New Year in Manhattan(18)

We were going to be late for dinner.





Chapter Seven


Ethan

Andrew and Mandy lived on the Upper East Side. My driver Rory was visiting his family in Ireland, so we took a cab.

“A driver is all well and good, but it’s being in the back of a cab that makes you feel like you’re in New York,” Anna announced.

“If you say so. Getting out of bed was your idea. Doing things normal people do. Are you happy?”

“I’m always happy when I’m with you.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

“Are you being sarcastic? I can’t tell.”

“And that’s how I like it, my friend.” She threw her head back and laughed. “But for the record, I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

I pulled her toward me. “So, what did you want to tell me?”

“You can’t ask me on the way to dinner. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It’s not meant to. I just need to catch you up with stuff. I’ve not seen you for three weeks and things happen.”

She was trying to cover up something, I could tell. Had she seen that loser ex-boyfriend of hers?

The cab came to a stop at road works two blocks from Andrew and Mandy’s apartment.

“So what? You won’t take us around the road works?” I asked the cab driver. He just shrugged and sat there. Looked like we were walking the last two blocks. “Jesus, it’s like minus twenty five out there.” I missed having a driver.

“Come on, we can keep each other warm with our body heat. Don’t be a brat,” Anna said as she climbed out of the cab. “It’s not even that cold.”

“Are you drunk? It’s artic, as you would say,” I replied as I joined her on the sidewalk.

“Stop whining and put your arm around me.” She grinned at me and despite a brief attempt at staying mad, I ended up grinning back at her. Her smile was infectious.

“Ethan?” A male British voice called out of the cold. Anna and I turned to face a couple wrapped up against the New York winter. “Hi.” The man in front of us pulled off his hat and stuck his hand out. “Oh, Anna. I wasn’t expecting . . . Hi.” It was Al, a junior corporate partner from the London office. Despite being in different offices, we were still subject to the anti-frat policy. Shit. He knew me. He knew Anna. In a city of eight million people, on the wrong side of the Atlantic. “This is my wife, Beverly.”

We all shook hands, and exchanged hellos.

“We’re here for the holidays,” Al said, clearly trying to explain why he was in the wrong city. I nodded, not knowing what to say.

“Have you had a nice time?” Anna asked. It was so uncomfortable. The elephant in the room was sitting on my lap.

Beverly nodded.

“Well, I guess, I understand things a bit more now,” he said looking between us. I glanced at Anna; she was wearing a forced smile. “Let’s catch up when you’re back in the office, Anna.”

“Yes of course, anyway, it’s freezing, so we’d better be going before my face turns blue,” Anna said. “Have a great evening.”

We walked in silence. I turned to see how far away Al and Beverly had gotten before I let myself say another word. “Shit” was all I could manage once I’d established that Al couldn’t hear me. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Don’t let him bring up the anti-frat policy and fire you when you see him.”

“He’s not going to fire me,” Anna replied. “How far is it to go until we’re there?”

“It’s just on this next corner. You seem very confident.”

“I am.”

“I suppose you’re right. I guess it’s me that’s signed up to the anti-frat policy, not you.”

Anna nodded. “You’re not going to get fired.”

“They take it really seriously. I’m not saying some haven’t got away with it, but they have fired people before.” We arrived at Andrew and Mandy’s and Anna put her hand on my arm, stopping me from reaching the knocker.

“I don’t want you to worry about this. They’re not going to fire you. I’m working my notice period. It’s not worth it to them to fire you if I’m leaving.” With that, she grabbed the knocker herself.





Anna

I hadn’t planned how I was going to tell him. But just as we were arriving for dinner at Andrew and Mandy’s definitely wasn’t the ideal situation to drop this particular bomb. Or was it a bomb? Even though I wasn’t sure I would take Daniel’s job offer, I decided to resign. I wanted to be with Ethan and it wasn’t realistic to expect him to move. I liked New York and Daniel’s offer at least proved that I had options around my career.