right up to him and tell him that he gives me funny feelings, and I’d like to see where those lead. And
yes, that could be career suicide. But for the first time in my life, I don’t think I’d care.
If I was braver.
“As entertaining as your hiding from me has been, we need to talk.”
Imeeplike the roadrunner and bang my head against the wall as I search for Zach. I find him,
hands in his pockets, standing a few feet from me. He winces as I rub the back of my head, then
smooths his expression back into the polite one I’ve gotten to know so well this week. Who knew I
would miss him scowling at me?
“Ah…talk. About?” I wince because, of course, I know what about. I take a deep breath and
mentally put on a bravery cape.I can do hard things.“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about this
weekend.”
“Did you?” he bites off, scowling. “Could have fooled me. What, with all the running away and
hiding.” He pulls his hands out of his pocket and tugs at his light blue tie. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.
This weekend was a whole series of mistakes, and it’s best we just move on.”
Mistakes.
Being the woman without a heart was easier. Maybe I should go back to being her. I didn’t want to
move on or forget…but it’s not just up to me, obviously. And my cowardly lion act this week
obviously killed any chance we might have had. It’s just as well. Maybe skipping all this male-female
drama my whole life was the smart move. Who knows where I’d be right now if I’d met some guy in
high school? I could be married with three teenagers right now, yelling at them to pick up their dirty
socks and being chased around the kitchen by my husband.
It actually sounds pretty nice.
“We have an event to go to tomorrow night,” he says flatly, moving to sit on a desk a few feet from
me. All I can see is the top of his head. He doesn’t seem inclined to accommodate my spot on the
floor, so I stand and move to the large design board, so I don’t have to look right at him. It’s covered
with images of harried mothers, minivans full of stuff, and happy families. All things I know nothing
about.
“Yes, I remember. For the hospital.”
He nods and stares at me like I’m a frog pinned to a dissection board in tenth-grade biology. “This
is one of the biggest events of the year. Brash is the biggest donor and the only sponsor for the event.
