“You’ve been in a pissy mood since Christmas Day. And you weren’t working then. For that matter, I have no idea what you were doing. All I know is that I came back from my round of holiday tidings with Gregory, and the place was empty but your car was in your slot. So I ask again. Where were you?”
“It’s not a huge mystery,” I say. “I went to see a Christmas double feature with a friend at the Chinese theater.”
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, so it’s almost been a full week since I walked away from Damien, very firmly closing the door on that chapter of my life.
And, no, that decision did not make me happy. And despite what I’ve told Jamie, I know exactly how my pissy mood originated. “It’s been days and days. Why is this still bugging you?” I demand.
“Honestly?” Jamie says, then flops down on the couch beside me. “I don’t know why it’s bugging me. Except maybe because you’re keeping secrets from me. And because I caught you in your room with a blade. Hello? Isn’t that reason enough?”
I close my eyes, regret filling me. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking. I get it. Really.”
She exhales loudly. “So you’re not cutting?”
“Swear,” I say. “Do you want me to show you? I will. I’m not hurting myself, Jamie. I’d tell you. You and Ollie have my back. I know that.”
“I thought you did. But then the other day…” She trails off with a shrug.
“I fucked up. I did.” I take her hand. “But I promise I’m okay.”
“Then what’s with you?” Jamie stands up. “Dammit, sorry. Okay, I get it. Not my business if you’re not cutting. Fine. I’m curious as hell, but if you want to keep a secret from your very best friend in the whole universe, then you go ahead and do that.”
“Stark,” I say, and watch her completely freeze.
“Say again?”
“Damien Stark. He called and invited me to the movies.”
“And you went? After I warned you about his rep with women?”
I lift a shoulder. “Yeah, well, I decided what the hell.”
“Did you fuck him? Oh, god, Nik, Ollie can never know. He’d die.”
“I didn’t fuck him,” I say, but since this is Jamie and she really is my best friend, I bite my lower lip and then admit, “but I really wanted to.”
“You do not want to be one pearl on a string of women.”
“I don’t,” I agree. “And I don’t think I would have been. He treated me, I don’t know, like a diamond.”
“That’s because he’s a manwhore who knows how to handle himself. Wait. You said would have been. So does that mean you’re done? Finished?”
I nod.
“Well, good for you. Because of Ollie, right?”
I start to say yes, because that’s what she wants to hear. But now that I’ve started talking, I want to truly talk. I want someone to understand, even just a little, what I left on the table when I walked away.
“No. Not because of Ollie. Because of these.” I slide my hands along my inner thighs and then my hips. “He has women like Carmela falling at his feet. He wants me because I’m pretty. And, I don’t know, because we can talk and seem to have this connection. But he doesn’t know all my baggage. And he doesn’t know what I look like under my clothes. And the woman he thinks he wants doesn’t exist.”
“And you didn’t tell him?” She’s back on the couch.
“How could I?” I bend over and put my forehead in my hands as if that can hold back the pain of my loss. “He said he’d always protect me,” I tell her softly. “And I think he really meant it.”
Jamie puts her arm around my shoulder. “Nik, honey, you just met him.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not like that. I know him, James. I don’t know how, but somehow I do. And he knows me, too. But not all of me. Not my secrets.”
“Then you made the right decision,” she says, though for the first time, I hear hesitancy in her voice. “Now you just need some time.”
She rocks me a little, and even though I know that it’s weird, and that we didn’t know each other for very long, and that Ollie is such a good choice for me, and that pretty soon I’ll forget all about Damien Stark, I let myself cry. And I let Jamie rock me. And little by little, I start to feel better.
I’m about cried out when my phone rings. I glance at the coffee table, but I don’t recognize the number.
“Might be a fabulous new client,” I say. “Get enough of those over the next week, and maybe I can still get my office.” I’ve given up on the Stark contract. I figure if you snub the boss, you pretty much toss away the possibility of lucrative licensing agreements.
Which goes a long way to explaining why I’m so surprised when I answer the phone and hear Damien’s voice. “Ms. Fairchild.”
“I—Damien. Hi.”
Beside me, Jamie sits up straight. Then she leans toward me in a rather transparent attempt to overhear. At the moment, I’m too flabbergasted to care.
“I wanted to let you know that I’m leaving tomorrow night for New York.”
“Oh. Um.” I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that. “Well, happy New Year.”
“I’m taking one of my private jets from the Santa Monica airport. Leaving at eight tomorrow night. I’ll be spending New Year’s Day in Manhattan then flying back. It’s a whirlwind trip, but I thought—or, rather, I was hoping—you might join me.”