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CHAPTER TWELVE
Zach
“Tulip, how are you?” Isaid as soon as the line connected, not giving her achance to say hello first.
Predictability was created for boring people.
“Tulip?” Laura’scurt voice answered me. “There’sno Tulip here, sorry, umm, Thor?”
She wanted to play then. Maybe even punish me for not giving into her three days ago. That was cool. Iloved games. Being in aplayful mood meant Icould’ve played too by teasing her with all the times I’dbeen hard for her in these three days while in my office, at home, and sometimes even at the gym while we were apart.
She’dbeen everywhere. Every—fucking—where.
“If you forgot, Ican make you remember, just say the—”
“Olivia, hand over the phone.”
Ipaused when Iheard another Laura in the background.
“Since when do you know adude named Thor?” Laura One murmured. More shuffling noises ensued.
“It’san inside joke. Go make me coffee, please,” Laura Two told Laura One, or whoever was on the other side with her. The line went dead of both of them until my Laura—my? huh?—spoke, “Zach, hi.”
“You never said you had atwin.” Itwisted my lips, feeling bad for not knowing anything about this part of her. During three years of friendship and acouple of months of performing one of the most personal acts with her, Ihadn’tonce asked about her family. To add to my guilty conscience, Iremembered how she let me talk about mine and Ididn’tbother with showing interest in hers.
“Idon’t. It’smy younger sister, Olivia,” Laura muttered into the phone and Ihad to strain my ear to understand everything she said. “She’sbeen having issues with our parents and will be here for the next three weeks, so if you called about getting together…”
She trailed off and Ifilled in the sentence for her. “You can’t. Iunderstand.”
Iswiveled the chair around to overlook the city, wishing the view would assuage the pang of disappointment, which had nothing to do with not having sex and everything to do with not seeing her.
“What if we all watched amovie or something together? As friends?” It was ashot in the dark, but Ihad nothing to lose.
“Idon’tknow.”
Idon’tknowhad alovely ring to it that kind of reminded me ofmaybe. “Come on. Poor girl must be bored out of her mind staring at you working all day.”
“I’ll have you know we work together, and she loves it.” Alow slapping sound echoed. “Shut up, Olivia, you totally do.”
“Great, then I’ll drop by on Friday night for amovie, unless you’re working.”
“I’mnot, but…”
“Great, I’ll bring the food and leave the movie choice to you.”
Whatever drove me into acting like the lawyer Iwas, pushing to close adeal, was beyond me. Ididn’tstop to question myself either. Ididn’teven stop to consider the mountains of work that would wait for me for leaving hours ahead of eleven at night.
“Idon’thave to be at awedding. But Zach, Ihave to edit and, well…” Iunderstood she implied having me hanging around and maybe fucking up while Olivia visited her was out of the question.
“Ihonestly don’tthink it’sagood idea.”
The next words Isaid were hushed, to be heard only by the two of us. “What Idid at Thomas’s… Iwas out of line. Iwon’tdo it again. You can trust me.”
Laura silently mulled over my decision while Iheld my breath. It was messed up, how much Ineeded to see her. So much that it made me break my promise to her, to not bitch about her working hours.
But agirl had to eat, didn’tshe?
“Fine.” She blew out air in exasperation, even though the smile in her voice implied otherwise. “Come by at seven and don’tbe late. We have to be at awedding on Saturday morning.”
