I hadn’t seen Lark since she invited me to lunch. Almost as if…she was purposely avoiding me. Well, I’d been avoiding her. So, maybe it was Karma.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to tell her about Claire.
Not just her. Anyone.
I’d told Court. And that was only because I’d been desperate and pissed off and needed someone with no judgments to get shit-faced with me. It had worked until I’d walked into work the next day, hungover as fuck and irritable.
But I hadn’t told anyone else.
Not my parents, who loved Claire but hated that she’d moved me eight hours north.
Not my new friends at work.
Certainly not Lark.
At first, I hadn’t wanted it to be true. I’d moved for Claire. I’d sacrificed for her. I’d wanted it to work. Just not enough to propose when she wanted me to.
Then I’d stupidly tried to convince myself that maybe it was just a break. She really did just need space. Which meant…we were still together. We were still dating but without having to talk all the time. She’d come back in twelve weeks, and we’d work it out. Things might not be fine now, but they’d get there.
Denial.
Straight into anger.
Anger at Claire mostly. For leaving me like that. For waiting until the last possible second to tell me how she had been feeling. For moving me here and then leaving.
It didn’t matter that she had been right. That I hadn’t been into it…us…her. That a certain redhead had started taking up residence in my brain again. That I’d wanted to be at work instead of with Claire at home. That I loved New York City and my new job despite all its problems.
And now…I was pushing Lark away.
There were a million reasons to do it. But none of them felt sufficient when I saw her disappointed face as I brushed her off for lunch…again.
Fuck, I was going to have to tell her.
We were friends. Or we had at least been working toward that before I completely cut her and everyone but Court out of my life. And friends…shared information about their relationships. They explained why they had been acting like a douche for three weeks.
I was not looking forward to this.
Not a bit.
But I drafted the email anyway.
Lark,
I didn’t bring my lunch today. Any interest in going to Buns? I’d kill for a burger right now.
Best,
Sam
I hovered over the Send button. What could go wrong? Aside from everything?
I pressed Enter.
I didn’t know why I expected an immediate answer. When we’d previously had email conversations, she had been almost instantaneous in her responses. But a half hour passed and then another, and still, I heard nothing.
I was halfway out of my chair to go to her damn office and demand an answer when it finally came.
Sam,
A burger sounds nice. Meet in twenty?
—Lark
Good. That was easier than demanding she go to lunch with me. Even if I knew that her hesitancy held weighted meaning.
Twenty minutes later, almost exactly on the dot, Lark was waiting at the front of the office. She stared down at her cell phone, ignoring me and the rest of the world. I could tell by the set of her shoulders that she had likely almost talked herself out of coming.
“Hey,” I said, striding toward her.
She glanced up from her phone. “Oh good. Are you ready to go?”
“Sure. You still want Buns?”
She typed away on her phone, pressed a button, and then shoved it in her bag. “Yeah. I’m always game for burgers.”
“Great. Me too.”
We stepped out of the office and into the busy New York afternoon. She brushed her long red hair off of her shoulders and cursed as she dug around in her bag.
“Ugh, I don’t think I have a hair tie. Why is it so hot already?”
“Because it’s the beginning of June.”
She sighed. “Yeah. And it’s just the start of this.” She fidgeted as we crossed the street. “If I wasn’t on campaign, I’d be lounging at the Hamptons right now.”
“Such a hard life.”
“I chose the hard life.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked curiously. “I know you said you didn’t like working for your parents, but you don’t even need to work, right? Definitely not a hundred-plus-hour weeks. When we were in Madison, you said you did it because you wanted to try to be someone else. But you’re not here. You’re still Larkin St. Vincent while working the campaign job.”
“You can’t escape who you are,” she told me. “But you shouldn’t ignore who you want to become either.”
“Insightful.”
She smiled hesitantly up at me. “After what happened with us…and the person I was at the end of our relationship, I decided I didn’t want to be that person anymore.” She laughed softly. “I gave her a name actually—Bad Lark.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bad Lark? Really?”
She nodded. “She’s the person I was before I gave up the Upper East Side persona. When I decided that I couldn’t be the person I was if I wanted to be the person I was meant to become.”
“Well, I guess I’m glad to meet Good Lark. Is that what you call yourself?”
She shook her head and nudged me. “No. Don’t be silly. Bad Lark is who I was before. Now, I’m just Lark. So, while I might like to be in the Hamptons, relaxing with a drink in hand—who wouldn’t, right?—I want to elect Leslie more.”
I held the door open for Lark as we entered Buns and put in our order. I thought about all she’d said and how it aligned with what I’d seen of her the last couple of weeks that we’d been working together. I’d spent so long blaming her for what she’d done in the past that I hadn’t seen until just then how much she’d changed. Purposely changed to get beyond the person she’d been at the time. The person I’d thought she’d been with me all along. But now, she wasn’t pretending. There was nothing nefarious about our interactions. She was just…Lark.
I grabbed my burger and sank into our booth in the back corner. She grabbed the seat across from me and dug into her fries.
“God, these are so good,” she groaned. “Greasy and delicious.”
“The best.”
“You know, I’m surprised that you wanted to get lunch,” she said, peering up into my eyes. “I thought you were avoiding me.”
“Oh. I mean, I wasn’t avoiding you.” Lie. “I’ve just been busy.”
“I’m the queen of busy, but things have been weird. I thought we were friends, then we weren’t and now, we are?” she asked tentatively, hopefully.
“Yes,” I said automatically. “We’re friends.”
“And you’re going to stop avoiding me? Because it’s kind of awkward at the office.”
“I am,” I agreed.
I had to tell her. Jesus, I needed to tell her.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “And you’re coming to Court’s charity thing, right?”
“Yes. He told me to get a tuxedo, and so I’m renting one.”