Until my phone starts vibrating so hard it nearly falls off the bedside table.
I roll over and snatch it before it does, and then I freeze.
It’s Bear.
I swallow, debating if I should answer. I ran into him downtown over the weekend, and seeing him for the first time in nearly a month knocked the breath clean out of me. He finally apologized for Friendsgiving — mostly because I couldn’t ignore him when he practically ambushed me in the middle of the street — and while I wanted to still be angry with him, one look at the remorse on his face, at the pain I knew he was in, and the last thing I could be was mad.
Shaking my head, I press the green phone button on my screen and put the phone on speaker, lying back and resting it on my chest.
“Hello?”
There’s a shuffling of noise, and then a breathless Bear. “You answered.”
And I can’t help it.
I smile.
“Indeed, I did.” I pause, swallowing down the nerves threading like a yarn ball in my throat. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah.” A breath. “Well, no, not exactly.”
I frown. “What’s going on?”
“I just… I’ve been thinking a lot since I saw you downtown.”
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “Okay…”
“God, now that I have you on the phone, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Jesus, Bear, you’re going to give me a heart attack if you don’t just spit it out.”
I think I hear a soft laugh, but then the line goes silent.
“Okay, well… here’s the truth of it.” Another pause. A swallow. “I don’t want to lose you, Erin.”
I can’t explain what those words do to me, how they hit me hard in the chest and steal my next breath, make me pop up straight in bed, make me grip my phone like a lifeline.
“I know we have both… we’ve put each other through…” He inhales a long breath, lets it go, and I know that he’s wishing for the right words to come to him.
I also know from the past that it’s impossible, because I’ve tried to find the right words to say to him more times than I can count.
“Can we please start over? I know that’s asking a lot, to try to erase and forget everything… but… I don’t want to just go on with my life and pretend like I don’t want you in it.”
I sigh, sinking back into my pillows as I scrub a hand back through my still-damp hair. “I don’t want to forget,” I finally croak out.
Bear is silent for a long moment before he says simply, “Oh…”
Silence.
“Well, I’m sorry I called so late,” he finally says. “I’ll let you get some—”
“I don’t want to forget because everything we’ve been through has made us who we are,” I finish. “I know it hasn’t all been easy. I’ve hurt you, you’ve hurt me, but…” I swallow, and then say it again. “I don’t want to forget. I don’t think I could forget,” I add. “Could you?”
“No,” he answers, honestly and quickly. “No, I don’t think I ever could.”
“Then I don’t think starting over is an option,” I say, playing with the lace hem of my sheets. “But… I don’t think that means we can’t be friends.”
A relieved exhale comes from the other end of the line. “That’s all I want, Erin. Just give me the chance to right my wrongs, and we can move forward together.”
I smile. “I like the sound of that.”
“So, friends?”
“Friends.”
“Perfect,” he says. And even though I can’t see him, I can picture his bright, wide smile when he adds, “I’ll have bracelets made.”
I bark out a laugh. “I think you’d need more of a necklace to fit around your beastly wrist.”
“And more of a ring to fit around your tiny one.”
We both chuckle at that, and then the line falls quiet, and I’m suddenly aware of how hard my heart is thumping in my chest.
“Goodnight, Bear.”
“Goodnight, Erin.”
THE CLICKING OF HIGH heels on a marble floor is one of my favorite sounds of all time.
There’s just something about that click, clack, click, clack that makes me feel powerful as fuck when I strut my ass through the office at Ball & Pen.
The new Ball & Pen.
In downtown Miami.
Where I’m the HBIC — Head Bitch in Charge.
Okay, so that’s not technically my title, but it might as well be. Celeste Landers, whom I met at the Okay, Cool Southeast Advertising Conference afterparty last year, was quick to snatch me up when she heard I’d left Okay, Cool.
Fortunately, she didn’t know the exact reason why I had left — no one did — which was about all the mercy I was receiving from Brandon since our breakup.
The thought of him still makes my stomach drop, even in my new bougie office with a view of Bayshore. I was honored to be hired by Mrs. Landers to essentially head the expansion of Ball & Pen with the new Miami office, and I’m already securing high-end clients for us left and right. When it comes to events, especially in the corporate and technology spaces, I’m confident there’s no one better than me.