And as I said, I didn’t want to like it.
(But I did.)
I wandered in with them and asked, “Did your dog find his perfect spot?”
“He’s good,” Judge muttered. And then he exacerbated my earlier concern about this new knowledge regarding Judge that I liked by asking, “You okay with him off the leash? He can hang out back, he’s not destructive. Or I can keep him tethered to me. He’ll be cool.”
I did not want to be dying to greet his dog.
(But I was.)
“You can let him off,” I replied.
“He’ll come to you if I do,” Judge warned.
Oh, I knew that already. The dog had his eyes trained to me and was in full body wag.
I refused to show my desperate desire to get my fingers into that soft fur.
Because it was a cute dog.
But also because it was Judge’s dog.
“That’s fine,” I replied casually.
Judge bent and let the pooch free.
He came to me.
My love of animals and lifelong conditioning had me squatting to make myself less threatening, but also welcoming.
After a couple of get-to-know-you sniffs, I got a snuffle in the ear and a lick on the neck.
I fought my smile but didn’t fight giving him a thorough head rub.
“Zeke,” Judge said in a soft voice I immediately tucked away somewhere sealed tight, never to be remembered again.
The dog looked over his shoulder at his daddy.
“No, boy, enjoy. I’m telling Chloe your name,” he said to his dog.
I’d noticed he was precious about this, and as such, hadn’t offered it up until then.
It felt like a gift.
I refused to consider it a gift.
“Do you want water?” I asked the pup, rather than his dad.
“That’d be good. I have a travel bowl,” Judge said, and I noticed for the first time he had a backpack hanging over one shoulder.
I got out of my crouch and we sorted that. Judge put the extra beers in the fridge. I got out plates, cutlery, and napkins. Judge opened two bottles. I unearthed the salads. All this was done in silence, like a comfortable, practiced dance.
It was torture.
Judge flipped the top of the pizza box over.
He then inquired, “What the hell is this?”
I wanted to laugh.
I did not laugh.
“Prosciutto, date, arugula, ricotta, pecorino and balsamic vinaigrette,” I rolled off like I was a bored server.
Judge tried to lighten the atmosphere, delivering through a crooked (but still dimple-producing) grin. “Couldn’t get pepperoni and sausage?”
“Do you not like what I got?” I asked coldly.
His grin died.
Something inside me shriveled.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
Zeke came up and sniffed my feet.
It wasn’t Zeke’s fault I couldn’t have his dad.
So I took time for more rubs, these full body.
Zeke licked my wrist.
Quiet, behaved, affectionate, crazy adorable.
Perfect.
Totally Judge’s dog.
“Just stop when you’re done giving the love. He’s good at taking the hint.”
Of course he was.
But I didn’t want to stop.
I really did not.
I stopped.
Coming out of my crouch, I caught Judge’s eyes on my heels, a look in them I never wanted to go away.
I sealed that up tight too, focusing instead on the fact I should change.
However, I wasn’t going to.
I was going to get this done.
As fast as possible
“Let’s work and eat at the coffee table,” I said efficiently, but in a way that it was an order, slipping my laptop out of the attaché.
“Works for me,” Judge replied unnecessarily, since nothing else was going to happen.
Nothing.
At all.
Ever.
My stomach clutched.
We loaded up salads, even though, for my part, eating it might make me sick. We grabbed beers, even though, for my part, I’d prefer to slug gin from a bottle. And Judge took his backpack to the coffee table, thankfully picking one of the armchairs flanking it, rather than the couch, where I wanted to sit, and I didn’t want him to give indication he wanted to sit by me or have the awkwardness of me avoiding him.
Zeke seemed uncertain as to where to position himself. In the end, he proved how good a dog he was, politely, selecting sitting by his father as his place to beg for people food with his eyes.
We settled and Judge began, “Chloe—”
I cut in. “It’d be good to start with where your issues lie with my draft proposal.”
“Chloe,” that was somehow both sharper and warmer.
My gaze cut right to him.
And I said what I had to say.
“As it’s obvious I didn’t make myself clear, I’ll do it now. We’re not doing this,” I declared. “You were right. After you left, I spent some time thinking about it. And yes, I find you attractive. Yes, we had a nice time this past weekend. But you’re an employee of Duncan’s. Duncan is soon to be my stepfather. As such, when it doesn’t work out with us, it’ll be messy. I don’t do messy. And I don’t make my family put up with messy.”
His brows had bunched as I spoke, and he shared why with his, “When?”
“What?”
“When we don’t work?”
I puffed a you-should-know-this-already mini-breath out of my nostrils.
And then I shared what he should know.
“I’m far too young to get seriously involved with a man. You’re settled in Prescott. I love it there, but I have no intention or desire to move there. Frankly, if my boutique takes off as I hope it will, I’ll be opening more, eventually moving back to LA. So, since this doesn’t have the prospects of a good end, but it does have the prospects to make things awkward for people I care about, including me, I see no reason for it to begin.”
That was a lie.
All of it, most especially the last.
But also about LA.
I’d been far away from my family for a good long spell when I was in France.
That wasn’t going to happen again, not unless it was them that moved, and they did it to a place I didn’t want to be.
Furthermore, I loved Phoenix. There was something…unfinished about it. Young. New. It was sprawling and impersonal in the sense you could be private, feel that privacy, but it was still friendly. There was culture. Class. History. Just the existence of the Biltmore Hotel and The Gammage made Phoenix somewhere I wanted to be.
In LA, I knew people.
In LA, my mother was the deposed queen.
In LA, I felt like a nobody.
Here, I was just me.
Judge cut into my train of thought.
He did this saying, “Fine.”
On this word, I came back to the room and our conversation with a razor-sharp focus on his neutral face.
Not carefully neutral, or overly neutral, or affectedly neutral.
Genuinely neutral.
He was fine with us not going there, not angry.
Just…
Neutral.
Oh my God.
What had I thought this was?
I was an attractive woman. I was, indeed, interesting. I had a famous family, and that made me more interesting. I did not want for male attention.
He saw me, I saw him, sparks flew, something came of that, but we’d only had a day and a half where it was something we were both exploring.
Through it, and especially recently, I was adamant about not going there. I’d behaved badly on more than one occasion. The email had been an appalling idea. Judge was right, it was uncool. It wasn’t like we had anything to break up, but that was ill-mannered and detached and Judge didn’t deserve that.
Then ther
e was my most recent speech.
And he was good with that.
He was no longer here to talk me into more exploration of what could be us, not after I’d laid it out, making no bones about it.
He was “fine” with that.
With utterly no warning, it happened, besieging me in a way I couldn’t ignore.
So I dumped my salad on the coffee table and stood abruptly.
My movement was so sudden, Zeke lost interest in the bacon on Judge’s wedge and his head whipped around.
Judge’s also snapped back to look up at me.
“I need to change out of these work clothes,” I said, my voice breathy, wrong. “This won’t take long, but I’ve been in these clothes all day. My feet are killing me.”
“All right,” Judge said slowly.
Too slowly.
I didn’t notice.
I had to get out of there.
So I did.
Humiliatingly, I dashed from the couch and ran up the steps.
When I got to my room, I closed the door without turning on a single light, and I stood in the darkness.
I would not cry.
I would not.
“I’m not going to cry,” I whispered, elbows bent, wrists loose, shaking my hands in front of me.
I needed to get it together.
I needed to change clothes.
I needed to put on something comfortable, not stylish, or overtly attractive.
I didn’t think I owned anything like that.
I ran to my closet and threw on the light.
I’d only been in the dark for seconds, but that light blinded me.
In that flash of sightlessness, my mind filled with Judge and his cute, well-behaved dog and his cooler on my front stoop.
Waiting for me to come home.
Waiting for me.
Call me if you want to talk.
“God, God, God,” I panted, something itching in my throat, crawling over my skin.
My clothes came in focus, and I began to clack hangers around indiscriminately.
But your brother and sister should know you’ve got your own baggage to unpack.
My eyes started stinging.
What I mean is, I’ll shield you as best as I can.
I swallowed.
It hurt.
God, how it hurt.
Until you shared what was behind your big speech and I could have been there for you in whatever way you might’ve needed me.
I stopped clacking hangers and wrapped my fingers over my mouth, worried I was going to be sick.
I then covered my face in both of hands, closed my eyes tight, scrunching with the effort.
Susan Shepherd’s picture flashed in my head.
This was followed by the memory of Matt telling me to go fuck myself at Duncan’s New Year’s party.
Then another, of Sasha during her beach volleyball days, long and lithe and tan, hitting a spike that won the match, and turning a sunny, victorious smile Dad’s way even before she ran to her teammate to give her a hug.
On to Mom in that beautiful, floaty lilac gown that she’d eventually given me. Dad dapper and so very handsome in his tux at her side. The perfect couple. Perfectly beautiful. Perfectly happy. It was the first time (but not the last) that I could remember them saying goodbye to us before they were off to attend the Oscars.
From that, I went to Duncan’s face, the gratitude, the stark need—a need to know me, a need to connect with what was hers, what she made—the first time I met him and told him I was Imogen’s daughter.
Then to Dad asking me to Capitol Grille because he had no one else to go with.
I swallowed again, and almost gagged, my nose plugging up with a wave of consuming emotions.
“Pick an outfit and get it together, Coco. Just an outfit, and getting it fucking together, Coco,” I verbally lashed at myself.
I dropped my hands.
Deep breath.
Right.
Another.
More hanger clacking.
This time, with determination.
I picked a rosy-hued jogger and slouchy top ensemble.
I kicked off my heels. Peeled down my skinny jeans. Tore off my blouse.
Gone were the accessories.
I donned my outfit.
I bunched my hair in a clip at the back.
And I faced the door.
I was Chloe Marilyn fucking Pierce.
My parents had gotten divorced.
A man I trusted betrayed everyone I loved.
Including me.
But I had everything I needed and nearly everything I wanted, from the three pairs of shoes I lost my mind and bought in a fog of euphoria at being around Judge and seeing how much Tiffany liked him, not to mention how much he liked her, to the bottomless depths of love I had from friends, family, and the new family I had in Duncan, Sullivan and Gage.
I had nothing to complain about.
I would be fine.
I would be fine.
On this thought, I squared my shoulders, sniffed the final remnants of unshed tears away, sucked in the biggest breath I’d ever taken, and headed downstairs.
Judge did not hide he was watching for me when I came down.
“You good?” he asked.
There was concern there. Kind concern.
No piercing looks or anything deep muddying his eyes.
He’d given it a go with me.
I made things clear.
Like the decent man he was, he was backing off.
Now, I was just a human who’d run off, and he was a human who gave a shit about other humans.
That was all.
And it killed.
To answer him, I told the biggest lie I’d ever uttered in my life, and we could just say there were a fair few that tested the limits of such modifiers as “little.”
This one was flat-out propaganda.
“Yes, I’m great,” I replied, and with two sets of male eyes on me, I resumed my seat.
“Cool,” Judge said quietly. And then he said, “The ideas you sent were great, but gotta warn you, you’re not gonna like my feedback.”
Fabulous.
He kept going.
“The thing is, the power of the message is both of them delivering it together, rather than footage of them hiking different trails solo and having jumps between them as they share it. This isn’t just about nature. It’s about doing stuff with your friends. Rallying them, getting outside and being active. I know it’s tough for you to have to put them together, but it’s the way to go. And I can guarantee you, no shade on what you did, it was good work, but Duncan is gonna nix your idea, and from how he was talking, I think Tom would too.”
“You’re right,” I sniffed. “Wishful thinking.”
Judge nodded. “Though, maybe as they talk, we can have them jump to different trails. I’ve made a budget I think will fly, definitely it’ll be covered by what the campaign brings in without the percentage of expense versus net gain being screwed. The season isn’t right for easy travel right now, there’ll be snow in Colorado, Utah, anywhere else with picturesque trails that are close, and they, like you, probably want this done and behind them. But we can do Arizona, some spots in New Mexico might be good, and definitely California. I’m sending the budget I mocked up to you now.”
My laptop chimed with a new mail.
I pulled it up.
It was his budget.
From there, Judge kept talking, eating, sipping his beer, stroking his dog, getting up to grab slices of pizza, and except for the sustenance part, it was all about work.
Only about the project.
And I learned something else I didn’t like (but I did).
He was astute, savvy, creative, reasonable, responsive, knowledgeable and passionate.
It hadn’t occurred to me there was a reason Duncan picked Judge to run the only charity program River Rain Outdoor Stores put their brand on.
But there was.
I’d dealt with more than my fair share of people working in non-profits.
Judge was better than half of them and could easily compete with all the rest. Even the executive directors of nationwide programs.
I didn’t know if Duncan understood what he had in Judge.
But regrettably, I did.
In an hour and a half, we had a rough script, general blocking, a tweaked budget, a draft travel itinerary and shooting schedule, and Judge’s stuff was packed in his backpack, his quiet, sweet dog was on his lead, his cooler in hand, and I was trailing them to the door.
He turned at it and said, “Email me when you can meet on Sunday to scout locations.”
Excuse me, what?
“Sorry?” I asked.
“We’re gonna need to hike the trails and decide locations. I’ll do the research into what might be viable for LA and New Mexico, if Duncan signs off on this budget. But when we present to them, I want to have something visual to show them.”
A flutter of panic trembled around my heart.
“Can you not do that yourself?” I requested.
“Chloe, that’s gotta be you,” he denied. “I can do the scripting, budgeting, projecting and messaging, but the visual shit is not my thing.”
That made sense.
However.
“Okay, then I can go alone.”
“Who’s going to film you?”
Film me?
“I—”
He interrupted me before I even began.
“Right, get over it,” he ordered. “It’s not a big thing. We gave it a go. It was promising. You don’t wanna go there. I’m down with that. I got a program to run and a world-class athlete has hitched his wagon to it. We’ve never had this huge of an opportunity. I’m not gonna fuck it up. It’s your family’s name and face, you’re not gonna fuck it up. What happened, happened. It lasted a minute. Now it’s done. We both can be professional, do our parts, together and separate, and get it done right. I’ll email my address. Meet me at eleven at my place on Sunday. We’ll do the hike, scout some spots, take some footage, and then I’ll build the presentation for Tom and Duncan to sign off on. You in with that?”
It’s not a big thing.
You don’t want to go there. I’m down with that.
What happened, happened… It’s done.
“Chloe?”
I jerked myself out of my head.
“Yes. Fine. Eleven. Email your address.”
“Come prepared to hike,” he pushed. “We’re not going to hit a spot that looks dangerous or difficult, but we’ll be out in nature and the sun. And it could be chilly.”
Chasing Serenity Page 18