“I tried!” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “The interview went later than I expected and they wanted to take me out for drinks after. Some asshole broke my phone and I couldn’t leave or I’d have blown my chances by seeming uninterested.”
She kept talking like I hadn’t said a word. “I waited up until ten last night, and you were at an interview for another job in a different state, living it up and drinking with your new co-workers.”
“I thought I could make it. I missed the last train down and got the first one this morning.”
“Wait.” Her head snapped back. “Is this why you’ve been nice to me all the sudden? Because you’re leaving? You don’t care about winning Winthorpe all by yourself anymore because you’re not even going to be here?”
“That has nothing to do with it. I didn’t even find out I’d gotten the interview until the morning after the scavenger hunt.”
“But you’d been trying for it. You had that in your back pocket.”
“In my back pocket? This is TV we’re talking about. I’m a shitty, slightly-above-no-name linebacker who washed out in four years. I’m hardly anyone anybody is banging down the door to get on the air. Hunter pulled a few strings to have someone look at my resume and a tape I put together. The fact that they didn’t laugh and throw it in the trash is a minor miracle.” But when I looked to her for understanding, fury still blazed in her eyes.
“You’re leaving.”
33
Zara
“Three weeks ago, you’d have been clicking your heels together that I was.”
“Things are different now.” The one guy I’d opened up to. The one I let into my damned apartment, to say nothing of my pants, and he was planning on moving out of state without telling me. I wasn’t ready to put a label on this, but I’d hoped we’d figure it out when we wrapped the project and the dust had settled.
“Nothing is happening right this moment. They said it’ll be weeks until they know.”
“Then you’ll leave.” I tightened my arms around my waist. Why delay the inevitable? People loved him. Women flocked to him. Of course he’d get the job and his stint helping out Sam would be over and I’d be left a wreck in Philly as the girl he used to bang.
“And then I decide what I want to do.” I spread my arms out at my sides. “Are you telling me you haven’t put out resumes? That you haven’t been searching for an out from Easton? You hate it there. You hate them.”
Of course I did, but my options were limited. The sky was the limit for him. The world was his oyster and mine was a flaming dumpster filled with week-old takeout.
Whatever this was between us had barely begun; why had I thought that gave me any special say or right to know what he was doing with his life? Once again, it was me painting a pretty fantasy picture that was never coming true. Just like with my old roommate.
He shook his head like I was being obstinate, which really got my back up. “Yes, but every application I put in falls into a black hole.”
He frowned. “So you’re pissed at me because you can’t get another job?”
I fisted my hands at my sides. A fiery maelstrom of emotions rushed through me. Yes, exactly. All I’d ever done was scrape and scrimp to get by and Leo had waltzed into this job, and one of the biggest accounts I’d ever seen had fallen straight into his lap. And in a couple weeks the sports channel would call him back and offer him the job because of course they would. He’d lived a golden life touched by King Midas, and I was suddenly, utterly done.
“Get out.” My arm shot out directing him to the door.
His face fell, but it was too late. “Zara, I’m sorry.”
“Leave.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I’m in this until the end. Hell, Sam’s not even paying me. I don’t need to do this job, but I want to do it.”
“You don’t even need this job?” That inferno had another heaping of lighter fluid sprayed onto it. He didn’t even need the money. All his bullshit fighting me every step of the way, and for what?
“Fuck.”
“Is this a joke to you?”
“Have I been treating it as a joke?”
Every day, I busted my ass. I wrung every bit of energy and did mental gymnastics to figure out how I’d balance everything like a waitress at a greasy spoon during the lunch rush, and he didn’t need this job. My best shot at keeping Tyler and myself above water could be ripped away by someone who was doing this for shits and giggles?!
Leo cupped my shoulders. “Calm down.”
Bull, meet the red flag of someone who’s pissed you off telling you to calm down. I yanked out of his grasp. “Screw you.”
“Exactly, it’s what we’ve been doing. Have you considered maybe I’m doing this for reasons other than money? Maybe I’m here because I want to be?”
I had the fluttery pulses of energy telling me to stand here and fight or take flight, maybe crossing state lines before I looked back. “I don’t want you here, and you need to leave.
His jaw clenched and he took a step back.
“I’ll go, but this isn’t over, Zara.”
“It’s well and truly over. You and I can coordinate the presentation by email. I’ll meet you two hours before, and we can go over it, present it, and go our separate ways. Kathleen will decide who gets the account.”
“What about that?” He pointed to the ring on my finger.
My chest tight with anger and hurt, I twisted it and tugged it off. Of course he’d want it back.
What the hell was wrong with me? Playing pretend was all this was. I grabbed his hand and smacked the ring into his palm. “You can bring it to the final presentation. Tell Hunter I said thanks.”
“What happens when Kathleen finds out we lied?”
“People break up all the time. We let her know our whirlwind romance is on hold for now.”
“Zara…”
“You need to go.”
His lips parted. He slammed them shut and turned, walking out without another word.
I gave myself a second to feel all the feelings. I clutched my chest and bent at the waist to shoulder the weight of what had happened. Staring up at the ceiling, I blinked back the tears. It was one night. This was always only ever supposed to be temporary.
“He’s leaving?” Stella released the ice cream scoop handle, adding another ball of coffee ice cream to the cup. Popping open the microwave, she pulled out the two jars and waved them in front of my face. “Hot fudge or caramel?”
“Do I have to choose?”
She looked at them and back at me with an assessing head tilt. “You deserve both.”
I’d come over asking for a corkscrew for the single bottle of wine in my cabinet left over from an event last year.
She’d taken one look at my face and dragged me inside. Since white wine didn’t pair well with ice cream, she traded me a six pack of cider, cracking one open on the counter top.
Using two spoons, she drizzled—more like doused—the two bowls of ice cream in sticky-sweet syrups.