Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,95
voice message ever, and it's probably going to cut me off soon. So I’ll just close by telling you that my new hire is terrific and I don’t miss you.
You know I’m lying, right? I do miss you, damn it. But I understand why you’re not here, and I’ll just get used to it. Stay safe out there.
Bye.
When the message ends, I sit there for a while, holding my phone to my ear like a ninny. But I’m just not ready for it to end—the message, or my time with Posy. It’s crazy to think that I’m not going back to the pie shop. It’s like leaving a movie in the middle, before you get to see what happens.
I’m invested, damn it. I want to see her again.
But after I waste a few minutes feeling sorry for myself, I realize I’ve got the perfect excuse to go over to Posy’s one more time. I have a bad feeling about how those rats got into her basement. And I might even have a way to prove it.
“Hey, Mark?” I ask the guy who answers The Company switchboard. “I need you to pull some video for me. From a camera on the back door of the pie shop.”
“Sure, Gunn,” he says. “What am I looking for?”
“Two days ago. About ten in the morning. Maybe ten-thirty. Find the bit where I come out the back door with a cup of tea for my break. Back up immediately from there—grab the footage of a woman who stopped in the alley. I don’t know how wide the angle of that backdoor camera reaches, but I think she was up to no good back there. I spotted her when I came outside.”
“Sure, sure,” Mark says. “I’m on it.”
“Thanks, man.”
An hour later, I call Posy back.
“Gunnar,” she says, sounding surprised. “I regret leaving a long, pathetic message on your phone.”
“I don’t regret it,” I tell her. “There was nothing pathetic about it. Except for the part about your health department visit. Can I come over? There’s something big I want to show you.”
“You showed it to me already,” Posy says drily. “I’m already a fan. But maybe that wouldn’t be wise.”
“Wow.” I laugh. “Tough crowd here tonight. Can I please stop over?”
“In the first place,” Posy says. “Aaron and I are playing a vicious game of Go Fish. It’s just the two of us tonight. And in the second place, what’s the point? You hate New York. Is that going to change?”
“Well, probably not,” I admit. “Although I’m a fan of one part of New York—the part that’s wherever you happen to be.”
Posy is quiet for a second. “My life is here, Gunnar. Yours isn’t. That’s just reality.”
She sounds so sure. But I’m starting to understand that my solitary lifestyle is a choice, not an inevitability. And I’m finally starting to realize why people settle down with someone special.
Because when you find that special person, it’s really hard to walk away.
“Listen, this is important,” I beg. The truth is that I could send her the footage and be done with it. But that’s not good enough for me. I want to help Posy solve this problem. I want to be there when she needs me. “I just need fifteen minutes of your time.”
“Fine,” she says with a sigh. “I’m available to talk to you at eight-thirty.”
That must be after the kid’s bedtime. “Great. I’ll be there.”
After we hang up, I go outside and visit the bodega on the corner. I buy a dozen roses. They’re not as fancy as the flowers at a florist’s shop, but it’s the best I can do at the moment. It occurs to me that Posy is named after a flower, but nobody ever buys her any.
What does a posy look like anyway? I make a mental note to figure that out. And then I’ll hunt some down.
I’m a very stubborn man. Whatever I put my mind to, I can achieve. And impressing Posy is my new goal. I don’t really know what a future for Posy and I would look like. But I do know that she and I aren’t done. We can’t be.
30
Posy
Aaron doesn’t want to go to sleep, because he overheard me telling Gunnar to come over.
“I haven’t seen Gunnar in dayyyyyys,” he complains as I tuck him into bed for the eleventy-billionth time.
“He’s not royalty,” I grumble. “And he’s just popping over to give me something. You’re not missing a thing.”