Page 41 of The Plus One Professional
She nodded.
“How long were you two together?”
I figured it had to be a fairly significant relationship if she’d go so far out of her comfort zone to hire me. Or at least try to hire me, since I had no plans of accepting a dime.
“Um, that’s sort of hard to say.”
“Is it?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.” I pointed to the navigation that said we would arrive at our destination in two and a half hours.
“Right, well, Simon was my first boyfriend. We met when I was fourteen, the summer before my freshman year and his senior year of high school. We dated over the summer and through the school year. After graduation, he took a gap year and went abroad.”
“So, you broke up?”
“No, I mean, at least I didn’t know we had until he came home over Christmas with another girlfriend.”
“And you had no idea he was seeing someone else?”
“Nope.”
“Had you talked to him? When he was overseas?”
“Yeah. He called me once a week, and he sent me a bunch of postcards and emails. I even went to the airport to pick him up with his parents.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, and he walked off the flight with a six-foot-tall Norwegian model.”
“Wow. That’s… I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”
“So you guys, what, you stayed friends?”
“Yeah, I mean, we kept in touch. Over the years.”
I glanced to my right, and from the look in her eyes, I could see that they’d kept intouch,emphasis on touch. They’d hooked up. My guess was every time he was between relationships, or when it was convenient.
She was still in love with him. That much was clear.
I didn’t know what was going to happen this weekend, but I planned on doing everything in my power to get her over Simon. She was thirty-six, and they’d gotten together when she was fourteen. That meant she’d spent twenty-two years in love with a man who didn’t appreciate her.
That’s a lifetime of unrequited love. Bailey deserved to be treasured, adored, respected, valued, prioritized, and cherished. And this weekend, that’s exactly what I planned on doing.
17
BAILEY
“So,what about you? What was your longest relationship?” I knew it was none of my business, but now that we’d opened the exes can of worms, I wanted to know.
I sort of felt like I’d wasted my ‘personal question’ on his age, but we still had a long drive ahead of us, and I figured I’d give it another shot.
Silence hung in the air. I stared out the windshield and wondered if I should retract the question. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I was just really curious.
“Nine years,” he finally said.
