Page 60 of Just One Summer with the Grumpy

Then I closed the conversation.

I gave myself about thirty seconds to feel this, to really experience the shock of change, of watching that first path fizzle into a blurry, overgrown forest. That path wasn’t for me. Maybe it had been once, but not anymore. The fact that the second path had been burned to a blackened, smoking husk didn’t change the mediocrity of the first one.

Ty wasn’t mine.

I stuffed the bag of personal items from my office into the suitcase. At the last second, the Magic 8 ball rolled off the bed and hit the floor near my feet, as if taunting me. Tempting me. I picked it up for a long moment, considering.

Then I dumped it into the trash can.

Only one conversation left. I pulled a business card out of my pocket and typed the number into my phone.

“Hey Tanner,” I said when he answered. “Chase would never admit it, but he needs your help.”

When my plane landed in New York, I didn’t go to Everett Events. I had nothing there to retrieve, and I couldn’t face the glares and whispers. Everyone would know what had happened by now. It would be a miracle if Chase didn’t sick his lawyers on me, honestly. He had every right to try suing me, and for a woman with less than $50 to her name, I would be completely buried.

I hadn’t seen Ty at the airport. Hopefully he’d confronted Veronica and gotten the truth from her own lips.

Instead, I went back to my apartment to pack. It was time to go home.

An hour later, I stood there, looking at my bed with the rest of the loft empty. It didn’t feel like I’d thought it would. I’d expected to feel sad at the end of an era that had lasted almost seven years. But instead, I felt…powerful. Older. Taking my future into my hands felt really good, and I wasn’t sure I could explain why.

I pulled out my phone to check the time just as it started ringing. Ty. I’d deleted his number after our breakup and added it again on the island using company records. Somehow, in the craziness of traveling, I’d forgotten to delete it again.

My deliberating lasted about three seconds. Just before his name disappeared and my phone sent him to voicemail, I answered. “Hey.”

“Daphne. Please don’t hang up.”

A funny thing to say, since I’d answered the phone, but whatever. “This isn’t a great time.”

“Look, we didn’t get to finish our conversation. You shared your side, but I didn’t get to share mine. Can we meet tonight? Say, Heudon’s around 9?”

“Ty, my bus leaves in an hour. I’m sorry.”

“I thought you might say that, so I covered my bases. Actually, if you don’t want to meet me for dinner, can you do me a favor and step outside your door for a second?”

Confused, I stared at my phone.

“Daphne, please. Trust me.”

I didn’t trust him. Not with my time, not with my heart. I was tired of playing his games.

“I’m going to keep asking until you do it,” Ty said. “Two minutes, that’s it.”

The words came out in a half-growl. “You have two minutes.” I stabbed the End button on my phone and started to make my way down the spiral staircase. A moment later, I yanked the front door open to find Ty on one knee, holding an open ring case with the biggest ring I’d ever seen.

Oh, no.

“Daphne,” he said slowly.

The door across the hall opened slightly, and I saw the dark circle of a phone peek out. He’d paid my neighbor Roger to film this?

“I can’t live without you,” Ty said, sounding as if he recited something he’d memorized. “My life is darkness without your light, cold without your warmth, and misery without your happiness. I would be honored if you would—”

“Hey, that’s from that one movie,” Roger said, peeking his head further out his door. “You know, the one with the motorcycle chase on the cruise ship?”

Ty gritted his teeth. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’d be so kind—”

I tore the ring box from his hand. “This is Veronica’s ring, isn’t it?”

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