“I ended it with Kane last night.”
She sips her tea as if I said the sun is out today.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
She sets her tea down and slips off her heels, then crosses her legs in the chair. “And I’m not surprised. I actually predicted it when the announcement came at Coach Vittner’s retirement party about Kane becoming head coach. You forget how well I know you.”
My forehead wrinkles for a moment. “Okay…”
“You guys have been sleeping together since Ford’s wedding.”
My head rears back. “No, we haven’t.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Kane played the whole ‘I want to date you’ for months before he agreed to a casual hookup, so to say we’ve been sleeping together the whole time isn’t accurate.”
My best friend rolls her eyes.
After our first time sleeping together at Ford’s destination wedding, Kane woke up the next morning assuming we’d enter into a relationship. Like he’d buy me flowers and we’d do lazy Sunday mornings with croissants and coffee kind of relationship. If he knew me at all, he’d know that isn’t me.
“He bent to your will.”
“I guess he couldn’t resist.” I laugh, and Paisley smiles but doesn’t laugh. “Jesus, Pais, just spit it out already.”
I love this woman as though she’s my sister, but she’s reserved and treads carefully. Hence the whole therapist profession. She tries to lead me to self-discovery, but sometimes a girl just needs someone to give it to her straight.
“I think if your dad hadn’t changed this up, things would have progressed. Kane being named coach made for an easy reason for you to call things off.”
“How do you figure?” I pick up my tea from the table.
“You guys were spending more time together. You said you spent that whole afternoon binge-watching that series about the con artist on Tinder.”
I roll my eyes. “We also banged three times that day. I was really horny.”
“Okay, but before that, it was like one would call the other late at night, usually Kane went to you, you had sex, then you kicked him out.”
I lay my head on the back of the couch. “Ah, the good ol’ days.”
“Do you really feel that way?”
Here we go again with all her psychological bullshit. “Yes, I do. You know I’m not meant for a relationship, and Kane is definitely looking for one. Like I’m ever going to be at home waiting for him with an apron on and his favorite dinner on the table.”
She opens her arms to gesture toward herself. “I’m with Maksim and I don’t fill a 1950s housewife role.”
“Come on. Look at Kane. I bet he wants a whole hockey team full of kids. Doesn’t he seem like that? And me as a mother. Can you imagine? I’d be raising kids with ice blocks for hearts.”
Paisley sighs. “I think that’s a little dramatic.”
“I’m not the ‘let me kiss your boo and tell you it’s fixed’ kind of person. I’m the ‘suck it up and get back out there’ person. Youth sports? I’d be the nightmare parent on the sidelines.”
She laughs and I quirk an eyebrow because she knows I’m right.
“Do you really know what Kane wants?”
“He wants a relationship, Pais.”
She’s quiet for a moment and I think I can almost claim victory. “So you’re planning on spending your entire life single?”
“What’s wrong with that? I don’t need a man to be happy.”
Paisley puts up her one hand. “Of course you don’t, but it sounds kind of lonely.”
“That’s only because you have Maksim and you’re in love.”
“Perhaps. Maybe I want my best friend to be as happy as I am.”
I stare at her for a beat. “Happiness is different for everyone. What makes you happy might not make me happy.”
She nods. “Fair enough. Why are you here if you’re good with you and Kane not being sex friends?”
I shake my head. “Because now I have to work side by side with him, and you know he’s not going to make that easy. He’s always going to be saying sexual things to me and stuff.”
“Then slam him with an HR write-up and sexual harassment charges,” Paisley says as though it’s so easy.
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Because you like him.” Her eyebrows rise.
“Oh cute, trying to catch me?” I bring my legs down from the couch and slip on my shoes. “I gotta get to work.”
“So what’s your plan?” Paisley asks, unfazed by how emotionally closed off I am.
“Simple. Ignore him. Do the bare minimum of what we need to work alongside one another.”
“I doubt—”
“I run the team; he coaches. We shouldn’t have to coexist that much.”
Her head tilts. “But enough that you feel you had to call off your sexual relationship?”
I throw my hands in the air. “Jesus, Pais, aren’t you on my side?” My hand moves to the doorknob.
“Always, which is why it’s my responsibility to challenge you and not just accept your false beliefs because you’re scared.”
I turn sharply to face her. “I never said I was scared.”
She smiles warmly at me. The way she does when she knows she has to say something I don’t want to hear. “You don’t have to.”
“UGH!” I open the door and walk out, shutting the door a little harder than necessary.
Just because she’s all in love doesn’t mean I have to be. I’m perfectly happy going home to a clean house where I can watch what I want and eat nothing but popcorn for dinner.
I head to my new office because at least there, things are simple. I have a to-do list, things that need to be checked off, and I can do them without any emotions or feelings or whatever this walnut-sized doubt in my stomach is. I don’t owe Kane anything. My intentions were clear from day one. I never gave him any signals that there was a future with me. So, whatever. This guilt needs to stop.
After Dad moved all his belongings out, I arranged to have the dark wood painted white, and my designer, Kit, is hard at work making the space reflect me.
Barbara stops me as I approach. “The painters are in there. Kit was here about an hour ago and left you this message.” She hands me a piece of paper. “Your father called and said they might be out of cell phone range for a day or two while they’re on the cruise.” Another piece of paper with a scribbled note is handed to me. “And Kane Burrows called up from downstairs, but he didn’t leave you a message. He said you know where to find him.” She hands me another piece of paper. “I wrote it down even though he said not to.”
I smile. “Thank you, Barbara.”
I wasn’t too keen on having an assistant, but I’m not going to get rid of Barbara. I’m not sure how many more paper messages I can handle though. Just text me like everyone else in the free world.
“I’m going to head to my old office to get some things done.”