“What can I say,” Tyler said as he picked a raspberry Brioche out of the basket. “I’m invested in your misery.”
Fuck. They’d been friends at one point, best friends. What details had he missed that could have
saved it? Had he fucked up a twenty-year friendship the same way he’d ruined things with Clover? Not that it mattered. There was no going back. Life didn’t give you do-overs. All he could do was step back, reconfigure all the pieces, and create a new big-picture plan. The thing was, he was having a hell of a time imagining one without Clover in it.
“You’re a real asshole.” But there wasn’t any heat in Sawyer’s words.
Tyler gave another shrug. “True, but tell me anyway.”
So what had he done? How had he ruined it? The answer was as simple as it was painful. “When I had the opportunity to tell her everything, I didn’t. Now she won’t talk to me.”
“And by everything do you mean that you love her?”
“Fuck this.” He shot up from his chair. Why was he even talking to Tyler? It’s not like they were friends or strangers. They were enemies. “I’m not having this conversation with you of all people.”
Unimpressed by the outburst, Tyler stayed sitting. “You have to make her listen. Go all out if you have to, make an idiot out of yourself—God knows I’d like a front row seat for that—but make her listen and don’t fuck it up when you get that second chance.”
“I’m supposed to take advice from you?”
“Do or don’t.” Another shrug. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Bullshit. This was all bullshit. Clover had made her feelings known. Twice. She didn’t want him and he didn’t beg. Not ever. For anyone. He’d told her that straight out in the lobby at Carlyle High-Rise. He had to get out of here. Away from Clover’s neighborhood, from Tyler, from the images he couldn’t get out of his head of what could have been with her. Anger and frustration obliterating everything else, Sawyer strode away from the table. He made it three steps before some urge he didn’t understand stopped him.
He turned back to the table where Tyler sat with his paper and empty basket of pastries. “I’m sorry. About Irena. About all of it.”
Tyler eyed him warily but didn’t respond. Shit. Sawyer didn’t know where all this was coming from, but it was past time they cleared the air.
“After Mr. Lim signs the paperwork, he said you’ll be my liaison with the company,” Sawyer continued.
Tyler nodded.
“Then let’s start fresh, for old time’s sake.”
Cynical didn’t begin to cover the look on Tyler’s face as he answered, “Are you getting sentimental on me?”
“Just too old to hold on to bullshit.” And it was true. He should have realized it earlier. He should have realized a lot of things earlier.
“To new beginnings.” Tyler lifted his coffee mug in a toast. “Good luck with your girl.”
But she wasn’t his and that was the problem.
With a nod, Sawyer turned and started walking. He should just go home, but he couldn’t get Tyler’s advice out of his head. Go all out. He had no fucking clue what that would entail. Then, he turned the corner and ended up outside a fence around a Carlyle build site for a new apartment tower. The outside was completed and a mobile hydraulic work platform was parked in front of it, its scissor legs extended so the platform was at the third-story window—the same level as Clover’s apartment. He pulled out his phone and called Amara.
“I need the foreman on the Sixty-Third Street project, my lawyer, and a notary,” he told her, the pieces coming together as he talked. “And a pineapple shake from Vito’s.” He paused to listen to her question. “No, I’m not drunk. I’m getting Clover back.”
…
Clover taped the printout of the Iceland trip itinerary to her vanity mirror, trying to avoid seeing herself in it. The dark circles, the pale cheeks, the tired turn to her mouth. All of those would go away. She wasn’t as sure of the mess inside but before she could fall into that black hole, her phone buzzed. She glanced down at where it lay on her vanity table and her breath caught.
Sawyer: Turn around.
Knowing she should ignore him but unable to block him out completely, she pivoted. Sawyer stood outside her third-floor window holding a pineapple shake in one of Vito’s distinctive red plastic glasses. Her stomach did that loop-de-loop thing, and her pulse sped up just at the sight of him. It wasn’t fair. Maybe if she could think of him as a teammate it wouldn’t be so hard. Of course, if she could do that none of this would really matter.
Promising herself that she wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t settle for being a teammate, she walked slowly to the window and peeked out. He was on some sort of raised platform like window washers used for the lower floors. There was a man in a suit with him who was holding a briefcase tight to his chest and sweating like he was an inch from the sun and an older woman in a dress who looked like she’d seen it all before and hadn’t been impressed by any of it since 1983. On the sidewalk below, people were stopping to gawk. A police cruiser had pulled over and two cops were getting out.
She firmed her resolve, flipped the lock, and opened her window. “I’ll take the shake, now go away before the cops arrest you.”
Sawyer handed her the shake and laid his hand on the windowsill before she could slam it shut. “Clover, I want to introduce you to my attorney, Barry Crysling, and Delores Nars, a notary. I want to reopen negotiations.”