Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“I just need more time,” Stevie replied. “Please. This is all happening so fast - with the restaurant, with you, with the baby - I just - I can’t do it all at once, I can’t deal with all of it.”
“You can.” I stood up. “You’re stronger than you think, Stevie. You stood up for yourself with the menu and the restaurant, you did the bold thing then. How is this any different?”
“It’s…my career is one thing, these are my personal relationships.”
“Well it doesn’t make sense for us to wait. The longer we wait the worse it’ll get.”
Stevie shook her head. “We have to find the right moment. And that hasn’t happened yet. I just got back, we need a little more time.”
I sighed. I didn’t agree with this, not at all, but I also couldn’t take the choice away from Stevie. It was our choice, the both of us, and if we disagreed…
The whole thing was a mess.
Stevie shifted her weight, looking a bit guilty. For the first time since she’d walked into my office at the restaurant, I felt awkward with her. “I guess… goodnight, then.”
She was right, of course, there was no way that we were going to sleep in the same bed if we weren’t decided on it being all right if we were caught, and I also needed some space. I nodded. “Goodnight.”
I kissed her softly on the cheek, because we might be on opposite sides of this and I might be frustrated, but I still wanted her. This wasn’t the end or anything. Just a hiccup. God knew I’d had plenty of hiccups with Virginia in the course of our relationship. It just happened sometimes, whether the relationship was a friendship or a romance or family. We’d get through it.
But right then, I was ready to punch a wall in frustration.
We went to bed separately, and I could only hope that it wouldn’t be long before I held her in my arms again.
Chapter Thirty: Stevie
I had been back for three days, and I couldn’t take the pressure anymore.
Michael was getting more and more moody, and I couldn’t blame him. It was hard to keep a secret like this, from my best friend, and from his daughter. I couldn’t exactly know what that was like, seeing as I wasn’t a parent… yet… but I could imagine it didn’t feel that much better to him than it did to me.
Worse than that, his moodiness was noticeable by everyone, including Brooke. She seemed confused, poor thing, wondering why he would be like this after he was so excited to have me home and back in the restaurant where I belonged.
I was terrified that Michael would tell Brooke if I didn’t. Not that he didn’t have a right to tell her, but I wanted to be there. I wanted to at least get to explain my side of things. And I knew how he’d spin it, to try and salvage my relationship with Brooke. He’d say that he seduced me, that it was all his fault, blah fucking blah. When really if anything I’d been the one to seduce him. I’d done this. Me.
I knew I had to tell her. But how? How could I lose my best friend? We’d been friends for so long, she was like a sister to me. I had told her everything that was going on in my life, had trusted her with all of it, and she had trusted me in turn. It would gut me to lose her.
Possibly even worse than that would be if I ruined Brooke’s relationship with her father. Brooke was my friend and I loved her, and she deserved to be happy. Already the relationship with one of her parents was shot (although that wasn’t anyone’s fault but Virginia’s). How could I come along and ruin her relationship with her other parent too?
Of course… it would be worse if I didn’t tell her and she found out some other way. Michael was right about that. The longer this went, the more it turned into going behind Brooke’s back. She’d gone through that once already with Virginia. Virginia hadn’t seen what she’d done as cheating on Brooke, she’d only seen it as cheating on Michael. But in sleeping with another man, she had shown that she didn’t care about what the fallout would do to Brooke, how she was taking time away from being with Brooke, how she was keeping secrets, and how in destroying her marriage to Michael it was all affecting her daughter.
I couldn’t make Michael do that to Brooke. But telling her was going to be messy, I just knew it.
None of this was easy. It made me feel sick, and not just from my damn hormones.
Andy was glad to still have the apartment, and my parents didn’t seem concerned that I was staying with Michael and Brooke. If only they knew the full story. I hoped that they wouldn’t accuse Michael of doing anything when I was underage—he hadn’t even thought of me that way at the time. I was just a kid to him. When I’d walked into his office, I had seen it in his eyes: he’d been staring at me like I was an entirely new person.