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“Hey. You okay, love?” Freya touched my shoulder as I suddenly put down my phone. She studied me. “Oh, honey. You look like a girl who had champagne first thing in the morning instead of breakfast.”
I laughed at her teasing, putting a hand to my stomach though the discomfort was in my chest. “Yeah, I think I might need to grab something to eat.”
“Go, go! Take a fifteen. Go outside. Grab some fresh air.”
I nodded, and with the rest of the team cooing at me like I was a little baby, I headed out of the conference room to take the elevator downstairs.
Well. You did this to yourself, I reasoned as I crossed the lobby of our building and went outside, with no particular destination in mind besides a place where I didn’t feel mentally like crap.
So this right here, I reminded myself as I walked up Fifth Avenue, is the danger of opening up your crush on Iain Thorn again.
He was easily one of the most complicated places in my brain to revisit.
Mostly because I had been so teenaged-in love with him back in the day, and as much as I wanted to believe I’d grown up since then—as much as I knew I very much had—I was still kind of Team Teen Holland in regards to the way Iain just poof and disappeared without saying goodbye.
No, he didn’t owe me anything, and no, we weren’t technically friends.
But still.
He could’ve emailed back a single line, or even passed a message along through Adam.
But he never did, and while I’d let go of my need to understand why years ago, that need had definitely just clawed its way back to the forefront of my mind.
Partly because of Camila.
Partly because of the emails.
But mostly because I knew that there was an expiration date to our arrangement, and despite the fact that I’d been telling myself I had everything completely under control, I did have feelings for Iain.
And not just dreamy, teenaged ones this time.
Real ones.
I didn’t want to, but I could finally admit it to myself, and just as I did, I felt my phone buzz in my hand.
IAIN: I shouldn’t take two days off when it’s this busy
Paused on the sidewalk, I stared.
Mostly at the word shouldn’t, because I’d learned that with me, Iain sometimes interchanged the words should and would.
So biting my lip, I fired off a simple three words.
ME: But would you?
I waited awhile for him to respond, and in that time, I told myself to just relax.
But once I was back at the office, sitting among my tipsy team at our desks, I finally got his one-word reply, and though I wanted n
othing more than to dial back my heart at least a bit, it sent me right back over the moon.
IAIN: Yes
23
IAIN
Fucking. Hell.
