She blinked. “Why?”
“I’ve been thinking since the bachelor party. Ryker and Leslie mean a lot to both of us, and spending the day with…everybody…” He shrugged, then latched one hand onto the back of his neck. “I made a decision three years ago that hurt you.”
She snorted.
“And I’m sorry for that, Claire. Hurting you was never okay with me.”
“So tell me why you did it. Once and for all.”
“I can’t tell you anything that’s going to satisfy you. I’ve said everything I can, and we can continue to run this circle for the next thousand years, or we can start over, be normal to each other at the wedding.”
“That’s…it? That’s all you want?”
He shrugged, but his hand tightened on the back of his neck at the same time. “What else? Not like I expect or need to be part of the gang.”
Wait… Taiknewthat Ryker kept his friendship separate? Well, of course he did. When she and Tai had fallen out, they’d still been getting to know Ryker individually, and the friend group had only just formed. Leaving Tai out hadn’t seemed dramatic back then. But now he’d met them all, seen their ease together. Now he knew he’d been deliberately excluded.
And wow, that must have hurt him. She took a moment to study him, not the tailored suit and the flashy tie, but the linesaround his eyes and mouth, the tension in his fingers as he kept his hand on his neck.
“If I call a truce,” she said, “then you’ll sign the papers.”
His mouth slackened for only a fraction of a moment. Then the disappointment was gone, smoothed into his same old maddening blankness of expression. “I’ll sign the papers regardless.”
“Time to prove it then.”
He motioned her to follow him. “There’s a conference room set aside for us. I called ahead.”
Of course he had. She trailed down a narrow hall after him, and they entered a room furnished with a long desk in the center, surrounded by office chairs. The staff had produced hard copies of everything she’d emailed Tai, and the stacks lay in the center of the desk, side by side, accompanied by two black pens.
Tai tugged one pile toward himself as he sank into one of the chairs. Claire did likewise while a slow numbness spread from her core outward to her toes and fingertips. Yes, she wanted this, but it felt wrong now. No victory, only loss of what they could have had.
She focused on the documents in front of her, skimmed to make sure everything was as she’d ordered it from her lending agency. Not a word was out of place. Beside her, silent and wholly withdrawn now, Tai flipped the sheets and read as well. Around the same time, they both picked up a pen.
Tai’s signature was a bold sweep across the page, the T and the K both clear, the rest of his name more of a squiggle topped by three dots. When he’d finished with one stack and she with the other, they traded and signed the other set. Beside his broad pen strokes, Claire’s signature was no neater, but her looping faux-cursive looked extra feminine.
When they set down their pens, the sense of loss lifted. This was what she’d wanted, saved toward for three years. Maybe now they could move on from each other.
She glanced at Tai to find him still impassive, not a single giveaway on his face. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” he said.
“No, really. You didn’t have to agree at all, much less the same day I asked.”
“Despite making you jump through hoops?” Was that a smirk teasing one corner of his mouth? No, it couldn’t be. Anyway it was already gone, too late to analyze further.
“I…” She shook her head, tried to regain the perspective that had led her to this request in the first place. But she didn’t know how to categorize the unlikely event that somehow, instead of convincing both of them they should maintain distance, seeing her again at the bachelor party had made Tai want the opposite. A truce. “Maybe now that we’re not business partners anymore… I guess we could try a do-over.”
The corner of his mouth definitely moved this time. Not a smirk but maybe a smile.
Seven
Of course Claire was true to her word, wiring the full amount of her buy-out by ten o’clock the next morning. Tai expected to hear nothing from her until the wedding on Saturday, but instead his phone pinged with a text an hour after the wire hit his bank under Pending Funds.
Claire:In the spirit of the truce, you are unblocked.
A smile tugged his mouth as he spun his office chair in a full circle, then reoriented toward his computer. He tapped out the most neutral reply he could manage.
I appreciate the gesture of good will.
