“No, sit tight.” I send my graphic designer a message to let him know that I’ll finish up the app’s logo some other night. “Order a dry aged New York strip with extra butter for me. I’ll join you there in twenty minutes.”
“Really?” There’s a smile in her voice. “In that case, can you also take me to CVS when we’re finished?”
I hang up in her face.
Four (B)
Present Day
Penelope
At six o’clock, I emerged from the subway station at Lexington Avenue, heading straight toward the flock of photogs that were stalking Hayden.
“What did you think about his nudes leaking, Penelope?” “Is he still inside with Lawrence?” “Can you tell us how he’s currently feeling?” They yelled all at once.
I slid a pair of shades over my eyes as I moved through them, showing no emotion whatsoever as I made it in front of Sweet Seasons Coffee.
“How’s he planning to turn this one around?” “He’s still trending on Twitter!” “Were you the holding the camera while he was taking those pictures?”
I held back a groan at that last question and knocked on the door.
Within seconds, his security guard opened it wide enough to grab my hand and pull me inside.
“He’s upstairs, Miss Penelope,” Henry said. Then he lowered his voice. “Mr. Lawrence is on a bender, so tread lightly, and don’t say I never warned you about anything.”
I laughed. “Thank you, Henry.”
“Anytime.” He locked the door again.
When I made it to the top of the steps, Lawrence was pacing the other side of the floor and shouting into his phone.
Hayden was sipping a cup of coffee, looking completely unfazed.
“Hey.” I walked over and dropped my purse onto his table. “I told the photogs that you’re beyond embarrassed about what happened today. I also said that you’re gifting every offended person a bottle of eye-bleach and a memory-erase stick.”
“Thank you very much.” He smiled. “That’s exactly what Lawrence wants to do to fix this.”
“I knew it.”
He laughed. “Is that dress yours, or are you still borrowing things from strangers online?”
“It’s not borrowing. It’s sharing, and renttherunway.com dry-cleans everything before sending it out.”
“Hmmm.” He looked me over. “You look good in that one.”
“Thank you. I’ll try to dress up more often, so you can keep saying nice things to me.”
“I personally prefer you in sweats.” He stood to his feet. “Let’s go outside and talk so we can have some privacy.”
“Where the hell do you two think you’re going?” Lawrence stopped pacing. “Don’t you dare go out there.”
“Relax,” Hayden said. “We’re going to the alley.”
“Be back in ten minutes.”
“Twenty,” we said in unison.
“Fine.” He returned to his call, shouting as if he’d never lost a beat.
Hayden led me downstairs and outside where we often whenever our bench in Central Park was out of the question.
The street was blocked off with a deceiving wall that most people (more importantly, the photogs) thought led to nowhere. Bright pink lights hung high—complementing the iron rose chairs, and a small fire pit spewed short flames.
The manager followed us outside, setting two frappes and a tray of macarons on a table before walking away.
“So—” Hayden leaned against the wall. “Who’s this ‘the one that got away’ guy?”
“Simon Gaines.” Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as if I was still in the airport with him. “He was my study partner, and he’s pretty much a walking Prince Charming.”
“Anytime you say that, the guy ends up being a villain in the end.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I never got to spend that much time on campus since I was still skating, but he always walked me back to my dorm whenever it was raining, went out of his way to help me on campus if I called, and threw hints here or there about ‘us’ but I wasn’t sure if I should catch them because—” I paused. “You and I weren’t talking at that point.”
“So, you met him during our Cold War?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
We stared at each other for several seconds, like we always did whenever that sixteen-month gap in our friendship came up. We never talked about that era; we let it lay abandoned and forgotten. Casualties of a painful past better left unvisited for good.
The thought of it still made my heart ache from time to time, and I still blamed Hayden for starting it, but time had healed most of the wound. Supposedly.
“Anyway,” Hayden said, shattering the silence. “Keep going.”
“Yeah, anyway—” I cleared my throat. “This one time when we were driving to a movie, he saw a turtle that escaped from a pet shop and he pulled over to save it, so no car would kill it. Then he took a half hour detour and set it free in the ocean.”
“He put a pet store turtle in the sea?” He raised his eyebrow. “He probably killed it faster than the traffic would’ve.”