When Lucy and Rosa were finished being two-faced to each other, Lucy accepted defeat and went to go knock on Edward’s door. Clearly, Lucy had been hoping he’d come out to greet her, rather than the other way around. And she had a point. It was rude. Not that Elinor planned to tell Edward that. Nope. She was staying out of the way. A first day on the job was hard enough without dodging slights and insults, especially when she didn’t understand the motives of those throwing them.
She and Rosa released twin sighs of relief when Edward finally opened his door and ushered Lucy in to see him. Elinor wouldn’t let her curiosity go beyond that door. There was work to be done. Just to be extra sure she wouldn’t overhear anything, she grabbed a stack of forms and fed them into the shredder a few at a time.
She stopped when Rosa’s shadow loomed over her. Rosa’s arms were crossed. “Stop doing that, you’re giving me a headache. His office is sound-proof already. It has to be to preserve client confidentiality. Well, unless they start shouting, and in that case, we’ll both want to hear.”
***
During uncomfortable situations, food made a good prop, and even though he’d wolfed down an empanada before Lucy arrived, Edward still took occasional bites of the dry sandwich Lucy brought him. The bread was a desert of crumbly nothingness not even the Dijon mustard could touch. It fascinated him how badly someone could mess up turkey on sourdough and overcharge for the experience.
“It’s been a while,” Lucy said, brushing the crumbs from her hands into the sandwich wrapper. “Did you forget about me?”
“You haven’t spoken to me in almost a month.”
“I know, and I’m sorry about that. I regret it, because the truth is… I’ve missed you.” She looked up at him through lowered lashes. “Didn’t you miss me?”
Did she really expect him to play these games? It was just the two of them in here, unless she had a hidden camera strapped to her body. Which, knowing her, was not out of the realm of possibility.
“I’m sure you’ve been busy.”
“I’m always busy. But without you around I realized how empty that gets sometimes. You can’t wait for things to slow down to make time for what’s important.”
“Lucy,” he sighed. “What do you need from me? Be specific.”
She crossed her arms. “Someday you’ll meet someone, and she won’t want to have to spell out exactly what she needs from you. It makes women tire of the relationship. They start to feel like a mother-figure more than the love of your life.”
Love advice from the guru. Just what he needed to kick-start his Monday.
She leaned forward and reached her hand out to touch his. “I just explained what I needed. It’s spelled T-I-M-E. I missed you. I miss your face. You cut your hair. I like it.”
He didn’t miss the way she glanced at her phone after saying it. She needed updated pictures of him and didn’t know a non-manipulative, and therefore, humbling way to ask for them.
That was okay, though. Knowing what she wanted was a lot better than guessing or getting lectured in book-speak. “Why don’t we go for a walk before we both have to get back to work?”
“I’d love that.” The smile she gave him in return was genuine, reminding him of a time when he didn’t constantly question her motives.
Together they picked up the remains of the lunch she’d brought, and after depositing it in the trash outside his office, they walked down toward the park at the end of the street. He had purposely avoided eye contact with Elinor and Rosa on his way out. He didn’t need Rosa’s judgment or Elinor’s reaction, whatever it might be.
Except for a mother with her toddler at the playground, the park was empty. Lucy made a bee-line for the mother and handed over her phone, asking for a picture. The woman was so happy to help, it made Edward itchy. He knew he and Lucy made a cute pair. People had always told them that. But they were not a good match, no matter how nicely they could smile with their arms around each other.
Lucy thanked the woman and took back her phone, immediately scrolling through the pictures with a keen eye. They walked a little ways away, and then Lucy handed Edward her phone and went to pose under a large olive tree, hands on her hips, but somehow making it look casual. The Instagram filters would love all the muted greens against the bright yellow of her overalls. Edward was vaguely aware that what she was wearing was trendy, even though her pants cut off at a weird length and billowed around her legs, showing off a bit of ankle above her strappy sandals.
“Okay, your turn, handsome. The lighting is too perfect not to capture this moment together.”
He handed the phone back and walked to the tree, feeling like a fool while she snapped a few pictures before telling him to smile and cross his arms. Every interaction with Lucy since their breakup had been a series of compromises and humiliations big and small, with a goal of being done with it all dangled in front of him like a carrot. Except the carrot kept moving, and like a good donkey, he kept walking to get it.
There was a frozen yogurt place just down the street from his office, and they stopped in on the way back. That was where their selfies happened—the happy couple in their native habitat. He checked his watch. Ten minutes left, and then he absolutely had to get back to work.
Lucy should too. Her management position at Date Night Soda might be more of an honorary one bestowed on her by her father, but she had to at least show up from time to time.
“How’s work?” he asked.
“Daddy knows I’m leaving soon, so most of my responsibilities have fallen to others, but I still supervise the bottling process most days of the week. There’s a lot of intimidation in knowing I have the power to get rid of any of them with just a word in my father’s ear. They work faster and harder when I’m around.”
“With great power comes great responsibility, Lucy.”
“Thank you, Spiderman. But don’t worry about my little employees. I’m not one to hold a grudge. I’ve only ever fired one person, and that was because she kept trying to get out of wearing her hairnet, and she would show up for work in sandals. Safety violations are nothing to joke about.”
That made him feel slightly better. Lucy, for all her faults, did care a lot about things getting done right. She was a perfectionist in what mattered to her.
