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“Huh?”
“There’s a pole,” I say, grabbing her arm and tugging it just enough to maneuver her safely around it. I let go immediately after.Should have just let her run into it.Instead, she’s at my side again in a second. “Derek, please! I want to talk about this. And to apologize.”
“I don’t want an apology. In fact, I don’t want anything from you.” And that’s the truth. There might have been a time when I would have given anything to have her begging me for a chance to explain and apologize, but not anymore. My heart is permanently iced over. I clearly wasn’t enough for her, and that’s all there is to it.
I keep my face forward, trying to block her out as she continues that backward walk. “Stop following me. And watch where you’re going or you’re going to trip.”
“See! I’m already such a devoted agent there’s nothing I wouldn’t risk for you!”
This makes me unreasonably angry. She’s joking around like we’re old friends rather than exes with a history so convoluted that I can only see red when I look at her. “You are not and will never be my agent. We’re done here.”
I want to shut my eyes. I want to close her out and pretend she’s not right here beside me—because this moment, it’s going to set meback again. Just the sight of her rips open old wounds that I felt would never heal in the first place. I’m having flashbacks of Nora poking me in the cheek to get me to smile. Nora’s nervous wide eyes as she sneaks with me into our college rec center after hours to skinny dip in the pool. Nora’s soft smile as she sits beside me in class frantically writing notes and I draw an invisible heart over and over on the top of her thigh.
When I enter the parking lot and click the key fob to my electric SUV, the headlights blink and the door handles pop out. Nora notes which vehicle is mine and shuffles ahead of me to plaster her back against the door—breathing heavily. Why does she have to be so damn pretty still? “I’m not moving until you hear me out.”
“Move or I will move you. This is your only warning.”Don’t look in her eyes.
She tips her brows. “Not to taunt you, but I think you might be underestimating my impressive five-seven height and sheer determination to remain rooted until you—”
I set my hands on her waist, refuse to acknowledge the way she smells like a sweet tropical pink drink, and lift her off the ground, setting her down away from my door.Obstacle removed.
She gasps in outrage.
“I warned you.” I open my door and the audiobook I was listening to resumes playing at max volume. It’s something the learning specialist told me to try—apparently listening to an audiobook is an easier way for my brain to comprehend information. I thought I’d give it a try with a fantasy series that everyone loved in high school, whereas I hated it because it was so difficult to read. I wanted to see what I was missing out on. But now, hearing it blast over the speaker with Nora right beside me makes me feel like I’m standing naked in a hurricane.
I reach in quickly and click the control on my steering wheel,turning the volume all the way down. Once it’s silent again, Nora’s voice cuts through my cloud of anger.
“Derek…please.” Her tone is so soft and pleading. I don’t want to feel anything for her. No sympathy. No heart tugs. Nothing.
But dammit, I do. Because this is Nora.MyNora. And this is why I told myself not to look in her eyes, because then I’ll see everything we once were reflected in them. I’ll see that she’s more gut-wrenchingly beautiful than ever, and no matter what she does or where she goes, in my heart she’ll always be mine. And I hate her forit.
I shut the truck door again and face her fully, crossing my arms and wishing I had an actual shield to cover me. Her eyes drop briefly to my tattoos, and she studies them. I’m sure it’s startling to see me with them since I didn’t have a single tattoo when I knew her. There’s a lot about me that’s changed since we were together.
She pulls her gaze up to meet mine, and determination flares in her eyes. “I’m not sure…that is…I want to—” She licks her lips and I let her flounder. She deserves to drown in awkwardness. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”
“Really? Because it feels like just yesterday you were telling me you didn’t want me in your life anymore.”
She winces. “Do you want to talk about what happened back then?”
I couldn’t want something less. “If you want to talk, I’d rather hear how long you’ve known.”
“About the birds and the bees? My mom gave me the talk when I was—”
I shut my eyes and she cuts off. Deflecting with humor is so classically Nora it hurts. “We haven’t talked in eight years and you’re making jokes?”
Her smile falls. “You’re right,” she says in a different, morereasonable, genuine tone. “No more argle-bargle. You’re asking how long I’ve known that I work for the same agency that represents you?”
I give a curt nod.
“Well…I’ve known since I first started here about two years ago. But I didn’t realize it until after I already had the job and was sitting in on a meeting where agents were discussing their athletes. Your name came up—and I’ve heard about you from time to time since then but never in a lot of detail.”
My blood boils. “And you didn’t think it would be appropriate to tell me? You just thought it would be more fun to surprise me randomly one day instead? And what the hell is argle-bargle?” I really don’t want to ask that last question, but it’ll eat at me if I don’t.
Nora looks a little too eager to answer. “It means ‘copious but meaningless talk or writing.’ My mom got me a Weird Word of the Day calendar andargle-bargleis today’s word. I didn’t think I’d get a chance to use it, but…”
When I shift toward my truck again, Nora’s eyes widen frantically. “Wait, Derek—I’m sorry. I’m handling this so wrong. I wasn’t sure what to do or if it would matter to you. For all I knew you and Bill were going to happily live out the rest of your lives together. I didn’t rule out matching tattoos! And I had zero idea they were going to pair me with you until this morning—Ipromise you I would have given you a heads-up if I’d had one myself. And no one in the office knows about our history, I swear. It’s not been some big joke on my end.”
I believe her. I think that’s what sucks the most—Ifully buy that she didn’t think our proximity to each other would matter one shit. A flashback pierces my memory of the last time I saw her when she was standing in the hallway outside my apartment shoving a box of my stuff into my arms out of the blue.“I’m so sorry, Derek. I thoughtI could do this with you, but I can’t. I want to break up. You’re going your way and…I can’t go with you. This never should have happened between us. It was a mistake.”The cold way she looked at me with eyes shuttered and heart closed—I’d rather have been physically stabbed.
