Say You Still Love Me: A Novel

“How was it?” Christa settles onto the bar stool beside me, a stack of paperwork within her grasp.

“Delectable, as usual.” I’ve never had a bad meal at Christa’s restaurant, and I’ve eaten here enough times that odds say I should have had at least one overcooked steak or crusty pasta. I shove aside my dirty dishes, the small pool of red meat juices unappealing now that my stomach is stretching the seams of my dress. “You done for the night?”

“Just need to finalize this kitchen order, if I can translate Ian’s notes.” She shakes her head as her finger drags along the margin. “The man is forty-eight years old. It’s time he learned how to spell. I mean, seriously . . . green peepers? Baycan?”

I lean over to read off the supply list that the kitchen manager pulled together. “Whatever you do, don’t forget to order the chivs and sore kreem. Can’t have the baked potato without the chivs and sore kreem.”

She sighs, accepting the club soda that Sam the bartender swoops in to set in front of her. “I gave two of my managers the weekend off and now I have no bar manager, so I’m basically chained to this place. I may as well sleep here.” She says that like it’s a punishment, but I know Christa—bossing people around is the fuel to her engine.

“I guess I have the condo to myself, then.” Ashley took the five o’clock train to her parents’, where she’ll be staying until Sunday.

“Can you feed Elton his dinner tomorrow?”

“If he’s nice to me.” I sniff.

“Can you feed him anyway?”

“Fine.”

“He won’t bother you.”

“No, you’re right. He’ll pretend I don’t exist.” That cat has mastered the art of snubbing in a way few humans can match.

“So? What happened today to make you show up here looking like your dog got hit by a car?”

I slide my empty wineglass forward and Sam fills it wordlessly, with an extra heavy hand. I guess my dour face says I need it. I take a greedy gulp, feeding the warm buzz that’s finally beginning to temper my mood. “Besides my dad telling me that I need to earn Tripp the Prick’s respect?”

Her face twists with disgust. “The guy’s a misogynist. By definition, he’s incapable of respecting a woman. How are you supposed to do that?”

“Well, probably not by telling him to shove his golf stick up his ass,” I mutter. The dick called at twelve fifteen—as predicted—and was momentarily speechless when I interrupted my lunch meeting at The Port Room to answer the call.

It started out well enough. He declared confidently that all necessary permit approvals for the Marquee would be in our hands by Monday, latest. I swallowed my pride and commended him for a job well done, and then requested that he send me the revised timelines and budgets by Monday, noon. That’s when he had the nerve to flat-out refuse to request that amount of work of his team on a Friday afternoon, especially when the work would no doubt bleed into the summer weekend. Oddly enough, for a man who doesn’t care to win my approval, he certainly cares about theirs.

So I snapped, in the most unprofessional way.

Frankly, it’s nothing my father wouldn’t have demanded, and probably not in terms any nicer, but for some reason I feel like I’m going to hear about it.

“He deserved it. Your dad should fire him.” Christa clinks her glass against mine. “What about Kyle Miller?” Her eyebrows rise in question. “Did you have a chance to talk to security about him?”

I take a big mouthful. “Kyle is security. And he’s now Kyle Stewart.”

Christa’s blue eyes are bulging by the time I’m done explaining today’s run-in.

“Kyle is in security?” she says, her voice dripping with disbelief. “Do they give those guards guns?”

“No.”

“Tasers?”

“No.”

“I guess he can’t cause too many problems, then,” she murmurs with grim satisfaction.

“Can we please focus on how he didn’t even remember my name?” Even admitting it to Christa is embarrassing. “I mean, I could maybe understand Penny or Pepper. But Sarah?”

She shrugs through a sip of her drink. “He was, like, sixteen.”

“Seventeen.”

“Fine. Seventeen. And he’s a guy. And it was one summer, thirteen years ago,” she rationalizes. “It happens.”

I give her a flat look.

“Fine. You’re right. Kyle should at the very least remember your name,” she concedes reluctantly. “I was just trying to make you feel better.”

“Exactly. So then it’s impossible, isn’t it? That he’d forget me completely?”

Because, even after all these years, with college and boyfriends, and my career and my engagement to David, Kyle Miller has always been a sliver in my heart, a shadow in my thoughts. A lingering “what if” that I have never been able to truly shake.

“I’d say so, given you guys got fired from Wawa together,” Christa mutters. “Plus that whole thing with Eric ending up in the hospital.”

“Exactly! So . . . Sarah?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he got into drugs. Like, heavy stuff. Maybe he’s a raging crack addict,” Christa offers through a draw of her soda.

I let out a derisive snort. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” I just don’t see Kyle—the version I knew, anyway—touching that stuff.

“Okay, fine. Head injury?”

“That made him lose his memory of that entire summer? It’d have to be a serious head injury. I don’t think so. He seemed . . . perfect.”

I feel Christa’s hawkish gaze on me as I sip my wine and mull over the possibilities.

“So what if he doesn’t remember you?” she finally says. “You were always too good for him. You’re smart and beautiful and ambitious. Your family is corporate royalty. You’re up here.” Her arm stretches above us, as high as she can go. “He’s down here.” She grinds her toe into the hardwood floor, like she’s squashing a bug. “He knew it back then, too. And now look at you both. You’re going to be running the world one day and he’s basically a mall cop.”

I roll my eyes. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“But that’s my point! Why would you want to be? He disappeared and never called you! Why give that jerk another second’s thought?” Her face twists with a look of disgust at the very idea.

“I don’t know. Maybe I need closure?” I toy with the cocktail list, unable to summon the same level of anger. “At least he seems to have turned out okay. He has a decent job.”

“Yeah, I’m guessing he didn’t include Wawa as a referral.” Christa snorts derisively, then gives me a knowing look. “And I’m not surprised he changed his last name.”

“That’s why I could never find him.”

“I don’t know why you kept looking,” she mutters under her breath, ticking away at lines on her order chart.

I sigh. I know she’s just trying to make me feel better, in her own way. But Christa always did judge Kyle too harshly.

I’m still hung up on the disappointing possibility that I could have been so forgettable to a guy who once upon a time meant so much to me. “Maybe he was playing one of his elaborate Kyle jokes. You know how he is. Or was, back then.” How much has he changed in thirteen years, aside from his name?

“Or maybe he was pretending because he doesn’t want to remember you,” Christa says, in typical blunt, no-nonsense fashion.

“Or maybe he doesn’t want to remember me,” I echo, a thought that had already been lingering in the recesses of my mind but I didn’t want to give voice to. I tip my head back and pour half the glass of my red wine down my throat, hoping it might help me swallow that bitter pill.

“You’re in early today.” David appears out of nowhere to charge through our building’s exterior door. He holds it open for me.

I mutter my thanks, my eyes darting to the security desk, my stomach tense with nerves. Gus is there, wearing his usual wide smile, greeting employees as they swipe their badges across the pad. The seat next to him is vacant.

It’s Monday. He did say Kyle was starting today, didn’t he?

Unless Kyle walked out of here on Friday with no intention of ever coming back after discovering that I work here.

“Who are you trying to impress?” David asks.

“What?”

He shrugs. “You just look more done up than usual.”

“I’ve worn this a thousand times.” My mother brought the figure-hugging blue gingham pencil dress back from Paris a few years ago from a designer’s trunk show. It’s one of my favorites, not that David would remember that.

“Not the dress. The lipstick.” He smirks. “You always wore that cherry-red lipstick when you were trying to get my attention.”

“I did not,” I deny. “What are you doing here, anyway?” He’s not usually in the office until just before nine.

“Had to get out of there before my date woke up. I forgot what a bad idea it is to bring them back to my place.”

It’s the first time David has admitted to sleeping with another woman since our breakup. I can’t tell if he’s lying, trying to get a jealous rise out of me. If he is, he’s going to be disappointed, because all I feel is relief. “I hope she steals everything.”

“Don’t be catty. It’s unbecoming,” he murmurs smugly.

I catch the curious glances that Calloway employees are casting our way as we pass. David and I used to start our days strolling in together like this, albeit a touch later. By noon, half the company will assume we’ve reconciled. “Don’t walk so close to me,” I warn, edging away.

“Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to think we’re back together.”

He sighs with exasperation. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Piper. I’ll see you upstairs.”

Gus nods politely as David speeds through the security gate with barely a glance, and then turns his big brown eyes to me. They’re full of wariness, the question in them unmistakable. “Good morning, Miss Calloway. You look especially lovely today.”

“Thanks.” Maybe the cherry-red lipstick was too punchy for a Monday morning, especially when I rarely wear anything beyond a light layer of gloss.

“And how was your weekend?”

“Quiet. I spent it alone.” Just me and Elton, who afforded me nothing more than a cross-eyed glare when I filled his bowl with overpriced canned cat food.

Gus seems to get my hidden meaning—that it was not spent making up with David—because I catch the soft sigh of relief that escapes him. “Good. Everyone needs a weekend to themselves every once in a while.”

“So . . .” My stomach does an anxious flip as I steal a glance at the empty seat. There’s a half-finished cup of coffee sitting on the desk in front of it, so Kyle must be here. But, after my first humiliating encounter with him, I don’t want to let on that I care one way or another, even to Gus. “Do you miss Ivan yet?”

“It’s an adjustment, that’s for sure.” Gus smiles warmly. “But people come and they go all the time. As old as I am, I’ve gotten used to it by now. I figure I’ll just be thankful for the precious time I get with them.”

Unless they were your first love and they fell off the face of the earth, only to resurface thirteen years later and not remember you at all.

Gus looks up at me expectantly, and suddenly I feel foolish for standing here, chatting him up, though it’s something I do every Monday morning. This time, however, I have an ulterior motive, and I’m afraid he knows it.

“I’ll see you later.” I wave my pass over the pad, wait for the light to turn green, and push past the metal arm.

“Have a good day, Miss Calloway,” he offers as I stroll toward the bank of elevators, the click of my heels echoing through the cavernous atrium. I absently paw at the elevator button, my gaze on my phone screen, distracting myself from my disappointment with messages. The doors open and I step forward.

And plow into a solid body.

“Excuse me. I assumed it was empt—” My words cut off as I peer up into familiar eyes. “Oh . . . hey.”

A few beats pass before Kyle responds with a soft “Hey.”

“I . . . my phone. I wasn’t paying attention,” I admit in a stammer, before clearing my throat.

His gaze flickers downward to linger on my mouth for a moment, before flitting back to meet my eyes.

That’s when I see it. The smallest upturn of his lips, the tiniest knowing smile.

It’s just for a second. It’s just long enough.

Actually, I like the red on you. Like, really like it.

I take a deep breath, as an odd mix of vindication and sorrow washes through me.

“It’s good to see you again, Kyle.”

“Good to see you, too, Piper,” he finally offers, his jaw tensing as he peers down at me, though his eyes show a hint of softness that wasn’t there before.

“Not Sarah?” I keep my voice light, casual, as if Friday’s slight didn’t leave a deep wound, didn’t keep my mind spinning all weekend long.

The tip of his tongue catches the corner of his mouth, where nothing but a faint scar from his lip ring remains. “Yeah. I’m . . . That was . . . Sorry about that.”

“How could you forget my name?” This time, I can’t hide the hurt.

His lips twist with thought, as if considering how to answer. “I didn’t,” he finally admits, his gaze landing on his black boots. “I was surprised and unprepared. I was . . . a jerk.”

“Yeah. You were.” And the lobby at seven thirty on Monday morning is not the place to demand a better explanation.

His broad chest lifts with a deep sigh. “So, how are you?” His voice remains cool. Does he really want to know? Or is this just a formality?

I push aside that thought. “I’m good. Great, actually.”

“Yeah, seems like it.” I detect a sardonic flavor in his tone as his hazel eyes roam the atrium’s architecture.

“And you? You seem to be doing well.” My gaze drifts over his uniform.

“Can’t complain. Rikell’s a decent company. I get benefits and holidays. You know, that sort of stuff.” He folds his arms across his chest, making his biceps look that much bigger and more sculpted in the short sleeves of his uniform shirt.

And I catch myself staring at them, for far too long. So long that he begins shifting on his feet. “How many is that now?” I nod toward the sleeve of ink, even as my cheeks flush.

He stretches his arm out in front of him, slowly turning it this way and that, as if admiring his own tattoos. “I stopped counting a long time ago.”

“I’ll bet.” I clear my throat. “Do you live in the city?”

“Summer Heights.”

“Oh, yeah? Nice. We have a few buildings out there.” It’s a good half-hour commute by car—longer, by public transit—an area considered more affordable for young families and people just starting out.

“Yeah, well, we’re renting for now. We’ll see how we like it.”

We’re renting.

We’ll see how we like it.

Of course Kyle’s living with someone. He’s thirty years old. My stomach tightens as my gaze drops to his left hand. There’s no wedding band. Not even a tan line of one. An unexpected wave of relief hits me, followed by that voice inside my head, reminding me that a missing ring doesn’t mean he’s not married. Or at least madly in love with someone: that the next step isn’t inevitable.

I push that painful thought aside. “I just live a few blocks from here. With Ashley and Christa.”

That earns a high-browed look. “Christa?”

I laugh. “She’s gotten a lot better. Most of the time.”

“That’s . . . cool. I guess?” His gaze drifts to the security desk behind me, and I sense him searching for an escape. “I should—”

“Have you kept in touch with anyone from Wawa?” Was I the only one you completely shut out?

When his eyes meet mine again, there’s heaviness in them. “I’ve seen Eric a few times over the years, but that’s it.”

“Oh yeah?” Despite the tension, I smile at the mention of that goof. “We were just talking about him the other night. How’s he doing? Still a pain in the ass?”

Kyle’s eyes narrow as he studies me for a long moment. “He’s good. Listen, I should get back to work. I don’t want Gus firing me on my first day.”

“Says the guy who used to sneak off the second he saw any opening,” I tease softly.

“Yeah, well . . . That was a long time ago. Shit happens. People change.” His smile is sad.

“They do.” Sometimes for the better, and sometimes not.

But which is it, for Kyle?

I feel the overwhelming need to know. “Hey, do you want to grab a drink sometime? Or a coffee, or lunch, or whatever. You know, catch up on things.” On everything.

A curious smirk touches his lips, but it’s fleeting. “Yeah . . .” His brow furrows. “Let’s keep it simple for now. You know, stick to hellos in the morning and goodbyes at night. That sort of thing.” His voice is low and soft—almost apologetic—as he delivers me the verbal blow.

The sort of thing that strangers do. Not friends. Not even acquaintances. And definitely not what we used to be.

I swallow against the ball of disappointment growing in my throat. “Of course. If that’s what you want.”

“I think it’s best for everyone involved.” He takes a step back. “Have a great day, Miss Calloway.” He shifts around me and strolls toward the desk, his steps even and slow.

I absently paw at the elevator button again and hear the ding to announce another available car, but I don’t move, my feet weighted in place, my gaze locked on Kyle’s retreating back.

It happens just as he’s edging past Gus to take his seat. He turns and our eyes meet, and thirteen years seem to evaporate in the air between us.

Christa was right, after all.

Kyle may not have forgotten me, but he doesn’t seem to want to remember us.

With my heels kicked off and my feet propped on a cardboard filing box, I quietly watch the last rays of sun creep over the Marquee building. Its rooftop is just visible. We had the hotel signage removed as soon as the deal closed on the building. Now it sits idle, the first few floors boarded up to keep out riffraff, giving vermin free rein inside.

Maybe Christa’s right and I shouldn’t give Kyle a second thought.

Or maybe I should hate him.

For breaking my heart thirteen years ago.

For treating me so callously last Friday.

For wanting to keep me at arm’s length today.

But right now, all I have inside me are questions.

“Heading home soon?”

I spin in my chair to find my father standing in the doorway. He’s swapped his pinstripe power suit and tie for a crisp white collared shirt—the top two buttons open—and a beige linen blazer and khaki pants. The subtle sandalwood aroma of his aftershave wafts in.

“Soon. But more important, where are you off to, Don Juan?”

The right corner of his mouth quirks. “A dinner meeting.”

Dad never goes to business meetings without a tie.

“You need to trim two months on the Marquee’s revised timelines—”

“I know,” I say. “I’ve already asked Tripp to have his team tighten it. He said he’d have something to me by the end of the week. I’m pushing for an eleven-week reduction.”

“Oh.” My dad nods slowly, a flash of satisfaction crossing his face. “Good.” He drags his fingertips along his chin in thought. I note the smoothness, even from here. Whoever he’s meeting, he shaved in his office’s restroom for her. “You and Tripp seem to be playing nice?”

“Seems so.” I grit my teeth through an innocent smile. Tripp spent the two-hour meeting this afternoon glowering at me from across the table as Serge walked me through the revised plans post city approval. If looks could kill, I’d be split open on a spit and roasting right now.

“Interesting . . .” Dad’s eyes narrow. “I didn’t think being told to shove a golf club up his ass would motivate him so well.”

Shit.

Of course the piglet went squealing all the way home.

I take a deep breath, set my shoulders, and brace myself for a tongue-lashing.

“I know you think I’m hard on you, and demanding. And maybe I am. But everything I do—everything I’ve ever done over the years—I’ve done only with your best interest at heart. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, Dad. I do.”

He sighs heavily. “Don’t stay here too late.”

“I won’t. Promise. Enjoy your dinner.”

He makes a sound and turns to leave.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Hmm?” His eyebrows rise in question.

“Please tell me this one’s at least forty?”

The smirk on his lips as he walks out doesn’t bring me comfort.