“I really don’t want to talk right now.”
“We can’t just avoid this.”
I shuffled the papers under my arm and hiked up my purse. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
He winced. Good. “I deserve that. But if we could just talk…”
“No,” I said. “I’m not ready to talk. And you can wait until I’m ready.”
“Do you know when that will be?”
“Nope. I don’t.”
I took a step away from him. Part of me wanted to fling myself into his arms. The other part was too conflicted to even know what it wanted. It was great that Sam was single. It was not great that he hadn’t been honest with me. Not exactly a foundation to start a relationship on.
“I just need time,” I told him honestly.
Then with a pang in my chest, I pushed through the open door and walked out into the windy New York city street beyond.
“Oh my god, stop! Josh, stop! I can’t,” English called into the phone as I entered my apartment.
A giant smile was on her face, and she was using her biggest, girliest voice. The one that said she was so disgustingly in love that she was going to burst at the seams.
Any other day, it would be music to my ears. Right now, it was grating. And I dodged into my room as fast as possible.
English and Josh were a fucking icon. The most adorable couple in Hollywood. It had to be hard for her to be away from him for this long. For both of them.
I yawned and stretched my arms over head and then frowned. “What the fuck?”
There was a stack of Bergdorf Goodman bags in the corner of my room.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
I headed over to the stack and found a purple card resting on top.
Lark, darling, you looked so good in that Badgley Mischka dress that I took the liberty of purchasing you a few new things for the season. In particular, the Elizabeth Cunningham dress will be perfect for the St. Vincent’s company dinner over Fourth of July weekend.
—HSV
My mother. I swear.
I needed to find a way to steal my key back from her. Because I was not cool with her just barging in whenever she wanted and depositing clothes in my fucking room. It was an invasion of privacy. Not to mention another way she was attempting to control me. The gifts she let were only an excuse to get me to a company dinner. I had no plans to run the company. And anyway, I would be working that weekend.
I just shook my head and shoved the bags into a corner before stripping out of my work clothes. I threw on a black nightgown that was perfect for this heat since it was more of a slip than anything. I tossed my hair up a topknot and then walked back out into the living room.
English had blessedly finished her call. Though she was still in the afterglow of the conversation.
She frowned when she saw my expression. “Bad day?”
“Emergency ice cream,” I told her as I yanked open the freezer and removed a container of chocolate chip cookie dough.
“Oh dear.”
I grabbed a spoon and settled on the couch.
She followed, tucking her legs up underneath her, prepared to hear me out. “So, I’m finally going to find out why you’ve been walking around the apartment like a hurricane.”
“Sam and I kissed.”
English’s mouth popped open. “Lark!”
“Yep. And then he told me that he and Claire had broken up.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yep. And then he gave all these bullshit excuses for why he hadn’t told me they’d broken up weeks ago. That day when we went to Court’s for the trial run.”
“Oh geez.”
“So, anyway, I told him I didn’t want to be used and to leave me alone while he had shit to figure out.”
“Damn,” English said. “No wonder you’ve been so pissed.”
“Yeah. Well, he tried to talk to me at work today. But I blew him off. I don’t know what to say to him. And Danny called, and I think he’s supposed to call sometime tonight. I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“Okay, slow down. Too much at once,” English said. She snatched my spoon from me and dug into the ice cream. “So, Sam is single. He wants to talk to you. And he kissed you.”
“Correct.”
“But Danny also called and presumably wants to go on a date.”
“Also, yes.”
“Hmm…”
I took my spoon back and dug in for another bite of the ice cream. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to admit it?” she asked intuitively.
“In a perfect world?”
She nodded.
I took a deep breath and continued, “I’d try it out with Sam again.”
“I see.”
“I know that you don’t like him.”
“I never said that,” English said. “What I said was that I didn’t like what had happened in the past. That he’d broken your heart. I didn’t want to see you get hurt again.”
I shrugged and had more ice cream. Maybe there were answers in the cookie dough.
“You don’t want to date Danny,” English decided.
“Not really. He was nice. I mean, I gave him my number. But he just wasn’t…it.” I sighed. “I know I’m still messed up from Thomas. It’s just hard to let go.”
“But you can with Sam?”
I nodded reluctantly. Because I could. Even though things were screwed up with Sam now. It had been so perfect and easy when we were first together. There was so much history there that it’d felt like we were drawn together. Before I’d known about Claire, it was as if we were magnets. Even after, I’d be lying to say that we’d just been friends. That was a clever lie we’d been telling each other. Because that kiss had said it all.
“Okay”—English shifted to face me—“I’ve been against Sam from the start. But I think you need to give this another chance.”
“What?” I gasped through a mouthful of ice cream.
“Hear me out. Sam was always that guy for you. No matter how broken you were or how mad you were at him…you still wanted him. You still wanted to make it right. And you’ve changed so much since I first knew you. Maybe he has too. I think you should go for it. Because if you don’t, you’ll always wonder, What if…You’ll compare every guy to him. Wonder if he’s waiting on every street corner. You need to find out if he’s really the guy you want. Even if it means putting your heart on the line.”
“I don’t know, English. How do I put myself out there again? That level of vulnerability”—I shuddered—“it feels like a risk.”
“A calculated risk. You look at the odds and decide if the pros outweigh the cons. You know what the chance of failure is. You’ve already seen failure in this. It’s not an election. You don’t have to plan out all the moves. You don’t have to decide a year out what the first Tuesday in November will look like. You just…try.”
“That easy, huh?” I asked my friend who knew all about jumping, talking to the girl who had never taken a risk…let alone with her heart.