Ani sat up more, and unfortunately she was farther from Raffi this way, but he kept his arm around her while she faced him.
“First off, I want to tell you this honestly. Since working on her wedding the past few weeks, I don’t know, it’s like the Kami spell has been broken. I see her more clearly. Sort of how you see her, although not as critically.”
“Really?” he asked, a tone of hopefulness in his voice she clung to.
“Yes, seriously. The things she demands of me, her total lack of regard for me. It got to a breaking point. I mean, she’s still my client—my biggest client, by far—so I’m bending over backward for her, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not reallymy pleasure to serveanymore. Or, I don’t know, I’ll serve her, as her wedding planner, but not with this wistfulit should have been us. I get it. We would not have worked out. We didn’t. And that’s how it was supposed to be.”
Raffi nodded thoughtfully. “For a while you thought breaking up was a mistake?”
“A long while. An embarrassingly long while. She just— I stupidly thought she was the one. She’s so fun-loving and spontaneous and brought me out of my shell. She’d say all of these insanely complimentary things about me, building me up, to a point where I was convinced that was love. But looking back, sometimes it seemed like they were just words. Not much else. Like, for example, when we had plans to meet on aFriday night but hadn’t settled on where or what time exactly, she’d just drop off, not answer my calls or texts for hours. And then at like nine p.m. or something, she’d ask me to meet her at a bar where she was with some friends. That would make me feel so shitty, but then I’d get there, and she’d introduce me to everyone as this style and design genius and her beautiful girlfriend, and I’d sort of forget about it. If I ever brought it up, she’d apologize profusely and then start making out with me. And this wasn’t just one or two times. This happenedall the time. That’s—I mean, that’s not the worst. But it’s not really considerate, right?”
His fingers drummed once against his knee before he shifted closer, his body angling toward her. “No, it’s not. Ani, you deserve so much better.”
“Ha, I don’t know about that.”
His gaze held hers, steady and unflinching. “You do. You’re an incredible person. And words only go so far. You need those words, don’t get me wrong. You should be told how special you are, but you also deserve the actions to back them up. Someone who’s there for you. Who takes responsibility for their mistakes.”
She wished she could ask, “Someone like…you?”
The way he was looking at her now, the darkness in his eyes pulling her in, closer and closer. She could practically feel his body buzzing with electricity. He glanced, in a heartbeat of a moment, toward her lips, then back up.
Ani turned away shyly, suddenly burning from his eye contact. “Well, thank you.”
“But I’m glad,” he said, “that you’re seeing Kami more clearly.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said quietly. “Why?” she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t get her mouth to form the word. Ani started to feel so incredibly awkward, like it was on her to push him toward a kiss, but she just couldn’t do it. It was not her way.
Ani took charge in many areas of her life. She quit her job she hated; she started a new business; she alone made herself responsible for the debt she got herself into. In her work, she directed, she led, and she was happy to march forward when brides needed a guide.
But in her love life, she was different.
She wanted others to make the first move, to have them press themselves upon her (metaphorically and literally). It was as if she needed confirmation she was wanted, but that wasn’t all. To let someone else drive, for once—that was what she liked. Not with everything all the time, but for a first kiss especially? She couldn’t put her finger on why; she just knew that was the way she was.
In fact, now that Ani thought about it, that had been one area in which she hadn’t been totally content with Kami, although she pushed aside her feelings and pretended it wasn’t a big deal. Kami had kissed her first, and she would sometimes initiate in unexpected moments, but in general, Kami wanted to sit there and be admired. And because there was plenty to admire, Ani wasn’t all that conscious of the fact that she herself was often left unsatisfied.
Ani wasn’t going to make that same mistake again. She simply could not kiss Raffi right now, and he was refusing to kiss her, so there was only one choice.
She sprung up.
“You know, we still have a bit of time before we head over.I brought my laptop. Do you want to get started on some of that Ô promotion?”
Raffi gave a weak smile, and Ani wondered if that was a sign of disappointment at her abrupt subject change. “Good thinking. Let’s see what you got.”
And so Ani spent the next hour and a half side by side with Raffi on her computer, showing him the various websites, asking him information about Ô, and adding it to the wedding venue registries. Then she mocked up a version of the page he needed to add to his site. It was time well spent, but also, she sort of cursed herself for not taking the chance with him when she had it. Over and over.
“And this final promo button here,” Ani said.
Raffi scooted closer to read the small text.
Their legs were touching suddenly. A light area of pressure. But the heat of him spread through her body like wildfire.
Ani’s breathing grew heavy as she melted into the feel of his leg against hers.
The laptop suddenly felt too warm on her thighs. Or maybe it was the way he was so close now, the scent of him, like firelight drifting through a dark night.
He pointed to something on the screen, murmured something low and distracted, and she couldn’t process a word of it. She could only feel.
