Chapter Thirty
Dean
I wake up to someone sprinkling water on my face and jump up from the couch as though an intruder’s on the scene. I’m ready to rush the person—until I realize it’s Max.
“You’re so damn slow,” he says, chuckling.
“And you’re a creepy stalker,” I say as I massage my chest and take stock of my surroundings. The sun’s setting, and my place looks like trash. “How the hell did you get in here?”
“Mr. Donatelli in three oh seven let me in downstairs. He’s seen us together enough times to know where I was headed.”
“That doesn’t explain how you entered my unit.”
He stalks my way and glowers at me. “Your damn door was open. So what the hell’s going on?”
I step back and give him an honest answer. “I don’t even know.”
It’s been a few days since I officially became unemployed. A few days of not knowing how to get my life plan back on track. A few days of mostly wishing Solange were here. Thankfully, my mother’s settling into her new apartment in Delaware.
As I watch Max rifle through my fridge, I realize he’s wearing athletic gear, which means I must have missed our standing basketball meetup. “Shit. I’m sorry I didn’t show.”
He waves off my apology and moves away from the fridge, a cold beer in hand. “Figured something must have happened when I couldn’t reach you. You went on do-not-disturb mode?”
I nod and drop onto the couch. “Yeah. Everyone except my mom.”
“This is serious, then.”
I frown at him, unsure what he’s referring to. “This?”
“This thing with Solange.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
Max slips me a dubious glance and folds himself into the armchair facing the couch. “Dude, you didn’t show up for basketball. You put your phone on do-not-disturb. You left your door unlocked while you slept. Your hair looks like it’s being held up by static electricity. You have the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow. There’s stale popcorn on the coffee table.” He turns to the movie on pause on my TV screen. “And you’re watching When Harry Met Sally. You’re not only watching a rom-com, but you’re also acting as if you’re starring in one. This has I’m-in-my-feelings-about-Solange written all over it. Am I right?”
I can’t argue with the facts. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Max holds up his hands. “I’m not here to tell you I told you so.”
“Good.”
“I’m here to sing it instead.” And true to his word, he singsongs the damn words like a four-year-old. “I told you so. I told you so. La-la-la-la-la. I told you so.”
I can’t help laughing. I know my best friend. He’s only acting like a fool because he wants me to get out of this funk. And I should. But it isn’t easy. I can’t just snap my fingers and erase everything I experienced with Solange. Plus, I’m terrified. I don’t even have the security of my job to fall back on. “Yeah, you did warn me, and I had my own reservations. Instead of listening to my instincts, I convinced myself we made sense together. I was kidding myself.”
“Let me ask you this,” Max says. “Would you prefer that the last several weeks had never even happened?”
I don’t need to think about it. The answer is no. Undoubtedly, unreservedly, unequivocally hell no. I shake my head. “I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if I could. Except the getting-fired part.”
“It was a rhetorical question. Just hoping to clear your head a bit. And let me ask you something else: When you learned you’d been fired, who’s the first person you told?”
I blow out a breath. “Solange.” Max wants to ascribe some significance to that fact, but there’s a reasonable explanation. “She wanted to help me get a promotion. I thought it was only fair that I tell her it didn’t pan out.”
Max shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me. “If that’s what you want to believe, fine. But you’re never going to be happy until you figure out why you were chasing partnership like life depended on it. News flash: It doesn’t.”
“This is all I know, okay? My career has always been solid. It gives me clothes. Food. A roof over my head. A fucking purpose.”
“Dean, a job is not a personality. It’s not a life either. Somehow you need to figure out how to make a life for yourself that includes your work but also gives you space for the people and things that make you happy.”
That all sounds great on paper, but the reality isn’t as easy or rosy. “So what are you suggesting? That I chase after someone who won’t stay put? Someone who doesn’t know what she’ll want next week, let alone next year? If I let myself love her and Solange wakes up one day and decides I was just a phase in her life, I’d only have myself to blame. Knowing what I know about her, it doesn’t make sense to put myself out there like that. No, Solange was a detour, and honestly, I think she prefers it that way.”
“Here’s the thing about detours, though: Sometimes they become the destination.”
My head snaps up, and I look at him askance. “What the fuck does that mean, Yoda?”
Max puts his hands together and bows. “When you figure it out, you will have achieved your true purpose.”
“Get the hell out of here with that shit.” I throw a pillow at him for good measure. “I need to start calling in favors with law school classmates.” Damn, I also need to pick up my personal belongings at the firm—with a security guard watching over me, I’m sure.
“The big picture is that you can’t change what’s happened. You can only move forward. It’s time to get your shit together and figure out your next steps.” He scans my face and outfit. “You need to shower and shave. Put a comb and some fucking gel in your hair, because I’ve never seen it look like that and I’m worried whatever’s happening on the top of your head is permanent.” He gestures at the TV screen. “And stop watching all of these damned movies. They’re only going to depress you in your current state. Although I’ll admit Always Be My Maybe was hilarious.”
“You’re right,” I say, sitting up and rolling my shoulders. “I’ll do all that . . . tomorrow. But for now, I’m going to watch clueless people fall in love.”
Max drops his head and sighs. Yeah, I’m a disappointment. Fuck if I care.
He pulls out his phone and taps on the screen at warp speed. It buzzes a few times as he texts with someone, Lina presumably, then he places the phone on the side table. “Okay, I’m yours.”
“Excuse me?”
He groans. “Dean, I recognize a cry for help when I hear one. Sure, I’ll stay over and watch rom-coms with you. Clearly, you need to get your mind off Solange, and I’m the right person for the job.”
“But I didn’t ask—”
“You’ll thank me later,” he says, jumping up from the couch, then opening and closing several kitchen cabinets. “A movie marathon is the perfect distraction.” He returns with an unopened bag of chips under his arm. “This’ll work out just fine. I can sleep in my gym clothes.”
“How convenient,” I mutter under my breath.
“What’s that?” he says as he rips the bag of chips open.
“Nothing.”
“So, what are we going to watch first?”
He’s determined to stay, and I’m determined not to be ungrateful. “I was thinking about When Harry Met Sally. Solange and I never got around to finishing it, but one time we . . .” I smile at the memory of our fake sex session when Ana and Carlos were visiting.
Max socks me in the face with a pillow. “Wrong answer. Let’s watch Always Be My Maybe. Don’t tell Lina, but Ali Wong is my celebrity crush.”
“I don’t even know who that is,” I say, honestly.
“Oh, you’ll know by the end of this movie. Adorable. Smart. Grumpy. Reminds me of Lina.”
“Or we could watch something you haven’t—”
“It’s fine,” Max says, getting settled on the couch. “I don’t mind.”
I grab the remote and queue up the movie. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to drown out the thoughts that would take up residence in my brain if he weren’t here. Once the opening credits appear, I tap Max on the arm. “Thanks for doing this.”
“No problem. You’d do the same for me.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t.”
He smirks at me. “Fuck off and watch the movie.”
Yes, that’s excellent advice. I can deal with the rest of my chaotic life tomorrow.
* * *
Friday morning, I exit the elevator holding a single sad banker’s box with the few personal belongings I kept at Olney & Henderson. I surrender my employee badge to the building security guard, Harold, a middle-aged white guy with pythons for biceps. For the past eight years, Harold was often the first person I saw in the morning, a friendly face amid the hustle and bustle, a neighborhood reporter who always told me what to expect when I got upstairs.
“Henderson’s pissed today.”
“Olney’s running late, and she spilled coffee on her blouse.”
“Must be a partner meeting this a.m. A gang of ’em just went up.”
I see now that he took care of me, in his own understated, gossip-prone way.
“Take care of yourself, Big Dean,” he says, the grooves at the outside corners of his eyes deepening as he gives me a wide smile. “Won’t be the same without you coming in here every damn day of the week.”
I set the box down on the reception desk and pull him in for a hug. “Make sure they give you a retirement party, okay?”
Harold chuckles as he draws back. “They’re too selfish. Everyone knows that.” He whispers a parting comment: “And you’re too good for this place.”
I’d like to think that’s true, but I don’t know up from down anymore.
“Dean?” a voice behind me asks.
I spin around to see Kimberly Bailey a few feet away.
“Kimberly. What are you doing here?”
She wrings her hands as she talks, a pinched expression on her face. “I was hoping I’d catch you, but I’m primarily here to see Olney and Henderson.”
It’s unclear what business she still has with them considering she declined the firm’s offer. That, along with my lying to the partners about dating Solange, is why I’m leaving this building for the last time.
She points to a bench to the left of the elevators. “Can we chat for a minute?”
“I’ll watch your box,” Harold says.
Once we sit, Kimberly takes a calming breath. “So I’m just going to come out and say it: Nia and I are best friends.”
I’m not surprised. They’re completely in sync, and it’s apparent to anyone who sees them that they treasure each other as people first. “Some of the most successful romantic relationships are founded on friendship.”
Kimberly fiddles with the thin platinum band on her left hand. “No, what I mean is we’re best friends”—she turns to meet my gaze—“and nothing else.”
Oh.
Oh.
What?
“You mean—”
Kimberly lets out a heavy sigh. She’s going to chafe if she continues to slide that ring up and down her finger. “Nia and I faked our relationship, and after I dug around a little, Peter finally admitted that you were fired for doing essentially the same thing. So I knew I had to set the record straight, first with the partnership, and then with you.”
I can’t fathom that Kimberly and Nia aren’t a romantic couple. The affection in their eyes. Their intense chemistry. The ease with which they touched each other. It was all an act? “Why did you feel the need to lie?”
“It is absolutely true that Nia is considering artist-in-residence programs in the DC area. We’re roommates. Met in college. Have lived together ever since. And when I realized she was leaving Atlanta, I panicked. Wanted to curl up and cry. I just”—she drops her head, her shoulders sagging—“couldn’t imagine my life without her. It was in that moment, when she told me we wouldn’t be roommates anymore, that it became clear ours wasn’t a platonic relationship. For me, that is. I decided I’d move here to be with her.”
Most days, I probably would have figured out the punch line by now, but I’m emotionally drained, and my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. “So why the ruse?”
“C’mon, Dean. You know how it is. Try explaining why an eighth-year associate is leaving the only firm she’s ever worked for to relocate to DC. People assume you weren’t going to be made a partner and your bosses are letting you go gracefully. Nia became my valid reason.”
“But she agreed to fake the relationship, right? So she must have understood why you did it.”
“I didn’t tell her. Instead, I claimed I wasn’t happy with my current situation. Said this would be the perfect opportunity for us both to try something new.”
“Kimberly,” I say, leaning closer and meeting her eyes. “You need to tell her how you feel.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I can. What if she doesn’t reciprocate? What if telling her changes our relationship forever? What if we grow apart because of it? I’d rather have her in my life in some way than not at all. The alternative—not being able to spend time with her, not seeing her when I get home from work, not sharing my hopes and dreams with her—I can’t even imagine it.”
The fucking pounding in my chest nearly causes me to hunch over. What Kimberly is describing, what sounds a lot like love, is precisely how I feel about Solange. And I was perfectly prepared to give it up because I’m terrified that I don’t matter to her as much as she matters to me, or that she’ll run off somewhere, and I’ll be worse off when she’s gone. It’s the reason I acted like an ass when I found out she was contemplating leaving DC even though she’d been offered an opportunity to stay.
But I see it now: That feeling I’ve been chasing for over a decade—a feeling of rightness, of belonging, of being secure in who I am—I won’t be able to fully achieve it without Solange in my life. And fuck, I essentially told her the exact opposite. I said she deserved everything, but I couldn’t be the person to give it to her.
I take Kimberly’s hand. “We need to tell them how we feel.”
“We?” she asks cautiously.
“Yeah, we. You need to take that risk with Nia, and I need to take that risk with Solange. We both could be missing out on the one person in this world who’s meant for us. Not because it makes sense on paper, or in our heads”—I place a hand over my heart and tap it a few times—“but because it makes sense in here.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to do that,” she says, her eyes glistening. “It could go sideways real fast.”
“Promise me you’ll think about it?”
She nods. “Okay, I will.”
“One other thing.”
She jerks to attention, plainly still working through her own dilemma. “What’s up?”
“If you need to come clean to Olney & Henderson for your own peace of mind, you obviously can, of course. But don’t do it for me. I don’t need a second chance. No, actually, I don’t want a second chance. I’ll find another way to achieve my goals.”
“I thought making partner is your life goal.”
Yeah, I thought so too. But for the wrong reasons. “That’s just it. That’s not a life goal. That’s a career goal. There’s a difference. Now I’m ready to work on building the future I want; Olney & Henderson won’t be a part of it.”
Kimberly rises from the bench, and I follow suit.
“You know, I think we were meant to meet,” she says, her small smile growing broader.
“I do too. And I truly mean that.”
“Can I walk you outside?” she asks.
“Sure.”
Suddenly that banker’s box Harold’s holding for me doesn’t seem so sad anymore. I stride over to the desk, give him a final fist bump, and grab the box that now represents a new beginning. Kimberly holds the door open, and I take the deepest, most cleansing breath I’ve ever taken in my life.
Outside, a Black man in a sharp three-piece suit is leaning against a slate-gray SUV; he looks up, sees Kimberly, and smiles. I’ve seen him before. When he argued a case before the DC federal court trying to get a reporter’s press pass restored. He was brilliant, and the court sided in the reporter’s favor.
“That’s your dad, isn’t it?” I whisper.
She chuckles. “Don’t be so awestruck. He’s just a regular guy. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
Kimberly walks up to her father and clips him on the shoulder. “Hey, I’ll explain later, but I’m not going up.”
I can’t see his eyes behind the aviators he’s wearing, but the rest of his expression turns grim. “Are you sure?”
“I am,” she says, nodding as if the words further her resolve. “Anyway, I wanted you to meet someone.” She turns to me and puts out a hand with a flourish. “This is Dean Chapman, the lawyer I mentioned. Dean, meet my father, Larry Bailey.”
“Good to meet you, sir. You’re a legend in the legal community.”
He folds his newspaper in half and wedges it under his arm before accepting my outstretched hand. “Too bad I’m not a legend to my own daughter.”
“Sorry?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “She wants nothing to do with Baxter Media, a fact that breaks my heart.”
“I’d have to be a glutton for punishment to work with you,” she says with a smile. “Hard pass.” Then she tilts her head as though she’s working through an idea. “But I have it on good authority that there’s an amazing lawyer in DC who’s both skilled at media work and a champion for pro bono service. Sounds like someone you might want to consider adding to your staff.” She winks at me. “Just a thought.”
Larry Bailey swings his gaze between Kimberly and me, glances at the box at my feet on the pavement, then purses his lips as if the suggestion isn’t entirely preposterous. “Despite your current situation, a recommendation from my daughter means a lot. She rarely gives them. And given what my daughter did, I’d be the last person to say that lying about a relationship is necessarily disqualifying.” He pulls the newspaper out from under his arm and slaps it against his thigh. “Send me your résumé. We’ll talk.” Then he rounds the hood of the SUV and climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Take care, Dean,” Kimberly says, her hand on the passenger-side door latch. “Maybe I’ll see you again soon.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I say. “Most of them in the last month.”
She gives me a two-finger salute before she enters the SUV, then lowers her window to wave goodbye. “Good luck with Solange. I hope you get the answer you’re hoping for.”
“So do I, Kimberly. So do I. And good luck with Nia,” I tell her. “I hope you get the answer you deserve.”
Meanwhile, I’m mentally ditching my old life plan. Solange is it for me. Once I make amends with her, everything else will fall into place. Or not. Thing is, if I’m destined to stumble, I’d rather do it with Solange by my side. So as soon as she returns from Vegas, I’ll tell her exactly how I feel and beg her for another chance.