I make a face. “It’s not really my thing.”
“Supercool rich-people parties aren’t your thing?”
“Maybe when I was nineteen and didn’t know any better. They’re not fun. Just a bunch of boring old people sipping on heavy wine. I’ll pass.”
“You can’t pass.”
“Bring someone else.”
“I don’t have anyone else. I don’t have time for friends, remember? Only you. And even that is purely because we’re forced into proximity.” She puts the box down. “Mark will be there.”
“I thought Mark was in Seattle?”
“He’s coming back for the party,” she says as understanding dawns. “And this is the perfect opportunity for me. I can show up and look stunning and—”
“Take off your glasses and flick your hair?”
“Please Sarah. You’re better at this stuff than I am. I need you to be there. I need you to help me.”
I can’t deal when she looks at me with those round, soulful eyes. She’s better at flirting than she thinks she is. “When is it?” I sigh.
“Not for weeks. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.”
“Fine.” I’m already worried about what the hell I’m going to wear. “Of course, I’ll go if you want me to.”
“It won’t be that bad. You’ll see. You can find a rich hookup.”
“Yay,” I say, my voice flat but she looks relieved enough that I don’t try and get out of it again.
We’ve finished the crackers. I should go back to bed, but I don’t move, wrapping my arms around me despite the warmth of the apartment. “Do you want to bring me to your fancy gym tomorrow?”
That gets her attention. “For real?”
“I’m not going to go if you’re going to make a big thing about it.”
“It’s not a big thing. It’s just unexpected. Is this the new you?”
“Maybe,” I mutter, going back to my room to sign more petitions or read about black holes or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when you can’t sleep.
“I give it one week,” she calls after me.
I doubt I’ll last one minute.
“Amanda’s gone.”
I look up at Will’s whisper to see him drawing a finger across his throat.
Oh my God. Amanda? Three desks down, parakeet-owning Amanda? “She’s dead?”
“What? No.” Will looks bewildered. “Harvey let her go.”
I stare at him in horror. “That’s the sign for someone dying!”
“Not in an office environment. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean Harvey let her go?”
“Her and Chris. Happened last week. She’s started telling people.”
“Chris too?”
“We’re definitely not getting bonuses this year.”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“I’m sorry, do you not want your bonus?”
We both shut up as Amanda walks past and I feel a shot of fear. She started only a few months after I did. Will sends me a pointed glance but I ignore him, opening my inbox to see Annie’s emailed a bunch of photographs from the wedding.
I look so beautiful! She writes in the accompanying message. Remember we’re back in New York on the seventeenth. Can’t wait to see you.
Back.
But not for good.
They’re coming over for a few weeks before Paul transfers officially to the Dublin office. A few weeks of Annie in the city and then she’ll be gone.
I click through the photos, still distracted by the Amanda news. The first shots are of the hotel, looking as elegant as can be in the rare Irish sunshine. It’s hard to believe I was there only a few short weeks ago.
I linger on one of the group pictures we took after the ceremony. She included all the outtakes and there’s a lot of dress arranging, fly-swatting and squinting at the sun.
Short of holding my hand over the screen I can’t do anything to avoid seeing him.
Declan smiles at the camera, charming and handsome, and ugh. There’s a few of just the two of us, his hand politely around my waist, almost hovering. Do I imagine the rigid set of my shoulders? The frozenness of my smile? I lean toward the screen, trying to read between the pixels.
Will coughs and I look up to see Harvey approaching. I quickly close down the tabs and spend the rest of the day trying to do my work. Harvey’s loose with hours. If the work gets done, people can leave and they usually do. Especially in the summer. But I stay until the bitter end, trying to make a good impression. Will leaves at five fifteen with barely a goodbye. Harvey passes at six twenty with a knowing look in my direction and a tap at his watch.
I pretend I’m on the phone in the classic “I’m very busy and important” move.
But the floor empties once he’s gone. I spend another twenty minutes clicking blindly through my emails, watching everyone go until, finally, I allow myself to leave too.
I pack up quickly, rearrange a few of Will’s things to annoy him and get into the elevator, humming to myself.
I thought the office was empty, so I jump when I hear a faint shout before a hand reaches through the closing doors. Matthias pushes them back open with an apologetic look and gets in.
He has a folder of blueprints under his arm. I resist the urge to look at them.
“Hot out there,” he says by way of greeting.
I smile automatically. “I feel like I’m going to melt. I don’t know how you guys do without shorts.”
“The alternative is much worse,” he jokes. “No one wants to see these legs. Trust me.”
I think about how the new receptionist ogled him all week. I wouldn’t be too sure of that.
I take out my phone, pretending to get a text message so I don’t ask him about the Grayson project like I want to. It still hurts that Harvey took it off me. That work was supposed to take up my life for the next year. Without it, it’s like I’m scrambling around, trying to find things to fill my time, to prove myself.
And while I’m not one to hold a grudge, it’s not like Matthias and I were best friends to begin with, so I’m little surprised that he keeps pace with me when we hit the lobby despite my friendly nod goodbye.
Outside my skin starts to prickle with the heat, despite the evening hour. In about a minute boob sweat will be a real problem.
“Have a good evening,” I say, rooting in my bag for my headphones.
“Are you doing anything nice?”
“Tonight?” I glance down at my crumpled summer dress. The last of my makeup melted into my face about three hours ago. “I think I’m going to lie on my bed and catch up with my AC. What about you?”
“I’m meeting some friends at The Greenery later.”
“Oh. Cool. I’ve been meaning to check that place out.”
“Yeah? You can join us if you like.”
“At The Greenery?”
“Sure. I’m not meeting them until later. We could grab a drink beforehand.”
“Tonight?”
He nods. I’m confused. And I hate being confused. Is he just being polite? Does he want me to meet his friends? Did he invite anyone else from the office? All these thoughts do not go through my head quickly and Matthias pushes on through my silence as I just stare at him.
“Not that you’d have to stick around,” he says. “We could just get a drink.”
A drink. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“No,” he says instantly. “We work together. That wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Right.”
He smiles at me and he looks almost… Is he flirting with me?
“Right,” I say again.
Matthias? I’m surprised. Pleased but surprised. He’s one of the last remaining single guys in the firm who isn’t a complete creep. I mean, of course, I’ve thought about what he’d be like in bed. No doubt half the office has. But that’s where I thought he’d remain. In my mind. Not here on a hot summer’s day. Not asking me o
ut on a non-date.
“I better not,” I say, secretly thrilled when I catch a flicker of disappointment in his face. “I have to get up early to go to the gym. I promise you that’s not a fake excuse,” I add. “Even though it sounds like one.”
“Another time?”
“Sure,” I say, though it comes out more like a question. The little flutter of excitement inside surprises me. Especially as it only grows when he smiles.
“Enjoy the AC,” he says and parts with a small wave as he heads across the street.
I stare after him, wishing someone else were here to witness this.
Matthias Scott just asked me out on a date. Or, to look at it another way, I just turned down Matthias Scott for a date.
Will is going to freak.
14
I shiver as a hand slides up my thigh, pausing briefly to squeeze my hip before continuing its journey along my arm, gentle and teasing. Infuriating. I squirm beneath him, trying to increase the pressure, to show him what I want, but he just laughs, a low, knowing chuckle that only intensifies the ache inside as he holds himself above me, just out of reach.
“Sarah.”
I want to touch him. But I can’t. My hands are heavy, weighted to the mattress like the rest of me. I know if I could just turn my head, I could kiss him, I could tell him to cut the crap before I lose it completely.
I try to speak, try to make a sound, but it’s like I’m underwater. And when I open my mouth only a soft, pining noise comes from me, almost a mewl as I—
“Sarah.”
I wake with a gasp as my alarm trills. The soothing sound of chirping birds turns not so soothing as they get louder and louder in my ear, threatening to screech unless I turn them off. But I don’t move. I can’t move. I can’t yet separate my dream world from reality, can’t fully grasp that the sheets beside me are cool and empty and not warm and full of a hard body that…
Oh my God.
I reach blindly for my phone, shutting off the damn birds, and scramble into a sitting position. My sheets are kicked to the bottom of the bed, tangled around my feet and there’s a small patch of drool on my pillow. I stare at it in distaste. I’m not usually a drooler. Then again, I’m not usually a dreamer either.
So what the hell was that?
“This is me making sure you’re up,” Claire calls, knocking on my door. “You up?” She sticks her head inside when I don’t answer and frowns at the sight of me still in bed. “We’re going for a run.”
“Just give me a minute.” I clear my throat as my voice comes out in a rasp.
Her eyes narrow. “Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“You look like you woke up in someone else’s body.”
Or with someone else’s body.
“Huh?”
I refocus on her, too confused to be embarrassed. “Did I say that out loud?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I’ve been asking myself that for weeks. “I think I just had a sex dream.”
Her mouth drops open as she steps inside, our gym plan instantly forgotten. “Shut up. I never have dirty dreams. Was it about the guy downstairs? The one with the dog?”
“I don’t even know who that is.”
“I had a dream about Mark once, but it was just him telling me what a good job I was doing and then he bought me a goldfish. Who was yours?”
“No one,” I lie, rubbing the sleep from my eye. “Just a guy.”
“Did you…” Claire trails off, her voice dropping even though it’s just the two of us. “You know.”
“No,” I say firmly.
“You look a little flustered is all.”
I clap my hands to my cheeks, feeling the tell-tale flush as I glare at her, but Claire doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’m so jealous.”
I slide self-consciously back down the bed. “We’re finished talking now.”
“And this is the perfect time for a run.”
“Leave please.”
“You can blow off all that steam.”
My pillow hits the door as she skips out of the room.
A sex dream.
I mean it’s not like I’ve never had one, but it’s been a while and they’ve never been so vivid before. So… lifelike.
He’d been wearing his tuxedo. Do I have a tuxedo thing now?
I close my eyes and throw out my hand, hitting the mattress in what is an extremely disorientating experience.
Disorientating because I can still feel Declan beside me.
Can still feel him in other places too.
Not that that’s not easy to explain. I have needs after all. I’m young and alive and he’s…
Flashes of the dream overlap with memories of our last night together until I can’t separate one from the other.
It was better in the dream. He didn’t talk so much there. Didn’t make me want to kick him in the shins like I usually feel like doing when I’m around him. And when he did talk it was in my ear and on my skin, a muffled rasp that I…
I suck in a breath, stretching my fingers as though reaching for him.
“Get up!” Claire yells and I sit up so fast the room spins.
Later that day, I stand in line at the deli waiting impatiently for the man in front of me to make up his mind about his damn sandwich order.
“It was amazing, Sarah,” Annie says in my ear. “I felt like I could have stayed there forever. I almost…” She trails off with a yawn. Her third in the last minute.
“Do you want to hang up?”
“No,” she says. “Just allow me some long pauses and muddled words.”
“So you’re still glad you married him?” I ask as the man deliberates over pastrami. “Sounds like you haven’t killed each other yet.”
“It’s so stupid,” she says quietly. “I know it’s just a contract. But the staff at the hotel kept calling me Mrs. Murphy and I would catch myself looking at him and all I could keep thinking was that’s my husband, that’s my husband.”
“There’s a reason they call it the honeymoon period.”
“I know it won’t last. I don’t want it to. It would be exhausting. But it’s nice. Even with the humidity and the bugs and the food poisoning. It’s perfect.”
“That’s good,” I murmur as the guy finally settles on tuna on rye. It takes a second for Annie’s words to register. “Wait. What food poisoning?”
I order a bagel with cream cheese as Annie starts to tell me about some dubious-looking prawns Paul ate the first night and I’m caught between pity and laughing when my phone buzzes with a second call.
“Hold on,” I say, digging it out from my pocket. “Someone’s on the other line.” I check the caller ID and stop in surprise. “It’s my dad,” I say, immediately worried. The last time he called it was because my grandma was in the hospital. “I should take it.”
“Of course. I’ll let you know my flight details. Say hi to your dad for me.”
“I will. Say hi to Paul. And tell him he’s an idiot.”
We hang up and I switch the call over. It buffers for a few seconds as the video loads and then my dad’s face fills the screen. Or half of it anyway.
“Sarah?” His voice booms down the other end of the line. “Are you there? Hello?”
“I’m here. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He sounds surprised I asked. “I got a new phone. I wanted to show you.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I can only see your forehead. Tilt your… there… perfect.”
“Are you outside?” I can see his face now, more lined than I remember as he frowns at me. “Can everyone hear me?”
I point to my earphones as I shoulder open the door to the deli, stepping back into the sunshine. “Just me. It’s like magic, right?”
“Very funny.”
I lean against the wall as he moves into the kitchen. “Is that a new table too?” I ask, takin
g a bite of my food.
“No. Maybe a new tablecloth.”
“It’s nice.”
Conversations with my dad are always like this. At least when we’re camping, we can pretend we’re being silent for the sake of nature. Neither of us knows how to talk to the other and we usually have to go through several minutes of stilted chitchat before we either hang up or get to the real reason the other is calling. Last time he spent ten minutes describing his new power washer before he told me about Grandma.
“Where’d you get the phone?” I ask.
“From the team. An early retirement gift.”
“They must really like you.”
“Or happy to see me go,” he grumbles and I laugh even as I feel a tinge of worry. Dad’s retiring in a few months. He decided it on a whim last year, saying he’d have more time to himself. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t think he needed any more time to himself. He isn’t a man with hobbies. At least none that he’s told me about, and besides a few close family and friends, he’s more or less kept to himself since Mom left.
“I was just talking to Annie,” I say, trying to distract myself. “She says hi.”
“Back from her honeymoon?”
“Thailand. They’re coming over for a few weeks for Paul’s work.”
“And then to Ireland?”
I nod, forcing a smile and he sighs.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I know you’ll miss her.”
“It’s cool,” I say lightly. “I have more than one friend. I’m actually on my way to meet Soraya now. You met her the last time you visited, remember? She said she liked your beard and you had to leave the room because you couldn’t stop blushing?”
“I remember,” he mutters. “And besides your friends? Are you seeing anyone?”
I try not to sigh.
It’s a question he’s asked me numerous times over the years, sometimes hopeful, sometimes resigned, but always asked. Because while Dad has never trusted anyone enough to start dating again, he doesn’t want the same life for me.
“I don’t want you to be alone because you’re scared,” he’d said to me once when he was feeling particularly dramatic. “If that’s your choice and you’re happy then that’s fine. But just because things ended badly between your mom and me, doesn’t mean it’s going to end the same way for you. Relationships are important.”
One Night Only: An absolutely hilarious and uplifting romantic comedy Page 12