“You’ll figure it out.” Leanne winks and waves my notebook in the air. “I’m going to go start on this.”
“You’re a terrible person,” I call after her.
“I know!” she calls back with jingling laughter.
I sit for a while thinking, wondering if Leanne is right and if I shouldn’t just ask Andy what his end game is by shadowing me. Eventually, I give up on figuring it out by myself.
Phoebe:
Should I invite Andy over for dinner?
Zoe:
What?
Trista:
Why???
Phoebe:
Leanne said I should invite him over to try and figure out why he came back to NY with me.
Trista:
He flew back to the city with you? Why?
Zoe:
She told us he was planning to on Friday, Tris.
Trista:
I thought she was joking!
Zoe:
Why would she joke about something like that?
Trista:
Because why would Andy fly back to the city?
Phoebe:
Exactly what I want to know.
Trista:
If it were one of us, what would you advise?
Phoebe:
Do it and get your answers.
Trista:
Well, there you have it.
Zoe:
I agree with Tris, if you’d tell us to go for it then heed your own advice.
Trista:
Just be honest with him, babe. Tell him how you feel and figure out what he really wants from you.
Phoebe:
Yeah, okay. Thanks, guys.
It doesn’t take me long to decide that they’re right. If I would advise them to have an intimate dinner with their ex to set a firm red line in your professional relationship, I should follow my own advice.
“No funny business, Surfer Boy,” I mutter, pulling up my case list spreadsheet. “Just setting the records straight and moving on.”
Andy
I knock on Phoebe’s door at eighteen-hundred hours sharp, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, a six-pack in the other, and a nervous flutter in my gut.
“Seriously?” Phoebe’s wary gaze meets me when she opens the door, ass hugging Levi’s and a navy-blue sweater sitting perfectly on her curves, her dark hair spilling down her back in waves.
“Well, hello to you, too.” I grin and walk past her into the apartment. It’s a two-bedroom with a small balcony overlooking her quiet street. The place is tidy but feels lived in. Warm colors and a mix of vintage and modern furniture make the space feel distinctively hers.
“Blue carnations?” She snatches the flowers from my hand and goes to put them in water, turning the oven on as she goes. “Cheap trick, recreating our prom bouquet.”
“Nice digs.” I ignore her statement and make myself at home, placing the beer in the fridge as Phoebe sets the vase with my flowers on the portable wooden island from IKEA.
“Thank you.” She turns to me with a sweet smile, and my forehead wrinkles, wondering what she’s cooked up for me that would make her smile that way. “I thought you don’t drink.”
“I can handle one beer over dinner,” I promise. “What are you making, anyway?”
“Carbonara.” She flashes me a wicked smile, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“Trying to win me through my stomach, Curls?”
“No, just decided it would be sort of a peace gesture, cooking your favorite dish,” she explains, and though I’m not convinced, I decide to let the matter rest.
“Bathroom?” I ask, and Phoebe points down the hall at a door with a girl’s bathroom sign on it, the dress filled out in red to look like a cape and a caption reading “It was never a dress,” making me chuckle.
I take my time, taking a leak and washing my hands, exploring the creams and soaps, my heart stopping when I see a beard cream in her cupboard, but otherwise determining she lives alone.
“Pooping or snooping?” Phoebe asks with a knowing gaze as I emerge.
“Do you ask all the guys that on the first date?”
“Snooping it is.” She turns with an eye roll. “And this is not a date.”
I was going to retort, continue the banter that I was enjoying too much for my own good, but something tickles my nose, a familiar scent, and my chest constricts so painfully I’m pretty sure my heart is about to explode.
“Andy?” the spaghetti in Phoebe’s hand drops to the floor with little patters, and she runs to me, placing her palms on my chest. “What happened? You’re pale like a ghost.”
“That smell…” I shake my head and turn to look at Phoebe. “My mom, she gave you the recipe?”
“Yeah, after you left before she went back to the Grove.” Phoebe affirms my suspicions while searching my eyes, and all the air leaves my lungs with a pained exhale.
Idiot, you should never have trusted your instincts, you know better!
“I can’t…” I take a step back and find a spot on the floor to stare at. “I can’t do this, Phoebe, I’m sorry.”
I turn and make a hurried exit, Phoebe’s voice calling me to stop, but it’s too sore, too fresh, too clear how this will end. So, I pick up my pace to the point I’m almost jogging, hoping to find a crowded enough street to get lost in.
“God damn it, Andy!” If Phoebe’s angry voice wasn’t enough to make me stop, her strong fingers closing over my bicep and yanking me back would have done it. “Don’t you dare walk away from me again!”
“I can’t be your pawn, I can’t let you use me.”
“Pawn? Seriously?” She pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales. “Despite what you obviously think I’ve become, I am not an asshole of a person with zero integrity who would so callously stomp all over the heart of the only man she’s ever really loved just because he did the same to her!”
She’s lost her calm again, her voice rising uncontrollably in the middle of the street as passersby throw glances our way and walk a little faster. It’s the second time this is happening since she walked back into my life, or rather I into hers. And I recognize that, at the very least, I owe her an explanation.
“It never occurred to me that my mom spent all this time thinking that I’m not going to make it, not until I came back from my last tour,” I whisper, the pain still frighteningly present in my chest. “It should have, after my dad, but I was so focused on my own grief that I lost sight of hers. A week after I landed stateside, she had a heart attack. It’s why I requested to be discharged.”