“Gemma,” she says, blinking in surprise. Dammit.
“Meg,” I reply briskly, unsmiling.
Her gaze darts to Ben, then back to me. “It’s been ages.”
“Not long enough.” I walk past her to our car, which has just pulled up, thank God. I regret making this a thing in front of Ben, but it’s better than having her spill a story for him I’d rather no one knows.
“That wasn’t especially friendly,” he says, sliding in beside me.
“We’re not friends.” I look out the window to avoid the questions I know are coming. No way will he let this go.
“Are you going to tell me what she did, or should I run back over and ask her?”
My stomach tightens. I open my phone. “Go ask her,” I say, as if distracted. “I’ll wait.” I’m banking on the fact that even Ben isn’t that shameless. I hope I’m right.
“Gemma,” he says with a sigh. “Come on.”
“We worked together at Stadler Helms,” I tell him. And she was, once upon a time, my closest friend.
He blinks in surprise. “When were you at Stadler? I thought you came to FMG straight out of law school.”
I cross my legs then tap one dangling heel impatiently. His eyes dart to my foot then away.
“I was a summer associate,” I reply, though summers only represent a fraction of the time I spent there. “If you’re done asking about my personal life, I’d like to review my notes.”
“They didn’t make you an offer?” he asks, and my God I regret I ever told him anything. Because that’s the red flag, isn’t it? No one with my work history at Stadler isn’t made an offer without having done something very wrong.
And no one gets their offer rescinded without having done something even worse.
“I have no idea how you made partner,” I reply, opening my notes, and he gives up at last.
Attacking, as always, is the best defense.
I’ve been using it to keep Ben away now for two years straight.
7
Meg had been an associate at Stadler for a few years by the time Kyle arrived, and I’d been there nearly as long, working part-time during law school. She was technically my boss, but no one would have guessed this based on our conversations, which were mostly about parties, clothes, and boys. Lately they’d been focused on one boy, Kyle Cabrera, though referring to a thirty-five-year-old partner at our law firm as a boy seemed a little ridiculous.
He was only working out of the LA office temporarily. Needless to say, we hoped he’d make it permanent. “He looks more like a Navy SEAL in a good suit than an attorney,” Meg whispered when we first saw him walking down the hall. She was not wrong.
For two weeks, he’d been the sole focus of my group chat with her and another associate. Every tiny bit of info gleaned was collected secretively and mulled over, as if we were members of an underground resistance movement.
Me: He works out at Equinox every night, apparently. On a scale of 1-10, how stalkerish would it be to purchase a gym membership I can’t afford and *happen* to show up there?
Meg: As you have no intent to do harm (I assume), I think you’re okay. Send photos.
Me: Hell, no. Get your own gym membership for that. Besides, I know what YOU’D want pics of and I’m not sneaking into the men’s changing room for you.
Kirsten: I bet it’s HUGE. You wouldn’t even need a long-range lens.
Me: This conversation is so wrong. We still don’t even know if he’s married.
We’d checked into it, of course. He didn’t wear a ring, and his bio said he was a father of two but didn’t mention a spouse.
“There’s no way,” Kirsten said. “No wife is letting that guy go across the country for months at a time unsupervised.”
“And he’s got pictures of his kids on his desk, but there’s not a single one of her,” Meg added.
Under normal circumstances I’d have been the first to assume the worst—after all, I’d watched my father cheat on my mom, as if it was his job—but there was an honesty to Kyle, an inherent decency. He treated people well—he found work for Tom, an associate on the cusp of getting fired; he was on a first-name basis with the homeless guy who sat outside the building; he was just as nice to the janitor as he was to the managing partner.
He kept it all close to the vest, until the night I walked into his office and heard the tail end of an argument.
“It’s my weekend with them,” he said to someone on the other line. “That’s what the agreement is for.”
I began stepping back outside when he shook his head, waving me in as he hung up the phone.
I winced. “Sorry. Your door was open and—”
He gave me a reluctant smile. “It’s okay. My ex and I are…things are a little tense right now.”
“Well, that answers the office’s biggest mystery,” I replied. “Everyone has been wondering if you’re single.”
He laughed then shook his head again. “It’s not common knowledge. We’re trying to keep it quiet until the divorce is finalized.”
“I won’t say anything,” I told him.
His eyes held mine. “I know you won’t.”
It killed me, but I somehow kept it to myself. I still texted and gossiped with Meg and Kirsten. I still played the do you think he’s married? game with them, as if I knew nothing. I didn’t tell them a single thing he’d said.
I guess that was my first mistake.
8
“You have not updated your Pinterest board in ages,” Keeley informs me before she’s even said hello. Based on her tone, failing to update Pinterest is the moral equivalent of failing to pay taxes.
“I don’t have time,” I reply, though it’s not entirely true. Years ago, I was addicted to Pinterest. I had a house page, a fashion page, a travel page, a books-to-read page. It was my own version of a vision board: here’s what my house will look like when I’m different, these are the trips I will take and the books I will read. I’ve given up on most of them. I’m too busy to read or travel. I’ve lost the desire for a cute cottage near the ocean with an herb garden out front—God knows where I’d find the time to take care of it. I still add to the fashion page, but these days it’s mostly just clothes for work. I suppose this means I’ve given up on most of that future Gemma. Keeley and my mom are the only ones who refuse to give up with me.
“Is that why you’re calling me on a Saturday afternoon?” I ask. “My Pinterest page?”
She scoffs. “Of course not. I’m calling because someone is covering my shift tonight, so you and I are going out.”
“I’ve got to go to Miami tomorrow, Keels. And I’ll be out of the office all day Monday. I really need to work.”
Twenty-four hours with Ben Tate. I picture his slightly broken nose, his crooked smile. Him saying, “Gemma, I promise there’s nothing small or weak about me.”
Every time I remember it, it gets a little filthier.
“Are you seriously telling me you have to work on a Saturday night because you also have to work on a Sunday night?” she demands, proving why she’s my only remaining friend in LA—because she refuses to take no for an answer. “You’ve got to make yourself leave on occasion. And you’ll never meet anyone if you don’t try something new once in a while.”