“I hope that if I were to ask Jennifer, she would agree with you. I won’t, but maybe that’ll give you something to think about. You should be focused on getting ready for what’s to come.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll find out. But only if you’re still here, Gage,” Nia stated and walked right past her.
CHAPTER 21
Becky
“Finally. It’s like she’s been trying to keep us apart ever since we got here.Weneed to talk,” Helena said as she closed the door to Becky’s room and locked it.
“I know. I’m sorry. I have been trying to follow Nia’s rules, but I should’ve just grabbed you. I didn’t want to mess up anyone else’s week, but I should have told Nia that I was going to talk to you.” She sat on the bed. “I didn’t do this on purpose, just so you know.”
“How would you have even done that?”
“Nia is a friend.”
“Youknowher?” Helena asked her and moved to lean against the dresser with her arms crossed over her chest.
“I do, yes. And she’s the kind of person who would absolutely do this and somehow do it exactly right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Keeping us apart; making us have a night with someone else; not letting us talk at all during the day by putting us in different groups or telling us that we can’t talk about the stuff we need to talk about. She’s usually right, though. She has a better track record than I do. She’s so good at this, it’s ridiculous, honestly.”
Becky shrugged.
“You have a girlfriend. That’s what I meant when I said we needed to talk. Maybe you don’t anymore, but you kind of ghosted me, Becky, so I don’t know.”
“I didn’t ghost you,” she argued. “We both got busy.”
“I texted you. I tried. You stopped replying, and I gave up because I figured you didn’t want our friendship to continue. Ididhave to let you go, technically.”
Becky looked toward the window and said, “I guess I should just be honest with you. If not now, when, right?”
“Have you not been honest with me before now?”
“I haven’t, no. And I’m sorry about that.” She returned her gaze to Helena’s. “I sent you on all those bad dates on purpose.”
“What? Why would you do that?”
“Because I really wanted you to fire me. I had this stupid plan: send you on bad dates, you let me go, and then,Icould ask you out.”
Helena dropped her arms and asked, “You wanted to ask me out?”
“Yes.”
“You have, or at least youhada girlfriend.”
“No, I didn’t. We broke up over a year ago.”
“What?”
“I lie to clients like you because I felt like I needed to be in a steady, long-term relationship to be able to stay in business and have credibility.”
“Oh, Becky…” Helena said, sounding disappointed.
“I know. It was wrong, and I’m not going to do it anymore. And Nia knew that I liked you because I told her, but I had no idea that you were going to be here until I showed up, I promise. She told me that this week’s event would be a good fit for me and that I might meet someone here. I saw you and couldn’t believe it.”
