Everything in Between

Chapter 27

October 2022

I'm elbows deep in a financial report for a new client when my phone buzzes on the table next to my elbow.

Wine is my new favourite drink, the text from Zach reads.

I click open the text message to see a photo of his outstretched hand holding a wine glass with a vineyard in the background. He spent the week in Napa Valley on a business retreat with a few of his co-workers, and he has been updating me whenever they visit a new vineyard so I can live vicariously through him.

I could use a glass of wine right now, I think to myself.

Since I graduated this spring with my Master's in Finance, my life has been moving at a rapid pace. The second I received my diploma, I moved from Michigan into a one-bedroom apartment in New York. Friar McKinley Capital Investments immediately hired me into my dream job in a full-time permanent position. I've been working non-stop since then, and I barely have time for a life outside of the office. I'm trying to make a name for myself at the firm. I'm hyper-focused on my career and living off ramen noodles, financial reports, and late nights. Hence, Zach needs to update me on the fun things his job provides him while living in California.

I texted him back. Don't lie. We both know you hate wine, and it could never replace gin. Looks like fun, though.

I look up at the clock. Shit, how did it get to be seven already?

Nadia appears in the doorway of my office. "Let's get out of here," she says. "I don't know about you, but all these late nights at the office are catching up to me, and I need a break. Should we go for a drink?"

I nod - Nadia is the best work friend ever to exist. She can read my mind...or even weirder, Zach's text messages. It's been forever since I've had a drink with a friend.

"Yes, please," I say, powering down my computer and packing my desk. "Where to?"

"How about that new place on Broadway?"

"Do they serve wine?"

Nadia laughs. "They better."

I've never been to this bar - it's new, but the decor wants to fool you into thinking it's been here since the sixties. Nadia and I have taken up two seats at the bar as close to the bartender as one can get and reasonably remain seated. The bar is packed with working professionals in three-piece suits and casual business attire. Not five feet from where Nadia is seated is a group of Wall Street executives drinking scotch, and on the other side of them is a group of young women I recognize from an auditor's office located on the floor below us in our building.

Nadia and I scroll through our respectable Tinder accounts as we drink red wine and talk about office gossip.

"Are you and Dylan done for good then?" I ask, glancing over as Nadia swipes right on another Tinder profile. Dylan is an employee at our firm, and he and Nadia have been on again and off again for the past two years.

She puts her empty wine glass down next to another one. "Yes. But don't quote me on that. I've said yes before, and then he buys me a coffee or smiles at me, and I find myself fucking him again in the boardroom after hours."

I feel my brows lift. "Falling back into the same old pattern with Dylan has always been your weak point."

"Ugh, I know," she groans.

Even if she's right, and she finds herself succumbing to Dylan again, I wouldn't blame her for wanting to fall back into something familiar. She's been with him for more than two years.

Two years.... It's such a small portion of our lives, and still, it's longer than the year I spent feeling like a heartbroken mess over Zach's ultimate rejection. I put on a brave face, pretending he hadn't broken my heart and that everything was back to normal. Because when it comes to Zach, it's always been easy to fall back into our old patterns. I've had to let go of my feelings for him for an entire year, and it felt like the longest year of my life.