Page 86 of The Plus One Professional

I could text him. He’d mentioned that he woke up early for work. He said there were a lot of days he had to be on the job by 6:00 a.m.

Yeah. I would text him to see if we could maybe meet for a drink, or something, and finish our conversation. I’d just pulled out my phone when I saw the door to his building open. My heart stopped when I saw Cole walk out. He was wearing a hoodie, jeans, a baseball hat, and his work boots.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d seen him, but in that time, he’d gotten sexier and more handsome. My heart skipped all the beats as my breath caught in my throat. This was kismet. It was fate that I’d shown up at his house when he was leaving for work. My timing was destiny at work.

Instead of the door closing behind him, he held it open, and another person walked out. Not just any person—Cole’s ex, Lindsay.

My heart skipped seeing Cole but stopped completely seeing Lindsay. It flatlined, and it didn’t matter that my breath was caught in my throat because I didn’t remember how to get oxygen into my body.

I froze as they stood on the steps of the stoop, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her back for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or so. When he pulled away from her, she lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.

They were kissing.Kissing.

A car pulled up on the street, and they stopped. He opened the back door of what I assumed was an Uber, and she climbed in. Then, he started walking up the street in the direction he’d come from when I had been waiting for him, which was toward where I was now sitting in my parked car.

Panic rose in me, and I ducked down, feeling like a stalker who was about to be caught. After a few minutes, I slid back up in my seat and saw the coast was clear.

As I sat in my car out of breath and feeling like I was going to throw up. I told myself the best thing to do would be to stick to the original plan and go to the gym. But even as I thought about it, tears formed in my eyes.

I had no clue what I was crying about. Cole getting back with his ex. Simon saying all the right things at the wrong time. Me putting my life on hold for a man I wasn’t even truly in love with. Or, D. All of the above.

Whatever it was, I knew an hour on the elliptical was not going to solve it. I just wish I knew what would.

36

COLE

The sun was settingas I crossed the Bay Bridge back into the city. I’d worked a twelve-hour day and hadn’t slept a wink the night before in the armchair while Lindsay slept on the couch. But for some reason, I wasn’t tired. I was wide awake. Buzzing almost.

All day, I’d kept checking my phone to see if Bailey had called or texted. Logically, I knew that was not going to happen. Emotionally, I had hoped that it would. I couldn’t explain it. Just like I couldn’t explain that this morning when I left for work, I’d had the strangest feeling I was going to see her. When I walked to my truck, I’d half expected her to be standing beside it, but, of course, she hadn’t been.

I wish now that I hadn’t left without talking to her. Although if she still loved Simon, which I assume she did since I hadn’t heard from her, then nothing I could have said or done would have made a difference.

But what if it did?the tiny voice in the back of my head kept telling me.

Lindsay had spent the past three years being miserable and living in regret for her actions. I did not want to do the same. A part of me did feel bad that Lindsay had been so upset. As much as I’d wanted to comfort her, I was glad I hadn’t because there was a good chance she would have interpreted it the wrong way.

This morning, when Lindsay kissed me, it was a kiss goodbye. She knew it was over. I could see in her eyes that she had the closure she needed.

Today, I realized that if there was any relationship I needed closure for, it was with Bailey, not Lindsay. Which was ridiculous since we were never together.

After pulling into the garage behind my building, I walked up the street and pulled my phone out, checking again to see if I’d missed a call or text from Bailey. It was becoming a nervous tick. At work, the guys were all concerned something had happened with Sara because the only time I had ever been that stressed about my phone was when she was in the hospital.

My entire body was deflated when I saw there were no missed calls or texts.

“Hey there!”

I lifted my head as I went up the front steps of the building and saw Arthur smiling and waving from his fire escape.

“How was your wine-tasting weekend?”

“It was good.”

Too good. So good I was acting like a preteen girl who had a crush. That wasn’t a stereotype. I was literally acting like Carly and her friends whenever they were crushing on a boy. Checking their phones every few minutes, obsessing and dissecting every look, and every word they’d spoken to each other. I was doing all that just to myself in my own head. I was close to Jimmy, Finn, and Eric, but, unlike Carly and her friends, we were not The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants close.

Arthur leaned on the railing and looked down from his sixth-story window. “Your girl came by, ya know?”

Bailey. She’d been here?

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