“Good morning. Did you have a nice weekend?” I asked, setting the bag and coffee on his desk.
Harry shrugged out of his jacket and adjusted the knot of his tie while he looked at my offering and then me.
“You look nice. Really nice. New dress?”
I stifled a laugh. I’d bought this dress for an event I’d attended with him, but that had been years ago so I could hardly hold it against him for not remembering.
“No.” I ran a hand down my side. “Just had it tucked away in the back of the closet.”
He stared a bit longer – a look I recognized on his face. I’d dated him for long enough I knew when he liked what he saw. He caught himself and sat down, smiled stiffly, and dug into the bag for his bagel. “Thanks for this. My weekend was crap. Charlotte and I worked a fundraiser at her kids’ school and then Tatum had two friends stay the night. I woke up in the middle of the night to giggling and found them trying to make breakfast downstairs. Real French pastries.” He shook his head but there was a happiness about the way he said it. A contentedness. Harry had begun dating a single mum shortly after we broke up. He was happy. A happy we’d never been.
“Sounds eventful.”
“What about you? Did Richard come into town this weekend?”
“He did.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “Actually, since we’re on the topic, I wanted to ask if I could have Friday off to go to New York.”
He nodded as he chewed. “You know the office schedule better than anyone. Just make sure Bobbi has a heads up on anything that needs to be taken care of. Two weekends in a month, huh? Pretty soon you’re going to be telling me you’re moving up there.” He gave a little laugh and when I didn’t join in, he stilled and put down the bagel. “Christ, I thought this might happen, but I’d hoped not. When are you going?”
“I have an interview Friday. I won’t leave you in a lurch, you know that. Even if this interview goes well, I’ll make sure someone else is trained before I leave.”
“I hate to see you go, but I get it.”
“Thank you, Harry. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
“Likewise. You’re the best employee this office has seen in as long as I’ve been here. You outgrew us a long time ago, but I’m thankful you’ve stayed as long as you have.”
His words touched me. “Thanks for taking a chance on a girl with a shoddy work history.”
He smiled a bit sadly and I backed out of his office and went to grab my phone. I tapped out a text to Richard to let him know I was able to get Friday off and then emailed Madelyn myself to confirm and attach my resume.
I could only hope everything else would fall together as easily as it had so far. Including telling my brother. Like me, I was sure he assumed my moving was something that wouldn’t happen anytime soon and I wasn’t ready to break it to him until I knew for sure.
Adele
There was a strange smell in my house. I stepped through the front door with my purse in one hand and a brown bag with my half-eaten sandwich from lunch in the other. My stomach growled and did a somersault at the sight of Finn in my kitchen. Fact: a man in the kitchen was hot. Also a fact, Finn was hot. The somersault therefore couldn’t be helped.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up and shot me a disarming smile. “Someone ought to use this kitchen for more than storing sparkling water. Your knives were shit. I got you a new one.” He lifted the big, shiny knife and then went right back to chopping whatever it was he had on the cutting board.
“You cook? Seriously?”
“I like to eat.” He shrugged. “Going out isn’t always the easiest, so I learned to cook a few things.”
“Right. Dining at all the LA hotspots looked like a real chore.” My face heated and I tried with all my might to suck back in the words. I’d given too much away about my snooping his social media. His gaze snapped to mine and I waited for him to call me out on it, but he didn’t.
“Do you like Thai?”
“I like all food.” I put my sandwich in the fridge. “What can I do to help?”
“Can I trust you with the knife?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I don’t like to cook doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”
All lies.
He shook the knife at me. “Now, I know that’s a lie. I’ve seen your fridge and I’ve read your gratitude journal. I distinctly remember seeing takeaway on the list of things you were grateful for more than once. Along with really odd foods like beef wellington and baked Alaska – none of which I’ve seen you make.”
“Maybe I’m just busy and grateful for the convenience of takeaway.”
He waited me out.
“Fine, I can’t cook.” I shot him a playful glare. “Beef wellington and baked Alaska are on my list of things to learn to make someday.”
He smirked. “Like a cooking for dummies class?”
I took the knife from him. “Something like that.”
I diced the onion while Finn cooked the chicken and boiled water for the noodles. Eventually I sat down on the stool on the other side of the kitchen counter and watched him work. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t providing a lot of value anyway.
“Did you and the ex cook together a lot?”
He paused with the spatula lifted above the pan and I regretted bringing it up.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. Just curious. From everything I’ve seen, your lives looked more like an episode of the Kardashians than Rachel Ray.”
“Cindy preferred going out. She didn’t like the mess or the smell.”
“The smell?”
He’d gone back to stirring again and I noticed how at ease he looked and how down to earth he seemed. I was having a hard time getting a handle on which Finn was real – this one, or was this just Finn fresh off a broken heart hiding out from the world?
“Yeah, she didn’t like the smells lingering after dinner.”
“As opposed to it smelling like scented candles and incense?”
He chuckled, turned the heat down, and covered the pan. Sitting next to me on the other stool, Finn said, “I guess so.”
He propped an elbow on the counter and gave me his full attention. “Does the boyfriend cook?”
“No, he’s hopeless in the kitchen, too.”
“So, you guys just eat out all the time?”
“During the week, it’s just me. Cooking for one is hard and not very fun so I usually grab something for lunch and then save half of it for dinner. On the weekends when we’re together we order in or sometimes go out. We have to cram all our date nights into a weekend. Sometimes we go two or three weeks without seeing each other.”
“It was like that for Cindy and me in the beginning too.”
“It was?”
“We started dating when I was still in Sydney. The time difference was killer. We were lucky to talk on the phone most days.”
“How did you meet?”
With a goofy grin on his face, he said, “She messaged me.”
“Like slid into your DMs with some sort of flirty message or…” My eyes widened. “A sexy picture?”