Page 149 of The One I Hate
I shake my head, and before I know it, Amelia is taking my arm and leading me back through the kitchen and up to the apartment I’ve been staying in this week.
“Sit down,” she says gently, handing me a tissue. I do my best not to cry—Whitley worked too hard on my makeup for me to cry it away—but a few sneak out.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I say. “I’ve been good all day.”
“You miss him. You’re allowed to be sad about that.”
Thank goodness all of the women knew what was happening without me needing to tell them. Simon’s family doesn’t know. Which is how I wanted it. We didn’t need anything awkward today.
“I’ve never been more confused about feelings,” I say.
“Have you reached out? Has he?”
“I know he’s come by. I’ve hidden from him.” I catch a leaked tear with a tissue. “I know we need to talk. But I’m so confused I don’t know what to say. Because I miss him. But I’m mad at him. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. And I want to say all the things. I don’t want tempers or emotions to get in the way. And then what if we say everything, and we’re not on the same page? There are so many what-ifs that I won’t know until I talk to him, but at the same time I’d like to know them before we talk. Does that make sense?”
“It does.”
“And worst of all, what if he’s not ready to talk to me?”
“He’s ready.”
Amelia and I turn to Izzy, who’s standing at the door of the apartment.
“How do you know?”
Izzy walks in and hands me the long, yet narrow, gift-wrapped box. “Because of this.”
I look at it, but don’t dare start to unwrap it. “What is it?”
Izzy shrugs. “That I don’t know. All I know is that Simon showed up at my doorstep this morning—banging on the door and interrupting a very good orgasm by the way—to ask Oliver to wrap this present.”
Amelia laughs. “He did not.”
“Oh, he did,” Izzy says. “He at least brought coffee.”
I laugh. “Sounds about right.”
“He wouldn’t tell us what it was. He just asked me to give this to you. I was going to wait until the end of the shower, you know, in case it was something very Simon-esque that wouldn’t be appropriate to open in front of children or his mother, but I’m guessing in light of the circumstances of the week, and that the men were over at his house last night until two in the morning, that he’s ready to talk.”
I have to blink a few times. “Two in the morning?”
“Yeah,” Amelia says. “I didn’t even hear Shane come in. And before I left for this today, he did mumble that you’re too good for Simon and to run. Which in Shane speak means you’re in and the guys approve.”
“Wow,” I say, looking down at the box. I want to open it, but I also don’t know what will happen when I do. Will I laugh? Cry? Want to leave my shower immediately? “What do I do?”
“Whatever you want,” Amelia says, patting my knee. “We’ll go back down and stall. You take all the time you need.”
I say thank you to both of them as they leave me in the apartment, holding a box. A long, not normally shaped box. It’s light. I know it’s not, but the only thing I can think that would fit in here is a magic wand.
It better not be a fucking wand…
“Fuck it,” I say, my curiosity getting the best of me. I rip open the paper and take off the lid to find a note laying on top of the tissue paper.
Miss Bennett,
I have gotten word from my property manager, Emmett Collins, that you are unhappy with your rental agreement for the property known as Mona’s, located at 382 Main Street, Rolling Hills, Tennessee.
If you’d like to discuss your lease going forward, I’d be happy to meet with you this afternoon. I’ve been told you are otherwise engaged this morning. I am free the rest of the day, and all the days after this, at my home office. I believe you have the address.
