such a different direction than his brother. Sometimes, it amazed me that they were related.
The elevator opened on the bottom floor, and I nearly walked right into the person trying to enter before we were out.
I stopped in surprise. “Sam?”
He glanced up, and I could see that something was off about him. His hair was standing on end as if he’d been pulling it. His eyes looked lost. His shoulders were slumped forward. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him look like that.
He frowned when he saw me and English. “Hey.” Then he stepped back to let us pass and entered the elevator.
“Going to see Court?”
“Yep,” he said tersely.
“Try to get him sober for us?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “Court does what he wants.”
I tilted my head in confusion. What was his deal?
“Are you done?” he asked, nodding toward where I was still holding the door open. I hadn’t even realized.
“Uh, yeah. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Just a long week.”
“Oh…okay.”
Then the elevator door slowly closed in my face.
“Well, that was…something,” English said, sounding pissed.
“Yeah, something.”
“He was a total ass. I thought you’d said you two were friends.”
“I thought so too,” I said, stepping away from the elevator and following her toward the exit.
“See, this is what I’m saying,” English said. “You need to let Sam stay in the past. He’s a colleague and nothing more. All he does is make you miserable, guessing at his reactions.”
“I suppose.”
“One minute, he’s all concerned about your strawberry allergy, and the next, he’s all but pushing you out of the elevator to get away from you. You can do better.”
Everyone kept saying that.
And still, I hadn’t found anyone. Wasn’t sure I ever would.
16
Sam
“I think that’s everything,” Claire said from the bedroom.
I set down the carving knife on the table. I’d been whittling a piece of wood all week. It still looked indistinct to the casual observer, but I knew it was being shaped into a small, bushy owl. It just took time to get there.
“You’re finished packing?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She tipped her suitcase up onto its wheels and rolled it into the living room. “Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh?”
“You have everything in that one suitcase?”
This from the same girl who couldn’t go to visit her parents without a giant suitcase filled with shoes.
She shrugged. “I figure I’ll mostly be wearing work clothes. And the director said that we’ll do laundry while we’re there, so we don’t need as much as if we were on vacation.”
“I still can’t believe you’re leaving for twelve weeks.” I stood and stretched out my shoulders. “I feel like you auditioned for this so long ago that it just might never happen.”
She laughed softly, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She’d been…weird all week. Distant. As if preparing herself to leave for Europe for twelve long weeks.
“Yeah. I can’t believe it’s here either,” she said.
“I wish I could go with you,” I told her. Even though it wasn’t true.
I wanted to go to Europe again. I’d backpacked with my brother the summer after college for a month, sleeping in hostels and living off of scraps. That had been a different time. Now, I couldn’t even think of Jake.
The truth was, I didn’t want to leave my job. I’d liked what I’d been doing back in North Carolina, and then the firm here had been…fine. But campaign work. It was a whole other beast. And I wasn’t prepared to give it up to follow Claire around with her ensemble. I’d already moved to New York for her. And now, she was leaving again.
“Me too,” she said a minute later.
“It’s going to be so strange, being here without you.”
She nodded and then looked away from me. “I kind of, um…wanted to talk to you about that.”
“About what?” I asked warily.
This wasn’t normal Claire behavior. She didn’t try to hide herself from me. She had no amount of subterfuge in her body. It was part of what had drawn me to her. She wasn’t like girls I’d dated before her. It was simple and uncomplicated. Something casual that had turned into more without interference or objection. It was what I’d wanted after Melissa.
But now…she didn’t seem like the Claire I knew at all.
“Well, I’m going to be gone for three months. I’ve never been to Europe before. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. And I, uh…just think that maybe we should, um, take-some-time-apart,” she said in a rush.
I froze at her nearly indistinguishable words. She’d slurred them together so fast that I almost convinced myself that I hadn’t heard her right. “Wait…what?”
“I’m just going to be so busy, Sam,” Claire all but whispered. “I’ll…I’ll hold you back. I won’t be there for you. Not like you deserve.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked more harshly than I’d intended.
“No!” she gushed. Then she bit her baby-pink-lip-gloss-coated lip. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” I repeated.
“I just think we need a break.”
“I know what a break means, Claire,” I growled at her. “It means, this is over.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said in earnest.
I almost believed her.
“I just…I just want to give you the space you need. I’m going to be gone. We can decide what we’re doing when I get back.”
“So…a breakup,” I said, taking a step away from her in shock and horror. “So that you can go date other people.”
“It’s not like that,” she said. Tears came to her eyes. “That’s not what this is at all. I just think we need space to figure out what’s best for each other. And we’re already going to be apart. This is the time we should take.”
“You need the time,” I spat at her. “You never even asked me what I wanted. You already made up your mind.”
“Maybe I did,” she said through her sniffles. “We’ve been together for over two years, Sam. Where are we going? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?
Do you want to marry me?”
I hesitated. Did people know these things? Was I supposed to?
Claire sighed, swiping at her eyes. “That’s what I thought. That’s the whole point. You don’t know. I don’t know. And I think we should at this point.”
“So, this is it? You’re breaking up with me because I won’t…marry you?” I asked in confusion.
She covered her eyes and shook her head. “That’s not it at all. I don’t even know if this is a breakup. I just think…we should figure out while I’m gone if this is what we really want. It’s just…space.”
“Fine,” I spat. I brushed past her and headed into the bedroom. I grabbed a backpack out of the closet, stuffed work clothes in it, and then slung it over my back.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“You think I’m going to stay here another minute?”
“Sam!”
I just kept walking. She was the one who wanted this. She had to know there were consequences to her actions. It wasn’t all just fine because she wanted it to be.
“Please,” she said, tugging on my arm. “It’s my last night. You’re just going to leave?”
“Yes.”
“But…please, please stay. I have to go to the airport in the morning.”
I pulled my arm free and met her gaze. “This is what you want, Claire. I’m just respecting your wishes. Here’s your break.”
Tears fell freely from her eyes again. She choked on them and buried her face in her hands. And I sympathized with her. I didn’t like to see her cry. But she’d chosen this. I wasn’t going to stick around and wait for her to walk out of my life.
“Have fun in Europe,” I muttered as I yanked the door open and strode out of the apartment.
I had nowhere to go. I could probably get a hotel somewhere nearby, but I was too on edge to do that. Plus, I didn’t really want to waste the money. Who even knew what the living situation would be like after this? Would Claire pay for her half of the rent? Was I on the hook for the whole thing?
“Fuck,” I spat into the black night sky.
I pulled out my phone. My first thought was to text Lark. It’d be so easy to rush over there and tell her Claire had left. To stay with her. To rebound so hard that we’d both miss work the next morning.
I blinked away that daydream. Because Lark didn’t deserve that. I didn’t know what I wanted. But casually fucking my boss probably wasn’t the answer.
I ran a hand across my face and then sent a text to Court.
Remember how my girlfriend was leaving for Europe in the morning? Well, she just dumped me. Any chance you have a free guest room?
It felt too soon to ask Court for something like that. Plus, he was dealing with so much shit himself. But he was the only friend I had in the city.
His response came almost immediately.
Fuck, man. I have liquor. Come on over.
I sighed with a semblance of relief as I trotted into the subway and headed back into town. It took a half hour to get to Court’s place. I spent the entire time ignoring Claire’s ever-increasingly desperate text messages and tugging on my hair at the root. I was physically and mentally exhausted. And irritated. And I felt like I wanted to put my fist through something.
None of these were good feelings to have and then talk to Claire. Especially about our supposed “break.” Everyone knew that was just code so that she could go and fuck other dudes in Europe. It had nothing to do with anything else. And I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want to deal with any of it.
I just wanted to get to Court’s place and get fucked up with him. Misery loved company.
I slipped past the lingering reporters and pressed the button for Court’s penthouse elevator. Finally, the thing dinged open. I stepped toward it, only to find two people standing in the elevator.
I froze with a frown on my face. The very last person I wanted to see right now was there. I couldn’t deal with that complication at the moment.
“Hey,” I forced out, stepping back to let them get out of the elevator.
“Going to see Court?” she asked with pep in her voice.
“Yep.” I darted into the elevator.
“Try to get him sober for us?” She smiled brightly at me.
And I just did a combination of shaking my head and shrugging. Court sober was the opposite of what I wanted right now. I just wanted oblivion.
“Court does what he wants.”
She looked at me like I had just stepped on a land mine and it might explode any second.
I nodded at her hand still holding the door open. “Are you done?”
Because, god, I needed this to be over.
“Uh, yeah. Are you okay?” Her voice was laced with concern. I couldn’t handle it.
“Fine,” I said, jamming the up button. “Just a long week.”
“Oh…okay.”
Then mercifully, the elevator door closed in her face. I slumped back against the metal container, feeling like a total fucking jackass. Lark probably thought I was crazy. But right now, it was hard to care. Hard to care about anything.
My girlfriend of two years had just dumped me. Something I’d never dreamed would happen. Claire had been so…dependable. But here I was, being forced to face reality. I’d moved to New York for a girl who was taking off at the first opportunity. Now, I had to stay until November, and I had no idea what I wanted anymore.
Part III
The High Road
17
Lark
The campaign office finally quieted down over the next couple of weeks.
English had officially taken the position to work with Court and moved into my guest bedroom for the time being. She spent most of her time dealing with Court, but having her in town was infinitely better than having her clear across the country.
The city was in flux as well. By Memorial Day weekend, the city had emptied of my friends and family as everyone migrated to the Hamptons or Paris for the season. While I was stuck here with the tourists. It was one thing I missed about my old life—getting to jet off to exotic locales whenever I liked. I was basically stuck in the city until November.
Stuck here, dealing with Sam being…strange.
I’d confronted him after how he acted at Court’s apartment, but he’d just smiled and shrugged it off. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. If English hadn’t been there, I would have thought I’d made the whole thing up.
Even though I knew that I hadn’t. I couldn’t possibly have invented the way he had been acting toward me since that night.
I wouldn’t say he had been avoiding me at work because it seemed impossible. The office was too small for that. We had to see each other. My job was to work with all of the head of departments, which meant I worked with Gibbs from legal. Not that it had stopped Sam and I from talking before. But suddenly, all my communication went through Gibbs alone. As if Sam could no longer contact me at all. I’d even asked Gibbs if he’d tightened the reins on intra-office communication.
Negative.
It was just Sam.
“Lark!” Demi said, sashaying past Aspen’s desk to enter my office. “I know you normally stay another couple hours. But one, it’s Memorial Day. So, we shouldn’t even be working at all. And two, a new bar just opened down the street. Which means we must emancipate you from this square box and take you out for drinks.”
She had clearly come prepared with a speech. She thought she had to convince me. But the truth was that after what had happened with Court, my life had been hell. I needed to take a few hours off early today. I should have cajoled Shawn into giving everyone today off. Though…he’d claimed we’d have a day off soon—probably the day after the Fourth of July.
“Come on,” Demi groaned. “Shawn already left to deal with some field issue. Please tell me you’ll come. We’re dying to get you out of here.”
“All right, I’m in.”
“Really?” she gasped.
“Yeah. We sho
uld have taken today off anyway.”
“Oh my god, I’m so excited. Let me tell Aspen. She’s going to flip.”
I laughed and nodded. “Who else is coming? I think I’ll tell everyone to take the rest of the day off.”
“You’re the best!” She stepped out of my office and up to Aspen’s desk. “The rest of the day off!”
Aspen slapped her hand in a loud high five. I just shook my head and closed everything up. My head hurt, and I needed to get out of here. Even if I would have preferred to head home and chill with English, this was good for my team.
Especially since word was stewing that the mayor might get a primary challenge. It wasn’t uncommon for some nobody to enter against the incumbent, just hoping to get their name out there. But after Court’s debacle, I feared that someone from her own party would try to make a splash and actually attempt to get the nomination. And I feared even more that they might have a chance.
I didn’t want to think about it. Instead, I walked around the office and told everyone to go home. We were done for the day.
I told myself that I wasn’t purposely leaving Sam’s office for last. But…
“Hey,” I said, peeking my head inside.
His office looked like a bomb had just gone off in it. I’d shared an office with Sam for months before I needed my own, and he’d been meticulously tidy. This was…crazy.
He glanced up once and then returned his gaze to his computer. “Hey. Can I help you?”
“Actually, we’re done for the day. Memorial Day and all.”
“Oh.”
“Also, some of us are checking out a bar that just opened. Any interest in heading over with us?”
He shook his head. “I really can’t. I’m so bogged down here.”
I could see that he was. “Oh, okay. You know, it’s crazy for me to say this, but it’s all going to be there in the morning.”
“Yeah,” he said. His face was grave. “I just want to get ahead. See if I can get through this paperwork. You know how it is.”