Love Like That

Nina jumped in then. “Please, darling, everyone’s done that before. If you haven’t been on a date and pretended you work for the FBI or that you’re an heir to a billion-dollar inheritance then you haven’t really lived.”

Shaking her head, Keira glanced out the window again. She looked at the people milling through the streets. Some of the stores already had Halloween decorations in their windows. She spotted a goth couple walking down the street – the woman in a black lace dress carrying a parasol, the man on a leather lead. Only in New York City, she thought to herself, amused.

Life was supposed to be about embracing the crazy, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she told herself that exact thing just this morning?

“Fine,” she said, turning back to Bryn with a sigh of resignation. “I’ll come to your ball.”

*

Bryn was right about one thing, Keira discovered later that evening; Gino’s looked amazing. The whole restaurant had been decorated to look like a gothic castle, the tables pushed to the perimeter so that the middle part was a dance floor. There was an incredibly creepy vibe, with old Italian folk music, waiters in velvet suits, and of course, everyone in masquerade masks.

If it had just been the two of them, Keira would have had a great night. But unfortunately, they were sharing their evening with Malcolm, Bryn’s date, and Glen, Keira’s date. They must have been two of the most boring men in the world.

Keira forked her pasta, barely able to keep herself awake, as Glen explained more details about his career in accounting. Work chat annoyed Keira at the best of times, but when it involved math the boringness was stepped up another notch. Not to mention he hadn’t actually asked her a single question about her job.

There was a sudden lull in the conversation and Keira sat up as though startled awake.

“So, what do you do in your spare time?” she asked Glen, desperate to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Glen took a long time to answer, another thing Keira took as a bad sign. Who didn’t know what hobbies they had? Or what they enjoyed doing other than their jobs?

“I watch sports,” he said, finally.

“Watch,” Keira repeated. “Not play?”

Glen laughed. “Hell no. I don’t want an injury. I prefer to be a spectator.”

“That’s…” Keira struggled for a word. The one she landed on was probably the opposite of what she meant. “…interesting.”

“What about you?” Glen asked.

It was the first time he’d asked her about herself, and Keira was almost surprised. “Oh, well, I’m in journalism so I spend a lot of my spare time reading,” she began.

Glen cut her off immediately. “I read, too. The Wall Street Journal mainly.”

Realizing her time to speak had been snatched from her, Keira felt her chest sink. She prodded her pasta again. “Cool.”

Bryn leaned across the table then. “We were just talking about plans,” she said. “What we want to achieve in five years. Keira, what about you?”

If Bryn had asked her yesterday Keira would have been certain that what she wanted in the next five years was to spend as much time as possible with Shane. Buy their dream house together. Maybe even marry and have some kids. But that dream was dashed now.

Keira just shrugged. “I’d like to travel. See the world. In five years’ time I want to have set foot on every continent at least once.”

Bryn clapped. “That’s a great one, sis.”

Glen scoffed. “Traveling is so overrated these days, now that we have the technology to map everything. I mean why spend hours in an aluminum tube flying through the sky, polluting the atmosphere, when you can see the world from the comfort of your own home? Virtual reality is in its infancy at the moment, but within five years it’s going to take off. A fifty-dollar headset will take the place of hundreds of dollars wasted on flights.”

Only Malcolm nodded in agreement, his expression revealing that he found Glen’s point to be thought provoking. Bryn, on the other hand, looked horrified by his statement and she flashed Keira a look of apology. Keira just gave her sister a deadpan look, as if to say I said this would be terrible.

“What about you then, Glen?” Bryn asked, floundering to save the conversation. “If you’re not a fan of traveling, what do you think your next five years will look like?”

Everyone turned their attention to the accountant. He cracked his knuckles.

“I’ve got it all planned out,” he said confidently. He pointed at his index finger. “A wife in a year.” Then he moved onto his next finger. “Our dream family home in the suburbs the year after that.” He pointed at the next two fingers. “Two kids, eighteen months apart. One boy, one girl.” Then finally he wiggled his thumb. “And a dog.”

Keira sighed deeply. She’d known before she’d even left Bryn’s apartment that she wasn’t going to find anything resembling romance on this date. But there’d still been a flicker of hope. Just a little spark that someone who burned as brightly as Shane might appear in her life out of the blue, turning her world upside down just as quickly as Shane himself had done.

But she realized now, with bitter disappointment, that she’d been a fool to even entertain that idea. Shane was a one in a million experience. No, one in a billion. Her date with Glen had just confirmed her worst fears.

She’d never find a love like that again.

CHAPTER THREE

Keira had no choice but to return to the office the next morning. Heartbreak wasn’t a valid reason to miss work in the first place, and two days in a row seemed to be really taking liberties. Besides, she didn’t want to spend another day moping in coffee shops, and she definitely didn’t want to get cajoled into another one of Bryn’s stupid harebrained schemes! The last one, the date at Gino’s, had left a very sour taste in Keira’s mouth.

Despite feeling like she had a dark gray rain cloud hovering above her head, Keira managed to get herself dressed and ready for the day. Usually she felt empowered dressing for work, but today she felt like a phony, even though she’d opted for one of the more casual outfits from her business wardrobe options.

As she left Bryn’s apartment, Keira saw that Nina had sent her a supportive text.

Everyone’s looking forward to your return.

Keira smiled. She was glad she had such a good friend in Nina. Despite the age difference between them, they seemed very in tune with one another. And Nina had had such a glittering career within the world of writing that she was also an excellent mentor to Keira.

As Keira walked into the Viatorum head office she was surprised by the immediately different atmosphere inside. Before, there had always been an air of panic in the office, a sort of invisible stress that permeated the whole place. In the past, no matter how good a mood she’d been in when she entered the place, there was no chance that when she left she wouldn’t feel tired, stressed, and anxious.

But of course the difference now was that Joshua no longer worked at the magazine. Thanks to Keira, he’d been fired by Elliot. It was amazing what a difference it had made to the place. It even looked more comfortable, though the tiles were the same clinical, pristine white they’d been before, the open-plan style just as echoing. There was only one real visible difference, Keira noted; all the doors to the meeting rooms and offices that lined the office were open. She could see Heather, Elliot’s assistant, typing away at a computer in her office. Inside the conference room several staff members were engaged in a meeting that seemed joyous rather than stilted and awkward. In Joshua’s day those doors were always shut fast, acting as a physical barrier between the senior staff and junior staff.

“It’s Keira!” someone said, and suddenly heads were turning to look at her.

To Keira’s complete surprise, someone started to clap.

She felt a blush rise into her cheeks as more and more people stood from their desks and began joining in the applause. Was this what Dorothy felt like after killing the Wicked Witch? A man had lost his livelihood after all, even if he did deserve it!

Nina came over from her desk and hugged Keira.

“You made it,” she said, gently. “I told you everyone was happy to see you!”

Denise, one of the junior writers that Keira hadn’t exchanged more than two words with in the past, rushed over and hugged her. Keira was surprised.

“Oh. Um, hey,” she said, awkwardly.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Denise gushed. “I was so close to quitting because of Joshua. He made me think I was useless, that I couldn’t write and had no talent. I was going to give up on journalism altogether. But thanks to you I’m still here and everything is a million times better than before.”

“You’re welcome,” Keira said, feeling a little surge of pride. Standing up to Joshua hadn’t been easy, but it had paid off, and it had helped more people than she’d realized. Any residual guilt she felt over her actions dissipated as she saw what an impact it had made on everyone here. Josh was a grown man, responsible for his own actions. No one had made him act like a jerk to everyone around him. He’d gotten himself fired, really; Keira had just been the catalyst.

Feeling a surge of confidence for the first time since Shane had shattered her heart, Keira went over to her desk, ready to throw herself back into her work. It was where she excelled, after all. Even if her love life was currently in tatters her career was blossoming and she was going to make the most of it.

But when she reached her desk she saw that none of her things were there. Her framed photo of her mom and Bryn was gone, along with her miniature cactus, the polka dot mouse mat she’d been given as a graduation present from her friend Shelby, and the cat-shaped mug her other bestie, Maxine, had gifted her last year. She hoped desperately they hadn’t been thrown out by accident. Small trinkets, essentially worthless, but they meant a lot to her.