Page 47 of The Plus-One Deal

CHAPTER 19

CLAIRE

forget him,texted Sunny.2 weeks is the cutoff.

to me it’s like, fine. we’re just fwb. but be a man and SAY SO. don’t be a ghost

Was Conrad ghosting me? Or was it his lawsuit? He hadn’t settled, and the press wasn’t good. But he’d been through worse than this and not cut me off.

He’s not ghosting,I wrote, for my benefit more than Sunny’s.We do this a lot, go weeks without talking. It just means he’s busy, or I am. Whatever.

yeah, but has he ever not ANSWERED ur texts? there’s a difference between when you BOTH aren’t texting and one of you texting while the other ignores u.

Sunny raised a valid point, but that wasn’t Conrad. Ghosting was what cowards did, and he was no coward. You didn’t build a phenomenon like Constel by running away. If he wasn’t texting — which he definitely wasn’t — he had a reason. A real one, not fear.

Maybe he’d never got my texts. His phone could’ve died. He’d killed one in college, dropped it in with the dishes. These thingsdidhappen, not often, but sometimes.

His phone could have died, I wrote.

rly?

RLY!!?!!?!??!!!!

Sunny sent me a string of clown face emojis. I sent back an angry face and tossed my phone in my purse. I wasn’t sure if I was mad at Sunny or mad at myself for being so stupid. Of course he was ghosting me, but why? What the hell? He’d said it himself — he didn’t want to mess up our friendship. Well, friends texted friends. Friends didn’t ignore friends.

I pulled out my phone again, but no. Justno. How needy would that be, texting four times? Even to ask if he’d got my texts? When he was ready to talk to me, he would reach out.

But what about my needs? I want to talk now.

I scrolled back through our message history, checking the dates on our texts. Therehadbeen a few gaps where one of us texted, and then the other took a while to get back. I’d left Conrad hanging eight days one time. He’d kept me waiting four days, then nine. This wasn’t much worse than that, except itwas. Those other times, we hadn’t just slept together. We hadn’t just shared the most wonderful dream. Ithadbeen wonderful, hadn’t it? For me, it had, but what about Conrad? The way he’d cared for me hadn’t felt one-sided, how he’d washed my hair and later, he’d brushed it. He’d held me so tenderly as we went to sleep.

I tossed my phone in my purse again and made my way to the gym, but even the elliptical machine couldn’t shake thoughts of Conrad. I cranked the resistance till I was sweating and straining, threw my whole body into it, and still the thoughts came, doubts and what-ifs, a deep, wanting ache. I’d only slept two nights curled in his arms, but I’d missed his warmth this morning waking up. This morning and every morning since I’d got home.

What if our dalliance had been a test drive for Conrad? If he’d play-acted a relationship to see how he’d like it, and I’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker? If he’d satisfied his curiosity, and now we were done?

I got off the elliptical and moved to the bike. Hunched over the handlebars and stomped down on the pedals. Rage spurred me on. I’d thought better of Conrad. The Conrad I knew wouldn’t use me as his test run. Wouldn’t drop me like a hot rock once he’d had his fun. What washedoing right now, playing golf with some client? Wining and dining them? Signing a contract? Going about his life without a thought for what we’d shared.

What if he missed me too? If he missed me too much? What if he was ghosting me because he felt the same loss I did, and he couldn’t bear to talk to me knowing we could go no further?

I got off the elliptical and hit the showers, a blast of cold water to clear out the cobwebs. I gasped at the chill and forgot about Conrad, but the second I turned the heat up, his specter was back. If he’d justtalkto me, I could move on. If he’d tell me,Yeah, sorry. We had some fun, but I can’t slow down for anyone. You understand, right?

What if he’d seen my first text, but he’d been busy? Then I’d sent another one. Had that seemed clingy? Had sending a third one been a massive red flag?

I checked my phone, toweling off. Still nothing from Conrad. I read over my last three texts, searching for flags.

Just heard from Verity! Thanks SO MUCH again! I owe you for this one, so collect anytime.

That one seemed fine, at least up tothank you. Had he taken that last part as some kind of come-on?I owe you, big boy, so come on and get me.A prickly hot flush rose up my neck. Had he read it like that? Did I sound like a stalker?

Heard about the lawsuit. Everything okay?

My second text was blameless, except that itwasmy second. Conrad got sued all the time, the cost of doing business. Had the artist lawsuit been too thin a pretext? Did he think I’d jumped on any excuse to text him? In truth, I had. He wouldn’t be wrong.

Hey, checking in to see how you’re doing! Hope our unscheduled layover hasn’t left you buried!

That third one, oh God. How desperatewasI? Two exclamation points? Who wrote like that? I sounded like a teenager with her first crush. And to think I’d been considering texting again! Sunny was right. I needed to cool it. To get on with my own life and let Conrad live his.

But Conrad had been there for me since we met in college. We’d been there for each other, building our empires. Especially those first few years, when nothing was certain — he’d call me. I’d call him. We’d talk through the night. We’d planned and we’d strategized and we’d pushed each other, and slowly but surely,our stars had both risen. We’d celebrated our highs together and mourned our lows. Twelve years of friendship were a lot to lose.

---