by Liz Peters
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Reid.” Jim stood there with his hand out and that look of fake sincerity he was so good at putting on, even if she could see right through it. No one here at the office would have expected her to have a boyfriend. No one had known her to even date anyone since the failed relationship she’d had with one of her co-workers. Everyone here expected her to be married to her job.
Reid’s expression was harder to read. She knew him fairly well after all the time they’d spent together, but she’d never seen him quite like this before. She certainly wasn’t expecting what came out of his mouth when he finally spoke.
“So, you’re the asshole who’s had my girl between a rock and hard place? I have to say the pleasure is all yours.” Reid stood there with his arms folded over his chest and hands tucked under his elbows, unmoving, like the last thing he was ever going to do was shake Jim Anderson’s hand.
For the first time in her memory, Samantha was speechless. Half of her was proud of Reid for standing up for her, and half of her was completely shocked at what he’d decided to say. Reid was no good at being diplomatic or at hiding his feelings and thoughts from anyone. She wouldn’t have expected any more of him, and he’d said exactly what she was feeling. It just sucked that it happened to be her boss he was saying it to.
Jim was clearly incensed. Sam couldn’t think of a single moment in all the time she’d worked here when she heard someone stand up to any of the senior partners, especially not Mr. Anderson. Sam was in shock for the moment, though she was scrambling for something to say, some way she could put a bandage over everything that just happened, but there wasn’t anything she could come up with on the spot. She could only imagine she was going to have a lot of making up to do after she got Reid out of here.
The next step was how to separate the two of them before things became more escalated. The wheels in her head were turning quickly but not quickly enough to deescalate the situation.
“Now, see here, Son…” Jim’s voice was raised, but all it took was that last word to set Reid off.
Reid pulled back with one fist, slamming it home right against Jim Anderson’s nose. Sam was close enough to hear the crunch when he made contact. Her heart jumped in her chest. There was probably no coming back from this.
“I may not have ever met my father, but I sure as hell know he isn’t you. Maybe next time you’ll watch who you’re calling ‘Son.’” It was just then that Reid caught Sam’s panicked eyes. She could see the look of realization hit him when the two of them locked eyes. He had really screwed up this time, and it was clear he knew it.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Sam. I wasn’t thinking.”
Jim was holding his nose between the two of them and the door, groaning as a drop of blood fell from between his fingers and hit the carpeted floor. He glared up at Sam and then Reid.
“I want him the hell out of here right now. Maybe you better go with him and make damn certain he doesn’t come back here unless you don’t want to keep your job, Miss Crawford.” He spit out the last two words like a curse.
Sam grabbed her purse and jacket off the back of the nearby chair and then Reid’s hand just before heading for the door without saying a word. Eyes followed the two of them as they left the building, like everyone here already knew what had happened even if there was no way they already could. But by tomorrow, the story would have spread around the office like wildfire. She was just going to have to cross that bridge when she got there though.
For right now, she had no idea what to say or think. To be honest, it had been kind of satisfying to watch Jim Anderson get a fist right across the nose. There had been a time or two she’d wished she could have been the one to do it, too, but that didn’t change the fact that he was her boss. She was going to be the one who had to deal with the consequences of all of this from now on.
Sam couldn’t think of anything to say until the two of them were out of the building and well past the parking lot. She’d walked to work this morning. She didn’t even own a car, and there had been no point in getting a taxi for a walk she could make in fifteen minutes if it wasn’t raining. It would have been easy to just make the walk now without saying a word to him, but then he would have thought she was mad at him.
Part of her was pissed off. The other part of her was kind of proud of him for standing up for her. Sam was still torn about taking the client he was trying to force on her. She still couldn’t reconcile what he’d asked her to do with her conscience. Taking that job meant she was giving in against her better nature. Not taking it meant she was going to have to find another job. Maybe, he was doing her a favor here.
She stopped and turned to face him, not caring if she was blocking up the flow of pedestrian traffic that moved down the sidewalk. It was midafternoon anyhow. Most of the lunch traffic was gone, and the traffic from people headed home for the evening wouldn’t start up for at least a couple of hours.
“Listen, I get it. I’ve wanted to punch him right in the smarmy face more than once. I just never did it, and after everything that’s happened the last couple of days, I’m quickly losing the respect I had for him. I’m not dumb. I know I have a decision to make, and it’s a hard one. I can’t pretend it wasn’t satisfying to see you land a solid jab right to his nose, but I can’t pretend that’s not going to put me in a hard spot from here on out if I do decide to stay.” He started to talk, and Sam cut him off before he could start.
“I said if, Reid… I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I just know I can’t do what they’re asking me to do, but I’ve also been working for this firm for my entire career. And I know you’re leaving soon. I feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions, and I don’t know which one to go in lately. I just know I’m going to miss the hell out of you in a couple of days, and I have no damned idea what I’m going to do.” This was the point where Sam broke out into tears. Everything was just so overwhelming, and she really didn’t know what the right decision was to make. Reid wrapped his arms around her, tugging her into his chest without saying anything more than a single phrase.
“I’m sorry, Baby.” That was all it took. She just kind of sobbed into his chest, feeling like an idiot for falling apart in front of him. He was heading home in two days, and it felt like everything was coming crashing down around the two of them. She hadn’t cried on anyone’s shoulder since she was a kid, and here she was standing in the middle of the street, getting Reid’s shirt soaking wet when she ought to have been mad at him or mad at herself or even mad at her boss for putting her in this situation to begin with. She didn’t even know who to be mad at, at this point.
Reid just let her stay there until she calmed down and pulled away to look up at him. He didn’t try to apologize again, and he didn’t try to get her to stop until she was ready. He didn’t even talk. There was something a little comforting about all of that.
“Come on, let’s go home and you can tell me what a jackass I am once we get there. I mean I already know it, but it’ll sound better coming from you than from the voice inside my head anyway.”
Sam started to protest, but Reid just shook his head.
“I meant it. I deserve it, and you can tell me just how much when we get home, but for now, I’d just really like to get out of here.” He looked around them at the stream of people that was parting ways to move around the two of them, and the people who shot them curious glances. He was right. They really ought to just go home.
“Alright, Stranger. Let’s get home, and then we can talk this out.” Sam threaded her fingers through his and pulled him into the lane of people headed the same direction as their destination on the sidewalk. She had a lot to think about, but for the moment, she could put it out of her mind and just focus on getting the two of them home.
Once inside the apartment, Reid realized he wanted her to quit that job right now. If she was going to do the things that they were asking her to do, then Sam wasn’t the woman he thought he was getting to know. He was prett
y certain that the two of them shared a lot of the same values there. She wanted to help people, not lie, cheat and make it easier for some corporation to completely destroy someone else’s life. At least he hoped that was the case.
Chapter Twelve
The next two days passed faster than either Sam or Reid would have expected. She’d taken the morning off to drive him back to the airport, but she had to get back to work that afternoon. He knew things had been tough for her since the incident back at the office. He could see it all over her face the next day when she walked through the door, but she didn’t say a word about it, or complain.
He didn’t ask her about it either.
Reid had gone from job to job until he’d wound up where he was now. He didn’t know what it was like to work for years at a single place towards a goal like Sam had. He didn’t know what kind of commitment that took. He’d never been that committed to anything in his entire life, except himself. He couldn’t make that call for Samantha. He wasn’t even going to push his opinion of what she should do on her.
To him, jobs were a dime a dozen. They came and went like the seasons at times, and there was always another one waiting. For Sam, it was different. She’d spent years in school and years more working just to get here. To walk away from it was completely different than walking away from some dumb job as a farm hand when another farm was waiting five miles down the road. He understood that, and he hadn’t wanted to ruin the little bit of time they had left with the two of them talking about her work or him pressuring her to find out what she was going to do. In the end, Sam was the one who had to live her life. Reid was going back to his day to day now.
As much as he didn’t like the city and missed the country, he didn’t want to leave her behind. Every part of him wished he could take her back with him. The taxi ride to the airport felt like driving away from the apartment while a part of his heart was still tied to the bed frame. It hurt. He could feel the ache of it in his chest. Sam was curled into his side and his arm was draped around her. She didn’t have to make this ride with him. He could have gone on his own and boarded the flight without her, but she’d insisted on seeing him off. He liked that she wanted to spend every last moment with him that she could. He just hated the thought of saying goodbye.
The car ride was shorter than he’d expected. It seemed like it took twice as long to get to her apartment from the airport as it had to go back. Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe the burning ache in his chest was his imagination too. He hadn’t ever felt this away about anyone before Sam. He was pretty damned sure he wasn’t going to feel this way about anyone ever again. She was tempting enough to half make him want to stay in the city.
The two of them hadn’t said anything in the car on the way here. She’d just stayed as close to him as she could get. Once they got out at the airport, she threaded her fingers between his and walked him in through the front doors. There wasn’t much farther she could go. Sam was going to have to leave him at the security check point. He was painfully aware that she wasn’t going to be able to get through there without a ticket. This was a stupid place to have to say goodbye to someone, especially someone you felt this way about, but it was what it was.
Reid stopped and pulled her into his chest, laying his lips on hers. He didn’t have long to say what he was feeling, and he sucked with words. He was just going to have to put everything he had into this kiss and hope it was enough to show her exactly what she did to him. She was surprised at first, but she melted into him after a moment. The rest of the world just stopped existing. It didn’t matter that there were people watching the two of them. There were goodbyes in this airport every day, and they were probably all just as heart wrenching for the people making them as they were for Reid right now.
He held on to her for as long as he could before he broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers for a long beat. She didn’t say anything, and he said the only thing that he could think of.
“Goodbye, Baby. I’m going to miss the hell out of you.” He took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to her forehead before letting her go.
She whispered a single word to him in response.
“Goodbye.”
Reid felt awkward and stupid like he was going to do something emotional in the middle of this airport but thought better of himself. He broke away for good finally, walking towards the security check without looking back. He wasn’t going to be able to look back and still convince himself to get on this plane and leave but leaving was something he absolutely had to do. He regretted it the moment he let her go, but he knew staying was going to kill the both of them. He would have grown to resent having to live here, and she was going to resent him pushing her to leave her job.
Only time was going to tell what would become of the two of them. They had each other’s phone numbers and addresses. They had promises to call and text and keep in touch whenever they had a free moment, but there was something about getting on board this plane that felt like he was leaving behind more than just a girl he’d met a month ago. He was pretty damned certain that he’d never felt that way about anyone ever before, but he didn’t know what the alternative to what he was doing right now was.
Yeah, he could turn around and go back to her, try to make a go of it here in the city, but he knew what the outcome of that was going to be. It just seemed like there were far too many balls up in the air with the two of them. Maybe the best course of action was just to go back to the way things were before the two of them ever met. It was just that he didn’t think he was ever going to be able to go back to life before Samantha ever again.
He had a wait between security and his plane. It was hard not to walk back out of this airport and catch a cab back to Sam’s apartment. He was torn, and he hadn’t been torn about very many decisions in his life. He knew that meant something, but he wasn’t able to make out what yet. All that was left to do was live life until the next thing happened, wait for the next sign of what the heck he was supposed to do.
Chapter Thirteen
Two days of life without Reid, and Sam wasn’t certain what she’d done before he’d been around. She used to love living alone. Her apartment was her sanctuary, the place she went to escape everything that was going on, but now it just seemed absolutely empty when she came home from work to no one and nothing at all. It had gotten to the point where she was thinking about buying a cat just to fill the space.
Phone calls and text messages were ok. Reid was the first person she talked to every morning and the last person she talked to before falling asleep, but it wasn’t exactly the same thing as having him here in her bed or falling asleep in his arms.
It didn’t help matters that she was still dealing with this whole mess at work. Jim Anderson wasn’t going to let her forget what had happened between he and Reid. It was hanging over her head as a threat while she went back and forth about the job he was asking her to do. She was surprised he’d let it hang that long, though. It wasn’t like him to leave something up in the air like that, but in the end this decision was all down to her. She was either going to do this job or get fired. End of discussion, and she knew it.
This morning was already getting off to a bad start. She’d woken up to the sound of her phone ringing and realized she’d overslept. It was Reid’s morning call that finally woke her almost an hour after she should have gotten out of bed. That meant she was going to have to cut the call short so she could jump in the shower and grab some clothes and at least make an attempt not to be late for work.
She made it through the front door with five minutes left to spare. In her eyes, that was late. She was always there at least fifteen minutes early, and Jim was waiting on her by her office door when she got there, flustered and a little out of breath. She wasn’t ready for this even a little bit after the morning she’d had, but she guessed she was going to have to deal with it one way or another.
“Good morning, Jim.” She let herself into the office, dropping her bag on the des
ktop and turned back around to face him as he walked in behind her. When Jim shut the door again, she knew exactly what the topic was that was coming up.
“Morning, Samantha.” She couldn’t help but notice the tone and how he’d truncated the greeting to its shortest possible form. “And how is your boyfriend doing?”
Of course he would ask about that. She could see the hardness that washed over his expression at the question. She took a deep breath. That question was a sore spot for everyone here.
“He’s gone. Back to where he came from.” She kept the reply short, hoping he could change the subject, but the grin that spread across his face at that answer was smug.
“Well that’s nice to hear.” She could tell from his tone of voice that he believed they had broken up. She wasn’t certain she wanted to entirely disillusion him at the moment. It could work to her advantage to have him believe that, but his next sentence told her any advantage she might have had over him was entirely gone.
“So, have you thought any more about my proposal? I’ve given you a few days, but we really need to get rolling on this project before things get out of hand.”
He slid his hands into his trouser pockets, raising his eyebrows in her direction as he waited for his answer, and she was hit with that sick feeling that always came every time she tried to rationalize what he was asking her to do. Samantha was good at her job. She’d always taken pride in that, and she was willing to do a lot of things to get ahead. But all of those things were always above board. She worked hard. She used her natural talents to her advantage, and she made sure she did her job better than anyone else who was up for the job.
However, this was something she wasn’t going to be able to be good at without also defying every last bit of her moral compass. She had worked hard to get this job. She would have worked hard to keep it, but she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself if she tried to do what she was being asked to do. It hit her all of a sudden, like a stack of bricks. There was no way she was going to be able to do this. It just wasn’t in her, and she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself if she even tried. She was surprised Reid was still talking to her since she hadn’t outright walked away from all of this already.