If the Sun Never Sets - Ana Huang Page 0,68

come home every day the past week ranting about how incompetent, misogynistic, and sexist he was—a rare slip of form for a woman who’d handled Wall Street’s old boys’ club with admirable aplomb the past four years. If Olivia lost her cool like this, that meant the new manager must be a special form of horrible.

It had been Olivia’s idea to destress with an outdoor movie, so here they were, plunked on a blanket in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge Park while Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey mamboed their way across the screen. Grapes, cheese, wine, and a large grease-stained pizza box separated the roommates, and the Manhattan skyline—a cinematic masterpiece in and of itself—glowed golden behind the projector.

“Thanks.” Olivia filled her plastic cup to the brim. “Let me know if you change your mind. Is Blake still pulling the Casper act?”

“He didn’t ghost me.” Farrah took another bite of pizza before she gave up and tossed it into the empty box. She debated texting Blake, but her past five messages had gone unanswered, as had her phone calls. One more and she may as well register herself in the national stalker database, if there was such a thing. “LNY is opening in two weeks. He’s busy.”

That’s what she told herself, anyway.

She would’ve worried about Blake being sick or kidnapped or something, had behind-the-scenes videos of him not been splashed all over the official Legends Instagram account in the run-up to LNY’s opening.

He was alive and well and, apparently, avoiding her. But Farrah didn’t want to jump to conclusions without knowing the full story, so she kept that theory to herself.

“You’re probably right.” Olivia dropped a grape into her mouth.

Farrah arched a surprised brow. Despite Blake and Olivia’s truce, her friend still wasn’t Blake’s biggest fan. “I thought you hated Blake,” she said.

“I don’t hate him. Well, I hated him a little after he what he did to you,” Olivia amended. “But we were friends once. Besides, people change, and he’s crazy about you. I can tell by the way he looks at you.”

Farrah’s heart flipped. “You don’t know that.”

“I do, and I know the feeling’s mutual. Don’t deny it,” Olivia said when Farrah opened her mouth to protest. “I was there when you fell for him the first time. I was also there for every guy you’ve dated since him. And there’s only been one person who made you look at him like he hung the stars in the sky.”

The ache in Farrah’s chest had nothing to do with the cold, greasy pizza she ate earlier.

“I just got over him,” she murmured. “Before he dropped back into my life.”

“Bullshit.” Olivia slammed her empty cup onto the blanket. “You’ve never fallen out of love with him. Your first love is like a tidal wave. Your head can break above the water, and you might even make it to shore, but the slightest nudge and you’re in the deep again. Now, that’s not true for all people, but it is for you and Blake. You are each other’s oceans.”

If that were true, the waters were rocky as hell. They crashed against the edges of Farrah’s confidence, chipping at it, eroding it, until she floated adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Was she making too big a deal out of Blake’s silence, or did she have every right to worry?

“Liv, the poet.” Farrah threw a grape at her friend in an attempt to dispel the heavy emotions Olivia’s observations stirred up. “You should get an MFA instead of an MBA.”

It worked. The conversation about Blake ground to a halt as Olivia snorted and tossed a grape back. “Ha! No way. I don’t do lovey-dovey literature. That’s why I read erotica. They gloss over all the bullshit and focus on the good part: the sex.”

“Hmm.” A teasing smile tugged at Farrah’s lips. “I remember a time when you were very much in love.”

“You better not be talking about Sammy.” Olivia poured herself another cup of wine and chugged it. “That turned out to be a disaster.”

Farrah’s smile widened. “I didn’t mention Sammy. You did. You should stop by to see him, you know. His pop-up is crazy popular, but he’ll make time for you.”

Olivia’s eyes narrowed into slits.

Luckily, someone interrupted them before she could strangle Farrah.

“Farrah?”

The throaty, familiar voice slid through the humid summer air, followed by a cloud of Chanel No. 5.

Farrah’s eyes grew to the size of saucers when she saw Jane, her old supervisor at KBI, picking her way through