Another breath. In. Out. Then I lean forward. “You remember Bailey?”
“Bailey who?”
“Bailey Abrams. My PA.”
“Oh. Sure. Nice girl. Plain-looking, but smart as shit.” His brow furrows. “Don’t tell me something happened to her.”
“No. No, she’s fine.”
“Well, that’s good. I mean, like I said, she’s nice. Plus, you’d be out of business without her.”
“What?”
“Hey, the lady runs your office. We both know that.”
I sigh. Drink some more beer. Look around, catch the barmaid’s eye and signal for refills.
“You’re right. She does. I’d be lost without her. She’s smart and dedicated and efficient and—”
“And she’s thinking of quitting?”
“No.”
“She wants a big raise and you’re asking for my advice?”
“If she asked for a big raise I’d give it to her. And why would I ask for your advice? I’m the guy with the degree in finance, remember?”
“You’re right. If I knew anything about money I’d never have loaned you five bucks for gas our junior year in high school without first getting you to sign an I.O.U.”
“Dammit, will you stop fucking around? I have a problem here and—”
The beers arrive. Coop looks at me through narrowed eyes. Then he looks at the barmaid.
“Two burgers,” he tells her. “Cheese. Pickles. Onions. Fries.” She walks away and he gives me another look. “I have the feeling we’re gonna need sustenance to get through whatever comes next. Am I right?”
I hesitate. Then I shrug my shoulders.
“So,” Coop says, “what’s the deal here?”
I tell him I’m not sure where to start. Coop, ever the rational scientist, suggests that I begin at the beginning.
And I do.
He listens intently as I describe Bailey seeming upset and then losing her cool during a phone conversation with her mother. That impresses him, same as it did me. He’s known her for a long time, well enough to find it difficult to imagine her going all emotional.
I explain what the phone call was about. The wedding Saturday in upstate New York. The big family gathering. The pressure from her mom. The pressure from her cousin. The cousin as a lifelong pain in the ass.
The burgers arrive.
We bite into them. They’re good—the place has always had great bar food—but my story holds Cooper’s attention. I can see him hating Violet and sharing my distress at Bailey’s unhappiness.
Then I pause.
“So,” I finally say, “I came up with a solution.”
Coop chomps down on a french fry. “Damn right, you did.” Another chomp. “You offered to play the part of boyfriend and go to the wedding with her.”
My jaw would drop, but that wouldn’t go over too well considering that I have a mouthful of hamburger.
“How’d you know?”
Coop gives me a pitying look. “How’d I know? I know because, all indications to the contrary, buried deep within that frosty exterior you have a kind heart.”
“I do not have a frosty exterior.”
“Okay. Maybe not.” He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I know because it’s exactly what I would have done in your shoes.”
I am amazed how relieved his words make me feel. “Yeah?”
“I mean, what the fuck, it’s only one day. Drive up, drive back, put in ten, twelve hours being there for your PA who’s been there for you for years—What?”
“It’s not one day. It’s Friday evening through Sunday morning.”
“Oh. Well, that’s still doable. I mean, all you give up is one weekend. And you’ll be doing a good thing. You gonna eat those fries?”
I wave away the fries. My appetite’s gone, maybe because I still haven’t told Coop all of it.
“The thing is, it’s turning out to be a little more complicated than I’d figured.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, Bailey pointed out that we’d be under family scrutiny. That she knew a lot about me, but I didn’t know a lot about her.” I pause. “See, I’m not supposed to be just her date. I’m supposed to be, ah, to be, you know, the dude she’s seeing.”
“The dude who’s fucking her.”
I can feel my jaw tighten. “That she’s involved with. Yeah.”
Coop swipes a fry through a mound of ketchup. “So, what’s the problem? The two of you have a couple of conversations—what she likes to do on weekends, favorite music, movie, all that shit—and you’re fine.”
“We did that. Talked about that stuff, I mean.”
“And?”
“And, we talked at her place. So we could get comfortable with each other.”
“Great idea.”
“Yeah.” I pause. “Then I realized it wasn’t enough.”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t enough?”
“Well, being in her apartment is one thing. Being around other people…Different.”
“You took her out?”
“Yes. For dinner.”
He nods. “How’d that go?”
“Fine.” Our eyes meet. I look down and busy myself making wet circles on the wooden table top with my beer mug. I think of that kiss. In the doorway between my kitchen and my garage. And I clear my throat. “It went really well.”
“Uh huh.”
Is there a question in that uh huh? If there is, I decide to ignore it. For the time being, anyway.
“Then I realized she needed things.”
“Things?”
“Clothes. For the weekend. Did you ever notice what she wears?”
“Nope. Not really.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the point. She doesn’t wear anything anybody would notice. Nothing that, you know, makes you realize that she’s…”
“A girl?”
“A woman.”
“Got it.” He grins. “You’re really into this thing, dude. I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Hey, why so glum? So you’re gonna buy her some new clothes and it’ll turn out that she’s attractive. Right?”
“I already bough the clothes. And she isn’t attractive, she’s beautiful.”
And Cooper, my buddy, my pal, my man-of-science, my beacon-of-truth looks across the table at me, his grin gone, and says, “Shit.”
There’s no answer to that. I take a pull on my beer instead.
“Have you fucked her?”
It’s a simple question, simply stated. I’ve certainly thought about fucking Bailey. Hell, it’s pretty much all I’ve thought about. So how come Cooper asking the question, phrasing it with the F-word, makes me bristle? Because, goddammit, I am definitely bristling, and if I was never positive what bristling meant before, I sure as hell know now.
Forget the tight jaw of a few minutes ago. Now, every muscle in my body knots. Worse, the desire to grab Coop by his My Nobel Prize is Waiting T-shirt and drag him across the table is so powerful I have to clench my fists to keep from doing it.
“Answer the question, dude. Have you nailed her?”
“No. And stop asking.”
“But you want to.”
I glare at him. Slap my hands on the table and start to rise to my feet.
“This was a mistake,” I say. “I don’t even know why we’re having this discussion.”
“We’re having it because you are messed up. Because you need advice. Because you are a man standing on the edge of a cliff. Okay?”
“Listen, Holloway…” I snap my mouth shut and fall back into the seat. “Okay,” I mutter. “I am messed up. And, goddammit, I don’t even know how it happened.”
Coop shrugs. “My Fair Lady.”
“What?”
“The play. Or maybe it was a musical. Guy sees girl, sees possibilities, sees a challenge. A makeover, start to finish.”
“No. This had nothing to do with possibilities or challenges or makeovers. We
ll, yes to the makeover part—but only because I wanted to help.” I sit back and shake my head. “How was I supposed to know the woman hidden inside Bailey would turn out to be so—so—”
“Fuckable.” Coop leans in. “And do not, do not tell me that isn’t what this is all about, because we both know that it is. You want to take her to bed and screw her brains out, and you know that’s out of the question.”
“Of course it’s out of the question.” I look at him. “It is out of the question, isn’t it?”
“Damn right.” Coop checks the room, catches the barmaid’s eye and signals for two more beers. “First rule of the road. You don’t get involved with women who work for you. It ruins the dynamic. One minute, you’re the dude giving orders. The next, you’re the dude giving orgasms. No way that can work out, especially once you break up. And, trust me, my man, you will break up.”
That, at least, I can agree with. “I know that. I mean, I’m not talking about forever here. I’m just talking about—”
“About fucking. Say the word. Don’t give it some deep, sacred meaning just because you’re thinking about doing it with a babe you already know as a person.”
I smile, and it feels good. “Did you ever consider giving up biomed, or whatever it is you do in that mad scientist’s lab of yours, so you could go into psych instead?”
“Hey, did we not spend three weeks in Nepal together? Okay, it was a dozen years ago, but I remember that stuff. Mindfulness. Joyfulness. What it means. How to see the truth within yourself.”
“And?”
“And, look at your truth, man. Do you generally know the women you sleep with as people?”
“Yes. Of course I do. Jesus, Coop, you make me sound like some creep who travels from bed to bed.”
“Dude,” Coop says in the patient tones of a father explaining the birds and bees to his seven-year-old son, “of course you know things about them. But nothing in depth. It’s all sex. It’s strictly fun.” He pauses. “And here’s just a wild guess. Bailey doesn’t fit into that it’s strictly fun category. Right?”
I sigh. Everything I know about Bailey assures me that he’s not just right, he’s one hundred percent right.
“On top of which,” he adds, “as we have already established, she’s not just your employee, she’s the one who keeps the wheels from falling off so you can spend your time building houses in the trees.”
“I do not build—”
“Bottom line, O’Malley. You’ll get her into your bed. You’ll have fun. She’ll attach a lot more to it than you will. You’ll hurt her as a woman, and lose her as an assistant. Still sound good?”
No. It sounds like crap. He’s right, and I know it.
The barmaid brings our beers, takes away what’s left of our burgers and replaces them with a bowl of popcorn. Yeah, the popcorn should have arrived long before the burgers, but that’s one of the things about The Attic. The place doesn’t have hard and fast rules, which is good because you need to escape the rules once in while, especially when life is so goddamn full of them.
Like the rule about not sleeping with a woman who works for you. Or the one about not sleeping with a woman who’s never in her life had a relationship with a man and is absolutely sure to put more meaning on the act of sex than you will.
“Shit,” I say.
Coop flashes me a smug look. “Anybody ever tell you you have a way with words?”
I nod. Then I look at him.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Glad to be of help.”
“Yeah. I owe you.”
“Yup. You do. And you’ll still be on the hook even though I’m gonna let you pay for this meal.”
He smiles. I smile. I look at the check, take out my wallet, put a couple of twenties on the table and add an outrageously large tip.
Coop and I head out of the bar. Night has fallen. The weather is cool and crisp, and that’s the same way I feel. Cool, crisp, and in control.
We pause on the sidewalk.
“Dude,” I start to say, “seriously—”
Coop grabs me in a bear hug. I return it.
“Brothers forever,” he says gruffly.
“Forever,” I repeat.
Because that’s how we feel about each other, and I cannot imagine using that particular F-word any other way.
13
And now it’s tomorrow.
The day dawns gray and cool. Typical early fall weather or a hint of things to come? I’m not into superstition so I tell myself it can’t be the latter as I pull up in front of Bailey’s apartment building, but I have to admit I’m, well, not nervous. Not exactly. Wary, is a better way to describe it.
No way I’m going to let Bailey know it.
It’s twelve noon on the nose, and she is waiting for me at the curb. She’s wearing her new jeans, the new white T and the white—what are they called? Mules. The apricot jacket is slung over her arm. The outfit is casual and she looks…spectacular, is the only word that works.
She’s even left her hair loose.
Yes. She looks spectacular indeed. Good enough to eat…and that isn’t a phrase that should be in my head.
She also looks terrified. Uh oh. Not terrified. Grim. Determined. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happened.
Well, fuck. We’re going to have to change that.
I smile as I get out of the ’Vette. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she says. No answering smile.
I reach for her suitcase. So does she. We both grab the handle and fight for possession. Enough.
“Bailey?”
“Yes?”
“Let go.”
“Mr. O’Malley. I’ve been thinking…”
I let go of the handle, straighten up, fold my arms over my chest and give her what I hope is a stern look.
“What did you call me?”
She swallows hard. “Matthew. What I mean is…”
“What you mean is, you’ve thought things over and this isn’t going to work.”
She heaves a sigh of relief. “Exactly.”
“Because you won’t be able to pull it off. Or I won’t be able to pull it off. Or Verifiably Vile Vi is so smart she’ll see right through us.”
“She knows me. Everybody in my family knows me. And—”
“They think they know you, but I’m the man who actually does. I know the real Bailey. The one who’s been standing by and waiting to greet the world all these years.”
She sighs. “If only that were true.”
“It is true.”
“Have you forgotten the old saying? Clothes don’t make the man. Well, the woman. I’m still me inside.”
“Yes. You are. And that’s a damn good thing, because you are and always have been a smart, strong, proud, brave, altogether remarkable woman. The only change is that you’re no longer hiding any of who you are from the world.”
“That’s a fine pep talk. But—”
“It’s the truth. You’re all those things.” I put my hand under her chin and gently urge her to lift her face and meet my gaze. “You’re also beautiful.”
“It’s the clothes.”
“I thought we just agreed that clothes don’t make the woman. Trust me. You are beautiful.”
Her eyes glitter. Her lips curve in a smile. “I’d settle for pretty.”
“Never settle,” I say and then, only because it’s the right thing to do, I lower my head and kiss her mouth, and hell, even if it’s the wrong thing to do, I’m happy I did it.
* * *
I have a GPS but my ever-efficient PA has Googled directions and printed them out. It’s a great plan. I’d rather listen to Bailey than the robotic voice of my GPS.
We make surprisingly good time once we get out of Manhattan and across the George Washington Bridge. We take the Palisades Parkway for a few miles. I know it from a couple of ski trips. It’s a handsome road that cuts through the trees.. Bailey, it turns out, has never gone this way before. She always takes the
train when she goes home to visit.
“If I’d known how nice this road is,” she says, “I’d have driven. Maybe that’s what I’ll do next time.”
“Or we could drive it for a while some Sunday. There are lots of little towns just off this parkway. I bet they have some pretty nice restaurants.”
I hear myself say this as if planning a future weekend together is a natural thing to do. I tell myself I’m simply getting into the role I’m about to play, but when I glance over at Bailey, she’s doing that teeth-sinking-into-her-tender-bottom-lip routine.
My gut clenches.
The hell it does. Just that fast, what clenches is my dick, except dicks don’t clench. What they do is get hard. And harder…
I shift my weight.
I look at Bailey again. She’s looking at me and there’s a sudden sweep of pink in her face. Has she noticed the little tent that’s formed in my lap?
“So,” she says brightly, “did you ever wonder about that?”
Crap! “Look, I apologize. I mean, it isn’t deliberate—”
“Why they call some roads parkways and others highways? Or expressways. Like the Long Island Expressway. And then in California they’re freeways. Isn’t that right? Whenever I read a book set there, like those Elvis Cole novels by, what’s his name, Robert Crais, he’s always talking about freeways…”
She’s babbling, but I am grateful for the change in subject. Not only is it a diversion, it’s interesting. Turns out we both like the same authors and when one word leads to another, I end up admitting I tried reading War and Peace back in college and never managed to finish it.
“It just seemed dead to me,” I tell her, and she assures me it was that way for her too until she reached this one particular chapter, and—
And, I’m getting to know more and more about my pretend-girlfriend.
And, dammit, I like what I’m getting to know.
So much so that after a while, in the middle of an exchange about which is the better band, the ancient The Who or the equally ancient Rolling Stones, I reach for her hand, thread my fingers through hers and we clasp the gear shifter together.
Wrong move, the voice in my head says.
The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy Page 13