20. Maybe I Don’t Need to Know

CHAPTER 20

MAYBE I DON’T NEED TO KNOW

ABBI

“Wow.” It’s the first coherent thing I’ve said in an hour.

I lay panting on my bed, Weston’s body—naked and spent—sprawled out diagonally across mine. He’s trying to catch his breath.

My mind is blown. So this is what it means to have fantastic sex. It means Weston and me making out on the kitchen counter until I thought I would burst from desire. It means letting him strip off my clothes and spread me out on the bed.

It means yanking down his briefs and taking him into my mouth, while he curses and praises me, sometimes in the same breath. It means watching him suit up in a condom before prowling back to me on hands and knees, a determined look in his eye, while his shoulder muscles pop and flex.

And—this is the part that’s so confusing to me—it means undulating beneath him while he stares into my eyes as he kisses me more deeply with every stroke.

Weston’s skills are unparalleled. But that’s not even the shocking part. The intimacy is. I don’t know what to do with all that eye contact. And the broken sounds he makes when he comes.

My poor little lonely heart can’t handle all that loving attention. It’s like standing too close to a bonfire. You already know how cold you’ll feel when you finally step away .

“Abbi,” Weston rasps. “Can I stay over?”

“Of course,” I say just a little too quickly. “I might even have an extra toothbrush.”

“I brought mine,” he says with a grin.

“Look who planned ahead,” I tease, although my heart is still fluttering over the idea that Weston wants to sleep in my bed tonight.

“I didn’t expect you to invite me in,” he says. “But I sure hoped you would. It’s a fine line.”

“We could watch a movie or something,” I suggest.

“Or something,” he whispers.

And I smile up at my ceiling.

Following our Sunday night (and Monday morning!) sexfest, both Weston and I have very busy weeks.

I glimpse him once, on Wednesday night at the Biscuit, but table seventeen is not in my section.

Then, when I’m waiting for an order in the kitchen, I feel my phone buzz with a text. When I pull it out of my pocket, I see the text is from Weston. I know you’re busy. But won’t you come over here and give me a kiss?

Me: In front of the bitchy manager who will soon owe me a $1500 bonus? Think again .

Weston: Bummer. You look hot and I miss you .

Me: Never knew you had an apron kink .

Weston: I have an Abbi kink . And tomorrow I’m going to South Bend, Indiana. Before we leave, I need to write a paper. So I can’t even invite myself over tonight .

Me: That is a bummer .

Weston: We get back Sunday night. Come over?

“Ooooh!” Carly shrieks.

I whirl around, and find her reading over my shoulder. “You just about gave me a heart attack.”

“I’d have a heart attack too if Weston Griggs invited me over.”

“Girls,” Kippy says from the doorway. “What’s going on?”

I shove my phone into my pocket and grab two plates of wings off the counter. “Not a thing. Excuse me.” I lift my chin and march toward the dining room.

“Don’t chase after the boys at table seventeen,” he says with a sniff. “Be a shame if I had to fire you before your year was out.”

Carly lets out an angry gasp, but I don’t even break my stride. I carry the wings out and then run a new order to the bar.

And I don’t touch my phone for the rest of the night. I can’t afford to screw up, no matter how good a kisser Weston is. He’s a great guy. I’ve got only good things to say about him.

He’s fun, and he’s sexy. But he’s a distraction I can’t really afford. And that’s just the way it is.

On Thursday I dress in the best clothes I own and get on a JetBlue flight to New York City. I’m giving up a shift at work, three classes, and three hundred of my hard-earned dollars to do a few job interviews.

The investment bank where I’m interviewing for a spot in the training program paid for the plane ticket, but in order to stretch my time in the city, I’m springing for a one-night stay in a hotel.

If I get any of these jobs, it will all be worth it.

Or not. Because the investment bank interviewing process is a stressful whirlwind. I’m herded around the building with at least a dozen other candidates—mostly men. It’s completely intimidating. Their crisp navy suits and silk ties make me feel like a country bunny in my sky-blue blazer.

The jacket had belonged to my mother. The tag says Lilly Pulitzer, which is a fancy brand, right? I’d saved it because she’d really liked the color. But I can see now that it’s all wrong for this shimmering glass building, where everyone is wearing black, navy, or gray.

There’s also a timed math test, which I take in a conference room, hurrying to finish amid the frantic scribbling of other candidates. The guy next to me is a mouth-breather. It’s throwing me off my game. I don’t get to answer the last question before the proctor says, “Pencils down. ”

The test is followed by a round of “flash interviews.” It’s like speed dating, with higher stakes and in uncomfortable shoes.

I paste on a grin and greet the next interviewer. He introduces himself with: “So, Abbi Stoddard, tell me why you deserve to beat out hundreds of other candidates for this job.”

Hundreds?

The beat of silence that falls between us for a moment probably tells him more than my eventual answer ever will.

Eight hours later, I’ve survived both the investment bank and the mortgage bank interview gauntlets. I’ve also walked forty blocks in heels I borrowed from Carly, rolling my suitcase behind me, just so I could save cab money, and found a decently cheap restaurant in the process.

Now, finally approaching the hotel that I’d booked, I’m full of Chinese food but low on energy. I turn to the left and check for traffic before stepping off the curb.

But then a blur in my peripheral vision has me leaping back just in time to avoid a bicycle coming from the opposite direction.

The guy swerves and brakes. “Hey! Watch it!" he yells over his shoulder before riding away.

Okay, that was really close. Too close.

My heart is pounding in my chest, and the Walk sign turns back to Don’t Walk before I’m brave enough to try again.

Now I realize that Seventh Avenue is a one-way street. I should have looked to the right, not the left. But that biker ran a red light! If we’d collided, it would have been his fault.

Not that it matters. If I end up dead, I won’t even be able to explain that to the police. And when the light cycles back to me, I look both ways very carefully before scurrying across the avenue like a frightened squirrel.

I've only been in New York for eight hours or so. But it isn’t going that well. I'm tired. My feet are killing me.

Worst of all, I feel no closer to getting a job than I did when I boarded the flight in Burlington this morning.

My hotel room beckons. I’m staying at a low-budget chain, but this one is new enough that it gets decent reviews on TripAdvisor. I push open the smudged glass door and roll my little suitcase across the hard floor toward the check-in desk. If they gave my room away, I just might break down and cry.

They didn't give it away. So that's something.

But after the bored-looking check-in guy hands me a key and sends me to the fourth floor, I discover the smallest hotel room I've ever seen. There is literally no room for anything besides the bed. It's like a prison cell, and the only window looks out onto a shaft-like space so narrow that I can only see other hotel curtains.

At least I can finally take off these shoes. I put them on the floor of the tiny closet. Then I remove my mother’s old Sunday coat, and her blue jacket, hanging everything up in the closet. I take a shower and carefully dry my hair so it won’t do anything crazy overnight.

But then there's nothing left to do. So I pull back the unfamiliar bedclothes and get into the bed with my phone. I set the alarm to wake me up on time tomorrow.

But I don't know how well I can sleep in this odd little gray box. There are voices in the hallway, bickering in another language. I should find it new and fascinating. But instead I just feel lost.

I want to love New York. I had this vision of moving to the big city and starting my life over from scratch. People do that all the time, right?

But I don't feel so fierce and brave right now. I feel untethered. As if this tiny Lego brick of a room could tumble off the tower and take me with it forever. In fact, if I disappeared tonight, nobody would even know where to look for me. Except my credit card company, nobody even knows that I came to this hotel.

My phone chimes with a text, and I feel an answering zap of relief. I need someone to talk to right now before I tip over the steep precipice of my unplanned life.

I grab the phone. The text is from the airline, reminding me to check in for my flight back to Burlington tomorrow.

Well, crap. I feel a wave of loneliness so powerful it threatens to sweep me under. So I tap Carly's name and shoot her a quick message. Your shoes are cute but they hate me now. I can’t wait to give them back .

Then I realize Carly is at work right now, slinging wings and beer without me. And I have a really unhealthy shimmy of longing for the Biscuit, of all places.

Get a grip, Abbi . There’s no need to get sentimental for my crappy job. Besides, it’s not like I’d see Weston tonight. Table seventeen won’t be there. They’re on their way to Indiana.

This lonely, needy girl shouldn’t text him, right? Weston is not my emotional support animal. I’m a friend with benefits. My role is to be a good time. A fun time.

But it's fun to wish someone a good game, right? Right. Whee! Fun!

Yup, I’m losing my mind. But I text him anyway. Hi Westie! Have a great weekend. Make Notre Dame cry! Then I add a GIF of a West Highland terrier barking.

He answers me a minute later. Thanks, Abbster! How'd it go today?

Okay . Maybe. We'll see . Then my thumbs just tap out another text. I can't help myself. Can I call you?

Give me an hour, he replies. I’ll call you.

It's a very long hour. When I get up to turn on the hotel TV, I discover that the thing doesn’t work. When I hit the power button, it lights up before immediately fading back to black.

I suppose I could complain. They might move me to a different room. But that's a lot of hassle. The thing is bolted to the wall, because there's no room for a piece of furniture to support it.

Once when I was a little kid, our TV started flickering right as Mom and I set ourselves up to watch a movie together. “Oh no, Mama!” I’d panicked, thinking movie night was off.

“ Hell no,” my mom had said, getting up off the couch, crossing to that TV and delivering a sharp smack to its hulking rear.

And I swear the picture snapped right into view. Like it was terrified to disobey her. Then we'd cheered like crazy people.

I miss her so much. It doesn’t help to think about that right now, though, when I’m already throwing myself a pity party in a soulless hotel between job interviews. I can’t succumb to that kind of magical thinking. If I could hug her just one more time …

My phone lights up with an incoming video chat from Weston, and I grab it like the lifeline that it is. I accept the call, and his handsome face comes into view. He’s grinning at me. “Abbi! What’s shakin’?”

“Nothing much.” I drink in his smile and his eyes that crinkle in the corners when he’s joking around. And the tightness inside my chest begins to lift. “What’s it like flying with the hockey team?”

“Noisy,” he says. “And when somebody says something asinine, you’re embarrassed because he’s wearing the same damn jacket you are.”

“That’s irritating,” I agree. “All the asinine things people blamed me for today were things I said myself.”

He winces. “Interviews went that well, huh?”

“It’s just hard to stand out in a crowd. Apparently the investment bank takes a tenth of the people who apply. I thought if they were flying me here, that meant I had a chance.”

“You do have a chance,” he points out.

“I guess.” But I realize now that I was unprepared. I thought terrific grades and a willingness to work hard were all that I needed to show. But I’d overheard some interviewees throwing around opinions about the GDP and the yield curve and equity derivatives. I know what all those things are, but I don’t have opinions about them.

I just didn’t understand how it all worked. And now I am blue.

“How about that other bank?” he asks.

“Oh, it was… interesting.” I picture the round-faced man who’d sat across from me at that other interview. “The guy kept staring at my chest, and it threw me off.”

Weston groans. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I mumble. Because I hadn’t done that well otherwise. The man had asked me why I wanted to work in mortgage origination. You’d think I would have seen that one coming. But I’d gone blank for a second, as his eyes took another trip to the open button on my blouse.

The truth is that I don’t have strong feelings about mortgage origination, either. Everyone needs a home to live in , I’d said eventually. It seems like a compassionate kind of banking .

“Let’s just say I’m hoping that tomorrow’s interviews go better. But enough about me.” I squint at the screen. Behind a shirtless Weston is a white tile wall. His tattoos stand out in the bright light. “Where are you right now? It almost looks like you’re in?—”

“The bathtub!” he says gleefully. “I’m giving my roommate some privacy.”

“Why?” I blurb. “Wait, never mind. Maybe I don’t need to know.”

He chuckles. “He’s just talking to his girl on the phone. Or at least that’s all they were doing when I left. Now that I think about it, I should probably be afraid to leave this bathtub.”

“I thought you guys would be partying in the lobby.”

“No way,” he says. “Coach is very firm with his curfew on game night. Once a year somebody sneaks out and does something stupid. And then they usually get caught. It ain’t pretty. But some people have to learn lessons the hard way.”

I smile at the tiny screen, and feel lighter. Weston is like sunshine on a cloudy day. “Tell me one dumb thing that somebody did.”

“Well, one time—during spring playoffs—there was a Dutch women’s field hockey team staying in the same hotel…”

I start smiling again before he’s even finished the sentence.