HEAL YOU | JENLISA

THIRTEEN

LISA

* * *

WHEN I HANG UP FROM THE CALL WITH LVMH ACQUISITIONS, I sit back in my chair and stare at Michael, who’s seated across my desk from me. Neither of us speaks for a full minute. The stunned expression on his face says it all. I’m pretty sure I look the same.

“Did that just happen?” he asks, breaking the silence.

I open up my email program on my laptop, and when I see what I was looking for, I turn it around so the screen faces Michael. “I think it did. Look, her lawyers are already contacting our lawyers to move acquisition talks forward. Prepare to be cc’d on everything.”

“There’s a real chance we’re going to be a household name?” he asks.

An amazed kind of laugh breaks out of me. “I guess so? We might hate their offer and conditions, though. They could also change their minds for no reason. These things go nowhere all the time.”

He nods, but he also sags into his chair and rubs his face like he can’t quite believe this is real life. After a moment, he blinks and declares, “We need to celebrate.”

I grin. “I’m down with that.”

“Tomorrow night,” he adds.

“I have something then,” I say, but before he can suggest another time, I continue, “but I’ll reschedule. I want to reschedule, actually.”

He gives me a curious look. “It’s something … with her?”

“Yeah.” I keep my tone casual as I straighten up my desk, gathering financial printouts into a neat pile. “Things didn’t go too perfectly last time, so we decided to try hooking up one more time.”

Michael props an elbow on his chair’s armrest and rests his chin on his fist as he looks at me. “What do you mean by ‘not too perfectly’?”

“I didn’t sleep with her. We did some stuff, and it was really good. But we both have issues, and we’re working on it,” I say lightly, like I haven’t been thinking about her all week and jerking off to fantasies of her every chance I get.

Michael arches his eyebrows, asking, “You guys have tried to hook up how many times?”

“Only two,” I say.

“At what point is it dating? Three times? Four?”

“It’s dating when we say it’s dating. And we’re not,” I say.

He sits forward in his chair like he’s a bloodhound who’s caught a scent. “Why do you want to reschedule?”

I shrug and put the printouts in the proper file in my desk drawer. Generally, I’m kind of messy—when I got around to cleaning my apartment the other week, I saw that my dishes really were growing mold; that’s a new level of nasty, even for me—but when it comes to this business, I’m super organized. I keep things alphabetized and color coordinated. My email inbox drops to zero unread at the end of every day. Everything’s paid exactly on time.

“Is it because you don’t want it to be over?” Michael asks. “You’re dragging it out?”

I don’t answer. Because it’s complicated. It’s true that Jennie and I have been texting all week, making random observations, sharing funny news articles and cute animal videos and stuff like that. Talking to her fills a space in my life that I didn’t realize was empty, and I’ll be sad to see that end.

But I’m also nervous. I think I know what I need to do the next time we’re together, and I break into a sweat every time I think about it.

“I’m going to ask her about rescheduling while I’m thinking about it,” I say, picking up my phone and texting her the message Hey, can we meet on Sunday night instead of tomorrow?