I laugh. “That would be a really short tour.”
She flops down on a big bed, soft pillow, her hair splayed out around her. “How was your trip?”
I decide not to mention the bombed-out hotel we passed on the way, a hotel I once stayed in, or the illegal road block we encountered. “Uneventful,” I reply. “But I missed the sunset happy hour.”
“Did everything run smoothly without you?” she asks.
I sink into the chair next to my desk. “Not really. Some supplies were stolen. It’s a problem.” I don’t mention that there was also a bomb threat, or that whoever took most of our pain medication from the supply closet must still have a key and it will take another week to get a replacement lock.
“It really doesn’t sound safe there,” she says. Her top teeth worry her bottom lip.
She doesn’t know the half of it. The situation has gone dangerously awry over the past year. But it’s not the danger that has me thinking of leaving, and it’s not my mom’s illness. It’s her. It’s the thought of her moving on without me, when I wouldn’t have anything to offer her even if I was there.
I can’t believe I’d consider abandoning people who need me for a woman I can’t even admit I’m dating.
It sounds exactly like something my father would do.
40
DREW
I somehow manage to complete two more weeks in Europe. Talking to Josh is the highlight of every day, the one part that makes me feel like there’s a point to all this, though I’m not sure what that point would be. Growing close to someone was never on my bucket list. Nor was growing close to someone I’d have to keep a permanent secret.
I call him late in the evening after my show is over. It’s the only easy time for both of us to talk. When he answers, it hits me right in the center of my chest how much I miss his beautiful, tired face. He is lying on what appears to be a cot—he wasn’t exaggerating about the conditions there. I climb into bed and turn out the lights, just so it feels like we’re there together.
"Where are you now?” he asks.
I actually have to think for a moment, glancing out the window to get my bearings. “Rome. Have you been?”
His eyes close. He looks exhausted. “Long time ago. Summer after I graduated.”
“You should be here,” I tell him. “We could go down to Sorrento and drink limoncello and shop.”
His eyes close again, but he smiles. “Drew, if I flew to Rome, we would not be leaving the hotel room.”
Heat flares to life at the idea of it. An entire weekend with him in this very bed, not leaving once. I can't imagine anything better. And it makes me almost bitter that other people get so much and we have so little. How long will he be willing to be my long-distance buddy before he finds someone there to take my place? If he hasn't already.
"Get on a plane," I tell him. It’s phrased like a joke, but if I thought I could persuade him I’d be begging right now.
His eyes brush over my face. "I miss you," he says. “It’s never been as hard to be back here as it is this time.”
It’s more than he’s ever said, and I don’t say it back but I feel guilty when I hang up the phone, as if I should have. Why is he the only one who ever puts himself out there? I can name a hundred things he’s done for me since we met, but can I name one thing I’ve done for him? At a certain point, it looks less like caution and more like selfishness.
I take a deep breath. Those dreams about the bus ride, they’ve been happening again ever since he started getting past my walls. I think maybe they’ve been preparing me for this moment. I know what I have to do, and it terrifies me.
I have to say yes to the unknown.
I’m going to Somalia.
“No, you’re not,” says Jonathan.
He is Tali’s best friend, Hayes’s assistant, and the one person who can figure out how to get me a visa. I should have known he wouldn’t make it easy. I love him, but he was a constant thorn in my side when we were planning Tali’s bachelorette party. I still think the private island off the coast of Dubai would have been way more fun than Vegas.
I wander to the window of my hotel room and pull back the curtains with one hand, holding the phone with the other. In the distance, Zurich’s snow-capped mountains gleam, reflecting the bright sunlight. A river winds lazily just beyond the window. If he could see my view, he’d really wonder why I’m so eager to leave. He’d probably suggest I go to Vegas instead.
“Somalia is deadly,” he says. “People don’t get into Somalia.”
“Sure they do,” I argue. Josh left and returned without a problem, and I’ve been in way too many nice, uneventful places deemed dangerous to take warnings too seriously. “There are embassies and tons of aid organizations traveling in and out. If they can manage, surely a woman with the money to buy the world’s best transportation can.”
“Drew,” he says with a sigh, “do you know anything about Somalia? You’d need to hire multiple armed guards just to get you anywhere in the city. And you might not even be safe then. If you want to earn yourself some good PR, there are easier places to go.”
I’m embarrassed to admit I’m going there for a guy, but I’m not sure Jonathan will help me if I don’t admit it. “I have a friend there,” I tell him. “Someone I’ve been seeing.”
He laughs. “It’s kind of cute…I wondered what you’d be like when you fell in love and now I know.”
“I never said I was in love with the guy.”
“Drew, honey,” he says, “you’re flying to Somalia to see him. I’m pretty sure that’s love. Or you’re insane.”
I’m way more comfortable with the idea of being insane.
In early March, I return to New York to film a cameo on a sitcom I don’t especially like. Davis and Stephanie claim it will raise my profile. I suspect they’re more concerned with raising their own.
When the first day of shooting is over, I sneak off set while Davis is trying to get people to go out to dinner. From there I take a cab to the Ritz Carlton where Ben Tate is waiting in a private room with another associate from his firm.
It took me a while last summer to persuade Tali that Ben and I were never going to happen because tall, hot guys in suits didn’t do it for me. Little did I know.
And Ben is hot, that part is non-negotiable. I just only seem interested in wildly unavailable doctors at this exact moment.
He shakes my hand and introduces me to his associate, Amelia. We make some small talk about Hayes and Tali and the baby, and then his hands steeple atop his notepad.
“So,” he says, “I understand you want to break up with some people.”
I nod. My heart is racing and I press a hand to my chest, waiting to feel air slip in and out of my throat. “I’m terrified,” I admit.
My phone buzzes on the table. Davis is calling me. “Do you need to get that?” Ben asks.
I shake my head. “Do you know how crazy this situation is right now?” I ask them quietly. “I don’t even know if he’s traced my whereabouts. There’s literally nothing in my life he doesn’t know more about than I do. He arranged this phone purchase. He hired my publicist and my accountant and my assistant and they all answer to him. I keep picturing that door opening and him walking in.”