“Right,” I say, guilty as charged.
“So . . .?”
I swallow and fess up. “Well, we wound up getting back together, actually.”
Violet flips up on her side. “You did?”
I tap the headrest, gently reminding her. “I can’t work my magic if you’re on your side.”
“I know, but tell me stuff. How did that happen?”
“I’ll tell you, but let me do it as I rub, okay?”
She returns to her front, wriggling around till she’s back in the position.
“Here’s how it started . . .”
I rub and talk. Violet asks questions as I go. “So what happened after the wig party?”
“We had earth-shattering, toe-curling sex.”
“Yum.”
“And I spent the night.”
“So what’s the problem, then?”
“In the morning, things started to go downhill,” I say, and then I tell her about the proposal. “It’s crazy, right?” I ask as I knead my hands over her lower back.
“Yes, it’s too soon to propose. He jumped the gun. He was pretty impulsive.” She breathes out heavily as I dig my thumbs along her spine. “But what if there’s a middle ground? Something in between you leaving and him proposing?”
“But I didn’t leave,” I insist. “I had to come here and work.”
“Sure,” Violet says, her tone understanding. “But to him, it might have felt like leaving.”
Leaving.
My chest hurts, a fresh, sharp pain.
I know how that feels. To be left.
27
Tyler
* * *
Carly pretends to toss a bone to the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Good boy,” she says, clapping. “Look, Tyler. He’s chasing after it.”
I point to the bone-retrieving dinosaur. “He’s almost got it. You can do it, boy,” I say as we weave through the lobby of the Museum of Natural History, one of her favorite places in the city.
She also happens to be a huge fan of Night at the Museum, so this trip is a total win-win.
The only problem is I’m not feeling like such a winner today.
I’m feeling like one helluva loser. As we stroll over to the bison exhibit, I try to pinpoint where I went wrong this morning. Asking her to marry me felt so goddamn smart, so fucking strategic when I walked into Katherine’s jewelry store on Fifth Avenue after my drinks with Simon the other night. With one grand gesture indeed, I was rewriting the past. Repairing all the damage that had been done. A clean sweep.
And I’d be keeping her forever.
Or so I thought.
I heave a harsh sigh as I rub a hand over the back of my neck. So much for my plans. I failed abysmally at assessing Delaney’s wants and needs. Proposing to her seemed brilliant. The best way to let her know I’ve changed. I’m not the man who walked away. I’m the man who’ll stay.
Carly tugs on my shirt. “Can we go see the capuchin monkey?”
“Let’s track down that banana eater,” I say.
Now is not the time to sort out my romantic fuck-ups. It’s Carly time, and for the next two hours, we do our best to play our own version of Night at the Museum as we wander through the exhibits. Along the way, I ask her how the big multiplication is going at school.
Her hazel eyes light up with excitement as she rattles off the new math facts she’s learned, and how much she likes her teacher.
Her words from the day at the park echo into my present dilemma.
“My teacher says the key is to follow the steps. Don’t cut corners, and take your time.”
Ding, ding, ding.
I grab tight to the brass rail in front of the stuffed buffalos to steady myself. That’s where I went wrong. Delaney was right. I treated her like a business transaction, focusing solely on the outcome. I thought I could slam dunk my way back into her heart. I didn’t take the time. I didn’t follow the steps. I cut all the fucking corners.
But a relationship is built on a foundation that needs corners.
As well as bricks, mortar, and plenty of time to shore it all up.
I skipped those steps, figuring I could apply my business strategy to romance.
But the truth is, I went only for the endgame with her. While I might go big in deals, I do so with meticulous strategy and preparation. I am a man with a playbook and a rock solid game plan. That’s why I can brave the risky deals for my clients, because I’ve done the homework.
With Delaney, I didn’t study, but I thought I’d win the deal anyway. I flash back to Clay’s words when I landed the Jay Benator deal. He told me that the deal wasn’t as crazy as I thought. “You knew your stuff,” he’d told me. “You took the time to understand what Craig needed, and then you delivered so you could get your client’s goals met. That’s why you’re one helluva daring attorney.”
After I drop off Carly with her dad that afternoon, I head uptown and go for a walk in my neighborhood, running through scenarios—how to apologize, how to prepare, how to explain what I really want from Delaney. I cycle through all our conversations in the last few weeks, reviewing every detail, weighing what matters most, and adding up the facts.
I stop at a café, grab a coffee, do a little research on my phone, then make a few calls. Just like I did when I showed up at her work ready to strip, I have all my details together. I won’t be Bungee Jump Tyler this time.
I'm just grabbing my phone to dial her number when I see a message from her that makes me sit up straight.