I feel the pressure too, I’m about to explode, there’s no way around it.
I pull her pants down to the floor so she can step out of them, dropping my pants to my ankles while standing back up.
“Get inside me,” she whispers, but it’s so loud to me I think all of Detroit must be able to hear her too.
I do. I get inside her, crying out like I’m in pain, and it feels so damn good. She curls one leg around the back of mine as I thrust up and into her, again and again, just this. This is everything I want, right here. Just this woman, all of her, all the time.
I slow down enough so that I can look at her. She opens her eyes, and in this moment that I’m staring into that deep blue from this close distance, I know exactly what our life together will be like from now on. I know what I’d risk losing just to keep her, and it doesn’t even scare me. Because I know what I’m capable of building and rebuilding as long as I’m doing it for her. I’d do anything for her. I will.
Everything on this bed is sweaty and tangled up in each other. We’re a jumbled mess of arms and legs and hair and sheets and pillows and empty room service plates, but everything feels like it’s exactly the way it should be. My fingers find hers and interlace with them.
“I’m going to tell Keaton when we get back. Tomorrow afternoon, if possible, so he’ll have time to cool off before work on Monday. I’m not going to hide this—us—anymore.”
She takes a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m very sure.”
“Do you want me to be there when you tell him?”
“No. But thank you for offering.”
“I just don’t want him to be mad at you.”
“He can be mad. He’ll get over it. Eventually.”
“I just … it’s not really about me, though? Right? I mean, Keaton barely knows me.”
If this were any other woman, I’d tread lightly around this “do these pants make me look fat?” type of question. Since it’s Aimee, I know she’s really asking because she wants to understand. “It’s a lot of things from over the years. I don’t regret working with my best friend like this, but it does make things more complicated. Keaton may have his head up his ass a lot of the time, but he’s an extremely loyal and generous person once he’s decided someone really matters to him. As soon as he gets the idea in his head that someone isn’t as loyal as they should be to him, he can … be an unpredictable asshole. But like I said. He gets over it. Eventually.”
“Okay. I hope so. I hope our last week of working together won’t be tense and weird.”
“Unlike our first few weeks of working together, you mean?”
“True,” she says. “I guess we better make sure there’s absolutely no chance of us feeling tense, then …”
I sit up and swipe my index finger across the remaining butter and maple syrup on a plate. She wanted breakfast for dinner, and we got it. I hold that finger over her mouth. She licks it, sucks on it, pulls me down to her so she can do the same to the rest of me.
“Chase McKay, you’re so much, but I don’t think I can ever get enough of you,” she sighs.
“Good. I’m all yours and I don’t plan on ever leaving you.”
AFTER TODAY
21
Chase
I get to Bitters about twenty minutes before five, which is when I asked Keaton to meet me here for a drink. I use the time to chat with Denny, get settled into a booth, respond to customers on Twitter, reminisce about the two times I’ve been here with Aimee, and get a head start on the whiskey. I might always feel like I’m making up for lost time with Aimee Gilpin, but after today, no one will be in the dark about how I feel about her. No matter how Keaton takes the news I’m about to give him.
Keaton shows up at exactly five o’clock, which is unlike him. He salutes me as he heads to the bar to order scotch. When Keaton orders scotch, it means he’s either feeling shitty about his parents or his girlfriend. Or both. I watch him as he scans the room, his gaze resting on a pair of ladies at the end of the bar. Yeah. He is not happy with his sex life. That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t change anything.
He exhales slowly as he sprawls out opposite me. “A booth tonight? We gonna make out?”
“Buy a guy a drink first.”
“You want another?”
“Naw, not yet. How you doin’?”
“I don’t even want to talk about it. So the new website’s up. Everything’s working. No customers have revolted yet. Right?”
“So far so good.”
“What’s on the agenda for the board meeting tomorrow?”
“The main thing I’m concerned with, besides updating on the subscriptions, is voting on our next hire.”
“Right. Your underdog boy for the sales team.”
“Danny’s got the experience, he just doesn’t have an Ivy League degree.”
“But the other guy’s got both.”
“The other guy’s got a lot less experience and I think Danny’s a better fit for our culture. He’s local.”
“But we aren’t going to be local forever.”
“And when we go global we’ll hire appropriately.”
“I’m just busting your chops, kid. I like the guy, I’ll back him. I don’t know about the other guys on the board, though.”
“That’s why I need your vote on this.”
“If it’s that important to you. I got you.”
“Good.”
He squints at me. “You look like you’ve been on vacation or something.”
I can’t help smiling. “I did just get back from Detroit.”
“Why would anyone willingly go to Detroit?”
“I went to Ann Arbor with Aimee.”
I wait for a look of comprehension to register on his face.
“Aimee Aimee?”
“Aimee Gilpin. She ended up pulling an all-nighter with us Friday, and I found out her mom had this situation that needed fixing. So I went with her to take care of it. And we stayed the night.”
Keaton hosted a weekly poker game when we were at Wharton. When they were at the apartment I was usually either studying at the library or out with some girl, because the last thing I wanted was to be around a bunch of cigar-smoking rich assholes. But I did watch my buddy play a few times, and he has a very impressive poker face. I’m looking at that poker face now, but I’m ready to show my hand anyway.
“We’re together now. I fell for her the same night you did, only I did it about half an hour before you walked in. I backed off because it seemed like the right thing to do, and when you told me she finally shot you down a month later, I came here to give Denny my phone so I wouldn’t call her. I wasn’t planning to see her again, but she showed up here. Turns out she came to find me to talk about the job she’d just been hired for, but she didn’t end up telling me that night.”
His jaw is clenched tight, and he’s getting that look in his eyes, but I keep going.
“We decided to have one amazing night together, to get it out of our systems. I was going to tell you about it, but then she walked into our office and everything changed.”
“You really didn’t know about her job?”
“I just said. She never got around to telling me, until she was standing there in our office, telling both of us.”
“So—what—you guys have been fucking behind my back for three weeks?”
“No. We’ve been not fucking for three weeks, but everything changed again this weekend. And it’s a lot more than fucking. I love her. I’m not gonna hide it anymore. I want you to be okay with it, but we’re together. That’s not going to change.”
He taps his fingers on the tabletop. “So you felt sorry for me?” He sneers. “You think she’s so great I’d never get over losing her to you?”
“Watch it.”
He shrugs. “I’m okay with you being with her. Good for fucking you, you deserve it. If you guys have been t
hinking I’m pining over her like some lovesick fool, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Good to know.”
“It is good to know things, isn’t it? I would have liked to know. If you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about this, that tells me a lot.”
I shake my head, ever so slightly.
“If you decided to fuck her before discussing it with me first, that tells me even more.”
“You were in the Hamptons with Quinn.”
“Hoes before bros, right?”
“She gave me her number before you got here.”
“Course she did. The ladies always go for the Irish-Italian Stallion. No wonder you had that genius idea to have her not cc me on anything. So I could stay focused on Quinn.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference to Aimee.”
“If you say so.”
“She offered to come talk to you tonight too.”
“Well that would have been a treat. Kind of the opposite of the time you and Whitney were both trying to convince me that you hadn’t been fucking each other behind my back.”
“Whitney and I never fucked.” Words I never thought I’d have to say out loud to him again.
“Course not. It’s all about transparency, right? You’ve always said if we’re going to work together we have to be transparent and work shit out so the other investors don’t get nervous.”
“And that’s what we’re doing. You believe what you need to believe, Keaton. I know what you mean to me, which is why I tried to stay away from her. But this is real and it’s happening and I hope you can feel as good about it as I would for you, if you were this happy.”
His face twitches. My best friend’s in there somewhere, he’s just hiding under a few layers of pissy entitled asshole for now. He juts out his chin. “It’s all good, man,” he says.
I hold my hand out across the table. “No hard feelings? This is what it is, let’s not let it affect anything else, alright?”
He shakes on it. “Lemme get you that drink so we can make out now—oh wait, you’re taken.”
I laugh. “So are you, right?”
“Sure.” He signals to the waitress to bring us two more drinks. “She’s met your parents?”
“Not yet, but I met hers, yesterday. In Ann Arbor.”
“Nice. Look at us. Greg’s getting married, we’re both ‘taken.’ Fucking crushing this adulting thing.”
We have a five-minute bullshit conversation about nothing much and then he’s gone.
I’m not even worried about the shit he may or may not pull, because in fifteen minutes I’ll be at Aimee’s apartment and in her arms and I’ll stay there until I wake her up in the morning.
22
Aimee
I’ve been at my Hoffman & Company office for an hour so far this morning, meeting with future and potential clients, and I already miss the gang at SnapLegal. By “gang” I mostly mean Chase’s penis, but the whole crew over there is great. Even Keaton and Nora. Even though I’ll still be in touch with most of them on Slack for a while, I will be coming down off of quite a high when this week is over.
Or, maybe a new high will begin.
Chase was fairly tight-lipped, but somewhat optimistic after talking to Keaton yesterday evening. Having him in my apartment just felt so right. He and Roxy get along great, and we all just hung out for a couple of hours before Chase and I retired to my bedroom. The whole weekend was like some kind of amazing alcohol poisoning-induced fever dream.
I snap out of my daydream when Elaine Hoffman clears her throat. I have no idea how long she’s been standing in my office, and I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here with a big stupid smile on my face.
“Am I interrupting?” she asks, while taking a seat at the chair in front of my desk.
“Not at all. Hi! What do you need? I just sent a follow-up email to—”
“I just wanted to check in with you about SnapLegal.” She pulls a small bag of roasted chick peas from one of her pockets and pops them into her mouth. She holds the bag out to me, halfheartedly offering me some.
“No thank you, I’m good. SnapLegal has been great. The transition has been relatively smooth, really. I’d say that by this weekend, with the launch of the new web pages, things have been going really great.”
“No trouble with Keaton Bridges?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Now I’m wondering if she knows something I don’t. “Why?”
She shakes her head and is about to say something but then she starts coughing—choking on a chickpea.
I am poised to get up and Heimlich her, but I don’t want to perform abdominal thrusts on my new boss unless it’s absolutely necessary. “Are you … Can I? ...”
She holds her hand up to stop me. I just really don’t want her to choke to death before telling me if there’s anything I should know about SnapLegal. After coughing so loud and long that I think I can hear one of her lungs being dislodged, she abruptly stops coughing. Her face is completely red, but she says very clearly: “Chase McKay has been saying good things. He’s very impressed with you.”
“Really?” My voice is so high-pitched I sound like a cartoon squirrel. “How so?”
She touches her throat and starts coughing again, for the longest most awkward thirty seconds of my very impatient life.
I’m not sure which of us is going to die first.
She suddenly stops coughing when a tiny piece of dried chickpea skin shoots out of her mouth. “Oh. There we go!” she says, clearing her throat.
“Can I get you some water?”
“Nope. I’m good.”
“So … Chase?”
“He said he’d be happy to recommend you to anyone who’s on the fence about hiring us. He’s very impressed with the work you do.”
“Oh.” I smile. I try not to smile. I try not to look like I’m trying not to smile. “That’s nice. That’s nice to know. He’s great too. They’re all great. That’s a really, really great company. I’m so grateful for this job.” I really hope she can’t tell that I’m thinking about Chase’s penis right now.
“Mmhmm. How long have you been banging him?”
Now I’m the one having a coughing fit. She is smirking at me. She could definitely tell that I was having penis thoughts.
“Oh come on,” she says. “I don’t give a crap who you bang, as long as you do good work. As a business consultant, I mean. He’s yummy.”
“Uh huh. We’ve … it’s only been since this weekend really. It won’t affect anything about the way we work together for the next week, I promise you.”
“Hah! Sure it won’t.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, but there’s nothing quite so titillating as an office romance, is there? The board room hand jobs. The office floor sex. The bathroom quickies. That’s how I met my husband, you know?”
“In a bathroom? I mean—you had an office romance?”
“Yes. His best friend worked with us, and he liked me too, so Joe—my husband—let his friend take a whack at me first.”
I wrinkle my brow. Is she kidding me with this?
“Well, I slept with him. You know, just to get it out of the way.”
“With the best friend?”
“I mean, I liked Joe more. But I just knew I’d have to go through his friend to get to him. And then, one thing leads to another and you’re having a three-way.”
“Sure.”
“Things get weird.”
“Yeah.”
“And they had a bit of a falling out. But Joe and I got married, so … worth it.”
“Well that’s … sweet! And now Joe is writing a novel, you said?”
“No, Corey, my current husband is writing a novel. Joe is now Josephine. He lives in L.A. We still sext now and then. Corey’s fine with it.”
“Well, Elaine Hoffman, you have had quite a life.”
She runs her fingers through her hair. “You only get one life, and it’s gone just like that. So, you know. I think a little
office nookie is quite in order. At any age, really.” She gets up and tosses the rest of the roasted chickpeas into my wastebasket. “Well. Back to work.”
“Thanks, Elaine!”
I’m not exactly sure what I’m thanking her for, but it’s probably for giving me permission to have office nookie with Chase McKay.
It’s after seven pm. Chase and I have plans for a late dinner. While he’s still working in his office, I have been casually wandering about the offices, checking to see if anyone else is still around. After poking my head into the break room, supply room, ladies’ room and knocking on the men’s room door, I skip on over to place the underwear that I’ve just removed into my bag. I peer into the glass wall of Chase’s office, above the part that’s frosted, and see that he’s just sitting there looking at his laptop.
I knock while entering, and shut the door behind me, locking it.
He looks over at me, grinning.
“Okay, hot stuff,” I announce. “We’re the only ones here. Take off your pants and get on the floor. This is not a drill.” I start hiking up my skirt to the top of my thighs.
His eyes sparkle.
The voice from the speaker of his office phone says: “For fuck’s sake, please wait until I’ve hung up before doing that.”
I slap my hands over my mouth. Oh God.
Chase laughs. “We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow, Matt.”
“And I thought our offices were fun,” Matt remarks.
Chase hangs up.
“Chase! I am so sorry! Please tell me that wasn’t a client or an investor!”
“It was my dad.”
My eyes bulge out of their sockets.
“I’m kidding.” He gets up and slowly walks towards me, his focus entirely on my bare thighs. “That was my buddy, Matt McGovern. He’s going to do some pro bono work for our clients.”
I start to tug down on the hem of my skirt. “This was a terrible idea. I’m crazy. You’re making me crazy.”
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