Oceans Apart Book 1 (Oceans Apart #1)(13)

Mike.

If it had been anyone else, I would have let it go to voicemail and gone about my business. It was fast closing in on midnight and I just wanted to sleep, but Mike would just keep calling, so I sighed and slid my finger across the screen to answer the call.

“This had better be good. I was just about to go to bed.”

“What, already?” Mike asked, laughing. “Getting old there, buddy?”

“No. I was on a plane for fifteen f*ckin’ hours yesterday and I worked my arse off today. I think I’m entitled to feel a little bit like the f*cking undead right about now,” I shot back in our usual banter.


“Okay, okay. Fair point. I just wanted to know how LA was.”

“Sunny.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

Mike snorted. “Okay. Who’s Ginny Peterson, then?”

Trust Mike to be paying attention to my Facebook updates. “She’s a girl I met in LA. What’s it to you anyway?”

“So you just…added her on Facebook?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I was getting a little pissy with him. “Look mate, I’m too tired to explain this now, and I already know you’re going to be on my case about it tomorrow, so can we save it until then, please?”

“You got it, boss man,” Mike teased. “Get your beauty sleep, Princess, and I’ll see you bright and early in the morning.”

“Fuck off, Mike,” I said and let it be a goodbye. I hung up and turned my phone off for good measure, shutting off the lights in the apartment and heading down the hall to bed, finally.





Chapter 7 — Ginny





The week after Tristan left to go back to England was a busy one for me. The law offices were a hive of activity with a high-profile case going on, and I spent most of my time researching, printing, and fact checking. It was good to be busy. It gave me less time to think about Brad and Helena and how I went home alone every night and put myself to bed, wishing I had someone with me. Instead, I thought about the case and how if our firm won, it would mean a pay raise for all the people who worked on it. More money was always a good thing, right?

My parents were impressed I was working on such a prominent case (some celebrity or other was suing someone else), and my superiors at work were impressed with how thorough and efficient my work was.

Mixed in with work were messages from Tristan. We hadn’t yet worked out how to time it so that we could chat on Skype or even use the Facebook messenger system, since there was an eight-hour time difference between us, so we made do with email messages. But even that was enough to lift my spirits during a long day of work.

Tristan was very interesting, and he wanted to know as much about me as I did about him. We’d jumped right into talking and asking questions about each other as if we’d been friends for years. For me, it just came naturally, and I was sure I understood what Tristan had meant when he’d said that I reminded him of being with his best friend. Only Tristan was a lot less exhausting to talk to than Kari sometimes.

So on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being “I live at McDonald’s” how much fast food do you eat?

He’d sent that message on a Wednesday, and I had to cover my mouth with a hand to avoid laughing out loud in the middle of the office.

I waited until I’d delivered the files I’d been compiling to the attorney who’d requested them, and then sat down to reply “Probably about a two? I like to cook more than eat out, actually.”

That apparently was intriguing enough for him to ask me dozens of follow-up questions, and eventually I’d ended up telling him about the folder I’d had on my laptop at home, filled with bookmarked recipes I wanted to try. Gourmet dishes I made and then tweaked and then made again using fresh ingredients from the farmer’s market and Whole Foods Store.

The next time I’m in LA, I’m definitely coming to your place for dinner. If you’ll have me, he’d written after that, and I found myself smiling. Usually I only cooked for myself, sometimes for Kari when she could be persuaded to try new things, but it would be nice to have someone else around who wanted to eat my food, if it ever came to pass that he was in LA again.

I asked things about him, too, and found out he was an only child, which most definitely did not leave him with a complex, his favorite color was dove gray, his favorite food was his mother’s lamb stew even though she didn’t make it very often anymore, and on Thursday evenings he went to a pub called The Victoria, just a few streets away from his apartment to meet Mike for drinks, shooting pool, and relaxing before the weekend.

The more I learned about him, the more I found myself wishing that he were someone who lived closer that I could spend time with. I entertained thoughts of dragging him to the farmer’s market with me on Sunday mornings and then making him a dinner that he wouldn’t soon forget.

It was the kind of thing I’d always wanted to do with a boyfriend, but Brad hadn’t been really interested in the farmer’s market or the way the food was made, and he’d never really understood why I spent so much time and money making things that we could just go get from a restaurant. No matter how many times I’d explained it wasn’t about just having the food, he never seemed to get it.


From the enthusiasm he’d shown, I was sure Tristan would have, but that wasn’t an option.