Page 88 of Dump and Chase

I felt for her. She’d worked so damn hard for this job, and Richardson’s had screwed her over.

“They’re jerks. Can you look for another job?”

“I plan to, but it’s hard when they have me shipped off to Toronto, to their Canadian HQ.”

I leaned over and gave her a hug. If anyone was going to land on their feet, it was Jill, but this was the kind of setback she’d always feared.

“If there is anything I can do, you let me know.”

“Enough about me. It’s too depressing after sitting through meetings for three days. What’s going on with Ethan?”

I’d already told Jill and Wolseley about the Christmas tryst in a video chat, so now I was only filling in the details. “Now he’s gone for another week on a road trip, and I think that distance is good. By the time he left, it was getting a little awkward. He assumed that one night of sex meant we were getting back together. Which is ironic since that was what I thought when we slept together last summer.”

Jill sipped more of her wine and leveled me with a compassionate look. “Do you want to get back together with him?”

“Like I told him, he needs to be ready for that. He just got out of a long-term relationship.”

“Tang, he knows you. It’s different. You’re not some rebound.”

I tapped my fingers on my glass. “It’s more than that. I want a commitment. I’ve never stopped loving him, but if he’s in, he has to be all in.”

“He can be a bit thick, so does he know that?”

“I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have to tell him.”

“Fair point.”

The downstairs buzzer went off, and we went down to get our food. As we chowed down on souvlaki and lemon potatoes, Jill dove back into the conversation.

“What about this Brandon guy?”

“What about him?” I asked, reaching for more lemon potatoes.

“Does he stand a chance?”

“I don’t think so. He’s great and has the nicest ass. Maybe if things were different and I wasn’t pregnant.”

Jill tilted her head. “You don’t think so? That’s not a great answer. And being pregnant shouldn’t matter.”

I hadn’t given him much thought. I was far too busy sorting out my feelings for Ethan. “He’s amazing, but life is just too complicated.”

“Then it’s Ethan or nothing. Is that what I’m hearing?”

Did I want to close the door on Brandon? It wouldn’t be fair to keep him as my back-up plan, so that was another thing to consider in the next few days. Why did Jill have to scramble my brain like this with her logic?

“Now I don’t know.”

Jill grabbed some salad and scooped the olives onto my plate. I loved them as much as she hated them. “Do yourself a favor—with the time you’ve given Ethan to get his shit together, get your shit together too. Because if there’s a chance this Brandon dude is a good guy, you shouldn’t throw it away hoping that Ethan figures out that what he wants is a commitment to you.”

My best friend was brilliant. “Okay, that’s what I’ll do.”

At the end of the day, I had to figure out what was right for me, and maybe that meant ending up with no one at all.

ChapterForty-Two

Tangi

When the Kodiaks got back from their road trip, they had a few days off. That had me putting my plan in motion, the one I’d come up with after my evening with Jill. I texted Brandon to see if he wanted to hang out. I needed to see how I felt about him, and if I wanted to pursue something with him. It seemed like the right thing to do—I didn’t want to leave him hanging either way.

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