“I’ve fucked up. I’ve forgotten something and I have to set it right.” He had to do it to stop the roar, to make peace with himself, to finally move on.
“You’re making no sense. If you’re telling me we’re over the crisis and we’ll be ready I believe you. You don’t need to beat yourself up. I just did it for you in front of half the company. Not our finest moment. You took five years off my life, but I’ll live.”
“I’m going home.”
“Sure, take the afternoon. We can both relax after Friday.”
“Home, Dillon.”
Dillon sat forward. “Holy fuck. This is about Jacinta.” He palmed his face again, scrubbing his eyes. “Dude, that’s seven months ago. Do you even remember seven months ago? It’s like seven billion dog years at the pace we’ve been working.”
Every memory was sharper by the minute multiplied by the time apart, thundering in his head. The privilege he’d had to be with Cinta thrown away for ambition and greed.
“Have you called her? Hell, call her. Take over the video conference room and have virtual sex with her twenty-four-seven for the next week, but you have to be here Friday.”
“I have to see her.”
“Sure. I’m the one who’s been telling you that. After Friday you can book a private island and pretend she’s buried treasure, but not right now.”
“Right fucking now. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What are you saying? You don’t even know if she remembers your name. She threw your arse out. She had better things to do, remember.”
Because he let her. Because it was easier than fighting her, and he’d had distant planets in his eyes and was too fucked up to realise he’d have to give up the world where she lived to get them.
“Mace, do I have to get a lawyer in here to point out to you why not being here Friday is detri-fucking-mental to your health?”
“You don’t need me. You can do this without me. It’s another milestone, there’ll be another and another, they don’t end.” Dillon would get over this. Or he wouldn’t, and that would be another milestone to live with.
“You’re tired, dude, you’re not thinking straight.”
“I’m going tonight.”
Dillon moved so fast Mace didn’t see him coming. Had him by the throat, out of the chair and backed up against the wall. “She was a one night stand who didn’t want you, and this is your future, our future. You’re going to choose her over me, over us, you’d better know what that means.”
He did. He was logging off permanently. “I quit.”
He let the dream go in the insane hope he’d find something real that was better.
And Dillon let him, throwing a punch at the meeting room wall that should’ve been Mace’s head. He went to his office. Shut himself in. No one was coming near him anyway. He wrote up instructions for the team and he called Jay. He only had one question. Everything else was just another obstacle to get around.
“Where is she?”
“Mace?” He didn’t know where Jay was, but by the sound of his voice, he’d woken him.
“Where is she?”
“Jacinta? “ Jay was awake now. “You’re rin
ging me in the middle of the night to ask where Jacinta is? What the fuck is this? Why would I tell you anything about her?”
“Because I love her, and I should never have let her push me away.”
He could hear Jay shifting about, the rustle of sheets. He could hear his own heart; not beating, shrieking, along with the roar in his head.
“Why would you think she wants anything to do with you now?”
“I don’t. But I need to see her. I need to tell her what I didn’t tell her then. I need to show her. And if she makes the same choice, then I’ll know it’s over.”