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I want to thank her too. Pottery is her passion, but it’s hard to think of other things while the bowl is being shaped between your fingers.
And today, I need all the distraction I can get.
We’ve moved on to the next bowl, with Mom working on it herself, when a familiar knock-knock-kna-knock-knock hits the door.
I freeze as Mom stops the wheel, wipes off her hands, and quickly goes to the door.
“Oh,” she says from the hallway. “Look who it is.”
“Did I come at a bad time?” Peyton’s voice rings so loud that it comes into the room as if she were here instead of at the door.
I find my fingers instinctively clenching on the end of the tabletop.
Next second, she’s sashaying into the room, bedecked in Louis Vuitton plastered with in-your-face monograms. Her potent perfume hits me first. It smells like cupcakes, if several generations of stinky, sugary cupcakes had babies together to produce the stinkiest, sugariest cupcake of all.
“Oh, Sierra. I didn’t realize you were here.” She gives me a smile. “I’m sure you’ve been helping Mom—but can you believe I got her a complete spa package at Nordica?”
“Oh, I can,” I say flatly.
“I heard about your new job,” she continues. “And that means you’ve met Nolan Storm? Well, you have to ask him if he knows Tom Cruise—I bumped into him at our company party the other day.”
And so, the contest begins again…
I can’t get to the door fast enough.
“Honey?” Mom asks. “Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, mind racing for an excuse—any decent, leave-worthy excuse. “I just remembered… I have something… something… very unmissable and very… Bye?”
I’m out the door before I can see the disappointment on Mom’s face. Mom never gives up hoping that Peyton and I will magically become BFFs, the poor woman.
As I’m heading for my car, my phone rings with another call… from Nolan. I reject it.
Right now, I’m not in a good headspace to deal with whatever he’s calling me about. Even if it’s good.
I’ve never claimed Mom is a good role model for her relationships with men, but still. Part of me sometimes wonders if she’s right. Can men be trusted?
Anyway, getting involved with Nolan Storm when he’s my boss seems like just asking for trouble.
And not the good kind.
I spend the rest of the day getting some errands done. I buy some groceries for my woefully empty pantry. I even splurge and pick up some dark chocolate wine for the twins and I next time we hang.
They both have dates tonight, so I crack into some of it myself.
I even give Horatio a bit of bacon, which results in some thankful face-licking.
I clean my room, go through my closet and finally, when there’s nothing else I can do to put it off, I call up Nolan.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say. “I just wanted to say that I understand your position.”
Wait now, where the hell is this coming from?
“My position?” he asks.
“About us. That it’s probably not a good idea for us to get involved.”
The more I’m saying, the more it feels like a weight is being lifted off me.
“I said that?” Nolan sputters.
“You don’t have to,” I say coolly. “Anyway, see you on Monday.”
And then I hang up.
“There,” I tell Horatio, who’s eyeing me like I have some more bacon and am simply hiding it. “It’s as simple as that.”
Although it doesn’t feel that simple at all.
Especially not when I reject Nolan’s next call.
First, I’ll give him time to think about what I said, not just call me up and argue with me as a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe he’ll come to see that I’m doing both of us a favor.
Sunday, the twins and I go for a hike—Josie’s idea—which Wynona moans about, at least until we ditch her at the trailhead and come back to find her with a tatted-up ranger who is describing different types of flora and fauna, which, more surprisingly, she actually seems interested in.
Anyway, Monday comes quickly enough. One minute, I’m gulping down ramen in the car at the stoplight while driving there, determined not to be late; the next, I’m hurrying into the office, scrubbing the last of the ramen out of my teeth with my tongue.
Going in the side entrance, I manage to avoid him, and I’m just at my office when: “Hey.”
I freeze. So much for avoiding him.
“Hey,” I say. “Good weekend?”
Now isn’t the best time to notice how painfully handsome he looks in that plain white tee, the one that shows off his black-tatted arms, the arms that held me, stroked me… and…
A tremor goes through me.
Oh, fuck it all.
“Not really,” he says. “You?”
“It was alright. Got to go for a hike, which was nice. Anyway, I’m almost done with that second article. I’ll probably be sending it your way for approval this afternoon. As for the third—”
