Page 21 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

“You sure you don’t need to get that?” Dawson questioned.

“I’m sure.” Peter was one more call away from being blocked. I appreciated the fact that he wanted to have a conversation with me, but blowing up my phone to make it happen was not the mature way to go about it. I’d messaged him the night before that I was going to be out of town for a while and that although I’d enjoyed our time together, I didn’t see us going anywhere so I thought it would be best if we ended our romantic relationship. He called within seconds of me pressing send. He tried to talk me out of my decision, claiming he’d just been too busy to put in the time our “relationship” deserved. I explained to him it had nothing to do with time investment he’d put into our relationship. I gave him the classic, “It’s not you it’s me,” but in this case it was very true.

Since last night, he’d called and/or texted a half dozen times.

I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, wanting to feel something to focus my attention on. The ocean was a slate gray, whipped into peaks by the wind. It was beautiful and completely indifferent to us.

We pulled off onto the old North Bluff Road, and as we crested the rise, I saw Buddy’s house for the first time since I left twelve years ago. In memory, it was a storybook place: the two bedroom, two bath classic farmhouse with a wraparound porch, blue trim, and a riot of potted geraniums. The reality was jarring.

The place looked shockingly bad. I mean, I’d always known the house was a little worse for wear—a two-story built in the thirties, with peeling paint and a porch that sagged like a hammock—but seeing it now, through an adult’s eyes, it appeared practically condemned. The front steps were caving in, one window was covered with what looked like a trash bag, the yard hadn’t been mowed since, what, last summer?

The truck hit the gravel of Buddy’s driveway, causing both of us to lean forward instinctively. The phone vibrated in my hand a second time, the name Janine pulsing insistently on the screen. For a split second, I considered shoving the phone into the glove compartment and pretending it hadn’t happened, but my thumb betrayed me, pressing Accept with a reflex born of years of professional Pavlovian response.

“Hey, Janine,” I said, pitching my voice into what I hoped was a cordial, in-control tone not a stressed-out, panicked tone.

“Hi! Hi. How are you?” she demanded, with all the subtlety of an air raid siren.

“Great. Fine,” I replied, the lie tripping off my tongue with ease.

“Sadie, I know you’re dealing with family stuff, but I really need you here. I’ve had Raul, Mallory, and Star asking for approvals, clients are getting restless, and Finch is sniffing around like a shark in chummed water⁠—”

I cut her off. “Janine, I’ll be back when I can. Until then, please postpone everything. As far as the team just have them email me.”

Raul, Mallory and Star were all Jr. Associates on my team. I knew they were capable, they were just terrified of Arthur Collins, the owner of the firm. That fear tended to affect their creativity. When I was there, they didn’t have to worry about any backlash because I took the hits if Arthur wasn’t pleased with any work.

Janine inhaled sharply. “When you say postpone, do you mean, like… a day? A couple days? Or are we blowing up the schedule for the rest of the week?”

“Assume the worst,” I said, and instantly regretted the phrase. “Sorry. I mean, clear my calendar for the week.”

The sigh she emitted could have powered a wind turbine. “Sadie, you know how the clients are. They need their hands held, personal attention, they want to feel like you work for them twenty-four-seven and they are you’re only client.”

It was ridiculous because it was true. I almost laughed. Instead, I picked a piece of lint off my sleeve and tried to keep my voice steady. “Just tell them I’m on bereavement.”

No one could be upset if I were on bereavement.

There was a beat of silence. “Is it actually bereavement?”

“No, Buddy’s alive. He’s in the hospital, but… I’m just not available.”

The silence expanded, thick and uncomfortable. For all Janine’s neuroses and shark-like energy, she was loyal, and she had stuck her neck out for me more than once. I could picture her at her desk, glasses perched on her nose, hair pulled into a high, angry bun, fretting the cuticle of her thumb as she tried to calculate how much trouble I was creating for her.

“What? What is it?”

“Finch is sniffing around the Fairfield account.”

“Of course he is.” It was a huge client. I’d worked my ass off to sign them, but they did require a ton of handholding. If they decided to jump ship to him because I was off for a week, then so be it. I wasn’t going to sit here and stress over my accounts being poached. I had enough on my plate.

Janine lowered her voice. “I heard he’s taking Sterling out for drinks.”

Terrance Sterling was the head of marketing for Fairfield Global.

“If they would be more comfortable with him, then he should be their agent.”

The disapproval of my attitude was blaringly evident in Janine’s silence. I was just about to say that I’d talk to her later when she asked, “Hey, has Peter called you? He stopped by the office earlier today.”

I gritted my teeth, feeling every one of them buzz like an electric fence as my entire body tensed. “He did?”

“Yeah, he was trying to charm me into telling him where you were.”