“Uh, what?”
“With me. Do you want to go out with me? On a date? I mean obviously not… you’re there, and I’m here so not… but somehow, some way I just… aaah!… It’s been a crazy day. I read over the romance manuscript because you said it was good, and I didn’t believe you. But then I looked at it, and I thought maybe you were right, andthenI pitched it to my editor, and she actually wants it, and maybe it’s happening, and that’s all because of you, so thank you.” I pause to breathe, because breathing is important.
“George, that’s great. Congratulations. I?—”
“And I have just liked getting to know you so much this last week. I like you. And I don’t think I’ve been imagining how we…click.” I take a deep breath. “I really, really like you. And I guess I was afraid to say that. But what’s the point of wanting things ifyou don’t even try to have them? And I want you, Owen. I mean not… I don’t…want youwant you. Well, I do but?—”
“George—”
“Oh Lord, yes, please save me from myself.”
I expect a laugh, but I get a deep sigh instead.
“I like you, too.”
“Well, good. That’s good…”
“And you haven’t been imagining anything…” Except right now I really, really hope I’m imagining the pained tone in his voice. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Oh.” And then, because when I humiliate myself, I really like to dig in deep, I say, “Is it because of the distance, because I was thinking that we could?—”
“No. It’s just… No, George. I’m sorry. It just wouldn’t work.”
For a minute, there’s no sound except both of us breathing over the line. Then I finally realize I need to say something.
“Okay,” I say. Because I’m brilliant that way. And because there isn’t anything elsetosay.
And then I hang up.
CHAPTER 45
OWEN
I setmy phone down on George’s coffee table, next to this week’sNew Yorker,which I’d been flipping through when he called. But I can’t bring myself to care about Ronan Farrow’s latest exposé anymore. I stare mindlessly at the screen until it goes dark.
George asked me out.
Where the fuck did that even come from?
He asked me if I wanted to go on some kind of date with him. See him. Romantically. And I… I said no.
A wave of nausea hits me, so strong that I actually grab for the waste bin beside the sofa, just in case.
It passes, but all I’m left with is an empty ache. I can hear George’s voice playing back in my head, and no matter what weird, fleeting, misguided thing led him to evenwantto go out on a date with me, there’s no escaping the knowledge that I hurt him.
The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt George. I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t quite manage it.
How did this happen? Why did he even ask? I mean, obviously, he was swept up in the excitement about his editorwanting to publish his book. Which is so, so great. I’m honestly ecstatic for him—he deserves it.
Butit just goes to show how different our worlds are. How much we don’t make sense.
Obviously, I know we’ve been talking a lot. Flirting. But this whole week, the swap, our texting, it’s like it happened in a separate space, outside of reality. I thought we both got that. There’s no way we work in the real world. “Boring” Owen Wilde was never going to beGeorge Knight’s boyfriend.
I’m not going to be George Knight’s anything. I’ve known that all along, but it hits me now, the implications of what I just did. He’s not going to call again. He won’t text. And even if he did, there’s nothing I can say to him after that.
So that’s it then. We’re done. Whatever this was, it’s over.
Someone yells an obscenity outside. Then it’s quiet again, and all I hear is the ragged sound of my own breathing.
