Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1)

by Ainslie Paton

“You’d rather I assume, so I’ll assume. You were a gymnast like Zarley. I can see it in your body. You got hurt. How hard would that be to tell me?”

  Cara ignored him and pointed the remote at the TV.

  “You don’t have insurance. I could help you out.”

  That got Cara’s attention, but not in a good way. “It’s not something you can buy, Reid. I can’t be fixed. Don’t step on the dress or manhandle it. Close the door on your way out and have a great night.”

  He frowned. He didn’t respond to the yank Zarley gave his hand.

  “What was the job you lost?”

  Cara folded her arms and puffed her hair with a huffed out breath. “He does not give up, does he?”

  Zarley squeezed Reid’s hand. She’d come to learn that month in Lucky’s where he wallowed was uncharacteristic, because Reid didn’t give up. “Cara was help desk for a tech company,” she said.

  Cara snapped, “You want to hope I didn’t leave any pins in the seams when you sit down, Zar.”

  “I’ll have the HR director of Plus call you. Her name is Sarina. If they have anything going she’ll let you know.”

  Cara’s mouth dropped open. “I’ve been a bitch, why would you do that.”

  “It’s not a job, it’s an in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Reid gave Cara a nod, dropped Zarley’s hand as if he knew the girls would want to talk. He went up the hall to the door. They heard him open it.

  “He’s a pain in the neck. You’re not keeping him,” Cara mouthed, but she was smiling.

  Zarley mouthed back her agreement. “Only for the sex and parties.”

  Cara laughed and made a shooing motion. “Have a wonderful night. Do my dress proud.”

  She blew Cara a kiss, scooped up her borrowed clutch, Kathryn’s groovy gran again, and met Reid at the stairs, pulling the door closed behind her.

  He was leaning on the banister, looking down through the stairwell. “I keep thinking I’ve already seen how beautiful you are. On your pole, in your jeans and hoodie, in the videos of your floor routines, on my bike.” The glance he gave her made her heart shimmer. “In my bed.” And then triple salto, backward layout. “But you keep surprising me and I’ve never been a guy who liked surprises. I don’t have the words to describe how insanely gorgeous you are. But it’s not the dress and your hair, how good you smell. I don’t care what you’re wearing.” He straightened up and she didn’t feel so much like a decoration anymore. “It’s you, Zarley. To the bone and back.”

  Better, she felt appreciated, respected, above and beyond the sex.

  She took his outstretched hand. Tongue thick and useless in her mouth. They went down the stairs together and out into the breath of evening. She wanted words to tell him how he’d made her feel, how their thing had come to mean more than she’d expected it could.

  He had a car and driver waiting and he opened the door for her. She settled inside, being careful with the length of the dress. She’d tell him when he got in the other side, when they were hand in hand again.

  But when he slid in beside her and took her hand he stole her incentive to speak by saying, “I won’t disappoint you tonight,” and she wondered why he thought he might.

  NINETEEN

  Reid walked into the foyer of the ballroom with Zarley on his arm and Sarina was on him like a good cop on vice.

  She snatched his wrist, nails engaged. “What are you doing here?” she whispered in the process of not kissing him hello. Their cheekbones crashed together because she never had kissed him before and it was a confusing move.

  He took in the rapidly filling ballroom of The Fairmont. “You invited me,” he muttered, then looked down at his arm, expecting to see blood.

  “I did not invite you. I cannot believe you’d crash like this,” she hissed, hand to her cheek.

  He spoke up, “Sarina, this is Zarley. I told her how long we’ve known each other and what a great job you do.”

  Both women leaned around him at the same time, hands outstretched to shake. Reid watched Sarina’s face. She had every right to have them thrown out. He had every right to be here.

  “Hi, Sarina. Reid told me you’ve had a lot to put up with from him,” Zarley said.

  Sarina gave a disconcerted laugh. “He did? He’s right.” She spared him a sharp look. “Hi, Zarley, nice to meet you. Can I borrow him for a moment?”

  Zarley smiled and let go his arm. “I’ll wait here,” she said, and Sarina drew him away from the foyer.

  “You can’t be here.” She kept her voice even. She was the perfect picture of politely furious.

  He gave her a wry smile. “Are you going to throw us out?” He had to choose whether to make a scene if she did.

  He looked back toward Zarley. He should’ve told her but he’d hoped to sail through this because it would be too embarrassing to have him thrown out. He watched her stand in that fantasy of a dress, head high. She had self-possession born of being a performer. She attracted attention, she must’ve known that, but didn’t show it. Before he turned back to Sarina, Dev was approaching Zarley with an enormous grin on his face. He had green tennis shoes on with his tux and a matching green bowtie. He must’ve seen them come in together.

  A hard punch to his arm brought his attention back to Sarina. “You bought a date.” He rubbed where she’d hit. “She’s lovely. I’m proud of you. Is she, you know the,” Sarina gestured vaguely to his middle and he glared at her.

  “I’m sure you can find us a place.”

  Sarina closed her eyes, a muscle in her cheek twitched. Her dress was long, red and sparkled. Plus was a jeans and tee’s company. He’d never seen Sarina this dressed up. “You look beautiful.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Don’t try to sweet talk me.”

  He tugged on his suit coat. “Someone always drops out of these things, there’ll be a no show or two, sit us anywhere.”

  “Kuch will go mental. This probably breaches your restraint.”

  “Kuch will nod and smile and glad-hand his way around this ballroom as though nothing bad has ever happened in the world and you know it. He couldn’t care less I’m here.”

  “If all that was the case, you’d have been invited.”

  He pulled his cuffs, aligned his cufflinks, knew it was nervous fiddling and couldn’t stop it. He needed some of Zarley’s steadiness. “You’re not throwing us out.”

  “Oh, but I really, really want to. This is wrong, Reid. It’s offensive.”

  He inclined his head. “The other way to look at it is to say it’s offensive not to have invited me. There would be no Plus without me and I’m still a majority stockholder.”

  “Yes, yes, all that, a convenient truth hack. Just your style. You were let go. It’s controversial. You weren’t invited and you shouldn’t be here.”

  “But I am, and I’m willing to make a noise about it.”

  She sighed. “There have been so many times I’ve wanted to knee you in the balls. Think yourself lucky I don’t have room to move in this dress.”

  He put his hands in his pants pockets. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Not sorry I’m here. I deserve to be here. I’m sorry that makes it tough on you.”

  Sarina waved both hands in front of her face, blinking rapidly. “Wait, that was you apologizing to me. That’s never happened before.” She dropped her hands and stung him with a mean dry-eyed expression. “I think I’m going to cry.”

  Yeah, he deserved that too.

  “All right, I don’t see asking you nicely to leave is going to achieve anything so you get to stay. But I’m officially furious with you.”

  “Unofficially?”

  She broke eye contact. “There is no unofficially.”

  But there was, there always was. He’d been wrong to think the four of them weren’t still friends. He’d wait her out. Three heartbeats at best.

  “Zarley’s dress is incredible.” There it was. Too soon to mention Cara, he’d
do that by email when Sarina wasn’t pissed at him. “Zarley is incredible. What does she do?”

  Where did you meet would’ve been easier to answer. He’d say a dive bar and it’d be amusing. “She’s a Business Studies student.” He bit down on his back teeth. He should say it, he wasn’t uncomfortable about it, but others would be, Sarina could be. “She supports herself as an exotic dancer.”

  “She’s a stripper?” Sarina’s brows lifted and she shot a disbelieving look Zarley’s way then she punched him again. Same place, just as hard, made him grunt.

  “No, but she’s an entertainer. A pole dancer.”

  “Oh, wow, no wonder she has that body. Good for her.”

  “She’s an ex-USA Olympic team gymnast. You should see her dance, she’s incredible.”

  Sarina shook her head and her earrings tinkled. “Don’t try to impress me with your newly discovered human side. I don’t care about your love life.”

  “Of course not.” She wanted every detail.

  “She clearly didn’t think the, you know, was bad taste.”

  He folded his arms, widened his stance and Sarina took a step back. “The you know you promised to forget.”

  She turned toward the room and looked at him over her shoulder, already in motion. “Oh hell, that was before you crashed my party,” she said, and left him standing there.

  It took time to work his way back to Zarley. A lot of people wanted to catch his eye, have a word, wanted to know what he was doing now. Plus staff, a stockholder or two, a couple of journalists, and Owen.

  “Please tell me you’re not drunk,” Owen said, drawing him out of the crowd that’d gathered. He wore a similar suit to Reid’s, but Owen’s wasn’t fresh out of a tailor’s bag. He had family money and knew his way around social events in a way Reid had long envied, because Owen wore his wealth lightly, never showing it off, and working like he had a thousand years of debt to pay off and a national obligation to be humble. You’d never have known the guy was privately cashed up.

  He patted Owen on the back. “Nice suit.”

  “Gate-crashing.” The whisker of a smile. “Sarina already asked you to leave.”

  “She did. It’s not her fault I’m here.”

  Owen rubbed a hand over the top of his short crop of blond hair. “God, Reid. Why?”

  “It should never have gone down like it did. This is still my company.”

  “No, it’s not. Shit happens. It happened to you because you were an asshole to work for and we have a no asshole rule. We made that rule together. You and me, Dev and Sarina.”

  “But I was an asshole who knew what we needed to do.”

  “That’s not how the no asshole rule works. You don’t get a free pass for being brilliant and you know it.”

  “You think stockholders think that way? You think they care if I’m an asshole if they’re making money?”

  Owen made a down gesture with his hand. “Lower your voice. We’ve had this argument a thousand times.”

  “And you never won it.”

  “Except I did.”

  He said that with no pride, no intention to rile Reid up. Owen wanted to keep the peace, but Reid was on edge. “No, Kuch won it for you. You don’t have enough asshole in you to out-asshole me.”

  Owen put his hand over his face to muffle a laugh and that did rile Reid.

  “It took me being an asshole to build Plus, rule or no rule, but suddenly I need to be a different guy when the company is on top. And you’re going to fuck it up. You’ll misfire on Ziggurat and then you’ll be out of a job too.”

  Owen looked away. “I don’t want to fight with you. I get what happened was brutal but you brought it on yourself and if Ziggurat fails I’ll take responsibility for it.”

  Like the fucking all-round good guy Owen was. Reid shoved his hands back in his pockets. “It doesn’t have to be like that, bring me back in.”

  Owen waved to someone behind Reid with a quick smile. “What are you talking about?”

  “Bring me back as a consultant, head of projects, let me focus on Ziggurat and you run things with Sarina and Dev.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “You can make it work like that.” If he wanted to. He was the boss. He could make anything happen.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Reid.” And wasn’t that the whole problem.

  “If you’d have stood up to me harder this would’ve been different.”

  Owen made a noise of exasperation. “Now you’re blaming me. You are unbelievable.” He turned his face away.

  “It cuts both ways. I’m a monster and the only person on the face of the planet who could do anything about that wanted to keep the peace instead.”

  Still facing away, Owen said, “You shouldn’t be here.” His cheeks were flushed and he’d mirrored Reid’s posture, hands shoved in his pants pockets.

  Reid was sweating under his suit. “Maybe it’s you who shouldn’t be here.”

  Owen faced back around and pinned Reid’s eyes with his bright blue ones. “Never admired anyone more than you, Reid. I fucking hate you’re turning that against me.”

  And that was the hardest thing of all in this. It wasn’t about the money or the moral right or who was the biggest asshole. They were partners, equals. Friends, and now this was between them.

  “Is your date the woman from the bar? What was her name, Lush?”

  “Her name is Zarley.”

  “Well it’s good you’ve got someone in your life. Enjoy it.”

  “You mean while it lasts because you think I’m going to be an asshole to her too.”

  Owen sighed. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  Reid didn’t want to fight with Owen either. It made his chest go tight like that time he broke a rib in a building site accident.

  Owen skewered him with a last hard look. “Try not to be any more of an asshole than comes naturally tonight.” He left without a backward glance.

  Reid knew this wouldn’t be easy. His road, he’d walk it.

  Zarley was no longer where he’d left her but standing by two empty seats at a table for ten near the front of the room. She waved; he waved back. He had the length of the place to negotiate before he could get to her and the rest of his plan to put in action. He should’ve come alone; he’d left her waiting too long. He hadn’t thought this through and it was an asshole move to leave her to fend for herself, even with Dev smoothing the way.

  He made for Nerida. As head of marketing, she’d have been responsible for the official program tonight. She’d obviously been warned he was here.

  “Hi, Reid.” She looked up from her tablet. “Good to see you. Surprising, but good.”

  He dug Nerida, she was a straight talker, no bullshit. “I like the shoes.” She wore a fifties-style formal dress with a big poufy skirt to her knees with gym boots.

  They both looked at her shoes. She shrugged. “I got no time to be glam tonight.”

  “I need you to put me on the program to speak.”

  “Oh. Er. No.”

  “You can make it happen.”

  “I don’t think so. Kuch and Owen have speeches, and we have a band, and the sculpture exhibition.” She lifted her eyes to the gallery above them. “It’s not meant to be a talk-fest. There are staff awards. It wouldn’t be right.”

  He frowned, pretend concern. “You don’t think so?”

  She grunted and rolled her eyes. “Don’t make this hard for me. You aren’t supposed to be here eating the rubber chicken, let alone on the podium.”

  “You wouldn’t serve rubber chicken.”

  “I hope not,” she grimaced.

  “Five minutes. Let me go first, that way if I do any damage Kuch and Owen can fix it.”

  She put her tablet up over her face and mumbled into it. “You’re going to get me fired.”

  He put a finger to the top edge of it and drew it down. “No chance, it’s me, remember.”

  “Th
at’s what I’m worried about.”

  He was in. He gave her a grin and stepped away, but she called after him, “Reid. What happened? One day you were the boss, and the next Owen was telling us you’d moved on to do something new. I thought you loved Plus. There’s all this talk you were let go. Do I believe that?”

  He nodded. “I was an asshole. Plus has always had a no asshole rule and I guess I forgot that as we got bigger.”

  “Yeah, you could be an asshole, but you never were to me. That whole sexual harassment thing was bogus, and I’ve had some horrible bosses so I know what that’s like. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go on, but if I need a reference you’re going to make it so I glow like the sun.”

  “Like a thousand suns,” he said with a laugh as she swished by, her skirt bouncing.

  That left one more person he needed to speak to before he made it to Zarley. Adnan Kuchnitski. He was waiting. Looking immaculate in a suit that was likely tailored in Europe, shoes shined so they were glassy enough Reid could probably see his face in them. Kuch didn’t try to ape the offbeat cool of Plus, but he embraced it and won respect for not trying to meddle in the business he chaired. Except where it had come to Reid. But then CEO sacking was a chairman’s prerogative.

  “Reid.

  “Adnan.”

  They shook hands, eyed each other, while people watched their little sideshow. The tightness in his chest was back. Convincing Kuch to take the chair’s role was one of Reid’s notable achievements. He was a catch and brought old-world money and alliances to an upstart company. He’d been a guiding hand, a class act who’d never made Reid feel anything but his talent was going to hold him back. Until the day that changed.

  “You always had brass balls. What are you doing here?” Kuch said.

  “I’m a stockholder.”

  Kuch looked at the ceiling. “Then you must see the sculpture exhibition we sponsored. It’s wonderful.”

  “Money would’ve been better spent on experimental robotics.”

  That got him a finger point. “That sponsorship was from your time at the helm.”

  Reid grinned. “And I said we should’ve spent it on robotics then, but I didn’t push the point. I wasn’t an asshole twenty-four seven.”