He doesn't wait for me to argue.
He just kisses me again.
Chapter twenty-five
Tom
I’ve been replaying last night on a loop. The first kiss. The second kiss. The way she looked at me when she said,Then maybe you should stop talking and do it again.The sudden, desperate weight of her hands twisting in the front of my shirt. The fact that we just made the next four weeks incredibly complicated, and I can’t seem to care.
My phone buzzes against the kitchen counter, rattling against the ceramic.
Wren.
I smile, picking it up. Outside my window, the early morning sun is just hitting the fire escape across the alley. At least Wren didn't interrupt the actual kiss this time.
"Hey," I say, leaning against the counter next to my cooling coffee.
"So when are you leaving for Dubai?" she asks, skipping the hello entirely.
I blink, the warm, quiet Sam-bubble I've been floating in abruptly popping. "What?"
"Dubai. The shoot. Your agent sent me the dates last month because you never update your own calendar. When do you leave?"
My eyes land on a pale blue sticky note stuck to the corner of my laptop. Sam left it during our last-minute presentation prep yesterday. Her handwriting is precise, perfectly spaced. I rub my thumb over the edge of the paper, anchoring myself to it. The pale blue, I've learned, means "time-sensitive but not urgent."
"Oh. Right," I say. "I turned that down."
Silence on the other end of the line. A long one.
"You turned it down."
"Yeah."
"Fifty-five thousand dollars. Three weeks in Dubai."
"Yeah."
Another pause. When Wren speaks again, her voice has shifted. It's warmer. A little smug. "Good for you, Tommy."
I exhale. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I can practically hear the smile stretching across her face. "I'm proud of you."
"It was a dream job," I say quietly. I don't know why I'm defending a decision I don’t regret.
"And you chose to turn it down anyway," she says. "She got to you, didn't she?"
The corner of my mouth pulls up. "Who?"
"Don't play dumb. Sam. The architect who color-codes her life and somehow convinced you that staying in one place isn't a trap."
A helpless laugh escapes before I can stop it. "Yeah. She got to me."
"Good. You needed someone to get to you." Her tone shifts, dropping into that familiar, teasing rhythm. "So when's the wedding? Should I start shopping for a hat?"
"Wren—"
"I'm kidding. Mostly." The teasing drops away. She’s serious now. "But seriously, Tommy, this is usually the exact moment you bolt. So what are you worried about?"
