Ten Days of Perfect (15 page)

“Really? Thanks, Ember.”

“Yea, really. I meant what I said about answering any and all of Monica’s future calls. And, if she gathers enough of herself together to see you face-to-face, don’t be a douche - look her in the eyes this time.” I hung up, feeling rather triumphant on behalf of Monica.

As I walked into the living room, tears in Monica’s eyes w
ere escorted away by curiosity.

“He was just checking that you were OK . . .” I shrugged.

“What’d you tell him?” A hint of a grin graced her face.

“Oh, you know that we finished the VooDoo doll in his likeness and were dancing around a fire on the beach drumming a death chant.

“Awe, thanks!”

“I told him to leave us alone, and you’d call him if you wanted to.” She smiled. “But I told him I would meet him tomorrow at Finne
gan’s after I got out of work.”

Monica’s brow furrowed as I continued.

“He knows that I know what Bo said and, Monica, if I’m going to be spending any more time with
him
I need some more information on their discussion.” It wasn’t fair. Not to Josh, Monica, or Bo - especially Bo - that I was stalking out his feelings for me,
and via Josh, no less.

“Why can’t
you just bring it up with Bo?”

“I will talk to him about it, when he’s ready to talk to me about it. I’m sure he never intended for
Josh to tell anything.”

Before she could answer, my phone dinged with a text message.

Bo:
Wish I could see you now

“
Who’s that
?” Monica questioned

“Bo wishes he could see me.” I tried to shrug off the Irish jig trampling my insides.

“Em, you don’t need me here taking up your possibly limited time with Hottie Mc Guitar!” I flinched a little at ‘limited’
,
but quite enjoyed her nickname for him.

“Ha, thanks for your concern. But he’s in New Hampshire tonight - we’re g
oing to get together tomorrow.”
I picked u
p my phone and texted him back.

Me:
I miss you too. Wish you were in town.

Bo:
Me too.

Me:
I’ve got to talk to Josh tomorrow after work, at Finnegan’s . . . stuff about Monica and whatever - want to meet me there around 7 and we can decide what to do from there?

Bo:
I’ve got a better idea. I’ll text you in a little bit.

I didn’t text back; I just smiled at my phone.

“Ember,” Monica said dreamily, “it’s so nice to see you happy.”

“I’m always happy, you know that. My happiness and men are mutually exclusive. Though, it
is
nice when they intersect,” I winked.

“You know what I mean.”

We sat for a couple of hours, and I was supportive as Monica yelled, cried, laughed, and cried some more about her breakup with Josh. When there were no more tears left I drove her home – she wasn’t in any condition to drive on a number of levels. After she was safely in her
apartment, I returned to mine.
I ambled up the stairs, reached for my phone, and texted Bo.

Me:
I really do miss you

I hit send and immediately jumped at a beeping noise at the top of the stairs.
What the hell?

As I rounded the corner I gasped at Bo sitting on the top step, just outside my door, elbows planted firmly on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.
Sitting on that ‘Welcome’ mat under which my resolve hides, I see.

“What are you doing here?” I could barely contain the ridiculous smile crossing my lips.

“I told you I wished I could see you.” He shrugged, cocked his head to the side and drew a slow smile.

“Well, you made good time,
weirdo s
talker.” I was quite aware of the roughly 2.5 hour drive t
ime from Concord to Barnstable.
I sat next to him on the stairs and leaned my shoulder
on
his. I was emotionally
drained, in all ways good and bad. Bo curled his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head as he drew me in.

“You smell good,” I whispered as I turned my face toward his neck, kissing it softly.

“Mmm, you do too.” He buried his nose in my hair. “Come take a walk with me?”

“A walk? It’s nearly midnight.”

“We’ll drive down to the beach. The moon is huge. Please?” He sto
od and held his hand out to me.

Oh, what the hell.

* * *

I was thankful for the unseasonably warm weather as we strolled down the moonlit beach, hand in hand.
Bo didn’t speak during our five minute drive, and I didn’t interrupt the silence. The past twent
y-four hours were weighing heavy on me.

“Sorry, again, about today. It was all so much - Josh and Monica, my parents last night . . .” I shook my head and gazed at the heaving sea.

“November, stop apologizing. We’ve had a lot thrown at us from all different directions.  How was the time with your parent
s?” His sincerity was palpable.

I wondered if I would smell the sorrow if I didn’t know his parents were dead. I stopped where I was and folded down to the sand, begging my tears to stay at bay. I hadn’t had a lot of time to process what my parents and I had spoken about the night before.
Reckless abandon.
Raven’s words echoed through my body as I remembered that I need to c
ommit with my heart or my mind.

“They were all raised eyebrows, mouths open
;
they saw the open guitar cas
e and asked what was going on.”

“What’d you tell them?” Bo sat next to me and gave me a little nudge.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“Um…”

Don’t cry!

“November,” he lifted my chin with his index finger and turned my face toward his
, “what
is it?” The pure light from the moon flooded his eyes with concern.

Don’t cry.

Too late.

As soon as I blinked, tears spilled messily down my face. I didn’t try to wipe them away, and I didn’t break my gaze from his. Bo’s forehead creased momentarily as he watched the tears - filled with so many things I wanted to tell him - fall to the sand. He didn’t look away as he brushed the salty confusion from one of my cheeks with his thumb.

“Ember. . .”

“Bo, it’s just . . .” I wiped my eyes, finally, and turned my face back to the ocean
.
“I’ve never felt like this with anyone. Not just physically either. You’ve burrowed yourself deep in my soul. All the evidence my parents needed was the guitar I’ve never really played, just sitting causally in my living room. You’ve sparked something in me
. . .
” Out of the corner of my eye I saw him half-smil
e.

“You’re crying because of how you feel about me?” He kept the grin as he tried to understand.

“It’s not about you, it’s about
me
. I am not the person that fantasizes about running away with hot, guitar-playing man-gods.” I was able to force a laugh through my tears, “There’s this part of m
e
that’s longed for you for so long, and when you showed up it was like an ice-cold shower shocking me to life. I like structure, predictability, an unbroken heart . . .” I shot a glance in his direction and he seemed to cringe at ‘an unbroken heart’
.

Bo moved to a kneeling position in front
of me, commanding my attention.

“November, if your heart was mine it would never break.” His hands tightened around mine as he spoke the sweetest words my ears had ever hosted.

“Even in a thousand lifetimes?”

Shit!
I dropped Bo’s hands, flew to a standing pos
ition as he flinched, again, against my words
, and
I
walked away
. I was embarrassed that I let that slip out, and
suddenly felt angry that he would tell Josh, and not me. When you feel that strongly about someone, you tell them
.

“Josh . . .” he half whispered to the now vacant place I had previously occupied. He stood up and briskly fo
llowed my pace down the beach.

“Ember, I shouldn’t have said anything to
anyone
.”
He wisely stayed slightly behind me, seemingly trying to judge my level of anger.

“
A thousand lifetimes,
Bo!? You feel like you’ve known me for
a thousand
freaking lifetimes?
That’s a bit intense, don’t you think?” I didn’t slow my pace.

“You just told me that I shocked your soul to life and you’re accusing
me
of intensity of emotion?” His firmness road-blocked me.

“But I told
you
, Bowan. You told Josh, and he used it as an excuse to break up with my best friend!” Bo stared out
at the ocean unapologetically.

“Ember, I’m really sorry about what happened with your friends. I’m sorry that Josh freaked after we talked. Look at me - that has
nothing
to do with us
.
” He grabbed my shoulders, forcing my eyes on his.  “I have never felt this way about anyone in my entire life. And the other night, at your place, when we
-”

“Had sex?” I interrupted.

“That’s not the phrase I would use, but, yea. That was the
single-most
mind,
soul, and earth shattering experience
of my life.” His eyes searched mine in a panic.

“Bo, I haven’t ever felt this way about anyone either, and it scares me.” I looked just past him to avoid being consumed by the intensity of his now nearly black eyes.

“Even about Adrian?” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and backed up a step to gage my reaction.

“Excuse me?” My brow furrowed in sardonic consternation. “You’re seriously bringing up Adrian
fucking
Turner?
I told you it was ancient
hist
-
wait . . . Did
you see him today
when you went back to Concord?”

The question suspended in the space between our bodies.

“He is a member of our legal team and was briefed on today’s meeting.”
Oh, that’s it? You’re going to leave it at that?

“You couldn’t have briefed him over the phone?”

It occurred to me that my reaction to Adrian’s name during the meeting did not sit as well with Bo as he had led me to believe. It appeared Mr. Y-chromosome drove 2.5 hours to size up m
y ex-boyfriend with fresh eyes.

“Wait a minute,
Bo, you didn’t tell him . . .”

“I didn’t tell Turner about us
.
I needed to sign some contracts for some other things, and I told him the meeting
went well. I told him that you and Monica both spoke fondly of his abilities, and that the two of you would be arriving with your boss early next week.”
Oh shit.

“Hm.”
Ember, get a damn grip. Hm?

“He seemed quite pleased about you ladies coming to Concord.” Bo’s face fell, as if he was trying to work out the history be
tween Adrian and me.

“Look,” I took a deep breath at the realization that this night was not going as envisioned
.
“I know that you said I didn’t owe you an explanation about Adrian
-
”

“You don’t
.
”

“Bo, just shut up and sit down for a minute,” I instructed as delicately as possible
.

I told Bo about my relationship with Adrian, and that we intended it to be mainly sexual; no strings attached. Bo looked up at me rather sympathetically when I shrugged and told him that when I thought I wanted more, and he wasn’t ready for that, we called it a day - no hard feelings.

That was the Disney version of our break-up, it was all Bo needed. The only thing lacking resolution at this point, I told him, was me giving him a piece of my mind for this business deal.

“Ha, well, I’d like to be there for that, if you don’t mind.” Bo’s ego seemed intact, and his disposition relaxed at the thought of me verbally assaulting Adrian. “He’s a smug bastard, but he’s damn good at what he does,” Bo lauded.

“Yea, I was afraid of that.” With an eye roll I checked my phone and saw it was approaching 1:00am. “Can we get going? It’s late.”

“Of course, let’s go.” He grabbed my hand as we headed back down the beach to his car.

When we
reached
the parking lot, a truck drove
past, startling
me away from the enchantment of the ocean with a jump. My hair stood on end and I reflexively tightened my grip on Bo’s hand as a very
familiar pickup truck drove into the distance.