by Nella Tyler
Still, as soon as I was certain I was alone, I picked up my phone again and stared at the screen as my thoughts returned to Mazie.
Dammit! I thought as I tried to decipher exactly what I should say to her.
For the next few minutes, I started a couple of texts but quickly decided against writing them, knowing that anything I said simply didn’t feel right. I wanted to ask her out on another date without it sounding urgent. I wanted it to sound fluid and easy, but since I continued to pine over every detail of the text I was sending her, the process was anything but.
I had no clue why it was so difficult, except for the fact that I didn’t want to screw it up, but even still, it shouldn’t be that hard.
After all, I get people to do what I want them to do for a living. I should be able to craft a compelling second-date text in my sleep by this point and normal I could.
What bothered me is that this didn’t feel like any old second date or booty call. I didn’t want it to be serious but that was the only way I could think about it, and that scared the hell out of me.
I was brought out of my thoughts again by the feeling of eyes peering at me, and I carefully looked up, instinctively flipping my phone over on my desk again, before I was sure anyone was even there.
My father was walking into my office though, so I was happy he didn’t get a chance to see who I was thinking of texting.
Besides, the look on my father’s face and the presence of him in my office to begin with told me that there was an issue.
Mentally, I rolled my eyes.
Now what? I thought, but forced myself to be cheery.
“Good morning,” I insisted as he stood in front of my desk, “What can I do for you, Dad?”
“How is everything going on the Wilson deal?”
“Things are going well, Dad. They’re going extremely well, actually. I sent my itinerary to you the other day. My plans haven’t changed. I’m leaving Thursday morning for my afternoon meeting, and I should be back no later than Friday morning. If all goes exceptionally well, I will be back Thursday evening.”
“Do you have everything together for the presentation?”
“Yes, Sir,” I assured him, “And I even sent it out to a few of our agents for review and everyone seems to think this is a good plan.”
“Excellent. Send a finished copy to me, along with what you plan to say, and I will tweak it as necessary. This is a big client, and I think that I should handle it myself.”
“What?” I demanded after a moment of confusion, “Are you saying that you are going to go to the meeting in my place?”
I couldn’t believe it. Of course, I wasn’t stupid. That was exactly what he was saying, but I couldn’t believe it.
How could he do this to me? I wondered, even though, unfortunately, it didn’t take a great leap to comprehend that answer. I should've known that he would always be trying his best to overshadow me. For whatever reason, he never wanted me to have a moment to shine. I was supposed to be his heir and his protégée, and yet he treated me as though I was completely unworthy.
I know, I might not be the best son or the best marketer, but I believed in the company, and I did a damn good job.
Of course, I said none of this to him.
“Why, yes. We can’t have you going and screwing it up,” my father answered in a bitterly sardonic tone, as though my failure was inevitable.
My jaw hinged, agape at his blatant lack of faith in me as my eyes narrowed. However, I sat back in my chair and bit my tongue, not sure how to respond to his insolence and greed.
I knew he was a bastard, but I thought after all the work I had put into this project, all the hours I had spent building a relationship with this company, that he would at least let me reel in the catch.
I deserved that. I knew I did.
If he were a different man, I would expect that this would be the time that he would burst out laughing, telling me that he was only busting my balls and wish me luck but he wasn’t.
And he didn’t.
Instead, he pursed his lips at my silence and turned his back to me, to walk out of my office.
After all, he had completed what he had come to do. His interest in my progress was merely a superficial diversion, genuine only to the extent that he could ensure he would not fail. Once he was certain that he could easily take all the credit for all my hard work, he no longer cared about whether I had a pulse, so long as he got what he wanted.
Fucking great! I thought as my blood started to boil at the realization that he was completely serious in his pursuit.
I knew I shouldn’t have been, but I was also astounded by the sheer absurdity of what was going on. I was pissed beyond belief that he would do something like this but angered further by the knowledge that I should have expected him to pull something like this.
“No,” I finally insisted, moments before my father reached the door of my office, which would have signaled the closing of my window of opportunity.
As my father stopped abruptly and his spine straightened testily with the insult of my insubordination, I stood to further solidify my position.
“No?” he asked, his voice teeming as he slowly wheeled himself around to face me. His jaw was locked, and his eyes were beady, egregiously and instantly ill-tempered by what he perceived as my insolence. “What the hell do you mean, no?”
“I mean, I worked hard on this, and I am going to give the presentation, by myself, to Mr. Wilson. I’m the one who has created a relationship with him. I am the one who he is expecting.”
“Well, according to Brock, you’re too distracted with your own personal problems, which I care nothing about, to deal with this properly.”
That slimy little shit-stain.
Again, I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, and in all honesty, I was angrier that he would be such a dick than I was surprised by his actions.
I knew he was a weasel; my only wonderment was why my father was so comfortable with him trying to sabotage me.
“Brock is a piece of shit,” I tensed, throwing the insult as a knee-jerk reaction. Although I knew I shouldn’t have said it, I’ll be damned if I didn’t mean it. “Besides, I know this better than anyone. He was the one who came in here to tell me what a wonderful job I had done, so he can shove it up his ass.” I narrowed my eyes, leaning forward, with my fists resting almost pugnaciously on my desk. “I’m going, and that’s final.”
My father’s eyes flared from the depth of my derision, and he huffed.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he snarled.
“Yes, Dad. I am. I’m going. I’ve worked too damn hard for you or anyone else to take credit for this,” I was surprised at how calm I sounded, but in retrospect, I was extremely angry and now that I had picked this fight, I sure as hell didn’t want to back down.
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head.
“The depths of your ingratitude are devastating,” he insisted, “I can’t believe you,” he stammered.
I could tell he was trying not to haul off and hit me, but knowing that he couldn’t made this all the better. There wasn’t a thing he could do about this, so long as I didn’t back down.
So, I kept my eyes fixated on him, forcing myself not to blink.
The two of us stood there, glowering at one another for an infinitely long time. He wanted to break me, make me look away and bend to his will but I’d be damned if I was going to let him steal the project I had worked so hard on.
Thus, we continued our silent battle of wills until finally, gloriously, my father spoke.
“Fine,” he spat, hinging his jaw in anger, “But be warned, if you come back without this deal, you are going to need a new job, Dexter.”
With that, he wheeled himself around and walked out of the office.
I narrowed my eyes and mouthed, “Yeah, fuck you too!”
Despite my father’s words final words to me, I was pleased. I had won.
I was going to get on that plane, hav
e that meeting, and close my deal.
Mazie
Apparently, having the day off wasn’t good for my OCD. I had long since run out of things to do around the house, and thus, I continued to clean a house that was no longer dirty and perfect decorations that no one was going to see.
I love the holiday season, but since my parents had the bigger house, there was no sense in having anyone come over to my house unless I went out of my way to invite friends over. However, this year, I had so much going on and so much on my mind that I didn’t feel like putting something like that together.
Still, I was decorated to the hilt, with a clean house and no one to show it to.
I sighed as I took a break, looking around my spotless living room, with the Christmas tree sitting in the corner, without a needle out of place, and wondered if I was truly missing something.
After my conversation with my father about Dexter the day before, I couldn’t help but continue to think about him and what I might possibly be missing in my life.
I had a job that I loved, a home that I adored, and a cat that, while she didn’t always make me feel like the love I felt for her, was still always there when I needed her.
I had a few good friends and a comfortable life but after the other night with Dexter and hearing what my father had to say about him, I couldn’t help but think that there might be something that I was missing.
I sighed, wishing I wasn’t thinking that way. I didn’t want to think that Dexter might be the answer to issues I didn’t even know I had until recently, even if I thought I was the answer to his.
A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
Upon answering it, I hoped, naively, that it might be Dexter but wasn’t disappointed to find it was Laura.
When she came inside, she was grinning from ear to ear and wanted to know all about what happened with Dexter.
I had slipped and told her that I had a date with him and like I expected, she blew it way out of proportion and now, she was dying to know the details.
Not that they were all that juicy.
“This is the juiciest thing that has happened to you since…well, ever,” she teased at my retort, making herself at home in my freshly polished living room.
“That’s not true! I have led a full life,” I insisted.
“Sure, you have,” she replied sarcastically, sniffing the air the air and making a face.
“Why does it smell like Mr. Clean threw up in here?”
I laughed.
“Um…eww…I was cleaning.”
“Do you have company coming?” she asked as her eyes lit up with suggestion. “’Cause I know you didn’t do all of this for me.”
“No. I didn’t do it for anyone. I was just…cleaning.”
She narrowed her eyes and stared at me awkwardly.
“Anyway,” I insisted, trying to get off the subject of my cleaning habits.
“Yes, anyway! What happened the other night? Did you have a good time?”
Out of the pan and into the fire, I thought as I tried to figure out exactly what I should say to her.
“Yeah, we had a nice time,” I answered honestly. “But I’m still not convinced that he wasn’t just trying to make sure I wouldn’t say anything.”
“Did he kiss you?” she asked, almost as though the words were about to burst out of her.
“No.”
“No action at all?” she sounded as though she didn’t believe me.
“Nothing…not that I offered anyway.”
“I know, you’re such a prude,” Laura teased.
“God, it was the first date, and I wasn’t going to sleep with him so that he might feel guilty and call me again.”
She laughed, as though she knew something that I didn’t.
“Wow, you really don’t have a high opinion of yourself, do you?” she looked concerned as she stared at me with wide, slightly troubled eyes. “Listen,” she added before I could say anything, “a guy like Dex isn’t going to try to take you to dinner and actually have a good time with you if he is just trying to get you to do something for him. Especially if he didn’t try to sleep with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if he seduced you, then it would be a blackmail fuck. He’d make you have something to lose if you told anyone.”
“Dexter’s not like that,” I retorted, “I don’t think he would do something like that.” Her hard stare made me reconsider my opinion though, and I amended my comment, “Okay, fine. Maybe he would, but I don’t think he’d do that to me.”
“Why not? You haven’t seen one another in years. Sorry to tell you but while you might still think you have a tight friendship, the Dexter you grew up with and the Dexter you went on a date with are not the same person.”
I understood what she was saying; I refused to believe that he had completely changed. However, I wasn’t about to tell her that.
Instead, I let out a long breath and shook my head, trying to get away from the subject entirely.
“It’s probably for the best, anyway. I haven’t heard anything from him, and besides, I can’t tell my dad about us being together, and we have to be careful where we go. It would never work out anyway.”
When it appeared I might have an escape from this menacing conversation, I heard my phone ding.
I checked it and was unable to hide the obvious expression that crossed my features.
“Speak of the devil?” Laura asked in a cool fashion, as though she didn’t even need to have an answer to know that she was right.
“Something like that,” I told her.
“What does it say?”
“He wants to know if I want to go on a date tomorrow night,” I told her, unsure of how I wanted to proceed.
I heard her snicker slightly, but when I looked up, she was giving me a snarky, told you so look.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“This doesn’t mean anything. What were you just saying about the kind of man he is?”
“No. If he was being the kind of man I warned you he was capable of being, he would have wined and dined you until you were too guilty to even remember being with him and then ghosted you. He wouldn’t have asked for a second date.”
“So…I’m guessing that means that you think I should go?”
“Hell yes, I think you should go!” she burst out, “And we are going to get you a dress!”
“We’re gonna do what, now? I don’t need a dress!” I insisted.
“Believe me, you do,” Laura insisted, walking closer to me to stand over my shoulder. After reading the text, she nodded as though agreeing with her own thoughts, “Alright, so…we’re going to get in the car and drive to the mall. When we get to the mall, you’re going to text him back, so he doesn’t think you’re lonely, waiting by the phone to hear from him. You’ve got to prove you have a life.”
I rolled my eyes as I started to type a response.
“What are you doing?”
“Being myself, Laura. I got his text. I’ll text him back because I can, not because I’m desperate. Besides, he’s a busy man. I want to let him know that I want to go before he makes other plans.”
She shook her head but didn’t comment any further as I told him I would love to go to dinner with him.
He texted back almost immediately that would be great and that he would pick me up at seven.
I had to admit that I felt good. I had wanted to hear from him, and now that I had, I couldn’t wait to see him again.
I wondered if he had thought about me as much as I had thought about him but decided not to voice that to Laura.
“Alright, well, will you at least let me help you pick out something to wear?”
Feeling encouraged by Dexter’s seemingly eager response, I was renewed and excited.
“Sure! Why not?”
With that, Laura practically dragged me out the door toward the car.
When we got to the mall, Laura went through every aisle has
tily, as though she were running a marathon, picking out some of the weirdest dresses and outfits I had ever seen.
I, on the other hand, wanted to enjoy the shopping experience and browsed the racks calmly, frequenting the sales racks.
“Girl, what are you doing?” Laura demanded, coming back with a whole closet of clothes, apparently for me to try on, “No, no, no! You do not go on a hot second date with a man you’ve had feelings for since before you knew what those feelings were in a dress you bought off the clearance rack.”
“Why not?” I demanded, unable to help sounding somewhat insulted.
“Because, the whole reason they’re on the clearance rack to begin with is because they were too ugly for anyone in their right mind to pay full price for.”
“I’m a bargain shopper, Laura; you know this.”
“Not when you’re trying to impress someone like Dexter,” she insisted, shoveling her hoard of clothes in my direction, “Here; try these on and tell me these don’t make you feel like a woman way more than those thrifty rags.”
I frowned and shoved the pile against a nearby rack so that I could go through it. I picked out everything that I liked and stubbornly took a few clothes that I found from my searching, to Laura’s dismay.
The first few dresses I tried on were not me. There was barely anything to them, and I didn’t feel right leaving the dressing room in them, let alone going out to dinner.
So, I picked a dress that I liked from the bargain pile but Laura quickly shut it down, saying that unless he had a thing for frumpy Catholic schoolgirls, it wouldn’t work.
“Really? Frumpy?” I groaned.
“Please. Go change,” she insisted, and when I begrudgingly returned to the dressing room, insulted but nonetheless enlightened by her perspective, I had to admit she had a point.
Therefore, I went back to her pile and searched for a dress that had at least a good ratio of skin to fabric, trying it on but still blushing before I even unlocked the door.
With Laura’s confidence, she could pull dresses like this off, but while there was nothing wrong with the way I looked, I was far more conservative than my best friend. While she had always been the spontaneous, fearless one; I balanced our friendship out by being the voice of reason.