The Space Between (33 page)

The meeting trudged on, and I hated every single one of them for existing. They were keeping me from fixing things with Andy and I hated it. I plotted methods to break Andy away from Matt for the morning but my creativity took a hit from the lack of sleep and mild hysteria.

“Hey, so, you guys aren’t bringing dates to the wedding, right?” Matt asked as we started to adjourn. “None of you have actually RSVP’d.”

“Did you doubt that we were coming?” Shannon asked. Matt held up his hands and shrugged. “Are you bringing your dominatrix?”

Riley stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “Yesterday’s news, Shan. That hasn’t been happening for two months.”

“Well now I’m disappointed.” She turned toward Sam. “What about you, Stark? Or is a weekend with the same girl too long for you?”

“Shameless as always,” he muttered. “I will not be bringing a guest, Matt.”

“Okay, so…” I felt Matt staring at me but my eyes locked on Andy again. “Yeah. Just make sure you book your rooms. I don’t care what you do, but I don’t want anyone attempting to crash with me and Lauren.”

We
had a beachfront cottage reserved at the Cape Cod inn where Matt and Lauren were getting married. Andy’s birthday landed two days after the wedding, and
we
planned to make a long weekend out of it.

Frowning, her eyes darted to mine.

It was either a breadcrumb or an indication I was going to be enjoying the Cape alone.

*

The task of
getting Andy alone could have served as the premise for the next
Mission: Impossible
.

She spent the majority of the day with Matt, visiting his properties. When they did return, they were busy geeking out over new environmental impact metrics. I loitered near the doorway of their makeshift office, eavesdropping on their discussion of solar panel return on investment thresholds.

They didn’t notice me.

Much to Theresa’s dismay, I pulled up a chair and took over the edge of her desk to keep an eye on Andy. She never looked up from her screen, and I was ready to go to war with Matt for burying her in work.

Late in the day, she sent a set of plans to the printer. The large format printer lived in a small, stuffy room near the garage, and it was my one opportunity, short of kidnapping.

Holding up the first page off the printer, she stood with her back to the door while my eyes traveled over her body. Her hair was everywhere, a thick, curling mass liable to suffocate me in my sleep one of these nights. I loved it. Navy pants hung low on her waist, and I abandoned all of my precisely planned speeches as my body was drawn to hers. I had to touch her.

My arms wrapped around her waist, and I sucked that first hit of lavender deep into my lungs. “Andy…you have to listen to me.”

Her muscles tensed under my hands. She shook her head.

“You have at least thirty more pages. I know you’re not going anywhere. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen. Please.” I swept her hair behind her shoulder, dropping my forehead there to assemble the right words. “I was wrong. So wrong. About everything. I didn’t mean any—”

“That’s not true,” she murmured. “That’s
not
true.”

“Baby,” I sighed. “I said stupid, awful things and I’m an asshole. That morning was terrible, the drive back was ridiculous, and I took it all out on you. Come home with me, and I’ll fix it. I’ll explain everything.”

My lips brushed over the skin beneath her ear, and I felt my misery decreasing by the gallon. Loving her and needing her the way I did was crazy, but I wanted the craziness.

Andy twisted out of my arms and glared at me, her eyebrow angling upward. “You let me believe I had a future here. You manipulated me.”

Exhaling loudly, I crossed my arms over my chest and matched her hipshot stance. “Because you do. I wasn’t lying when I said it was just bullshit paper, Andy.”

“I understand it’s bullshit paper to you, but to me? To me, it’s proof that I let this—” she gestured between us, “—make decisions about my career, and they probably weren’t smart decisions. You kept it from me while you knew I needed to be on a partner track. How am I supposed to feel anything other than manipulated and trapped? You had so many opportunities to tell me. So many.”

I swallowed a sigh. “Andy, you should trust me, but you have to understand that I can’t rewrite this today.”

“Kind of like how I should know better than to be power-fucking?” I started to respond, and Andy held up her hand. “I get that you’re not rewriting anything. That’s fine, and that’s not what I’m asking. But you expect me to believe it’s all going to work out? I’m supposed to hang around for a few years and cross my fingers, hoping it falls into place? What happens when I’m left out all over again or your siblings decide they want to keep the partners’ table exclusive to family? It might be bullshit paper, but I can’t wait around with the hope that the bullshit paper changes. You need to get that I can’t hitch my entire career to the possibility of something. I’ve worked too hard, Patrick.”

“Andy, please. Just…let’s go back to my place. We can talk this out. Or we can get dinner. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“I can’t do this. I’m going to finish my apprenticeship because I have ongoing projects, but I’m not letting this mistake with us ruin my career. It’s only three weeks until the end of my time here and my exams, and then I’ll be gone. This was all an enormous mistake from the start, and I let it happen, and I’m sorry.”

There were at least nineteen things I could have said, and they were all better than my silence. Andy pushed past me. I leaned heavily against the wall as the door rattled shut.

*

Neglect didn’t begin
to describe what was happening to my work. There was no convincing myself that it was my priority when Andy was planning to walk away forever.

“Are we doing anything today?” Riley asked when he strolled in late Tuesday morning. “Or are we watching these guys frame walls? I’m good with both.”

I glared at Riley, and stepped aside him to collect a document from the printer. “Here are my current jobs. Come back with status reports mapped to the milestone trackers, and prioritize issues that you find. When you finish, check on the new investment properties. Establish cost estimates for aligning to code. When all of that is done, I’ll talk to you.”

“Great,” he muttered. “Way to start the day as a dick waffle, Patrick.”

Whatever the next level of dick waffling was, I reached it. Screaming at one of Shannon’s advertising and PR assistants, Caley or Coley or Corey, after she left yellow card stock in the printer, was a low point. She cried, extensively.

I watched construction on the new offices. For the most part, I was pleased with the amount of demo, framing, and drywalling accomplished over the weekend. The painters got an earful when I noticed they were only applying one coat of paint over the primer, and when they didn’t seem concerned, I fired them on the spot. A lower point.

Sam cornered me in the stairwell, and I inadvertently kicked one of his hornet’s nests, fresh water supplies. He wanted to partner with a sustainable landscape designer, but getting excited about grassy roofs wasn’t on my short list for the week. I told him I didn’t care about the impact on insulation or net neutral footprints, and he dropped every water conversation talking point in his arsenal until I walked away. Even lower.

The real trouble started when I went to the kitchen. Tom was deep in conversation with Shannon’s bookkeeping assistant. I flattened myself against the hallway and listened. By itself, a new low.

“So I heard that Sam goes to all kinds of weird natural healers, like acupuncturists,” she said. “He drinks this horrible juice every day. It looks like frothy grass water. I think it’s for cleansing or detoxing or something.”

I knew that juice well. Lemon, ginger, cayenne, cucumber, and mint, and Andy was completely responsible for Sam’s newfound obsession. The two of them could talk about herbs and bee pollen for hours.

“I’ve been here a long time, but I still don’t understand Sam, or the way everyone tiptoes around him. Sure, he’s a creative genius or whatever, but they act like he’s really emotionally fragile. I think he has major mental health issues and they just don’t want to see it. I don’t think Shannon would ever admit it, either. But what’s really strange is that he’s a total manwhore. All while being the most fucked up guy in town. I’ve heard that he’s all about anal, and never sees the same girl twice. He doesn’t let any of his dates see his apartment.”

Truth. On all counts.

“I knew that,” she said. “Strange, considering he’s such a germaphobe. What d’you think about Andy? She’s really beautiful. Like, without even trying. They’re always talking about bizarre natural stuff. Are they…do you think maybe they’re hooking up?”

“That would explain why they hired her full time.”

Furious, I sprinted upstairs to Shannon’s office and slammed the door behind me. I waited while she finished her call, and by waiting, I mean I stomped across the office repeatedly and kicked her desk until she gave me the finger.

Shannon’s phone crashed into place, and she turned to me with a scowl. “What the fuck is your—”

“I want you to fire Tom. And that assistant, the one who handles bookkeeping.”

“Don’t even start. Whatever it is, shut it down. We’ve had enough firings here today.”

“They’re sitting in the kitchen debating whether Andy has a job here because Sam’s fucking her, and they’re also discussing his psychiatric disorders and preferences for anal sex and fringe medicine. I. Want. Them. Gone.”

Shannon scanned my face, her eyebrows lifting and lips pursing in response. “Tom is a valuable, trusted member of my team. He’s been here for years. I’ll agree that I want to limit that kind of conversation in this office, and I will talk to him about that. I can also discuss this with Danielle, but I’m not sure we’re talking about termination-level offenses.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I think you’re sensitive about Andy, and overreacting. What the fuck is going on with you? This, Coley, the painters? And let me tell you, Sam is going to cash in on your little outburst about Roof Garden Girl. We’re calling her that now. I like it better than her name.”

My hands fisted at my sides. “Make it happen, Shannon. I’m not asking you.”

Shannon’s mouth fell open, and I turned to go. “What did you just say to me?”

“You wanted it this way, Shannon. This was your call. You want me to be in charge, you want to be my second in command, then you need to find a way to get this shit done without argument. This is what you asked for, now deal with it.”

The door bounced off the frame and banged against the wall, muffling Shannon’s shouted curses as I stormed out. The walk to Café Vanille on Charles Street absorbed some of my nervous energy, and seeing Lauren’s sunny smile brought me down a few more degrees.

“I ordered you a roast beef sandwich.” She pointed to the table. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”

The bistro table was tiny, and I felt like a lowland gorilla as I settled into the wrought iron seat. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Start with why you decided to text me at four in the morning.”

“Sorry about that.” Another sleepless night. “Did Andy say anything to you this weekend? You guys went to the farmers’ market, right? Is that where she got that necklace, the one with the matching bracelets?”

Lauren nibbled her croissant and shook her head. “Not how this works, pal. You need a friend right now, and I can be your friend, but I’m not trading insider information.”

“I fucked up, Lauren. I fucked up everything, and she won’t forgive me, and she’s leaving.”

“You do love a good exaggeration, Patrick.” Lauren smiled and sipped her coffee. “Yeah, you fucked up, but it probably wasn’t everything. Maybe she’s not forgiving you at this moment, but it takes time to walk away from anger and hurt. You need to let her be angry, be hurt, and process things at her pace. Don’t deny her that unless you want her to stay a little angry and hurt forever, but be there when she’s ready to leave those pieces behind. And maybe she said she’s leaving. Is it possible she said that to lash out, to hurt you the way you hurt her?”