by Vi Keeland
“The door was shut because I’m busy.”
He took an exaggerated look around my neat office. “Don’t look busy to me.”
I sighed. “I need to make some calls. What do you want, Bennett?”
“Flying to L.A. for a lunch? Let me guess, you’re meeting at a hotel?”
“Screw you.”
He glared at me. “No, thanks. I told you, I don’t like to share. Certainly not with Toby boy.”
I stood. “Did you come into my office for any reason other than to pick a fight?”
“Your friend Tobias isn’t taking my calls. Is that your doing?”
Tobias hadn’t even mentioned that Bennett had called. “Absolutely not.”
“I walked over while Marina happened to be making your flight reservations the other day. That’s the only reason I even knew you’d decided to go see your friend. Nice teamwork, by the way. I’d almost fallen for your we’re one team bullshit. When the invite was extended for them to take a sneak peek at our work, I assumed it was a company invitation…not a personal Annalise invitation.”
I leaned my palms on my desk and put on a saccharine sweet smile. “Me too. Guess we’ve both learned a lot about each other since L.A.”
Chapter 20
* * *
Bennett
Well, well, well. The night just got a fuck of a lot more interesting.
I sucked back the rest of the beer I’d been nursing for the better part of an hour and motioned to the bartender. “Ever hear of a drink called a sore loser?”
“I think so. Vodka, sweet and sour mix, grenadine, orange juice, and sugar around the rim, right?”
“And a maraschino cherry or two.”
The bartender made a face. “Sounds more like a recipe for a hangover, if you ask me.”
“Yeah. That’s why it’s perfect.” I motioned down to the other end of the bar, where Annalise had just walked in with Marina, of all people. “See the sexy blonde talking to the crazy-looking redhead?”
He looked down the bar. “Sure.”
“Can you whip up one of those drinks and send it to down to her? Make sure she knows the name of the drink and who sent it.”
“If you say so.”
“And I’ll take another beer when you get a chance.”
Our unofficial company happy hour had quite a turnout tonight. It was the first time both the Wren and Foster Burnett crew had socialized outside of the office. I’d guess at least thirty people showed up, half of them from the marketing department since Jim Falcon always organized this.
I kept my eye on Annalise while the bartender mixed together the drink and walked to the other end of the bar to deliver it. She smiled and looked down at the fancy glass filled with pink liquid and then followed to where the bartender pointed. Seeing me, her lips immediately soured to a frown. Marina, of course, joined her in shooting daggers in my direction. Too bad I hadn’t thought of it earlier; it would’ve been funnier if I’d had a PB&J delivered for Marina along with Annalise’s sore loser—funny to me, at least.
From the other end of the bar, Annalise held up her drink with a frosty smile and tipped her head to me in thanks.
For the next hour and a half, I attempted to mingle. But the more I caught myself sneaking glances at Annalise, the more I got annoyed. She, on the other hand, didn’t appear the slightest bit distracted or even to notice that I had grown obsessed with following her every move.
At one point, a guy who didn’t work at Foster, Burnett and Wren sidled up to her and started to chew her ear off. The asshole had on a brown tweed jacket with leather elbow pads and worn loafers—probably a writer like her last douchey boyfriend or a professor of some useless subject like philosophy.
Look, if you’re thinking I’m jealous, I’m not. Get that shit right out of your head. Jealous is when you want something another has achieved—and Annalise has not and will not achieve anything over me—or when someone has something that’s yours, and we all know I never have, nor ever will, claim any woman as mine.
I’m just protective by nature, that’s all. And while the woman might have worked her way up the corporate ranks to a position equal to mine, she clearly didn’t know shit about men.
At some point between throwing her head back in laughter and tossing around her hair, she excused herself from the now half-hour-long conversation she’d been having with Mr. Brown Tweed. My eyes followed her down the corridor I knew led to the bathrooms. I told myself to stay put, not go over there and fuck with her…but…
I wasn’t a great listener.
I raised my hand to the bartender, ordered another sore loser, and then walked it over to the ladies’ room. I stood outside and waited until she stepped out. She took two strides down the hall and almost crashed right into me.
Her eyes squinted so tightly, it was a wonder she could even see. “What are you doing, Bennett?”
I extended the drink. “Thought you’d like another drink.”
“No, thanks.” She went to step around me, but I sidestepped in front of her.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
Her eyes widened. “No?”
I grinned. In hindsight, that probably was a dickish thing to do, even for me. “That’s right. No.”
“Look. Whatever game you’re playing, I don’t want to play.”
“No game. I’m just looking out for you, making sure you haven’t drunk so much that you’re falling for the lines some random guy feeds you. Clearly your ability to judge a man’s character, even when you’re sober, is poor.”
Her face turned red. A fire danced in her baby blue eyes, and it looked like smoke might start billowing from her nose. I’d seen her pissed. Hell, it had become one of my favorite pastimes over the last few weeks to piss her off…but she’d never looked this angry. I actually took a step back.
And you know what she did?
You guessed it.
She took one forward.
I’ll admit, I got a little scared then.
Jabbing her finger into my chest, she started in on a staccato tirade.
“You” Jab
“think” Jab
“I’m” Jab
“a” Jab
“bad” Jab
“judge” Jab
“of” Jab
“character?” Jab
She actually waited for me to answer. I shrugged like a coward.
“Well, you know what? You’re absolutely right. I let Andrew string me along for way too long. Yet somehow, when I found out who he was, it didn’t sting half as much as it did realizing how wrong I was about you. I was so sure you were just an asshole on the outside and a good person on the inside. I thought if I dug a little deeper, I’d dig past the dirt and find the hidden gold. But I was wrong. I dug through the dirt and you know what I found? More dirt.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. I went to say something, to tell her I was only screwing around, and she stopped me with more words.
“And you don’t need to worry about me believing the lies of a drunk guy. I already made that mistake once. You know, you were really convincing, too. Telling me how beautiful you think I am and that you were jealous of another man touching me. In fact, you were so good, I stupidly believed the drunk lies you fed me even after you didn’t remember saying them. That is, until I overheard you talking to Jim the other day and realized what a complete idiot I was…again. Shame on me. But trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.”
Before I could say or do anything, Annalise skirted around me and back into the bar. I hung my head, feeling like an elephant had just sat on my chest.
“Fuck.”
What have I done?
***
The next morning it poured. Not your typical, April-showers-bring-May-flowers type of bullshit rain, but the kind that comes with gray skies and thunder louder than a bowling alley on league night. Couple that with the pounding I had going on in my head, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to a mons
ter truck show this afternoon.
I hadn’t even drunk that much last night. Hell, I had my third beer still in my hand when I finally grew some balls and went to chase Annalise after she’d finished chewing me out. I’d thrown it against the outside brick of the building when I found her—just as she pulled away from the bar inside an Uber. Not surprisingly, she didn’t make the driver stop, though I yelled after her.
When I pulled up at Lucas’s house, I didn’t bother to dig the umbrella I kept in my car out of the glove box, so my clothes were soaked after making the short walk from the car to the front door. I knocked and hoped by some miracle he answered today, instead of Fanny. The last thing I needed to go with a pounding headache and rainy-day trip to a loud monster truck show was a run-in with that woman.
The door opened. No such luck.
“I hope you plan on using an umbrella when you walk with Lucas. I can’t afford to get sick when he catches a cold.”
Shocker, she didn’t give two shits that Lucas might get the cold, only that he might pass it along to her. I wasn’t in the mood.
“I’ll make sure he runs between the raindrops.”
She pursed her thin lips. “He can also use some new sneakers.”
I ignored her. I’d long ago learned not to expect the monthly check I gave her to go toward anything Lucas might actually need.
“Is he ready? We need to be somewhere.”
She slammed the door in my face and screamed inside the house, “Lucas!”
I preferred standing out in the rain than talking to her anyway.
The smile on Lucas’s face when he opened the door made me smile for the first time since last night. About a year ago, he’d stopped running into my arms. So I’d come up with a secret handshake just for us. We went through the fifteen-second-long hand-slapping, fist-bumping, shake routine.
“Did you buy earplugs?” he asked.
I’d stopped at the store on the way over. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out two sets.
Lucas frowned. “When am I gonna be old enough to stop wearing these?”
“Old enough? I’m still wearing ’em, aren’t I?”
“Yeah. But that’s because you’re a dork, not because you’re old.”
I smiled. This kid could make me forget a bad day. “Is that so?”
He grinned and nodded.
“Well, just for that comment, I’m not giving you my jacket to put over your head while we make a run for the car, like I was going to do.”
Lucas shook his head again and scoffed, “Jacket over my head. You really are a dork.” Then he took off running for the car.
***
Shit. I had about a half mile to go to get to the arena when I realized I’d forgotten the tickets. They were in the top drawer of my desk at the office, along with the early entry passes I’d bought so Lucas and I could go check out the trucks before the show started.
Luckily, the office wasn’t too far, and we were a little early since it never mattered what time our plans were to Fanny—only that I got him out of her hair exactly at twelve every other Saturday.
I pulled into an illegal spot in front of the building and looked around. There wasn’t a meter maid in sight, and I’d only be a few minutes. My free pass on parking tickets had expired when I stopped calling the cute meter maid I’d gone out with a few times.
“Just have to run upstairs to pick up the tickets from the drawer in my office.”
“Cool! We never come here. Do you still have Ms. Pac-Man in that big room?”
“We do. But we don’t have time for a game today.”
Lucas pouted. “Just one. Please?”
I was such a sucker. “Fine. One game.”
There were a few people milling around the office, even though it was Saturday. I was relieved to find Annalise wasn’t one of them—her door was shut and no light came from under the doorway. I didn’t want another confrontation with her in front of Lucas. God knows I’d worked hard over the years to keep him from seeing the asshole I often was the other six days of the week.
I unlocked my office and went to my desk drawer, only to find the tickets weren’t where I thought I’d stashed them. I remembered bringing them here with a batch of bills I needed to pay… I could’ve sworn I’d tucked them in the top right drawer. After a few minutes of searching my desk, it became clear they weren’t here at all. Shit. I hoped they were somewhere in my apartment, and I hadn’t inadvertently shredded them with my junk mail.
I looked at the time on my phone. If we left now, we’d be cutting it close. But the arena was in the opposite direction of my apartment; there was no way we’d make it if I drove all the way to my place first. Worse, I had no idea where I’d put the tickets, if they were even there.
I sighed. “I don’t know what I did with the tickets. I’m going to have to call Ticketmaster and find out if they can send me an electronic version or something.”
“Can I go play Ms. Pac-Man while you do that?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s a good idea. It could take me a while if I get stuck on hold, and I need to look up the number first. Come on, I’ll take you to the bullpen.”
As we walked, I kept trying to retrace what I’d done with the tickets after I’d opened the envelope in my office. I remembered looking at the early-admission passes with logoed lanyards and thinking that Lucas would be pumped to wear a badge around his neck. But I couldn’t for the life of me recall what I’d done once I’d stuffed it all back in the envelope—which was exactly what I was focused on when I strolled into the bullpen.
And discovered someone was already in there.
Annalise looked up. She started to smile, but then she saw my face and her lips curled to a scowl. Unexpectedly seeing her there had caught me off guard, too, which is why I stopped three steps into the room—and caused Lucas to walk right into me.
“What the heck?” he whined.
“Sorry, buddy. Uhhh... It looks like someone’s working in here, so it’s probably best you don’t play and make noise.”
Lucas walked around me and looked at Annalise. She glanced at him, then me, then back to him.
Offering a smile, she spoke to my little buddy. “It’s fine. You’re welcome to play a game while I’m in here.”
Lucas didn’t give me a chance to argue. He took off running for the Ms. Pac-Man machine. “Great!”
Annalise chuckled as she watched him.
When she looked back to me, our eyes met, but whatever was on her mind was unreadable.
“You sure you don’t mind? I need to make a call. I seem to have misplaced some tickets we need.”
“It’s fine.”
I nodded, although she didn’t notice because she already had her head down, burying her face in her work.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Back in my office, I looked up the telephone number and dialed Ticketmaster on speakerphone. While the million prompts to push buttons droned on, I searched my desk again. Still no tickets. And of course, there wasn’t a prompt for I lost my tickets, which caused me to have to wait for the last prompt to push the dreaded “all other callers, please press seven.” That inevitably led to a few more annoying prompts to try to identify the particular problem.
Losing patience, I pushed zero a half a dozen times in an attempt to get switched to a live, customer-service person—but that didn’t do anything but restart me at the beginning of the prompt merry-go-round.
After at least twenty minutes, I finally spoke to someone who said they’d reprint my passes, and as long as I had the credit card I’d paid with and picture identification, I could pick them up at the will call booth at the arena entrance.
I hung up and immediately began thinking how Annalise was probably going to be pissed at how long I’d left Lucas playing Ms. Pac-Man and think I’d done it just to distract her or something.
To my surprise, she wasn’t pissed off at all. In fact, she had a smile on her face and was laughing
when I walked into the bullpen. She and Lucas were seated across from each other on beanbag chairs, and they were yelling random things to each other. It wasn’t until I walked farther into the room that I noticed Annalise had a phone held up against her forehead. He’d gotten her to play the digital charades game I never let him beat me at.
“It’s big.” Lucas said.
“The sun!” Annalise yelled.
Lucas laughed and shook his head. “Marmalade.”
“Fruit. A big fruit. Cantaloupe. Watermelon.”
Lucas made a face like she was nuts. “Scooby-Doo.”
Annalise looked totally confused, so Lucas offered another hint.
He pointed to me. “Bennett wanted to be one when he grew up.”
It took even me a few seconds to realize the word he was trying to get her to guess. She was never going to get it—not with those clues.
The phone buzzed, indicating the time for her turn was up, and she lowered her phone and turned it to read the word Lucas had been giving her hints about.
Her entire face wrinkled up. “A great Dane? What does marmalade have to do with a dog?”
I chuckled and answered for him. “Nothing. He meant Marmaduke.”
“The old cartoon strip?”
“Yeah.”
“But he said you wanted to be one when you grew up?”
I shrugged. “I did.”
Annalise laughed. “You wanted to be a great Dane?”
“Don’t knock it. He’s king of the canine family.”
God, when she smiled it made my chest hurt. But when she smiled and laughed with Lucas—even at my expense—it really did something to me. I watched as her laughter died down and her face returned to sadness, almost as if she’d forgotten what a dick I was for a minute.
“I also beat her at Ms. Pac-Man and foosball.”
“She hasn’t had as much practice as I have. Annalise just started at this office.”
Lucas stood. “Did you get new tickets?”
“Yeah. We can pick them up at the door.”
“You wanna come, Anna?” he said. “I’ll give you my earplugs.”