Paige was surprised to find her heart pounding. Being this close to Josh and having what amounted to a fairly normal conversation was like the worst temptation. But instead of dropping to her knees and begging him to take her back, she said, “I lived in Dubai for a while.”
“Oh, right. They probably have a lot of Middle Eastern food there.”
“They do, but there are a lot of American expats in Dubai, so they have pretty much anything you’d want.”
They both stood there silently for a while, so clearly they had not found the key to unlocking the awkwardness.
She sighed. “I’m so sorry about…everything. I miss you, for what it’s worth.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I miss you, too.”
And then she decided to be honest. “I’m still thinking through some things. I just… I realized that I have some things I have to figure out for myself. But I hope that you and I can be friends.”
He slid his headphones into the tote bag he had around his shoulder, probably for something to do with his hands. “Breakup still on, in other words.” He looked up and had a rueful smile on his face.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Again.”
“It’s okay. Some things were not meant to be.”
In that moment, Paige could think of no good reason for that to be the case, except that something just…didn’t feel quite right. She was being a coward, she knew.
“It’s good to know, though,” said Josh, “that when Lauren throws her annual New Year’s party, something I’ve been hearing about for many years but never been able to attend, that I’ll at least be able to say hi to you and ask about work.”
“Sure.”
“So you’ll tell me some story about a cat named after some literary heroine, and it will be unspeakably adorable, and I’ll laugh. And I’ll complain about work to you, because even though I know it’s not one of my more endearing traits, it’s what I think about most of the time. And we’ll have some wine and smile like our hearts aren’t breaking and give each other a peck at midnight, and everything will be fine.”
“Josh.” Lord. Her heart was breaking now. The sadness in Josh’s voice was hard to reconcile.
This was on Paige and she knew it. He still cared about her, but she knew, given what he went through with Megan, that he needed someone willing to fight for him, willing to stick with him through challenging times, he needed someone willing to go all in on the relationship, and she was not convinced she was that person, not when the idea of giving herself to another person, of shaking up her life so much, made her nauseous.
He shot her a lopsided smile. “It’ll get easier with time. And, hey, it’s probably for the best, right? I don’t know why I thought I had any business trying to maintain a relationship during my first year as an associate.”
“That’s not…” But Paige didn’t want to get into a whole discussion right now. “Is it too much of a cliché to say it’s not you, it’s me?”
Josh barked out a laugh. “Well, look. If you think things through and you decide that maybe you’d be willing to give it a go with me again, you know where to find me.”
Why did he have to be so charming and cute? “You’ll be my first call.”
He laughed again. “I hope so. I better get to this big Middle Eastern dish before it gets cold. I’ll see you around, Paige.” Then he pulled out a key and went into the residential part of the building.
Once he was gone, Paige leaned against the Cat Café’s front window.
What was she doing?
Her whole life, Paige had always been the practical one. The one who had her shit together. She’d gotten good grades in school, she’d played two sports, she’d gotten into a good college. When she’d gotten that first job out of college, she’d been so good at it that she could retire now if she really wanted to.
But shedidn’thave her shit together. Not really. She applied logic and reason to work, and she’d tried to impose them on love, too.
Business wasn’t even entirely rational. If she needed to put on a conference, she toured hotels and convention centers and let the staff wine and dine her and offer her anything she could possibly want for her event. When she found the right place, she got this gut feeling. There was nothing rational about a gut feeling, but in a moment, she could see exactly how everything would play out. She knew she was in control. And she’d been assuming that if she let enough guys wine and dine her, she’d get a similar gut feeling about one, and that would be the guy she married.
She was good at work but not at love. She kept looking at romantic relationships like a problem to be solved, like she could just collect data and put it in a spreadsheet and some back-end code would tell her the answer.
Behind everything Paige was feeling was some old vision she had of how her life would play out. When she’d settled back in New York, she’d expected to find Mr. Right. But now she wondered if she’d ever given any of her internet dates a chance. Some of them had been wrong for her, but some had been perfectly nice guys that she just hadn’t connected with. None of them had ever given her that gut feeling she’d expected. And because of that, she’d never judged any of them fit to weave into her well-ordered life where she didn’t have to compromise or change anything. She’d imagined they would fit together and everything would be comfortable and perfect. But maybe that wasn’t how love worked.
And Josh, sweet, funny Josh, had thrown all of her ideas about what her life should be on their head. He made her feel things she’d never felt before. And she’d wasted a lot of time coming up with reasons why theyshouldn’tbe together without letting herself think about all the reasons that theyshould.
* * *
