Page 20 of The One I Need
“Hazel?”
She shakes her head and waves me off. “You might not be able to force a horse to drink the water, but you sure as shit can drag them to the stream.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Hazel grabs an abandoned pen and a napkin from the bar and starts furiously writing. It has to be more than a phone number, because she’s quickly filling up the entire napkin. “Izzy has been my best friend for more than ten years. And in all that time, she has never once used a man’s first name. Yet, Oliver, I know yours. And it’s not because of my husband or his friends. And now that I’m seeing you here? And hearing that? Well, I don’t believe in coincidences.”
She hands me the folded napkin. “What’s this?”
“I won’t give out her number without permission…”
I shake my head. “And I’d never ask.”
This makes her smile. “You’re one of the good ones. I can tell. Inside that piece of paper is the way to my girl’s heart. She insists there’s not a heart there, but I know that’s a lie. Do with it what you will.”
I open it up to see a list of random things. From a quick glance I see a coffee order, a few musicians, and a list of foods.
“Are you sure?”
Hazel nods and gives me a pat on the arm. “There is no one in the world who deserves to be loved more than Izzy. I knew one day it would just take the right guy to do the job. And Oliver, I have a feeling you’re that guy.”
“Thank you,” I say. “She’s someone special.”
“Damn right she is.”
Hazel takes her drinks and walks back to her booth with Knox. I look down at the paper again before folding it gently and putting it into my wallet for safe keeping.
Holy shit…my mind is spinning. Because yes, I know what Izzy said. She doesn’t do relationships. She wasn’t in for a long term. I appreciate her honesty.
But I’ve been in enough relationships to know that what we shared wasn’t a byproduct of the right place at the right time. People don’t connect like that immediately. People don’t share what we shared because of one crazy night.
So I have to try. If she turns me down again then I’ll walk away knowing I did everything I could.
Because she’s worth the effort.
Chapter8
Izzy
If someone saysthey aren’t affected, or even worse, say they like Mondays, they are damn dirty liars. Mondays are the green Skittles of the days of the week—there, but no one wants them. They are even worse when they start with a conference call at five in the morning to recap things we talked about in the last meeting and then to plan on what we’d talk about in the next meeting. Somewhere in between two new things were brought up that could have been an email.
Corporate life is just the best sometimes.
“If I ever see a five a.m. call again on my calendar I quit,” I say to Hazel as we start gathering our files as the call ends.
“No, you won’t,” she says. Though, I do see that she lets out a yawn. “You’re stuck with me forever.”
“Not if you keep pulling this meeting-before-the-sun-is-up bullshit.”
Hazel walks over and gives me a side hug. “Fine. Next one will be at six.”
I let out a groan but return the hug. “You’re lucky I love you.”
And I do. Ever since we met thirteen years ago, Hazel and I have been inseparable. I’ll never forget the night we met. I mean, I don’t think people ever forget the night their lives change forever.
I was drunk as hell, sitting by myself at a dive bar in Los Angeles, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. At that point, I’d been in LA for three years and had put myself through school on a fast track while trying to erase my past. I graduated with a marketing degree, but it was going unused, so that meant waiting tables to make ends meet. I couldn’t ask my family for help because, for lack of a better term, I was dead to them. Once I left Nebraska and defied their wishes, I might as well have dropped off the face of the Earth.
Then there was my love life. When I left my small hometown, I swore to myself I’d never let a man dictate my future. I’d call out the red flags when I saw them, and I’d never, ever, fall for lines of bullshit again.
