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"No, it’s lost in there somewhere, though."
"Should I stamp a new one? Or you want to come back later. I’ll remember you."
"Sure, no. A new one is okay," I said, distracted. I took my receipt and my coffee and fled back into the cold, wanting to be in motion, as if I could keep ahead of my thoughts if I walked fast enough.
But by the time I found a seat and the the professor started his lecture I couldn’t think of anything else but my jumble of desires and fears. They clung around the place in my brain where James lived. Once I let myself think about him again I realized that the entire break I had been hoping, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he was going to reach out to me. That he would show up on my doorstep, his face pinched pink with the cold, the snow flakes sticking on his messy hair and broad shoulders, a confession of desire on his lips. Or even better, a wordless embrace and a crushing kiss...
I took out the IOU from high school again, running my fingers over the card as the closest thing to a plan formed in my mind since I had fled Bloomfield for New York.
You do owe me, you bastard.
I put the card away carefully, shouldered my bag, and excused myself as I moved towards the aisle and left. I would get notes from someone later.
But I had somewhere else to be just now.
***
I didn’t call my best friend, Tessa. I didn’t tell my roommate, Nicole. I just went back to the apartment, packed an overnight bag, and took a cab to Grand Central Station. There were trains running to Boston’s South Station every few hours, and I knew that James’s startup company's office was somewhere nearby there. I could search the internet on the way. If I hesitated, I wouldn’t go. I had to keep in motion.
While I waited for the next train I found an ATM and took out enough cash to pay for cabs, food and a hotel room if I needed it. Though I didn’t want to think too far ahead, I didn’t want to be scrambling for money at the last second either. I tucked the cash into my wallet with the IOU, and when the train arrived I got on it.
A little over three hours later, I was stepping into the blustery wind that blew off the frigid Atlantic. If New York was cold, Boston was frigid. There was ice and snow in the cracks of the sidewalks and dirty road salt scattered over everything. Dark snow clouds were chasing the slate grey overcast out over the sea. While I was waiting for the train I had overheard someone saying a big snowstorm was coming in. I assumed those clouds were the beginning of it.
I grabbed the first cab I saw and gave them the address.
I stared at the road over the shoulder of the driver, not allowing my mind to stray. I felt a smile crease my lips. I was doing what I felt, acting on how I felt, maybe for the first time in my life.
And I was terrified.
Chapter Eight
James’s offices were in what would have looked like just another derelict building if it wasn’t for the reflective glass in the windows and the minimalist but neatly groomed gardens at the entrance. Once I went inside, however, there were only stylistic touches that betrayed the building's rougher history. It looked like a real office. The floors were restored and polished wood and ventilation shafts hung down from the high ceilings above the sea of cubicle walls. The rest was painfully modern and simple, like an Ikea store had a wet dream inside.
James had come a long way from his apartment living room. There must have been a hundred people working here. For the first time, my stepbrother’s success really hit me. He built all of this. This was his.
I was impressed, but I was also a little intimidated. But I had come prepared. Before I walked in the front door, I readjusted myself in my tight sweater, which really accentuated what a woman I had become in New York.
Now all I had to do was get the receptionist—a cute redhead who immediately made me jealous with her creamy skin and full¸ pouting mouth—to let me see him.
"Mr. Coleman doesn’t have any appointments this afternoon," she said. For the millionth time.
"I know that. You’ve made it very clear. But if you could call him and tell him Tessa from Bloomfield is here, I’m sure he would make an exception." I was using my best friend’s name. No reason to publicize that I was his stepsister when nobody knew who I was.
"Mr. Coleman is very particular about his schedule," she said. "If you’d like, I could see if he would be willing to meet with you later in the week."
Okay, this was taking too long. "Just one second," I said.
I wanted to walk in on him, to surprise him, but I could tell that wasn’t going to work. I texted him instead.
Reception, please.
And waited.
The redhead rolled her eyes and went back to her computer while I stood staring over the cubicles. There were what looked like closed offices along the furthest wall, the one that would have a view of the harbor.
The redhead peaked over the rim of her glasses at me. I sent James another text.
Reception! Go to your reception, jerk!
