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“I am not.”
“You are too. Admit it, Soph. You miss him.”
I lean back in my chair, arms crossed. “How can I miss something I never really had?”
“But you could have, if you’d been brave enough to try.”
I flinch at Lauren’s words. She’s right and we both know it. Theo offered me everything—I was the one who was too scared to try, too scared to what might go wrong to find out what could go right.
“That ship has sailed.” I scoop some fallen taco fillings up with a chip, stuffing it in my mouth to avoid the conversation. The savory carnitas and kick of lime on the cabbage and onion mix with the corn tortilla in my mouth, it tastes like perfection.
“Has it though? Have you even tried to talk to him again or are you hiding behind your excuses?”
I grimace. “I haven’t spoken to him, but Emma won’t stop talking about him.”
“So you’re just going to what? Be reminded of him all the time but never speak to him again? That doesn't exactly seem sustainable, Soph.” Lauren shakes her head before taking a sip of her water.
“I just need time to find a new normal. Eventually I’ll…” I trail off. I sound ridiculous, even to myself.
Lauren scoffs. “New normal? Sounds to me like you’re resigning yourself to being unhappy. Again. You settled for the status quo with Jake and what did it ever get you?”
“A ton of debt and bad sex.” My snarky answer gets a laugh from Lauren, but doesn’t distract her from the point, unfortunately.
“You told me you wanted to take charge of your life, that you wanted to make the choices that were best for you. That’s why you quit at Mailbox and got a new job, one that pays way more and doesn’t have you fetching anyone’s coffee, right? Is your job really the only thing in your life you weren’t pursuing?”
She lets me stew over her words for a moment while she takes another bite of her lunch. I don’t have a rebuttal because there isn’t one. She’s right. I wanted to make my life mine. Not in service to Jake’s dreams or Emma’s dreams. I want my life to be in service to me first, because if I don’t put my own needs first to myself, who else would?
“I really fucking hate it when you’re right, Lauren. It’s annoying.”
She laughs and I’m reminded how good a friend she is. Lauren is the only person in my life who has always encouraged me to take care of myself, even through the years when I couldn’t see how much damage it was doing to my mental health. She could have washed her hands of me, but she’s stuck by me through it all. “Okay, okay, I admit I’m chickening out when it comes to Theo. I just don’t even know how to start that conversation. ‘Oh hey, I’m sorry I was an asshole and rejected you every time you said you wanted to be with me. I know better now and I want to see you.’”
“I mean, maybe don’t say it exactly like that, but that seems like a solid place to start.”
“I’ll think about it.”
By the time we’re done eating, the idea of talking to Theo again is fizzing in my veins. I’ve been ignoring the ache in my chest at the thought of him for weeks, chalking it up to regret rather than acknowledging the reality that I just plain miss him. I miss his gruff voice, his smirk, the leaps his brain takes when looking at a problem, the vulnerability I glimpsed in his eyes in those few precious moments we shared.
“Oh, I have something for Emma in my office, do you have time to come grab it?” Lauren hooks her arm through mine and starts walking the half block toward Mailbox’s building.
A glance at my watch and I follow. “Yeah, I have some time. I don’t have any meetings this afternoon, just some articles to edit. Did I tell you, last Friday everyone else in the office took two-hour lunches?”
Lauren laughs at the shock in my voice. “Don’t laugh at me, I’ve never been on salary before, I didn’t know that was a thing you could do, okay? It’s weird being in a position where people trust me to just be a goddamn adult and get my work done.”
I follow her into the lobby, stopping to say hello to Tina and Julian while Lauren gets the elevator. Hearing it ding behind me, I pull myself away from catching up with them and step inside with Lauren.
The doors close and we start moving up. “So what is it you have for Emma? Did she con you into buying that fancy ring light she’s been wanting?”
“She conned all of us.” Lauren grins as the elevator stops on the second floor and the doors open to reveal the man whose smile has been on my mind for months. “Hello, sir.”
God, he looks good. His navy suit is perfectly tailored to his trim waist and sculpted shoulders. I have to stop myself from licking my lips at the memory of those arms caging me in against the windows in Seattle. His beard is trimmed short and neat, like always—his thick, dark hair swept back from his face. I want to run my fingers through it and mess it up. Just this glimpse of him and all my carefully suppressed longing for him roars to the surface, impossible to ignore.
“Ms. Masterson. Ms. Alexander, it’s good to see you again.”
Lauren scoots past me to exit the elevator and let Theo have it, as usual. I move to follow her, my face on fire, but he steps forward into the elevator car, blocking me. “Stay.” When I hesitate, he rests a hand against my arm. “Please, Sunshine?”
As the elevator doors slide shut, I catch Lauren’s grin and thumbs up over his shoulder. “Mr. Sutton—” I start to say, but he cuts me off with a growl. He hasn’t stepped away and his scent, his presence, overwhelms me. I try to step back but his grip on my arm tightens a fraction before he steps even closer, his torso brushing my side. Releasing my arm, he reaches past me to the rows of buttons to my right. He flips open a small door, punching in a code.
“What are you doing?” I can’t help asking. The floor numbers always used to light up in white, but now only the top floor button is illuminated in red.
