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“Especially when it’s collective grief.”
I nodded. It had been the same with me and Scott. We’d both lost Jake. Before he died, we’d always called us the three musketeers, and when he’d gone… we’d both felt the pain. Neither of us had thought we’d be able to get through it.
It was why we were so close today. Despite the nine years between us, we’d stuck together and made it through. It was a lot the same as it was with Mackenzie.
I hadn’t realized just how much we had in common. When I looked at her after hearing all of this, I felt like in some ways, I was looking in a mirror.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said softly. “I’m glad you had people who could be there for you.”
“Thank you,” Mackenzie said and sniffed. She looked emotional, but she had a hell of a poker face. Slowly, though, she was starting to let her guard down with me and trust me.
“I can tell how you want to keep your mother’s memory alive by teaching Rachel’s kids the things you were taught.”
“Like what?” Mackenzie asked, confused.
“Like telling them from the start that Santa isn’t real.”
“Oh, that,” Mackenzie said and laughed. “You can’t get over that, huh? It’s not about keeping my mom’s memory alive so much as it is about trust.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Trust is everything. If you can’t trust someone, then what’s the point? That’s why I don’t like April Fool’s Day, either. It’s this one day out of the whole year where you can’t trust anyone or anything, and I hate it. Without trust, we have nothing. The important things are all based on trust, and we were all taught that the words that come out of your mouth have to mean something, they have to be real. It’s not so much about my mom as it is about the fact that Rachel and I would never lie to those kids. They should be able to trust us no matter what, and it starts at a very young age.”
My stomach twisted. God, what would Mackenzie say when she learned that I’d been keeping the project details from her? If trust was that serious…
“Mackenzie,” I started. I had to tell her about the stupid project and how the rules had changed. If it was that important to her, I couldn’t keep it from her. It was wrong, not only from a moral standpoint but also because trust was clearly a big deal to Mackenzie.
When we’d started working together, it had been fine, but the more I got to know her as a person, the more I cared.
“Yeah?”
“This project we’re working on—”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “You were the one telling me we weren’t going to talk about work today, and that’s where we’ll keep it. I’m serious. I’m having too much fun not thinking about it at all.”
“But I need to—”
“Some other time, okay?” she said.
I studied her before I finally nodded.
“Okay,” I said. I could wait one more day before I told her. It was already a bad time. I’d waited too long. She would be pissed already. What would one more day do?
16
MACKENZIE
Thepicnicwasperfect.It was everything I hadn’t realized I needed. Spending time with Troy, just getting to know him without thinking about work at all was the break I’d wanted without knowing it.
He was such a great guy, too. The more I got to know him, the more I felt like I could talk to him. He understood who I was in so many ways that no one else did, and I felt like we’d created a kind of bond that I hadn’t had with anyone before.
It also scared me. What would happen if I fell hard for this man and he didn’t feel the same way about me? This wasn’t supposed to be a relationship, after all. It had been all about work, and we were still gunning for the same contract. Technically, we were still rivals.
It was just getting harder and harder to see Troy as the enemy when we spent more time together as friends. Or as lovers.
Or whatever it was that we’d become.
We watched the sun setting after we’d finished our meal. It was a giant orange orb in the sky, sinking slowly behind the horizon, and it painted the sky with splashes of pink and purple. Troy leaned his shoulder against mine as we sat side by side, and I drank in his warmth, enjoying his company. We could talk about everything, and we could sit in silence and talk about nothing, and all of it was perfect.
