She was halfway down the block, on her phone again.
I rubbed my jaw.
When she opened her eyes, it was business until she shut them at night.
If she even shut them at all.
She was brilliant and beautiful.
And she loved to argue.
That made her one of the best lawyers around.
As for me, I settled and enjoyed corporate law. I mostly worked with people pissing over patents and copyrights and trademarks. It was a lot of paperwork, but every company in the city needed a good lawyer or fifty on staff to protect their ass. And they had no problems dishing out six figure paychecks to make that happen.
Could I have done more?
Of course.
Sometimes I thought about it too.
But seeing what it did to Miranda…
She stopped walking and looked back. “Are your legs broke?”
I jogged to catch up. “I was talking to Dale.”
“Who?”
“The doorman.”
“Why were you talking to him?”
“He’s a human,” I said. “Nice guy.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Miranda said.
I grabbed her hand. “Hey. We have to fill out those quizzes still.”
“I know.”
“Some of the questions are kind of crazy. First date restaurant. First date clothes. So many little details.”
“Nobody is going to say we can’t get married if we don’t know the answers,” Miranda said. “It’s just to get a feel for our relationship. Then they figure out the vibe, you know? That’s all.”
“I know that. I’m not-”
“I really have to go,” she said. She jumped to her toes and kissed my cheek. “I’ll call you later. Love you.”
She started to hurry off.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked back. “Remember back in college when you stood up to that asshole professor? Rigweed?”
“Yeah,” Miranda said.
“You were in a white hoodie with messy hair and you just ripped him to shreds. And each time he came back at you, you had a rebuttal. It was the only time anyone ever saw him step back and sit down.”
“What’s your point?”
“The quiz… it has a question about when you first thought about marrying the other person. That was it for me.”
“Liam,” she said. “We can’t live in the past.”
Miranda walked into the road and waved her arms to get cars to stop to let her cross.
I stood there and took a deep breath.
First date restaurant? A little hot dog place called Telly’s.
First date clothes? She wore a navy blue, long sleeve shirt and light blue jeans.
Miranda was out of sight, swallowed up by the busy city morning traffic.
My phone had been buzzing for the last hour with calls, texts, and emails.
I finally checked and saw that a patent was about to get pulled.
That wasn’t good.
I jogged to track down a ride, my fingers typing away at a few texts.
In the back of my mind, I kept picturing Miranda in that white hoodie and then in that navy-blue shirt.
The past wasn’t the worst place to rest sometimes.
She wanted to live in the present and nothing else.
Again, she wasn’t wrong.
But what kind of present was this that we were living?
Chapter Two
Emily
My eyes popped open and I sat up on my own couch.
I looked around the mostly dark living room, in dire need to know what time it was.
When I looked at my phone, I realized I was late.
“Shit,” was my standard response in the morning.
I was terrible at waking up on time.
Worst yet, I owned my own business, which meant I wasn’t allowed to be late.
I kind of inherited the family bakery business.
Trust me, the entire gig was not as joyful as it probably sounded.
At first glance, I was the granddaughter who took over the business to keep it alive and keep the family name going. I was the granddaughter who put in a lot of hours, on a lot of days, and always smiled at each and every customer. I was the granddaughter who hung up pictures of her grandmother to show off where and when the bakery started.
That was all that fake crap kind of thing you’d see on some cheesy movie.
I wasn’t a small town woman with a small town business and a small town house.
I lived in the city and it was busy, competitive, and owning the bakery was…
“Shit,” I said again as I rubbed my forehead.
I stood up and looked at my clothes.
I always changed when I came home from the bakery, which meant nobody had seen me in the clothes I was wearing.
In other words - I was dressed for the day.
I swiped my phone off the table and my keys off the kitchen counter.
I spotted a note on the counter and read it.
Wake me, no matter what, in the morning.
We need to talk about something.
Please, don’t forget.
Jon
“Jon,” I whispered.
My apartment wasn’t big at all, so it was a hop, skip and a jump and I was in the bedroom.
That’s where Jon was sleeping.
Which meant last night I had fallen asleep on the couch and he went to bed without me. He didn’t carry me to bed like he usually did. Unless, of course, I yelled at him. Which I was known to do. Sometimes I would get into a really comfy spot on the couch and that was it. There was no moving me.
Jon looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn’t want to wake him.
Even though his note said to.
I crept to the nightstand and looked at his phone.
I wasn’t the snooping type of girlfriend, I was just checking for his alarm.
It was set for thirty minutes from then.
So he was fine.
I gently put his phone back down and turned.
When I did, I suddenly became an octopus. All eight of my new arms swung around and I knocked the lamp off the nightstand to the floor.
I jumped, and screamed.
Then Jon did the same.
He did some kind of crazy pushup thing and was then standing by the bed.
“Jon, it’s me,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I was just checking on you.”
“What the fu… what time is it?” he asked, gasping for a breath.
“It’s early. But I’m late. As always. I have to go.”
I stepped over the lamp.
Jon
