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Oh, the irony.
“They’re not very big things,” she admits, sounding almost shy. “Try windsurfing. Learn how to horseback ride. But some are, I guess. I’d like to travel to all fifty states.”
I nod, taking a step toward the front door. “It’s good to have goals.”
“It is.” Summer rocks back on her heels, looking up at me. “Hearing some of your bucket list goals would help me, you know. To get to know you better.”
“That’s a much better prompt than asking if I’m a cat or dog person.”
“It’s on the list, too,” she says with a smile. “Won’t you at least give me one teeny, tiny goal?”
“You never give up, do you?”
“Getting to know you better is my life’s mission.”
It’s an exaggeration, a joke at best. So it doesn’t make me panic. If anything, it makes me…
No.
It’s time for me to go now.
“Thank you for tonight,” I tell her. “For accompanying me to the auction.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says, and the softness of her voice makes it seem like she genuinely means it. Like I hadn’t coerced her through the bet.
I reach for the doorknob and speak with my back to her. There’s no reason to say anything more, and I don’t know where I find the words. “Whitewater rafting,” I say. “That’s one of my goals.”
9
Summer
The enormity of what we’d done doesn’t hit me until the next day, when the pleasant buzz of champagne has gone and left an aching head in its stead. Anthony had come up to my place, on my insistence. He’d seen where I lived. The mess, the trinkets, my open bedroom door and unmade bed. That stupid bucket list. He’d seen it, read all of the things I’d put down on paper as a way to convince myself to think big.
My ex-boyfriend’s voice hasn’t rung in my head for months, but it does again this morning. His subtle put-downs, reminding me I shouldn’t be too much, too forward, that it would be better if I let him do the talking. I try to shove Robin back down, just like I’d finally, eventually, shoved him out of my life.
Anthony is a world apart from Robin, the two as different as two men could be. One quiet where the other couldn’t stop talking; one stoic where the other was smarmy.
While Anthony can be intimidating, I can’t imagine him saying the sort of things Robin sometimes did. Insults wrapped in words of sweetness. No, Anthony wouldn’t do that.
I hadn’t gotten a smile out of him yesterday, but it had been close. Next time, then.
My own thoughts give me a start. I should be focused on saving Opate, and not intrigued by the mystery that is Anthony Winter.
Not even if he gets more interesting by the day.
He isn’t set to come to the office until Wednesday, to go over the proposed creation of an Opate mobile app. I find myself counting the days until he does. Looking at the couch where he’d sat, too large in my too small apartment, a dark eyebrow raised at me. Like he couldn’t quite believe he was there, himself. Like he was as intrigued by me as I was by him.
When Wednesday rolls around, nervous energy dances through my veins all morning. It rises to a crescendo when the clock finally strikes eleven.
I hear his voice before I see him. Deep and cool and just faintly hoarse, reaching me through the door.
Suzy responds. “She’s in her office.”
My spine straightens, gaze flying to my half-open door. But he doesn’t enter.
Vivienne, then. Of course he’s going to my aunt first. I grab my notebook and head across the office to join them.
Vivienne waves me into her office. Her camel wrap dress fits her like a glove and she gives me a warm smile. “Mr. Winter has brought a host of suggestions for how we can transform the company. Come, I want to hear what you think, too.”
