Chronicles of a Lincoln Park Fashionista (21 page)

Chapter 22

Oh God. Oh God. Please, God, please don’t let him have heard any of that
, I pray frantically as my stomach ties into a frozen knot.
Please.

But one look at the hurt, angry expression on Deke’s face and I know he has.

I can’t breathe. My heart pounds furiously inside my chest, and panic rises within me. I know what Deke’s thinking. He’s thinking I’m Christine. He’s thinking this is the same situation, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Deacon,” I cry, breaking the awful silence that has now filled the apartment. I rush toward him, not giving a damn that we have an audience. I have to fix this. I have to let him know this is all a misunderstanding. “I—”

“You left this in the car,” he interrupts, holding my pale blue Burberry scarf in his hand. “I drove a block before I realized it. But I know how much it matters to you, so I wanted to bring it back. Your neighbor was coming out of your building when I was going in, so I didn’t need to buzz you to let me inside.”

I gulp as he hands the scarf to me, but I refuse to take it back. Not until he hears me out.

“Deacon, you don’t understand,” I plead, shaking my head. “I—”

“Just take it,” Deke snaps angrily, his blue-green eyes flashing at me. “There’s nothing more to say. Luckily for me, I’ve heard everything I need to know.”

Then he thrusts the scarf into my hand and turns to walk away.

I let the scarf fall to the floor as I run out after him.

“Deacon! Deacon, wait,” I yell, running down the steps after him.

He whirls around on the landing to face me. And his eyes are so full of pain and fury that I stop dead on the stairs, unable to take another step.

“Don’t call me that,” he says angrily, sticking out his hand. “Don’t you ever call me Deacon again.”

Then he turns and continues down the stairs.

“No,” I say, running after him. “You don’t understand. You don’t.”

Deke doesn’t stop. He storms down the stairs, and I’m running after him as fast as I can, trying to catch up. He races outside and I find myself chasing after him in the pouring rain.

“I’m not Christine,” I scream at him. “I’m not.”

Deke stops dead in his tracks on the sidewalk. I run up behind him, gasping for breath. Except I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything until I make things right with him.

He turns around and stares hard at me. “No, you’re not Christine,” he says slowly. “Because you hurt me worse.”

Tears fill my eyes and splash down my cheeks, mingling with the rain that is pouring down on top of us. I want to speak, but I can’t. The words won’t come out over the lump that has swelled in my throat.

Deke’s eyes burn into mine, and he finally breaks the silence between us.

“So tell me, Avery. Is that the first thing you did? You couldn’t wait to rush upstairs and absolve your sins to your friends? To beg their forgiveness for fucking the lowly videographer?” Deke shouts angrily.

“No! You didn’t hear everything I said!”

“I heard enough.”

“But you misunderstood.”

“Did you say those things about me?” Deke asks point blank.

Oh shit. I know that he understands me better than anyone in my whole life ever has. And if I lie to him, Deke will know it the second it comes out of my mouth. I have to tell him the truth.

“I . . . I did,” I admit, my face burning in shame. The second my admission comes out, Deke looks as though I’ve slapped him. “But that was before I knew you. You know I don’t feel that way about you now. You know that.”

“You know what I know? This—us—was never
supposed
to happen. I wasn’t
supposed
to get involved. You were
supposed
to be a subject and nothing more. I never, ever, should have gotten involved with you,” Deke shouts over the sound of the rain. “This is my fault for mixing work and my personal life. But that’s over now.”

“What . . . what do you mean?” I stammer.

“I’m going to do what I should have done weeks ago,” Deke say, his voice shaking. “I’m getting off this assignment. You don’t have to worry about me ruining your social status with your friends. I’m done. You’ll never see me again.”

Anger suddenly surges within me. “Maybe we weren’t supposed to happen, but we did,” I yell, frustrated that he’s not hearing what I’m telling him. “We belong together. And you’re going to throw all of this away because of things I said a month ago? Are you forgetting that you said some awful things about me too, in the beginning? You judged me just as harshly as I did you, but I forgave you for it.”

“But I said that before,” Deke says suddenly.

“Before what?”

“Before I fell in lo—” Deke abruptly stops.

I freeze in place. Oh my God. He was going to say he
loved
me. He needs to know that I love him, too. I need to say it, even if every romantic advice column has told me it’s too soon to do so. I’m about to tell him I love him when he starts speaking.

“None of that matters,” Deke says, shaking his head. “You’re wrong, Avery. We don’t belong together. We never did.”

A sob escapes my throat. A clap of thunder roars overhead, but neither one of us move.

We stare at each other for what seems like an eternity. Then Deke turns and begins to storm back to his car, and I realize he’s pulled back into himself. Anger swirls within me again, as he’s treating me just like his mother and Christine even though I’m willing to stand here and fight to make things right. I’m the one who loves him and wants to be with him. I refuse to leave him, yet he’s shoving me away.

I have to say something to make him think. I have to get under his skin before it’s too late. I instantly think of how Deke told me he’s disappointed every woman in his life and realize that’s the one thing I can say to get through to him.

“Deacon,” I shout over the sound of the rain.

He turns around, his face full of the same anger and pain that I know is etched on my own right now.

“I didn’t think I’d ever say this to you, but you’re really
disappointing
me,” I say, choking on the words.

Deke stares at me for a long moment, and I stand still, my heart frozen inside my chest.
Please, Deacon, think about what
I’m saying,
I will him.
You have to know we belong together. You have to know that.

But then he turns and walks back toward his car, leaving me alone in the pouring rain.

I stay rooted to the sidewalk, watching Deke as he drives off. I swallow hard, staring at his Grand Cherokee until it disappears out of my sight.

Oh God. Oh God. I want to throw up. I turn and head back toward my apartment building, wiping tears from my eyes. I don’t have my key to get back inside, but I don’t care. I’m not ready to go upstairs and face everyone, not when my heart has shattered into a million pieces.

I sit down on the front step, in the shelter of the awning, and draw my knees to my chest. Tears roll down my face, plopping onto the denim like raindrops. I sniffle and go to put my head down on my knees when I notice a copy of the
Lincoln Park Vibe
sitting out on the step next to me.

So, Emily, how would you fix this
? I wonder painfully, thinking of the advice column that I read to Deke on a weekly basis.
How do you bring back together two people who were never supposed to be together in the first place?

Suddenly the word “supposed” whirls through my brain. I sit straight up, thinking of all the “supposed” things that were to happen in my life, but didn’t.

I wasn’t
supposed
to want a career, but I found one I love. I was
supposed
to have the perfect roommate in Sasha, but she drives me insane. I was
supposed
to fall for a guy like Sullivan, but I fell in love with Deke instead.

And just like that, I have an Oprah “AHA!” moment.

Life isn’t about supposed
, I think, my mind racing.
Life is about following your heart. About following your dreams and desires and not what you are “supposed” to do, but rather what you want to do. It’s doing what you need to do. It’s about doing what is going to make you a better person on the inside.

I scramble to my feet as adrenaline rushes through me. I’m not giving up. Not when I’ve finally figured out what I really want with my life.

I’m going to get Deke back.

And with a little inspiration from “Dear Emily,” I think I know just how I’m going to do it.

Chapter 23

I take a determined breath of air as I head toward my cubicle on Monday morning. I haven’t spoken to Deke since our awful fight on Friday night. I’ve texted him and called him, but he hasn’t returned any of my messages. But I knew he wouldn’t. Deke has thrown up a wall between us, one I can’t get through with modern technology.

But it’s a wall I’m hell bent on breaking when we are together face-to-face this morning.

I pray he hasn’t been able to replace himself on this assignment over the weekend. So he’ll have to work with me. And I’m here early so I can take him aside, tell him everything that is in my heart, and work this out so we can be together. Not because we are
supposed
to be, but because we
want
to be.

I turn the corner and hold my breath, praying that Deke is already here. But as soon as I see my cubicle, I stop dead in my tracks. There’s a camera case and equipment next to my desk, but Deke isn’t the videographer bending over the equipment.

Zach Ryan is.

My heart drops into my stomach. My throat swells shut. I can’t breathe as I stare at Zach, stunned to see him here. I never thought of Zach taking Deke’s place today, never.

“Where . . . Where’s Deacon?” I finally manage to ask, clutching the strap on my messenger bag tightly.

Zach instantly turns around. He stands up, his eyes staring intently at mine.

“Deke switched assignments with me. He went to New York this morning.”

“
New York
?” I gasp, taking a step back. I shake my head, as I don’t want to process this information. “No. He can’t be in New York. He can’t.”

“My assignment was shooting
Arrivals & Departures
in the JFK terminal. And that’s what Deke’s doing today.”

Suddenly tears fill my eyes. “So,” I say, forcing the words out over the huge lump in my throat, “Deacon hates me that much? He hates me so much that he’d rather go to New York than to stay in Chicago to work things out with me?”

“Is there a reason why Deke should want to work things out with you, after what he heard?” Zach asks accusingly.

“He misunderstood,” I say. Zach becomes blurry in my eyes, but I continue. “Zach, I did say some things about him. Awful things, things I wish I could take back. But I said them in the
beginning
, before I knew what kind of man Deacon really was.”

I pause for a moment, and Zach still stares at me, not saying a word.

“He missed the first part of the conversation. My friends were asking me why I looked so happy when I first walked through the door. They wanted to know why I was
glowing
. And I told them it was because of Deacon. They were shocked—because I kept my feelings about him to myself—and they began repeating all the things I had said about Deacon in May. I never got the chance to tell them the truth. I never got to defend Deacon and tell them all the reasons why I fell for him.”

Zach’s eyes continue to search my face. And I almost burst into tears when I notice he has the same thinking expression on his face that Deke gets when he’s questioning something.

“That’s why I got here early today,” I admit, my voice wobbly with emotion. I glance down at the carpet, trying my best not to sob. “I wanted to explain that to Deacon. I wanted to tell him all the things that make him so special to me. But I never dreamed he’d leave Chicago. I . . . I had no idea that he could hate me that much.”

I sniffle and glance up at Zach, whose expression has softened.

“Avery, I’d say the exact opposite is true,” Zach says softly. “Do you have any idea of how much you mean to him? Any idea at all?”

My heart starts beating again the second I hear Zach say that. “What do you mean?”

“You bring out a side of Deke that I’ve never seen before,” Zach says quietly. “My brother has always been serious. Careful. Focused on work and never his personal life. But the day he started shooting you, all of that began to change. It’s like you turned on the light switch inside of him, Avery.”

“But he
hated
me the first day he shot me.”

A slow smile appears on Zach’s face. “Did he?”

“Do you think he liked me even back then?” I ask, surprised.

“All I know is that he talked about you an awful lot,” Zach says, his eyes shining at me. “Which is something he
never
does. Over time it changed to ‘Avery said the funniest thing,’ or ‘Listen to what happened with Avery today.’ But it was always about
you
.

“Avery, you’re the only woman who brings out this side of him,” Zach says, continuing. “Deke always talks about how full of life you are. You make him laugh. You make him
happy
. You make him think about something other than work, which hasn’t happened in five years. I’ve never seen him like this. Ever. The fact that he opened up to you is huge. For Deke to do that, to even want to take that chance, means that he really cares about you.”

Instead of being comforted by Zach’s words, I’m pissed.

“Well, if your brother cares about me so much, then why the hell is he in New York?” I snap, frustration filling me. “Does Deacon think he can just shut me out like this? That I’m some mindless fashionista who will just move on with her life without him in it?”

Zach stares at me like I’m speaking gibberish. “What?”

“Does he think he can just swap places with you and avoid me because we had a
fight
?” I rant, throwing my messenger bag on the floor. “People who love each other fight. But they don’t go off to work at JFK because of it.”

I notice Zach is eyeing me carefully. “So you’re in love with Deke?”

“Yes. I do love him. And he’s not getting out of my life this easily. If he thinks flying to New York is an obstacle for me, then he has sorely underestimated me.” I go over to my desk and jerk open my drawer. I move the stack of
In Style
magazines aside and take out my employee airline passes.

“Avery, wait. There’s more to this JFK—”

“No, I will not wait,” I snap, turning around to face Zach. “I’m going to New York. Right now.”

Zach’s blue-green eyes widen in shock. “
What
?”

I hesitate for a moment. Okay, so that sounded like a really good declaration and all, and if this were a Lifetime TV movie I’d already be dramatically flouncing out the door en route to the airport.

But it’s not.

I’m going to have to go to Lindsay and ask for permission to do something I’m not supposed to do. I have to ask for an emergency vacation day to travel to New York City.

But I don’t give a damn about supposed to anymore. I need to prove to Deke that I’m not like the other women who have been in his life. That I love him and I’ll fight for him with every fiber of my being.

And that means flying to New York this morning.

“I’m going to JFK,” I say honestly, picking my messenger bag up off the floor. “I’m going to prove to Deacon how much I love him. By the way, you won’t be my videographer when I get back. Your brother shouldn’t shirk his responsibility to this project. And I will tell him that when I land in New York.”

“You’re good for him, Avery.” Zach says. “Now you go to New York and convince him that he’s just as good for you, too. Deke’s got his guard up, but if anyone can break through it, it’s you.”

I step back from him and nod. I really like Zach. Which is good, because if Deke and I get married someday, he’ll be a great brother-in-law.

But I digress. Before I can even think about the china pattern in our future—which, by the way, will be this exquisite Vera Wang pattern I’ve worshipped for three years at Bloomingdale’s—I have to see if Lindsay will let me go to New York City and take my first step toward it.

I nervously head toward Lindsay’s office. Now this is going to be kind of tricky, because Lindsay lives for work and probably can’t imagine how one’s personal life can take priority over it, even for a day.

But I
have
to go to New York.

And I won’t take no for an answer.

I pause in Lindsay’s doorway before entering. Her fingers are flying across the keyboard, no doubt crafting the next great piece of airline marketing strategy to show to Craig Potanski.

I gently rap on the doorframe to let her know I’m standing there.

Lindsay quickly swivels around in her chair, smiling as soon as she sees me.

“Good morning, Avery. So are you here bright and early to get started on your spa basket project?” Lindsay asks cheerfully.

“Uh, well, while I’m extremely anxious to get started on my spa baskets,” I say carefully, entering her office, “I have to talk to you about something. It’s important.”

Lindsay’s dark brown eyes lock with mine. “Okay. Why don’t you have a seat?”

I sit down and Lindsay turns completely away from her keyboard, facing me.

“This is in regards to my personal life,” I say bluntly. “And I have to ask for a favor. One I’m not supposed to ask for since I haven’t been here that long.”

Lindsay stares at me blankly.

I swallow hard, the words swirling in my head. I have to convince her to let me use a vacation day today, despite the fact I haven’t earned it yet. I
must
to go to New York this morning. Lindsay saying “no” simply isn’t an option.

“I have a theory,” I blurt out. “About the word
supposed
.”

“Theory?” Craig Potanski’s deep voice says from behind. “I love theories. Do you mind if I sit in?”

I whip around to find Craig standing in the doorway. Damn it! What is it with people hearing everything I say from the doorway? I swear, from now on I’m closing every door I walk through.

“I don’t mind at all,” Lindsay says. “Come on in.”

Craig takes a sip of his coffee and takes the chair next to me. “Go on, Avery. Your theory about the word supposed?”

I gulp. Oh shit. This really isn’t what I had in mind. I didn’t intend to go off on theories, and certainly not in front of the marketing genius of the airline industry.

But I’ll do it if it gets me to Deke.

“Well, I don’t think you should live your life by supposed,” I say. “If I were to always do what I’m
supposed
to do, I never would have spoken up in our brainstorming session last month, because new, entry-level assistants aren’t
supposed
to. If I did what I was
supposed
to do, I never would have worked on the spa basket idea once it was rejected. And I was never, ever
supposed
to have presented it to you, Craig, for further thought. So I really don’t like to live my life by ‘supposed.’ At least, not anymore I don’t.”

I take a deep breath before continuing. “I have to ask for something I’m not supposed to have yet. Lindsay,” I turn my eyes toward hers, “I need to take a vacation day today. I know I’m not supposed to, but I have a personal emergency—one in New York—that needs my immediate attention. I know I haven’t earned the right to use a vacation day. I know I’m supposed to fill out paperwork in advance, but I’m begging you to please let me have today off. Please. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t really important.”

“Oh, Avery, has there been an illness in your family?” Lindsay asks, her voice full of concern. “A medical emergency?”

“Uh . . . no,” I admit, feeling Craig’s eyes studying my profile. “There’s been no death or illness.”

“Oh,” Lindsay says, falling silent. She clears her throat. “Well, Avery, those are really the only cases we’re supposed to consider when allowing an employee in their probationary period to take a day off.”

Oh God. She’s going to say no. My heart lurches into my stomach. I’m not going to go to New York. God knows how long Deke’s assignment is there or if—

“Lindsay,” Craig says, his voice interrupting my thoughts, “didn’t you hear Avery? Life isn’t about supposed. It’s about following your gut. And I don’t think Avery would ask you for a day off unless it was something extremely urgent that she had to take care of immediately.”

I turn to Craig, hope filling me. “I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t. I love this company, Craig. I want to build a long career here at Premier Airlines. I enjoy the project planning and working on premiums and I think I would like to explore Event Marketing, too. And I already have started my spa basket plans and I promise you I’ll get here really early tomorrow to begin—”

“Avery,” Craig says, smiling at me, “I believe you.”

I turn back to Lindsay. I notice she’s staring at Craig with shocked expression.

“So you want me to let Avery have the day off?” she asks, sounding very surprised.

“I think Avery will more than make it up to us,” Craig says, standing up from his chair.

I turn back to Lindsay, holding my breath.

“Okay,” she finally says. “Fill out the vacation request paperwork when you get here tomorrow morning and I’ll turn it in.”

“Thank you, Lindsay,” I say, getting up out of my chair. “I won’t forget your flexibility and generosity on this matter.”

I head out of the office with Craig, my heart pounding inside my chest as I do.

“Thank you for your help back there,” I say, glancing up at him. “I swear I’ll make it up to you and the company.”

“I’m not in the least concerned about that. But do tell me. Would this personal matter have anything to do with the fact that Deke Ryan isn’t here shooting today?” Craig asks, taking a nonchalant sip of his coffee.

I stop dead in my tracks. My mouth pops open. I stare at Craig, completely stunned that he has figured this out.

“How did you know that?” I gasp.

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Sometimes I notice things I’m not
supposed
to see.”

Then he goes to enter his office, but before he steps inside, Craig turns and nods at me. “Have a good trip. I hope everything works out the way it should.”

I stare at him, dumbfounded. But then I realize Craig is exactly right. Things with Deke will work out the way they should.

And as soon as I can catch the next flight to JFK, they will.