Ready for You (Ready #3)(33)

“What’s good here?” Mia asked me after we’d been handed our menus.

“I always get the frozen hot chocolate.”

“Frozen hot chocolate? It’s really a thing? I thought they just made that up.”

“No,” I said, pointing to the spot on her menu. “See? It’s right there.”

“So, do you order anything else?”

“Cake.”

She looked at my deadpanned face and laughed. “So, we’re going extra healthy tonight then?” she joked.

I grinned. “You could get pie if you want.”

We ended up ordering a few desserts, and at my insistence, we each ordered our own frozen hot chocolate. Mia thought I was insane when they brought those huge suckers out, but I wanted her to have her own, so she could enjoy the full experience. She ate a few bites of each dessert and declared she was stuffed. I polished off everything else, and she watched in fascination.

“I don’t know where you put it.”

“I’ll work it off,” I said.

She caught me looking at her, and she blushed. I hadn’t meant it in that way, but I definitely wouldn’t mind giving it a try.

Damn it, Garrett. Stop.

Friends didn’t sleep together.

But f**k, I wanted to.

“Thank you,” she said.

I polished off the last bite of pie. “For what?”

“Taking me here…everywhere. Really, it’s been a great day.”

“Well, I wanted you to have some of the fond memories and experiences I had as a child, that every kid should have, when visiting New York. No one should come to a city like this and spend it inside a hotel room.”

She sat across from me and silently played with the straw in her drink. “You always had the best family,” she said wistfully, her eyes downcast as she continued to fiddle with her straw.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’re great. My parents used to bring Clare and me here whenever we came to New York. My dad would let us pick anything we wanted off the menu even if it was cake and pie,” I said with a wink.

That earned me a small smile, but I knew her thoughts were somewhere else. We finished up, and I paid the bill. She tried to slip her credit card in there, but I refused.

“My treat. I insist.”

She pouted but let me win.

We caught a taxi outside the restaurant, and I gave him directions back to the hotel. Halfway there, I changed my mind and asked him to take us somewhere else.

“What are you up to now?”

“Just trying to squeeze it all in,” I answered. “Come on!”

She squealed and jumped out of the car when we pulled up to the Empire State Building. I loved this place, and I had hoped she would too. As an architecture major, I’d spent years studying buildings like this. It made my chest tighten in anticipation and warmth to see her giddy with excitement over something that was so near and dear to my heart.

Stop it Garrett. Friends, you’re just friends.

“Oh my gosh, Garrett. I’ve always wanted to come here!”

“Well, here we are.”

We bought our tickets and waited our turn to take the tight elevator ride up.

“Do you ever wish you were making buildings like this?” she asked.

I thought about it for a moment as the elevator went up the eighty-sixth floor.

“Yes. Maybe not quite like this, but I do wish I was still designing.”

“Then, why don’t you do it?” she asked.

I shrugged and chose not to answer. Frankly, I didn’t have an answer. The market had changed in the last few years. There were more jobs now than there were a few years ago, and if I wanted to use my degree, now would be the time to do it. So, why didn’t I?

The elevator came to a stop, and we were escorted out before I had a chance to ponder that question further. We walked out onto the observation deck and the entirety of New York spread out before us.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, taking in the panoramic view of the city.

I just stared at her. “Yes, it is.”

I had always dreamed of proposing to Mia at a place like this—someplace worthy of her beauty and elegance. It would have been an engagement story she could have told her friends about. She could have run home, excited and full of bubbly glee, showing off the ring I’d spent months saving up for.

But sometimes, things didn’t happen the way one had planned. At the time, none of that had mattered. It hadn’t mattered that our engagement was a secret or that when I had knelt down, it had been in the wet grass on the banks of the river we’d dubbed our own secret spot. It hadn’t mattered that the ring I gave her cost less the class ring I once wore. We had been happy and ready for anything.

Or at least, I’d thought we had.

Chapter Eleven

~Mia~

I heard him slip off to his morning meeting a few minutes after I’d woken up. The sun was just starting to break over the horizon, and I knew I was alone. I was still lying in bed, curled up with a pillow, staring at the wall next to me. I was trying to avoid the crumpled-up map sitting on the desk across the room.

The map that had kept me up most of the night.

The map that clearly showed the three blocks separating me from my parents.

I couldn’t go.

I wouldn’t.