If my heart was warm and squishy before, it was hot and completely melted now. If Claire was second place, did that make him first? Who was I kidding? We both already knew that he was. “You too. Will is a disappointing consolation prize compared to me.”
“Don’t I know it.” And he actually sounded serious.
“See you later, Mason,” I told him, stepping to the sink to take care of the few dishes I’d abandoned last night.
“Bye, Eliza,” he murmured on his way out.
And then finally... I was alone. Back to how my apartment should be. Only this time, after the door had snicked shut and silence reigned as queen once more, I didn’t relish the solitude. I didn’t drink in the first breath of being alone in more than twelve hours. And I wasn’t glad Jonah had finally gotten out of my hair.
I wanted his presence back. His jokes. His apologies. His secret nerdiness. I wanted his hugs and his long sighs and the way he filled up every inch of my apartment and made it feel brighter.
But I was pretty sure that was how everyone felt about their best friend. Life was always better when you were together. And Jonah was that for me.
I was sure of it.
The best friend part, I meant.
What we had was just the normal, easy way all best friends were together.
I was positive.
Well, almost.
eight
Sunday evening,I was alone at the bar. I’d swung by to take some pics for Instagram while nobody was there.
It wasn’t that I was embarrassed to take aesthetic pics of cocktails while other people were around... but I was one-hundred-percent embarrassed to take aesthetic pics of cocktails while other people were around. The influencer life was so not for me.
But in an effort to make Craft insta-famous, I had spent the afternoon making our signature cocktails, taking pictures of all of them, and then drinking one or two by myself. Hey, it wasn’t in me to let good drinks go to waste.
Will had been out all day, so it had just been me. And it had been great. I rarely had the bar all to myself. So I relished the quiet afternoon of working with uninterrupted time by myself.
Claire and I had plans to go to dinner and get drinks later, so I had brought clothes to change into. The sponge she’d promised earlier in the week had been an “epic fail,” and she refused to let me eat or even see her “abysmal catastrophe that was an embarrassment to baking.” Anyway, I’d suggested going out, hoping it would pull her out of her existential baking crisis over a cake I had a hunch was perfectly fine and would have tasted amazing. She’d immediately agreed. Anything to get her away from her kitchen—her words.
I knew she would be early, even though I’d specifically asked her not to be. But first, I needed to wash everything I’d used for my photo shoot and put it away. Meanwhile, I was sipping a whiskey sour and taking some cute shots of our main floor.
The bar phone rang suddenly, slicing through my peace and scaring the living daylights out of me. Holy cow, I wasn’t expecting that.
Heart pounding and drink in hand, I walked over to the side of the bar and reached for the cordless phone plugged in by the cash register. We kept it on hand for the bar, but I had almost forgotten how to use one of those things.
“Hello, this is Craft,” I said pleasantly into the phone.
“Hi there, I’m looking for Will English,” a perky female voice from the other end answered.
I thought it was weird someone would be calling the bar instead of his cell phone and half wondered if it was a creditor. I knew Will was way too responsible to have debt collectors hounding his place of work. Still, the sinister sister side of me loved the idea of him being taught a lesson. “He’s not here right now,” I told the woman even though he very well might be upstairs, and I was just too lazy to track him down. Also, I hadn’t heard footsteps upstairs for hours, and when the bar was this empty, usually I could. “But I’d be happy to take a message for him.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, all schmoozy and saleswomany. I instantly became more suspicious. “Could you tell him that Emily Hertzig from Hertzig Home and Business called him back? I got his message this morning, and I would be happy to set up a meeting with him.”
My good-natured interest soured into self-righteous fury. Hertzig Home and Business? A quick Google search pulled up a local real estate agency. Number one in the city. I tamped down an angry scream and said, “No problem.”
Except I did have a problem. I had a huge problem.
Hanging up the phone before she could say another word, I stared at the glasses, knives, and other things I’d gotten dirty this afternoon, restraining the urge to start throwing things on the ground.
A real estate agent could only mean one thing—he was moving forward with his plans to open a second location.
Without Charlie and me.
