SIR

by R. J. Lewis

  “You don’t deserve to know,” he interrupts, harshly. “You don’t deserve the good things you had. Because you’re back to being a heartless cunt—”

  “You think I want to be heartless?” I peer at him intently, feeling pulses of anger thrum through my body. “I’ve just come to you now, haven’t I? I’m bearing myself to you, Alex, because I want to repair things. Tell me, please, were we in a better place before I got into that accident?”

  He takes a few moments to respond, his voice wretchedly empty. “We were.”

  My heart jolts in my chest. “Then why this hostility?”

  “I want him back,” he admits. “I want who you used to be and telling you about him won’t suddenly make you him.”

  I’m suddenly grateful for the darkness. My eyes ache as I look down at my baby brother. “I’m me, in the present, Alex. That’s all I can be right now. That’s all I know.”

  He drops his head, peering down into his lap. “I’m sore, Aidan, okay? I’m fucking sore it all happened—you forgot. I’m hurting because I felt like, for the first time in my life, I finally had a big brother, and he cared for me. I was so overcome with joy, that when I learned you went back to the alcohol, went back to racing—fuck, you hurt yourself, but you hurt me, too.”

  I swallow, understanding the weight of my actions. “I am sorry, Alex. I wish I remembered why I did it—”

  “You shouldn’t have done it at all. You had…you had a good life, Aidan. Don’t you ever feel like something is missing?” He looks up to stare at me, and I can feel the bite of desperation behind his tone. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “Yes,” I whisper in admission. “I feel like I’m mourning, but I don’t know what I lost. I feel…like perhaps it’s Ruth, and the regrets I have with her…but I sense there’s more to it. Like there’s something else, something very profound, that’s missing from me, and nobody wants to tell me what it is.”

  Alex lets out a trembling breath. “It’s not out of want, Aidan, it’s that you wouldn’t accept it. You wouldn’t…not until you’re ready, and you’re not. You’re not ready at all.”

  He stands up before I can speak, and he strolls past me, his body heavy. I stand still, waiting for him to leave, but I hear his movements still. I hear his sharp intake of breath when he says, “I have to go back. I have to…take care of things…I don’t want to go back, I’m struggling, but Ruth’s house is on the brink of being sold, and I’m struggling saying goodbye to our home. She made it a home, Aidan, and I can’t bear to walk those halls and not see her around the corner…”

  I turn around, heart plummeting in my chest for his despair—for our loss. I reach a hand out to him, but he doesn’t see it. He continues walking down the hallway, leaving me standing there, arm outstretched, and I’m waiting…

  I’m waiting for someone to take my hand…

  Because I think I made a vow.

  I search my brain, search those fragments, trying to figure out what I’m waiting for.

  Nothing comes.

  Sixteen

  Ivy

  Our night may as well not have happened because come morning, Aidan is back to being West: walls up, face impassive, and tongue coated with asshole remarks.

  Just wow.

  He might be acting like normal, but nothing feels normal now. Things are in fact bad. I can’t even believe I built enough courage to show up—even getting out of bed deserved accolades for bravery.

  Or as Ana texted this morning after a quick cringy audio message I sent her outside before bed last night: Mad balls, girl.

  I have to wear my hair down because there’s visible love marks all along my neck and breasts. I think Tilda saw it in the kitchen when I stepped out, but she promptly looked away. But I saw her face. Her brows shot up, and she was all, oh my. And, of course, that had to be the one fucking morning Alex was there, making a cup of coffee.

  “You look hungover.” He sounded more curious than anything.

  I simply nodded once, glancing at him briefly, and automatically catching his eyes on my neck. He quickly buried his face in his mug of coffee, not making eye contact.

  “I am not hungover,” I told him, also avoiding his eye. “I had a late night.”

  I sensed his concern as he looked me over, frowning. “I can tell.”

  Just as he said that, I noticed a duffle bag on the floor behind him. “What’s that?”

  Alex didn’t follow my gaze. He knew what I was referring to. “I’m going away for a couple weeks—”

  “What?” I cut in, panicked. “You’re leaving me?”

  Alex was the closest thing to Ana I had out here and losing him made my chest feel hollow.

  “There are some things I still need to sort out with Ruth’s passing,” he explained softly. “Things I can’t prolong anymore. Someone’s interested in purchasing the house…” He paused, looking momentarily bereft. “I have to sign some paperwork and clear the home of our things…”

  I didn’t prod him. I sensed his anguish. “Take all the time you need, Alex.”

  “You’ll be okay?” he wondered, eyeing that mark on my neck very quickly.

  “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

  We exchanged numbers and after breakfast, I hugged him goodbye. Even Tilda whispered her goodbyes, looking equally distraught that he was leaving. Alex filled the space around here with laughter and light—unlike Aidan West, who is a cold and dark cloud. This man is unthawable—and I know that’s not a word, but you know what, it works and I’m tired, and that’s what he is. Unthawable.

  And now I’m sitting next to Unthawable West, wanting to seriously throw myself off the nearest balcony because he too has sighted the hickeys, only there is no reaction to read because he’s doing that blank face shit again.

  One step forward, two hundred steps back, that’s how it feels with this guy. I don’t know what to make of our night together—what we did in the car. I spend the morning trying not to think about it because clearly he isn’t.

  I keep waiting for him to talk about it, and then I stop waiting because he doesn’t.

  So…

  I do. Of course, I do, because I have no filter, I’m impulsive and addicted to digging this hole I’m in.

  “Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room?” My voice is quiet, and it took me exactly twelve minutes of talking myself in and out of blurting that one line out.

  When I risk a glance next to me, West’s eyes are scanning a document in front of him, like what I just said doesn’t give him any cause to pause.

  “What elephant are you referring to?” he asks unconcernedly.

  “I think you know what,” I snap.

  He still looks unbothered. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be specific, Miss Montcalm.”

  “I don’t need to be specific. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Until you specify the details—”

  “What we did in the car,” I cut in sharply, face red.

  He finally looks at me. Again, there is nothing there. “You promptly expressed it was a mistake, and I don’t revisit mistakes, Miss Montcalm. Once they have been rectified, there is no need to mention them again.”

  “You feel it was rectified?”

  “Wasn’t it?” he challenges, coldly. “I walked away. End of story.”

  I angle my body so that I’m facing him. “Look, we can talk about it and you can understand where I’m coming from—”

  “I don’t care to know where you were coming from,” he cuts in, looking unforgiving. “So do your job, Miss Montcalm, preferably in silence.”

  I glower at him. What a dickhead. I open my mouth to seethe, tell him to fuck off. I have the urge to rip the papers out of his hands and tear them into itty bitty pieces and then flip him off as I dramatically exit the room.

  But I don’t.

  Because this behavior was expected. It’s what I’ve been waiting for this entire time—the Asshole of the East to finally butcher me on t
he spot. I feel cold everywhere, and I really do stare at the door, feeling my flight response kick in.

  I take deep breaths, calming myself.

  It’s not working.

  I look down at my hand and I’m trembling. This is bad, and I’m going to be impulsive again, and I am not eager to see how deep this hole can get—

  I stand up before I can stop myself.

  “Where are you going?” he demands straightaway, suddenly paying me all the attention in the world.

  “I am taking a day off.” I don’t bother to sort my side of the desk out. Like, fuck that.

  “What about the emails you’re supposed to draft—”

  “I’m pretty fucking sure you can handle it, Mr West,” I hiss out, striding out of the room, and this time I don’t look back.

  *

  I do not spend my day off in a terrific way. I shut myself inside my suite and don’t leave, not even to make a phone call to Ana because I don’t want to tell her I walked out of the office today in a fit of rage. And going to the river won’t feel the same without Alex there.

  I need time to self-analyze—aka I need to eat chocolate and listen to Adele.

  I dig through my suitcase and pull out a few DVDs Ana packed me. I spend the afternoon watching Princess Bride, cleaning my light fixtures in case of more bullshit inspections, and hunting down Philotes with a flip-flop.

  I also think about Aidan.

  How do you do that? I want to ask him. How do you go about like nothing happened? Like it meant nothing?

  I wonder if he was just pissy and protecting himself. I rejected him, didn’t I? And maybe it was savage. I can see how it must look, but I was weak. I was so desperate for my Aidan, that I wound up treating him like he was my Aidan—so much so, I had stopped calling him West in my mind.

  By the time I’ve showered and am lying in bed, I find myself feeling guilty. If I had just let him drive me home, nothing would have happened. I would not have crawled into his lap and made the first move. He would have dropped me off at my suite and we would have had a fond memory of getting along together.

  Okay, so I can fix this.

  I will fix this.

  I will act like nothing happened, too, and everything will go back to the way it was.

  See, I’m fine.

  I’m fiiiiine.

  *

  “Miss Montcalm,” he says as I enter the office the next morning, “are we feeling better today, or should I expect another vanishing act?”

  I take a seat in the chair next to him, flashing him a hearty smile. “I am feeling excellent today, Mr West.”

  Tone it the fuck down, Ivy.

  He looks at me, determining if I’m telling the truth or spinning a web of bullshit. I sip my coffee and go about my work like everything is dandy. Dandy, dandy, dandy.

  “You’re sober, right?” he wonders after I flash him another cringy ear-to-ear smile.

  “I am.” Unfortunately.

  “Okay…” his voice trails as his eyebrows pinch together. He’s disturbed—I’ve officially disturbed him.

  For the first while, it’s quiet and cordial. By cordial I mean he hasn’t barked at me and I haven’t had mouth diarrhea.

  West takes a call outside the office and I’m typing away an email, setting up a phone appointment with a prospective businessowner when a knock sounds at the door.

  “Yes?” I call out.

  The door opens and Tilda strides in with West’s usual breakfast tray of fruit.

  “They’re nice and hot and a little crunchy on the outside just like Mr West said they should be,” she says, setting down the tray beside my computer. “If you’d like some more, just let me know.”

  I glance at her, brows furrowing in confusion. “What?”

  But she’s already on her way out the door—

  My nose wrinkles in surprise as the most delicious smell hits me. I glance down at the tray she put before me and stiffen.

  There’s a fresh cup of coffee…and a plate of waffles with raspberry jam and syrup. Next to my tray is West’s fruit tray with all his healthy shit.

  I don’t move for a few moments.

  He got Tilda to make me breakfast? And not just any breakfast, but homemade waffles? My favorite.

  My breath quickens and my heart swells in my chest. Is this some form of apology? If it is, I want to tell him I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry for crawling in your lap and giving you a handjob and watching the ecstasy on your face as you groaned and rubbed me—okay, so I’m not entirely sorry for it now that I really look back. It was hot as fuck, but…you know, I was sorry for the rejection part afterwards and seeming like a hot and cold asshole.

  I demolish the plate of waffles in record time, groaning with every bite.

  When West arrives much later, he says nothing to me as he takes a seat and pops a grape into his mouth, munching away. He glances at the empty tray in front of me and then we make eye contact briefly. His face is hard, but his eyes soften for a fraction of a beat. I read the message loud and clear.

  Truce.

  I can live with that.

  It’s water under the bridge, and hell yeah, he can keep the waffles coming because one does not accept a cease-fire without good reason.

  *

  Over those next few days, the elephant in the room grows smaller, but it’s still there. To try and escape it, I have no choice but to focus on the work we’re doing between us. Work that is so futile and meaningless, I have no other way to describe the monumental waste of time this is.

  I’m not very good at this personal assistant thing. I’m not plugging formulas in anymore, thank goodness. West has been making me send out emails, followed by phone calls. It’s special snowflake stuff, an obvious demotion from “basic arithmetic” shit. I book appointments with potential businesses, but I’m not even good at that. One of the callers had the thickest French accent and I had said, “say that again, please,” about forty-seven times, all the while sitting next to a hard blinking suited jerk who keeps glaring at me.

  Sometimes he says things to me that are just not okay.

  “Why are you breathing so hard?” he asked once, bewildered.

  “I ran up the stairs just now,” I had answered, panting. “You wanted your coffee.”

  “You ran up the stairs with my coffee?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “You were giving me the look.”

  He stared at me, puzzled. “The look?”

  “You know…” I made an unimpressed face to show him what his look looked like. It’s the look of a rich man about to eat puppies for breakfast if he doesn’t get his way.

  “Miss Montcalm,” he says slowly, “let’s not run up the stairs with extremely hot coffee anymore. Not only is that something a very logical person would do, it’s also dangerous— ”

  “I was careful.”

  “I meant for me.”

  Yeah, West without his coffee is a dangerous thing. Him getting it late is even worse. Me dropping it on the way to him might be nuclear.

  Another time, I had all my shitty bangles on and every time I wrote—which was a lot— they rattled audibly against the binder.

  “Miss Montcalm,” he said, fighting to remain calm, “your wrist is being very disruptive.”

  I was pissy this day. I’d barely slept on that spine-curving fucking bed, and I saw shadows of Philotes all around my room. I’m positive my insect roommate is freaking me out on purpose. Serious insect stalker shit happening in that suite.

  I levelled West with a flat look. “What do you want me to do about it, Mr West?”

  “Take them off.”

  “I like them where they are.”

  “Remove them.”

  I glowered at him and shook my wrist. “That’s pissing you off?”

  He looked annoyed. “It is.”

  “So, you get to tap your foot against the desk for hours in whatever hypnotic state you get in, but my bangles jingling together
rhythmically is disruptive?”

  “You think that noise is melodic?”

  “I do.”

  He looked like he wanted to strangle me. “Remove your bracelets right now, Ivy.”

  “Then stop tapping your foot against the desk.”

  “This is not up for negotiation.”

  “It’s not a negotiation. That entails each of us getting something we want. No, Mr West, this is a compromise. We are losing something we want. See, two vastly different things.”

  “Fuck,” he cursed suddenly, but it was mixed in with a groan, like I had just floored him. The way he looked at me next sent jolts of tingles to forbidden places, aka my pussy. His eyes had that heated look to them. He was watching me like it was the first time he had paid attention to me that day. It was nice to feel like I wasn’t part of the office furniture, like for once his walls weren’t so fortified.

  Then he ruined it by saying, “Just when I begin to think your head consists of more air than braincells, you come at me with that.”

  “That’s not a very nice compliment.”

  “Coming from me, it is.”

  His asshole compliments are better than the hard blinks and blank stares, I supposed. Still. I raised my chin, stubborn, and repeated the entire point of this idiotic conversation. “Stop tapping your foot and I’ll remove my bracelets.”

  His jaw clenched, but I caught the amusement in his expression. “You first.”

  That’s new Aidan for you. Has to win all the freaking time. I choose my battles wisely. You don’t win a war trying to come out on top with every skirmish. No, you have to be strategic and shit.

  I rolled my eyes and removed them, leaving just the golden bangle behind. West’s eyes narrowed on the bangle, like he was about to argue about this, but he stopped himself. Maybe I was wittier than he expected, or maybe he felt something when he looked at it. It wasn’t worth pouring thought into.

  Point is, we’re getting on each other’s nerves. Ever since that night in the car, we’re more abrasive and snippier. He sucked my nipples, felt my pussy, and I jerked him off—that tends to change the workplace dynamic; it tends to make two people more comfortable with one another than they should be on a professional capacity. Passive aggressive comments aren’t unusual, and the dynamic can get pretty toxic.