Page 58 of Unrealistic Expectations

But there was something he wanted more than to become a miserable bastard with a pickled liver—he wanted Jessica back. She’d been clear that she didn’t want to talk to him. And he couldn’t really blame her. He had really been a jerk the night of the reunion. He hadn’t known how to support her. He wouldn’t blame her if she made another Instagram live video about him, detailing all the ways that he truly was a cad.

But Abby’s text had sparked enough hope in him that Jessica was at least a little miserable without him. He knew enough about Jessica’s publicist to know that she wasn’t a romantic—she’d walked away from her marriage without a second glance—but she was fiercely protective of her clients. If she was reaching out to Galvin, then it was for Jessica’s ultimate benefit.

He didn’t dare hope that Jessica had requested his presence. She hadn’t reached out to him all week, which told him that she wasn’t ready to talk. She was big mad and had every right to be. And Galvin wasn’t sure what to do or how to repair their relationship. He had never tried to fix a fuckup this big before. He was out of his depth. He’d texted her multiple things and had all manner of gifts in online shopping carts, but it all felt hollow. He’d even thought about sending his favorite decorator to her apartment to pick out new furniture, but that might make things worse. He was sort of paralyzed.

It was ironic that all the years he’d spent trying to avoid getting too deep into a relationship because of that first heartbreak were what kept him from building the skills necessary to prevent this one.

He was a fucking idiot, and he’d berated himself every moment since she walked out the door. But he knew that hating himself wasn’t going to get him back into Jessica’s good graces—he wasn’t sure what would, but he was willing to trust Abby right now.

Abby had put him at the back of the plane, which made sense. He deserved row 30, with the airplane toilet smell and getting hit with the drinks cart so many times that he limped off the plane. He just felt lucky that she’d ordered him a decent car and booked him into the Carlyle.

When he got to the hotel room, he found an itinerary on the bed. When he saw what had been planned for him, his stomach dropped. Jessica would hate this. She couldn’t actually know about it. She would never agree to it.

Immediately, he called Abby. “Does she know that I’m going to be here?”

“Of course not.” He could practically hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. “I never would have gotten her out of bed had she known that you were going to be there.”

“I’m absolutely not going to show up on set.” Jessica would cut him out of her life, permanently, without a second thought.

“I figured that you might say that, and I’m disappointed but not surprised.”

“And you flew me here anyway? Thanks for the aisle seat in the back of the plane, by the way. I’m in a great mood and don’t need a ninety-minute massage at all.”

“You fucked up, and I thought the groveling should start the minute you began your journey of redemption.” Abby sighed. “Listen, you have a dope hotel suite and about thirty-six hours to figure out how you’re going to win her back. I teed up the grand gesture of you showing up in her greenroom and making amends so that she doesn’t fuck up her whole career when she goes on live television, but you know her better than I do.”

“You’re worried about her screwing up?” The Jessica he knew would be able to stay totally cool and professional no matter what the circumstances. The only times he’d ever seen her thrown out of her zone was when her mother showed up unannounced and when she ran into Luke and his fiancée.

“She was in bed at three p.m. and hadn’t washed her hair in, like, a week. When I walked into her condo, there was just a pile of dirty bras next to the door.”

None of that seemed like Jessica at all. Galvin panicked. He knew how important it was to Jessica to have her book be successful. If their breakup was putting her at risk of losing that, he had to do something. It was a gamble for him to show up unannounced. He didn’t know if she would forgive him, or if it would upset her so much that it would throw her off her game.

But if she was bedridden over him, it meant that her feelings for him had actually been real. If that was the case, it meant that he had a chance to win her back—for real this time, with not a single lie between them.

“If I show up, I’m not going to be on the show,” he said. He wasn’t going to litigate his past in the public eye anymore. Besides, it didn’t matter anymore anyway. If he couldn’t be with Jessica, he didn’t much care whether he ever got laid again. And his career was going well enough that he didn’t have to worry too much about bad publicity.

“I mean, it would be really cute if you gave her an on-air testimonial, but fine.” Abby then gave him all the details about where to show up and when to surprise Jessica.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jessica would never get used to “glam,” and she would never figure out how to get the kind of volume in her hair that the studio’s hairstylist had managed. She looked like a Real Housewife, and it was kind of freaking her out. She might have more credibility as a therapist if she’d shown up in her dirty sweats and smeared makeup rather than someone who looked likely to flip a table or throw a drink.

“What do you think?” the hairstylist asked when she turned off the very loud curling iron brush thingy that almost seemed sentient as it wrapped her hair around.

Jessica practiced her professional, composed smile with the woman in the mirror. “It looks great. Thank you.” She was sincere—the woman had put in a monumental effort to ensure that she didn’t look like a total sad sack—and it had sort of worked. She wondered what her Housewife tagline would be.

She was contemplating whether she would say something like, “I’m not all talk, and I’m going to shrink these other bitches down to size,” when she thought she saw Galvin pass by the open door in the mirror.

No, absolutely not. It couldn’t be him. He’d called every day this week. But how did he know that she was in New York? Then it dawned on her, the only person who knew that she was in New York was Abby. Abby wouldn’t have called him, would she? True, she’d ambushed Jessica at her apartment and practically forced her onto the plane. And she’d looked very concerned for Jessica’s mental health the whole time. But mashing her together with Galvin like they were a wayward Barbie and Ken set, in a high-pressure situation like her first appearance on national television, didn’t seem like an Abby move.

But Abby didn’t believe in dicking around when it came to anything—including emotions.

And then he was standing right there behind her, looking at her in the mirror. She was almost too stunned to meet his gaze.

“You’re here.” She was at the point of shock that she could only state things that were obviously true. But she was overwhelmed by this particular truth. She knew he was real because she could smell the soap he used along with the flowers he held in his hands—peonies. She’d once told him they were her favorite, and he remembered.

“I’m sorry.” He looked truly contrite. She’d seen him angry, flirty, sex addled, focused on work, frustrated, and sad. But she’d never seen him look as though he’d truly lost something important to him.

The sadness she saw in his eyes was totally new. It made her want to reach out and comfort him. Even though he’d fumbled their first argument. After all, she’d messed it up, too.

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