It was true. When she wasn’t anchoring the weekend news, she was being flown around the world to anchor the Olympics or various royal weddings.
“Anyway, enough about me. What’s going on with you? You never come over this late.”
“I had dinner with Wilder today,” I said.
“Oh, so he does have a name.”
“We were supposed to hook up one time, Coco. One time. I let him talk me into another. And another. And then he stayed the night. And then we had dinner.” My shoulders fell, as if the weight of the issue was too heavy for them to bear a second longer. “He invited me over tonight.”
“Sounds like he might actually be a nice guy.”
“That’s the problem. I’m starting to like him. I didn’t want it to get this far. I’ve completely fucked myself over.”
“How so?”
“If I walk away from him,” I said, “I’m going to miss him like crazy. I’ll always wonder what might have been. And if I stay, try to make this work with him, whatever it is, I know myself—I can’t juggle my career and a relationship with someone like him. I already have too much on my plate. And I don’t want to get hurt again—”
“Addison, stop.” Coco placed her hand on mine. “Slow down. You’re getting all worked up over this. You need to let go of this notion that you can control everything.”
I huffed. Coco Bissett was telling the world’s biggest control freak she couldn’t control a damn thing anymore.
“You can’t control the way you feel about this guy,” she said. “You can’t force yourself not to like him. And you can’t control whether or not you get hurt again.”
“You’re right.” I sucked in a deep breath. Coco’s room smelled like lavender and vanilla, a far cry from the second-hand smoke scented trailer bedroom we’d once shared. I ran my hand over the soft fabric of her duvet, the one we’d picked out together when I’d helped her with her wedding registry at Neiman Marcus years ago. I bet when we were picking it out, she never thought she’d be sleeping on it alone just a few short years later. “Do you ever regret marrying Harrison?”
“Never.” She didn’t miss a beat. “I loved him, Addison. We had some amazing years together. We might fight like cats and dogs, but I wouldn’t trade our history for the world.”
I brought my fingers across my lips, remembering the way Wilder felt when he’d kissed me in the cab. He liked me. He really liked me. All I ever did was be myself around him, and he liked me anyway.
“So if you’re asking if I think you should be with this guy,” Coco said, “my answer is yes. If you like him, be with him. Don’t worry about everything else. It’ll all fall into place.”
“I need time to think about all this.” I tucked a wisp of hair behind my right ear. “This just happened so fast.”
“All right. Give yourself a deadline. Give yourself until the end of the week to decide what you want to do.”
An intense fatigue washed over my body from head to toe, though I suspected some of it was emotional and not physical. “I should get going. It’s late.”
“You feel better?” Coco asked. “Get everything off your chest like you wanted?”
We stood and I wrapped my arms around my sister, breathing in her fabric softener and Jo Malone fragrance before she walked me to the door.
“Call me if you need anything, okay?” she said as she watched me leave. And I could’ve sworn I heard her whisper, “Don’t be scared, little sister.”
Though it might have been a childhood memory playing in my ear. She’d always been my voice of reason, and the one person I turned to when I didn’t know where else to turn. Her answer for everything was always a simple, “Don’t be scared, little sister.”
* * *
I’d left Wilder a voicemail that night, telling him I needed some space. I didn’t elaborate or go on. I didn’t give him false hope or twist the knife I’d just stabbed him with. I simply told him I needed space.
And space he gave me.
I searched for him everywhere I went, wondering if I’d run into him as I dined with clients or as I rounded the street corner by my apartment. I searched for him as I hosted open houses, wondering if he’d stop in. I’d glance into Kyle’s office when I passed, wondering if they happened to be meeting. But worst of all, my hands searched for him in the early morning hours, remembering that morning he’d stayed with me all night.
I lost myself in my work. Closings. Offers. Showings. Tours. Leads. Meetings. Market analyses. Listings. Rental and purchase agreements. If I stayed busy enough, I was fully convinced I’d forget about him for a bit. I needed my palette cleansed. Wilder was looping through my brain like an earworm, and I’d already memorized his taste, his touch, the way he felt inside me. The way his voice reverberated low and against my eardrum, sending my body into hysteria.
I never ran into him. And I never stopped thinking about him. Especially at the end of the day, when I had no work to do. When the T.V. was off and the phone was quiet. When the pitch black of my room swallowed me whole and the cool sheets wrapped around my body made me long for someone warm to curl up with. Those were the moments Wilder invaded my thoughts with a vengeance.
* * *
“You’re unusually late today.” The second I entered the office the next morning I found Brenda Bliss standing at Skylar’s desk. I was only twenty-seven minutes late, if she wanted to get technical.