Chapter 32: On Hold
Summary: Princess struggles to rebuild her life after quitting her job and breaking ties with Lloyd. Zach offers her a new opportunity, but her reluctance to re-enter Lloyd’s orbit holds her back, but then an unexpected meeting offers her a glimpse of what could be.
Word Count: 3,294
Masterlist
Warnings: This chapter contains themes of emotional distress and a scene with a nightmare/flashback.
Chapter 32: On Hold
Friday, April 25th - 03:20 AM
You jolted awake, the memory crashing over you. Breath caught in your throat as you flailed against damp, twisted sheets.
Two months had passed since your breakup with Lloyd, but your body still couldn’t tell the difference between past and present. Again and again, it replayed that night, tricking your nervous system into reacting as if it were happening all over again. It wasn’t a nightmare—that would suggest it was imagined. It was a flashback. A vivid, unrelenting replay of the night Lloyd ended everything. At least three times a week, sometimes more, your brain used the soft vulnerability of sleep to ambush you with every ugly detail of that final dinner, in sharp technicolor. Maybe the dreams were supposed to act like exposure therapy. The problem was, your reaction never dulled. Each time, the devastation felt as sharp and new as the first. You sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed your fingertips into your eyes, as if you could scrub away the memory.
The basement of your parent’s house was too large, too open, for comfort. It was twice the size of your old apartment back in D.C. On the nights when you had flashbacks that coziness was desperately missed.
After quitting Bishop & Howard, you’d gone to your parents, had an embarrassing emotional melt down in front of them, which earned you an official invitation to move back in. You shoved everything in boxes, put the apartment on the market, and ended up with three offers on the place by 5 o’clock. Then you ran back to Virginia, past the outskirts of suburban D.C., to the safety of your childhood home where you’d taken up residence in their recently finished basement. On the upside, the bathroom was super nice with a dual showerhead and heated flooring. On the downside, the expansive room made you feel lonely, your thoughts bouncing off the walls and echoing back at you, as though there was too much space and nowhere to hide.
Lloyd had dismantled your relationship, but dismantling the rest of your life had been your own doing. He ended things so swiftly, unexpectedly, that it still felt as if the earth had been pulled out from under your feet, like gravity had been turned off. You’d come to accept that to some extent, Lloyd had been your gravity. He’d been at the center of your orbit. First as your best friend and then as your partner. Now you were spinning out of orbit, untethered and heading… who knew where. You certainly didn’t. You didn’t have a plan, or even a concept of a plan. All you wanted was to get away from everything that you knew.
Everything had been dismantled—most of it by your own hand. Now you were left living in the wreckage of it all.
You wished you’d fought him on it that day, but even as you thought it, there was no real hope behind the idea. Lloyd had always held his convictions with a resolve you couldn’t begin to match. But still, you hadn’t done anything to stop him and that was almost like a moral injury that lingered, a perpetual thorn in your side that continued to bleed. It was one thing for Lloyd to dismiss your efforts to fight, but another thing to contend with—that there had been no effort to fight at all put up by you. You’d let the relationship slip away without fighting for it.
Leaning forward, you wrapped your arms around your knees, curling into a ball. You laced your fingers together tightly and squeezed until your knuckles ached. Your heart raced like someone was chasing you. Fragments of thoughts and flashes of memories spun through your head, a relentless blur you couldn’t shut off. You should be coping better than this after two months, shouldn’t you? But you weren’t.
The dream—the memory—came back, night after night, slicing open the wound over and over. Lloyd had taken something from you. Something more than love or friendship, something essential and you couldn’t figure out what it was, and therefore couldn’t dream of replacing it. You were afraid you’d never stop missing him. He’d ripped you in half and it felt like you were destined to continue on, only half of a person, forever.
Your eyes burned, but no tears came. With your heart racing, sleep felt impossible. Besides, your head was a minefield when you closed your eyes. Lloyd had made his choice and you’d let him make it. Why hadn’t you done more? Why hadn’t you fought harder, made him see that this relationship was worth saving? That question haunted you, sometimes a few times a day, sometimes hundreds.
Maybe he thought ending things was what you needed. It was the only explanation you could come up with, based on the cryptic things he’d said that night. But it had felt so sudden, so inexplicable. He hadn’t explained. He hadn’t let you plead your case. He’d ended things on his own terms, of his own volition.
In his own broken way, maybe that was Lloyd’s idea of self-sacrifice. He’d claim he wasn’t capable of such a thing, but you knew better. If he believed he couldn’t be what you needed, he would have ended the relationship—if only to set you free.
Or maybe he’d simply gotten bored. He wasn’t the relationship type. You’d both agreed it was a fling at the start, so maybe he was just seeing it through to its natural conclusion. Maybe you were the crazy one, losing your mind over it.
With a deep breath, you unfolded yourself and lay back down, turning to face the alarm clock. 3:30 a.m. In an hour, you’d need to get up for work. You knew you should try to sleep, though you didn’t have high hopes. Lately, once your mind got tangled up in these thoughts, there was precious little you could do to quiet it.
Still, you buried your head in the pillow, willing yourself to stop thinking.
For once, sleep came
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Friday, April 25th - 02:17 PM
Your father’s construction company had excellent benefits. That was why you had a job, at least for the time being. His regular bookkeeper, Chelsea, was out on maternity leave, and you were filling in. Full-time for now, then part-time once she returned in mid-May.
Bookkeeping was insufferable, but it was a job. Your father was an easy boss. He didn’t micromanage, or hoover, just let you get on with things. Most of the time he was out of the office, visiting job sites and keeping an eye on his crews. The bookkeeping work was straightforward and the secretarial part of your duties was practically mindless. You’d found a rhythm and by the second week, realized you could do this job in half the time allotted. Instead of mentioning that to your Dad, you stuck around for the full eight hours, pretending to be busier than you were.
Every day, you sat at the wobbly desk in the trailer office, shuffling through invoices and timesheets, wondering what you were doing with your life. There was nothing wrong with being a bookkeeper, but if you could finish the work on a part-time schedule, Chelsea would probably be even faster. Once she returned, there wouldn’t be enough work to keep you on, and you couldn’t justify staying and taking advantage of your father’s generosity.
You rubbed your temple, glaring at the computer screen where numbers were already sorted into neat columns. Maybe it was time to look for another job. Something real, something in your skill set, something that actually mattered. The thought of jumping back into the paralegal world—or shifting to a lobbyist group, since they always seemed to be hiring—settled in your stomach like a lead weight. D.C. was a small legal circle. You’d run into people who knew what had happened with Lloyd. You might even run into Lloyd himself. The thought made you shudder.
The sound of heavy boots echoed on the metal steps of the trailer. You groaned. You knew who it was before the three-rap knock.
“It’s open,” you called.
Your visitor stepped in, shoving dark lensed Ray-Bans up onto his forehead. Sunlight slanted through the door, brightening his sandy hair to gold for a moment.
“Hey, Zach. How’s it going?”
Your eyes fixed on the tray of coffees in his hand. It contained two iced lattes and one Frappuccino.
“You pick up an extra by accident?”
“No. It’s for your Dad.”
“How do you know what kind of Frappuccino my Dad prefers?”
“His Instagram’s public. I cyberstalk it sometimes. It’s been my most reliable source of info on you of late—since I barely see you anymore.”
“Aside from your weekly visits to my workplace?”
Zach set the iced latte on your desk. “I’m considering renovating my offices. I need a quote.”
“We’re booked through November.”
He took off his sunglasses and hooked them onto his shirt collar before dropping into the chair across from you with a mock-sigh. “Shame.”
You leaned back in your chair, ignoring its squeal of protest. “Zach, I’m at work. I’m busy.”
“Are you? Because the last edit on that spreadsheet was at 10:27 A.M.”
“Fine, I’m not busy. I’m bored out of my mind. What do you want?”
His grin widened. “To see you doing something more productive than balancing books you finished yesterday.”
So he’d noticed the date, not just the time stamp. Your cheeks warmed. He wasn’t wrong, but the jab got under your skin. “Don’t you have your own company to run?”
“I do. That’s actually why I’m here.”
You crossed your arms. “Don’t make this about your savior complex. Lloyd and I didn’t work out. I trashed my career at B&H all by myself. You don’t need to rescue me.”
“I’m not trying to rescue you. Okay, maybe part of me feels oddly guilty that I didn’t at least try to warn you off of him, or ask you to think twice about getting involved with someone as complicated as Lloyd. But that’s not the only reason I’m here.”
You raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve hired a new investigator. He starts in May.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I think the two of you would work well together. If you come on board—even if it was temporarily—it’d make his orientation easier.”
“Landon handles all your training.”
“He’s getting married in May. You should know, you’re invited to the wedding.”
“Right.”
You’d been trying to forget about the upcoming nuptials. Seeing Lloyd there wasn’t something you wanted to ponder for too long.
Zach hooked an ankle over his knee, studying you with an intensity that made you feel like a bug under a microscope.
“You’re bored.”
“And?”
“I can fix that.”
Fixing your boredom would put you back in Lloyd’s orbit, which was a price you weren’t sure you were willing to pay.
“I’m good. Thanks for thinking of me though. I’m flattered.”
“Come on. The job starts in May. Your dad’s regular girl will be back by then, and you’d be free to start with us. Perfect timing.”
“Why me? There are a dozen people who’d jump at the chance to work with you.”
“I don’t like those people. Besides, you’ve already worked with my new hire, and he’s a little high-strung. Not everyone can handle him.”
You frowned. “Who is it?”
“Marco Lattimer.”
“Huh.” You didn’t want to be intrigued, but you were. You stared at Zach, torn between wanting to roll your eyes and feeling the pull of half-burried ambition.
“You’re good at investigations. We need someone who can handle some of Jake’s simpler computer work.”
The yearning sharpened. You tried to shove it down, but failed. Zach smirked.
“I know you. I like you. We work well together. I don’t have to figure out how to fit two new personalities into the firm because I already know you. And I trust you to work with Marco, even though he’s kind of a judgy son of a bitch.”
“He’s not that bad.”
“He’s a boy scout,” Zach said.
“So is Landon.”
“Yeah, but he’s not as high and mighty about it.”
“Are you asking me to take this job so you don’t have to deal with Marco?”
Zach snorted. “I can handle Marco. I just prefer him in small doses. Also, I think you need something to pull you out of this funk.”
“I don’t want to work with Lloyd anymore. Not for a while.”
“Perfect. I’m not about to put him and Marco in the same room.”
“Really? They’re that bad?”
“I have no idea. They haven’t seen each other in ten years.”
You glanced down at your desk—the neatly stacked timesheets, the untouched calculator.
“I’ll think about it.”
Zach stood, smoothing his shirt. “Alright. I’ll be back on Monday. I expect an answer then.”
You watched him leave, the door clicking softly behind him. A thick suffocating silence settled over the room. You dropped your head onto the desk and groaned.
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Saturday, April 26th - 01:20 PM
You sat in the parking lot a block from Café M, debating whether you were up for coffee or if your social battery was tapped out. Jen had enticed you into a Saturday morning Pilates class but had to leave right after to pick up her son from baseball camp. That suited you fine because it meant you got to see Jen, hang out, all while avoiding uncomfortable questions, or updates about Lloyd and the rest of your old coworkers at B&H. According to Jen, Andy was pissed you’d quit and was needling Lloyd about it at every opportunity. You hated thinking about the trail of drama you’d left in your wake.
Jen was worried. The subtle glances she shot you before and after class spoke volumes, though she hadn’t said anything. You were grateful for her restraint; it was the polar opposite of Zach’s ham-handed approach to managing your life. At least with Jen, the concern was quieter, less invasive. Going to Pilates with her felt like proof you were doing okay, that you weren’t sinking too far into the spiral of doom, and losing all of your social connections.
Since you’d already driven into the city, heading straight home felt wrong. Stopping at your favorite café gave you a chance to clear your head before returning to your parents’ house. The thought of the long drive felt suffocating. You ducked into the café, ordered your usual iced vanilla latte with a shot of espresso and claimed a small corner table by the window.
Your mind wandered as you stirred the drink, tracing circles in the condensation pooling on the table. The buzz of voices and hiss of the espresso machine filled the small room but none of it drowned out the memories. You thought of the afternoons when you’d worked on Lloyd’s cases at the corner booth and the couple of times when you’d met him here on Sunday afternoons. Why had you decided to come here? You should’ve gone straight home.
“Figured I’d find you here, dah-lin’,” a voice behind you drawled.
You recognized the stretched vowels, the near-absent ‘r’—not clipped like a Boston accent, but softened and slow. That Tidewater lilt turned everything smooth and a little formal, like it was dialogue in a black-and-white movie.
"Marco. How’d you find me?"
“I wouldn’t be much of a private investigator if I couldn’t track down one law-abiding citizen on a Saturday afternoon, now would I?”
He stood in front of your table, coffee in hand, a black Henley stretched across his broad shoulders, and a sly smile curving his lips. Casual clothes looked good on him.
“Why did you hunt me down?”
He pulled out the chair opposite you without asking, settling in like you were old friends meeting up instead of him ambushing you out of the blue.
“Zach said you’ve been dragging your feet accepting his employment offer,” he said.
Heat crept up your neck. “So you decided to stalk me?”
“I prefer the term ‘reconnaissance.’ It sounds friendlier. I wanted to find out what was holding you back.” He leaned in, forearms on the table, his voice dropping so only you could hear. “I heard you’re playing bookkeeper and bored out of your mind. What’s the problem?”
You wrapped your hands around the cold glass of your iced coffee, eyes lowering. “I’m still weighing my options. I don’t know if it’s the right move at the moment.”
Marco laughed, his disbelief clear. “Liar. You’re avoiding Lloyd. Can’t blame you for that—I get the same urge. Still can’t stand him, no matter what affinity Zach feels towards him. But don’t let his mistakes dictate your future.”
You raised an eyebrow, realizing Zach had shared with him more than you’d thought. Marco’s bluntness was like a slap, but his expression was fond, almost amused.
“I’m not scared of seeing Lloyd,” you said, though even you didn’t believe it.
Marco sipped his coffee and said nothing.
The silence tightened around you. He studied you the way Zach had yesterday, like you were a bug under a microscope and he was trying to figure out what species you belonged to. His head tilted. “Landon’s wedding’s next weekend, right?”
“Uh… yes. Why?”
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Your pulse kicked up. You opened your mouth, but he cut you off.
“Don’t look so scandalized. I’m asking because it’d be more fun with a date. Besides, Landon and I go way back. It wouldn’t hurt to show him I can clean up and be civilized.”
Your cheeks flushed. “That’s presumptuous of you, Marco.”
He leaned back, draping one arm over the back of his chair. “Come on, Princess. It’s a win-win. I get a date, you get a buffer against Lloyd.”
The idea twisted your stomach. It was ridiculous, and yet the thought of showing up alone, knowing you’d have to face him again…Perhaps Marco was onto something.
“I’ll think about it,” you said.
He grinned, rising smoothly and sliding a napkin across the table. You glanced down at the scrawl of blue ink. His phone number. “Do that. And think about the job, too. I’m not waiting forever.”
You watched him leave, climb on a jet black Harley-Davidson motorcycle and disappear into traffic.
Irritation and intrigue wrestled for dominance. Marco was just as domineering and annoying as Lloyd, but he went about it with less abrasiveness. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe it was time to stop spinning your wheels. Time to stop hibernating and branch out. Accepting Marco’s invitation would certainly make Landon’s wedding easier. You picked up the napkin, typed the number in and saved a new contact.
On the drive home, you thought about his offer. About the possibility of accepting the job with Zach’s firm.
An hour later you pulled into the driveway and parked behind your mom’s faded Subaru, then called Zach from your car’s bluetooth.
“What’s up? Make it quick. I’m on the seventeenth hole.”
You laughed. “Alright. I don’t want to work with Lloyd, if it can be avoided. I know there might be a time when it can’t be prevented but for now…I’d rather not see him. Also, I’d like to work with Marco. I’ll accept your job offer if we can be partners.”
“Perfect. I’ll have my lawyer send you a written offer Monday. We’ll talk details later.”
He hung up without a goodbye.
You opened Marco’s contact and tapped out a message.
I accepted Zach’s offer. We’re finalizing Monday. Also, my dress for the wedding is pale green. Don’t wear a tie that clashes. Pick me up at nine. I trust you can find my address...stalker.
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