“Whoa, whoa, whoa, do not give me details.” Enzo points a finger in my face. “I will never forgive you.”
I let my shoulders drop and sigh. “I wasn’t going to, asshole. I was just going to say, we’d been together, we’d planned to eat our meals together, we went on dates.”
“But you never asked her to be your girlfriend?” The question looks like it pains him, but he asks it anyway.
“No.” I sigh, letting my head fall back. Somehow, I thought that giving the woman my virginity was enough, but apparently not.
“Women need actual words. They don’t just make assumptions and Viv is the worst of them. She needs a freaking contract for things to be considered real for her. Not just action.”
I sigh again, then something sparks. “I never signed any contract before…”
Enzo rolls his eyes. “That was a metaphor.”
“No, no.” The wheels start to spin in my mind and I feel like a light was suddenly turned on. “When we started the ploy to get together, for her job shit, she wanted a contract to make everything official. But we never signed it.”
“Okay…”
“So, what if I make a new contract?”
“A new contract? Like what?”
I bite my lip. “I have an idea… but I need to work on her a little before I present it to her.”
Enzo sighs and says, “You two are fucking exhausting. I don’t care what you do, just make my sister happy again, because seeing her cry breaks my big-brother heart, and I can’t take it.”
I smile for the first time since I got dumped and say, “I’ll take care of it.”
Chapter Forty-Three
“…then I woke up, and realized, I was totally, completely, stupidly wrong.” – Viviana
VIVIANA
“Viv, babe, you got a delivery,” Abigail announces, a giant bouquet of flowers in her hands, placed in a see-through green vase. I frown at the display. Who would be sending flowers?
I stand up and take the vase from Abigail, who was also hired alongside two other people and me. I was grateful for her company when I’d admitted that Archer and I were no longer a couple.
I hadn’t meant to admit it to anyone within the company, but my first few days back after our breakup, I was admittedly not myself. Coming to work with my hair in a bun, no makeup on, and my comfiest (yet appropriate) work wear, I was just… sad.
Being sad made me think of the “sad night” that Archer gave me and thinking ofthatjust made my sadness sadder, and I didn’t know how to dig myself out of the endless loop of sad.
Abigail pulled me aside on day four, telling me to woman up and tell her what was going on, so… I did.
I blamed it on the fact that I hadn’t spoken with Jane, Quinn, or April about the situation and didn’t feel like I could.
They were partners with his friends, not mine. Therefore, in the breakup, they would have to choose his side of things. I wouldn’t blame them for that, they wouldn’t want to cause problems in their own relationships and I would never ask them to.
So I was ready to suffer in silence. I already had my mom and Enzo blowing up my phone every few hours, I didn’t need anyone else.
But… when she’d taken me to a wine bar after work, I’d given in and told her everything. Even the fake bits, even the part about having a crush on him when I was a teenager and thinking he’d want nothing to do with me.
She’d listened, got me wine drunk and took me home, making sure I wasn’t going to drown in my own filth before coming back the next morning and helping me get ready for work. She did my hair, my makeup, and chose one of my normal, more dressy work outfits.
I owed her.
When I told her this, she explained that we were friends now and this was what friends do. I’d nearly cried and thanked her for helping me.
Now, she winks as she hands me the vase, and even though I can tell she wants to stay and ask questions, she doesn’t push and leaves me to myself.