“Just get him, please,” I plead with him as my shoulders tremble. I don’t want to cry anymore. But if I must, something inside of me simply needs Z to hold me while I do. When he holds me, it ends when the tears stop. If he’s not there … I spiral.
“I would do anything for you.”
“I know. I would do anything for you too.”
“Okay, let’s go see Zander. The rest of this can wait.”
With deep breaths, I push the stool out, the legs scraping against the floor. “Let me help you,” Kam offers with a hand on my elbow at the same time that the front door opens and Trish can be heard calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”
“Shit,” Kam mutters under his breath and then reaches for a cloth napkin, handing it to me to dry my unwanted tears.
“Do you want me to get rid of her?” he questions beneath his breath as her keys jingle closer and closer to us. “Anyone home?” she calls out.
With a weak smile, I shake my head no. “No. It’s okay. I’m okay,” I’m quick to push out the words, all the while sniffling and trying to shut down the sudden grief.
I’ll have to tell Zander, though. He needs to know. My thoughts are cut off by a concerned voice.
“Oh my God … are you crying?” Trish stands in the opening to the kitchen, keys in one hand, a box from pastries from my favorite local bakery in the other with her purse dangling from the crook of her elbow. In white skinny jeans and a simple navy top with a white minimalist logo, we actually match. It’s the same colors, just inverted, and I’m uptown while she’s downtown chic.
“I like your shoes,” I answer her and then shrug at her question. She takes a peek down to her pointed toe navy heels before looking back up to me. “Oh, my love,” she says and pouts. “No deflecting. Tell me, what’s the matter?”
“I’ll get tissues until you two are ready for retail therapy,” Kam says and leaves the two of us to hug awkwardly with Trish’s hands still full.
Wiping my eyes and sniffling I tell her it’s the same old, same old.
I let out a weak laugh as she unloads on the counter and then she hugs me for real. One of the strong kind that can hold you up when you want to collapse.
“I swear I’m all right,” I tell her, blotting under my eyes with the tissue Kam gives me and then accepting another for my nose.
“You had a moment,” Kam says and looks to his sister. “It was just a moment.”
It’s odd how the smallest things set me off. “I wish I could just stop it.”
“It’ll come and go, babe. There’s no stopping grief.”
I nod as he talks, feeling calmer by the second. Trish stares at me and I can feel her gaze, but I focus on deep breaths.
“It was a fast moment,” Kam adds and this time I say, “That damn ball in the box.”
All Trish says is, “Fuck that ball,” in the driest, most sarcastic tone I’ve heard in a long time and I can’t help but to laugh. “I don’t know anything about it but it can fuck right off.”
Her comment makes me laugh and Kam pats my hand.
“Does my makeup still look okay,” I ask her and she tilts her head slightly, taking the tissue from me. “Let me just …” she says and I chuckle again.
“I’m such a mess.”
“You okay?” she asks with an empathetic pout, rubbing my back once the laugh is over.
Nodding, I crumple up the tissues and tell her, “Yeah. I was just …”
“Just grieving,” Kam finishes for me and I nod again in agreement.
“I have a distraction if you’d like,” Trish offers, pulling out the stool Kam previously sat in. She misses the comical glare he gives her and I nearly laugh again but it’s cut off when she says, “Did you see what the tabloids said?” Without waiting for me to answer, she turns to her brother to ask, “Did you tell her?”
As he shakes his head I ask deadpan, “Am I the reckless rich bitch whore again?”
“Not quite,” she says and passes me her phone.
“We didn’t make a statement, right?” I clarify with Kam and he nods, confirming, but then says, “They decided no statement was a sign that there’s love in the air.”
The first reads: Crazy Meets Crazy, Heated Forbidden Romance! and then I swipe right to read the second one: He May Be Her Bodyguard but Her Body Isn’t Guarded From Him …
Just beneath the second headline is a picture of me, soaking wet from head to toe, my bra visible beneath my dress as I grip onto Z and he looks down at me as if we’re about to kiss.
Did we? It was at the party; tensions were high, emotions even higher. I barely remember that moment. From the picture, though, it looks as if it’s a still from a romance movie. As if we’re about to kiss against the wall.
His expression is everything. It reads pure devotion.
“For real I thought he might have fucked you against that wall right then and there in front of everyone,” Trish jokes.
“If you could refrain from that, the PR team would appreciate it,” Kam comments dryly.
Trish laughs first and then I follow. For a moment, for one small moment everything feels like it used to. Then I hand her phone back and I remember it’s nothing like it used to be.
“You looked like you might be in love,” Trish says but her tone is slightly defeated as she watches me war with myself. I know my expression doesn’t hide a thing.
“So … are you two in love?” she presses lightheartedly and Kam mutters beneath his breath for her to leave me alone as he stacks all the papers on the counter back into one pile.
I don’t answer her but I know the truth. I love the way he makes me feel and I want him to feel this way too.
“You good?” Kam asks.