by Ella Sparkle
I knew a portion of each of those commission checks was going into an account Cassie had started to open her own agency. She opened that account with her very first commission check, and I was pretty sure I was the only other person that knew about it.
Cassie looked at me over the top of her champagne glass with a smirk. I laughed. “I'll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Jenna. I really appreciate you taking one for the team and keeping your hotter-than-sin lover happy. I'm sure that it is really difficult to wake up with that rock-hard, tattooed body in the morning after a night of screaming his name.” Cassie rolled her eyes as I blushed.
“Cassie!” I hissed at her as our waitress came to the table to take our order.
“Alright! Alright! I'll quit talking about Mr. Hotness.” She turned to our waitress. “I will have the strawberry waffles, please. Oh, and another mimosa.”
“You got it,” our waitress said as she wrote it down on her notepad and turned to me. “For you?”
“I'll have the same please.” I was still a little flustered and wondering how much of the conversation our waitress had overheard.
“No problem.” The waitress picked up our menus. “I'll get that in for you. Congratulations on snagging Mr. Hotness. He sounds like quite the catch.” She winked at me and I think I turned a thousand shades of red. Cassie roared with laughter.
As the waitress walked away I tried to compose myself. “So what else is going on with you, Cassie?” I asked, taking a big drink of my water and attempting to change the subject.
“Not much else...” Cassie was looking somewhere over my shoulder and refused to make eye contact.
Now it was my turn to lean forward across the table. “Let me rephrase that. What is going on with you that you are trying to keep a secret?”
Cassie gulped down the rest of her mimosa. “Alright! You are relentless! I have been hanging out with a guy. He is really different from anyone else I have ever gone out with. I think I am starting to like it. And maybe starting to like him.”
“Oh my God! Cassie! This is fantastic!” I shrieked. “Who is it? Anyone I know?”
“Yes,” Cassie said quickly.
“Well, don't leave me hanging here! Who is it?”
Cassie paused for a few minutes. It was all very unlike her. The guy must have really meant something to her for her to be acting like that. “Mike,” she said suddenly.
I was completely surprised. “Like Mike that I work with at the pizza shop?” Suddenly, I remembered the conversation with Kimmy in the kitchen about Mike and Cassie and everything started to make sense.
“Yes, that Mike. We've gone on a few dates now. Are you happy? You got it out of me.” Cassie fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. I wasn’t sure if she was actually uncomfortable with the conversation or just being overly dramatic in her very Cassie way, it was very unlike her to be so reluctant talking about someone she was dating.
“I am super happy for you, Cass. I'm not going to lie, I am really surprised. You two are just such opposites. I never pictured you hooking up with Mike or someone like Mike.” I looked at the soft smile that came across Cassie’s face when I said his name and had to hold in my surprise.
“No, you are right about the opposite part. We are. I think there are times when I can be a little overwhelming and intimidating to him. Then, there are times when I'm weirded out by how quiet and genuinely nice he can be.” Cassie paused and shrugged her shoulders. “Somehow it all just works.”
“That's good, right?”
Cassie quickly nodded her head. “It is. You are also wrong about part of it.” Cassie looked around and leaned forward like she was telling me a great secret. “There has been no hooking up. Nothing more than a goodnight kiss so far,” she whispered to me, her eyes wide.
My eyes got big and my mouth may have dropped open a little. “Seriously? Now I'm totally shocked! I love you, babe, but you're the one that calls guys ‘clingy’ if they ask to see you again after a hook-up, and you have refused to see any guy past two dates for years.” I was struggling to adjust to this side of Cassie, not that it was bad, it was just so different!
“I know,” Cassie whispered. “I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around this too. I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.”
I shook my head, still in disbelief over the whole situation. Cassie had her heart trampled on a few years earlier and since then had been very strict about her dating s. The fact that she had thrown all of them out the window for Mike was huge. “How did this all start?” I asked, leaning forward across the table, eager for the story.
I made myself comfortable as I prepared to hear about the beginning of Mike and Cassie. Judging by the smile on Cassie’s face, it was going to be quite the story.
Chapter 31
Jenna
Cassie took a deep breath before she began. “Well, since you started working at Pete’s I have developed a deep appreciation for how good the pizza is there. I’ve gone in a few times for the lunch special. Anyway, I stopped in after the night at the club and Mike was at the register. I tried talking to him and he could barely put two words together. He even knocked a soda all over the counter.”
“Kimmy may have mentioned the soda spilling conversation to me,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah. So after that whole thing, I thought the guy was a total klutz. But then I remembered how different he was when we sat in my driveway and talked for so long the night he gave me a ride home from the club.”
The waitress appeared with our brunch. After she set the plates down in front of us, I looked at Cassie, “Keep going,” I prodded. Man! This was so strange, she was usually so forthcoming – she must really like Mike!
“So I went back a few days later. Only that time he saw me walk in and ran to the back. He wouldn’t come out. Steven ended up helping me.” Cassie took a big bite of her waffle. “Holy fuck-on-a-stick this thing is good!” She exclaimed, a rapturous expression coming across her face.
“What does that even mean? You know what, never mind. Back to the story... how did you guys actually end up on a date?” I put a bite of waffle in my mouth and moaned. Cassie wasn’t kidding about how good they were. “This is so good. The waffle and the story. Keep going,” I prompted, through a mouthful of deliciousness.
“Right. Well, I was starting to lose my patience with the whole situation. I mean you're either in or you are out, right? Make a decision and stick to it.” Cassie took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “These waffles are really fucking good. What do you suppose is in them that makes them taste so good? Magic? Unicorn tears?”
I ignored Cassie’s weird waffle ramblings. I wanted to stick with the story about Mike. “I still don’t see how you guys ended up on a date,” I said, refocusing the conversation.
“I went a third time. Mike saw me come in and tried to dodge into the back again, only I shouted at him to stop.”
I paused with my bite of waffle in mid-air. “You did not!” I gasped. I was both impressed and a little horrified that she was yelling at Mike in the middle of Pete’s Pizza.
Cassie laughed. “Totally did. I make no apologies for it. He froze and so I went behind the counter to talk to him. He was too far away and I wasn't going to keep shouting.”
Now it was my turn to laugh as I pictured the whole scene in my head. “No way! What did Mike say?”
“He didn't say anything. I went up to him and said, ‘Do you want to take me out to dinner tomorrow night?’ He nodded his head then I said, ‘Good answer. Pick me up at seven and I will tell you then where I have decided we are going.”
“This just keeps getting better and better!” I was talking with my mouth full but did not care about manners at all by that point. I was so completely engrossed in Cassie’s story.
“Well, he just nodded his head again, so I patted him on the chest and said, ‘See you tomorrow night and don’t be late.’ Then I walked out of the restaurant. Mike showed up at my place the next night at seven o’clock
on the dot and I told him he was taking me out for Mexican food. So that's what we did.” Cassie took a big bite of waffle and smiled at me.
“I think you're my new hero,” I said, leaning back and smiling at her.
“You mean I haven’t been all this time?” She said in a voice of false hurt.
I held my hands up and laughed. “I stand corrected. You have been, this just reaffirms why you are.”
“That's better. So yeah. There you go. We've been on a few more dates since then. He's really nice and it feels really good when I'm with him.” Cassie had a big smile on her face as she took another sip of her mimosa.
I was stunned yet again. “I can’t believe you just called a guy ‘nice’ and meant it as a compliment and not an insult. I also can’t believe you've been on more than two dates with him and still want to see him. Is this a new record?”
“I know right?” Cassie laughed. “So now that you are up to speed on me, start dishing about you and Nick.”
I swallowed the bite in my mouth before proceeding. “Things are really good. Being with him is just easy and fun. I feel like I'm a better version of myself when I'm around Nick. Saying yes seems to come naturally when I am with him.”
“I'm so happy for you! This is the kind of romance you deserve to have. What's the plan for when you leave for law school?” Cassie looked at me expectantly and I squirmed in my seat. I'd known the topic was going to come up and I knew I did not want to talk about it. I hesitated on answering, hoping Cassie would change the subject. I should have known she wouldn’t. “Jenna, please tell me you have been talking about law school with him and not just ignoring it. The start of school is right around the corner and this is not just something that will magically fix itself.” She had a concerned tone in her voice, I knew she meant well but things had been so great, it was hard to worry about the future when I was with Nick.
I let out a big sigh. “I know. It is just that things are so good and I don’t want to ruin anything. For a while, part of me hoped he could maybe come with me, but I see now, with his company here, that is just not possible. Plus, he has a few huge development deals in the works that will likely keep him super busy if they go through.”
“You have got to talk to him, Jenna. You guys either need to commit and figure out how you're going to make this work or end it before you go.”
I pushed my plate away. The conversation had my stomach churning and I wasn't hungry anymore. “I know you're right. It's just hard. There are lots of feelings mixed up in everything now, for the both of us. I didn’t anticipate I was going to feel so much for him. This was just supposed to be a short term fling, but I don’t want it to end when I go to law school... I just don’t know if that will work, with the distance and the time studying will take up. Plus his work schedule. It's a lot to think about,” I said, finally giving voice to the thoughts that had been chasing themselves around my mind the last few weeks.
“All the more reason to start this conversation now and figure out where things stand.” Cassie's voice was soft and full of concern.
“I will,” I sighed. “I'm just scared. What if I'm good enough to be with him now, but not good enough to try and work things out when I am gone? Cassie, I think I am really starting to fall for him.”
“Oh, honey.” Cassie reached across the table and put her hand over mine. “You are good enough. It is other people that act like shit. Have you given any more thought to setting up a session with a therapist?”
“Not really,” I answered honestly.
“You have been through a hell of a lot over the past year, and the therapist I see is really great. I started seeing her when I needed some help and I would not be this amazing ball of sass and hotness you see here if I had not gone. You could try to see her, or I'm sure she'd give you a referral to another therapist.”
“I'll think about it.” I knew Cassie’s therapist had helped her tremendously, I just didn’t know if I was ready for something like it.
As the waitress came to leave our check and clear our plates, I realized my stomach was all twisted up in knots. What if Nick did not want to be with me when I left for school? There were so many unanswered questions. There was only one thing I did know for sure... I was in too deep to walk away without a broken heart.
Chapter 32
Nick
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to take a few deep breaths. I was completely overwhelmed and I didn’t like the way it felt. I had submitted proposals for three new projects and all three of them were big. One was for a new, multi-year, multi-million dollar subdivision project; the other was for a new, smaller residential area that was made up of large upscale houses; and the last one was a commercial property, which would be a whole new venture for Blaine Construction, a totally new challenge.
True to his word, Bax helped me do the interviews for an assistant. There were a bunch of applications but none of the candidates really clicked. Out of necessity more than anything, I made an offer to a woman named Janet. She was very experienced, but had a rather blunt demeanor. Janet had been working for me for a few weeks, and there was no way I could have gotten all three proposals done and in on time if it hadn’t been for her managing all the day-to-day matters, so that was good. It was helpful to have the mundane tasks off of my plate and taken care of by someone else, but there was still a lot of work to do. There always was.
If I was being honest with myself, part of the reason I was feeling so overwhelmed was because of Jenna. I hadn’t been attracted to anyone for a long time, but there was the crazy and intense pull I'd felt for her since the very first moment I laid eyes on her. Looking back on it, I was completely fooling myself that night at the bluff when we kissed for the first time, thinking I could just end it when she left without any problems. Even then, I knew I was falling for her, I just wasn’t willing to acknowledge it.
Problem was, she was leaving and I was not a part of her plan after that. She'd had her plans already set before we even met. I wanted to be with her, but I wasn't going to be a big asshole and try and make her change her plans or goals in any way, especially just to include myself in them. I was proud of her and thought it was incredible she was going to law school, and fucking that up for her was just not an option. Especially when she hadn't given me any indication that she wanted to continue what was going on between us when she left for school. Besides, how would that even work, for either of us?
I also wasn’t ready to tell her how I really felt, for a couple of reasons. First of all, there was the whole issue of fucking with her plans; but the second reason was because, well, talking about feelings was not really something I did. In fact, just the idea of it scared the hell out of me. I had never told a woman I loved her because... well, because I hadn’t ever really experienced anything I would call love. Like, yes. Lust, yes. Compatibility, yes. But never love. The scary thing was with Jenna... well, it could be happening. Only thing was, it couldn’t. The expiration date on our time together sounded like such a good idea in the beginning, but after being with her, it sounded like the worst fucking thing imaginable.
I was sitting at my desk, pretending to look over some expense reports, but really I was thinking about Jenna. I had to knock that shit off and get my head back in the game or else Blaine Construction was going to start suffering. So far, I had managed to somehow keep everything together and still see Jenna, but the stress of it all was starting to wear on me. The irony was, the only time I didn’t feel completely stressed out was when I was with Jenna.
My cell phone started ringing and I looked down at the unfamiliar number. I had no idea who it was, but went ahead and answered. “Good Afternoon, Blaine Construction. This is Nick speaking.”
“Nick! Glad I caught you! This is Clive. Clive Henderson. I'm one of the investors for the Rickson Estates development.”
Rickson Estates was one of the jobs Blaine Construction was bidding on. It was the smaller development that was going to be primarily very expensiv
e, upscale housing. The property had been purchased by a group of investors and they were looking for someone to come in and build all of the houses at once. The timeline was tight, but they wanted everything done so when people moved into the housing, there was no ongoing construction in the neighborhood. It was that upscale.
“Clive, nice to hear from you. What can I do for you today, sir?” I put on my most professional voice.
“Well, myself and the other investors were looking over all of the proposals submitted by different construction companies. We all came to the agreement that if we are going to work with someone, we want it to be more than just numbers on a sheet of paper. Call us old-fashioned, but we want to meet the people behind the bids and know who it is we are actually working with,” he said. He was matter of fact but not intimidating, clearly an astute businessman.
“That certainly sounds reasonable. I'd be more than happy to meet with you and the other investors, when would you like to schedule this meeting?” I asked in my most professional voice, hoping I sounded calm and confident. I wanted that job for Blaine Construction. It was worth a great deal of money, and more than that, I wanted the Blaine Construction name forever attached to Rickson Estates. It was the first type of development like that in the area, and I had a feeling it wasn't going to be the last. Building Rickson Estates would put Blaine Construction in a position to be the leader and the model of future developments in the area – there was a lot riding on this deal, that was for sure.
“Well, we were on our way up to the property to take a look around and thought it would be a perfect time to meet. Do you think you could meet us there in an hour?” Clive inquired.
I looked down at my watch. It was already mid-afternoon and the property was about forty-five minutes away from my office, which meant forty-five minutes there and forty-five minutes back. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too long up at the property to do a little meet and greet with the investors.