Page 60 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

11

REID

London

A month later

I don’t think about Marley.

I don’t let my mind wander to the lovely American woman with the freckles.

I refuse to let my thoughts stray to her soulful eyes, her lush hair, her winning smile.

And I do not under any circumstances consider her warm sense of humor, her wryness, the way she teased me coupled with the ways she didn’t tease me. My God, the woman was so open, so heartfelt.

I’ll never meet someone like her again.

But I don’t think about that whatsoever.

If I did, I’d be a sad sack.

And I’m not. At all.

I have work to do, a business to build, and contacts to develop.

And that’s why when I go to New York for a project, I don’t look her up.

How could I?

I don’t know her last name.

Sure, I could search all the Marleys in New York in business school. But there are many business schools in New York, and surely many Marleys. So if I did that, I’d have to punish myself with no more football, no more books, no more chocolate.

I’d have to ask my best mates to take away my man card.

She was a moment in time.

And only that.

And as I once read on the back of a book jacket I designed, “Some relationships were meant to last for a lifetime. Some for a day.”

My chest punches.

What a stupid saying.

I should have asked for her name, her number.

I should have done any or all of the above.

Except I won’t and I can’t.

After a meeting, I walk through the Village, past the NYU business school.

Is that where she went?

No idea.

But just in case, I give myself an hour.

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