“What? I’m just speaking the truth. We all know you have Joey pussy-whipped. No way would he even glance at another woman nowadays. He only has eyes for you,” she reassures her and gets a smile in return.
Why wait for a real emergency when I can fake one?
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I’m needed in the—”
“No way!” Teagan snaps. “We need to hear about Harvey.”
“Harvey?” I repeat dumbly, my retreat stalled before I even manage more than a step toward the exit.
“Yeah, the smoking hot, moody, model-like guy you managed to get all flustered and into you?” she elaborates, making sure there is no mistaking we are talking about the same Harvey.
And then it clicks.
I saw these women at Harvey’s Christmas office party. They work with Harvey, or at least, their partners do.
Shit, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?
Does he know they are here? Did he send them?
No, that’s not really his style.
And none of that helps me figure out what I am meant to do in this situation.
“I’ve never seen Harvey this way before,” the dark-skinned lady continues while I have my epiphany, and then a complete, silent freak out. “He was furious about what happened last night. He’s barely ever raised his voice before, and this morning he was yelling and growling left and right. It was kinda hot, actually.”
“Just because you guys kiss and tell that doesn’t mean Nix will,” the Asian lady says on a pleading sigh.
“He has to dish to us! He’s our unicorn, and we never thought we’d hear the goods on Harvey. I need to know!” the dark-skinned woman snaps.
My eyes widen as I take a step back from them.
“We’re not leaving until we know something. Do you like him? Is he good in bed? Please tell me he knows how to use his dick! I’ve seen that man’s bulge. It was impressive,” she continues, clearly not at all concerned by my deer-in-headlights look.
“I … I’ll be back in a minute.” I rush out of the bar and just a few steps down the hallway.
I want to hide away in my office, but I need to keep an eye on the bar. Not just in case anyone needs drinks, but because I’m not sure I can trust those women being so close to that much alcohol.
I pull out my phone and dial Harvey’s number, my heart racing at just the thought of speaking to him.
Things might have gotten messed up this morning, and he claimed he wants to put a halt to how things are going between us, but that doesn’t mean my body doesn’t get hot just thinking about him.
“Should I make a note of the time to start billing you now?” Harvey drawls.
At first, I don’t even understand what he is talking about, but then it clicks.
I shake my head. “Harvey, I have a situation at the restaurant.”
“What?” I can tell I have his full attention now. “What happened? Are you okay?” His concern is obvious, making me wonder if he likes me more than I realize. He doesn’t react this way to all his clients, right? Then again, I doubt he’s received a blowjob from many of them, either.
“There are four women sitting at my bar, asking me what size your penis is!” I hiss.
“What?” I can tell I have thrown him.
“They came in maybe ten minutes ago. I don’t know how to handle them. I don’t know who the fuck they’re talking about, but I think I know way too much about some dudes called Zander and Declan.”
“Oh, fuck! Four women you say?” He sounds out of breath, and in the background, I hear running footsteps then a beeping like a car lock.
“Yep, and they’re freaking me out. What do I do?”
“Hide,” he hisses, surprising me.
“What?”
“Seriously, hide.” He is barking at me now. I’m not sure how to take it.
These women are freaking me out, but they aren’t dangerous … right? I mean, they either work with him, or are dating his coworkers. They can’t be that bad, can they?
“Okay, now you’re scaring me!”
“Ava is Zander’s wife. Zander is my boss. Sasha is our receptionist and Declan’s fiancée; Declan being another coworker. Cynthia is also a coworker. When the three of them get together, ears bleed and trouble follows.”
“There are four of them. What about Teagan?”
“She’s going to be the worst. Go fucking hide until I get there!”
“I can’t hide, Harvey!” I snap, annoyed now. “It’s fucking busy in here. Just … Oh, just forget it.” I end the call and glance back into the restaurant, at the four women giggling amongst themselves and occasionally peeking over at me.
They can’t be that bad, right?
I can guess who Sasha is since she was talking about Declan’s penis. I know who Ava and Teagan are. That means the last unknown woman is Cynthia.
I stare at Teagan as I make my way back over to them. She’s the only one not drinking alcohol.
Why is she the worst of the lot? What does that mean? She doesn’t look scary, not that this means much.
“Were you talking to Harvey?” Teagan asks with a smirk.
“Yeah,” I admit, forcing myself to make my way back behind the bar, no matter how hesitant I look.
“I could tell because you looked annoyed,” she says with a laugh.
“What does that mean?” I try not to sound defensive, but I can’t help it. My life has been turned upside-down lately, and a four-woman interrogation is not my idea of fun.
“Harvey is a man of few words in the office. It seems to bond him to the other guys, but I find it annoying as all hell,” Sasha says.
“I think he’s on his way,” I warn.
“Then we don’t have much time to find out the gossip. Now you heard our stories—”
“Unwillingly!” I cut Sasha off, glaring at them all and hoping they change their minds and sit down at a table. I’m not that interesting, I’m not even dating Harvey, and I have no information to share.
“Doesn’t matter; you listened. Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn to what? I don’t have any gossip to tell you. There is nothing between Harvey and me.”
“Bullshit,” Teagan speaks up, glaring at me. “Harvey doesn’t act the way he did with you for anyone.” I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Then I hear from Sasha that Harvey was lying on top of you in his office! And yesterday, he came and saw me, and …” She trails off, biting her lip and looking guilty.
“And he what?” Sasha demands.
“Nothing. I’m just saying there is clearly something going on,” she finishes lamely.
I’m curious about what she was going to blurt out, but I also can’t be bothered with this. Harvey made it clear where he stands, and getting wrapped up in penis talk about him is not going to help either of us.
They are reading way too much into this.
“He pulled me down to get me out of the way of the flying bullets, in case you didn’t notice that little fact!”
“Oh, I noticed. It was fucking scary. I made sure my friends were okay, then chatted and took some deep breaths, and then eventually found my way down to your office where Declan was. You guys hadn’t moved an inch … or”—Sasha gives me a wink—“how many inches did Harvey move?”
“Oh, my God,” I groan. I should have hidden.
“It’ll be less painful if you just tell us everything,” Cynthia grumbles, taking a large swig of her drink.
“I never heard your story!” I point out, clearly grasping at straws. I don’t want to hear her story, have already heard too much, but I need to stall.
Harvey is definitely coming here, right? The sounds I heard were him on his way. Or, is he working a case and he’s not coming to my rescue? Was he just chasing after a suspect or whatever the terminology P.I.’s use?
Shit, what the hell am I supposed to do if he doesn’t turn up?
“I’m between women right now,” she says, sounding miserable about t
hat.
“Sorry to hear that,” Scarlett butts in, handing me a drink order.
I sigh in relief that she’s here. I have someone on my side. Someone not scary or crazy.
“You are?” Cynthia gapes, her eyes travelling over Scarlett.
“Yep, I recently got out of a relationship, too. It sucks donkey balls.”
Typical Scarlett, not at all concerned to speak her mind to these complete strangers who are also customers.
Cynthia nods, her eyes travelling back over Scarlett, while I happily turn my back on the girls to get Scarlett’s order.
“Scarlett,” she introduces herself to them.
For an awful moment, I fear I will soon have five women interrogating me.
“You know anything about Harvey and Nix?” Sasha asks her.
I sigh in relief at the fact that Scarlett wasn’t able to get a lick of information out of me this morning. Instead, her focus was mostly on my beat-up face. By the time she moved on to Harvey, we were opening and she had customers to look after.
“Is Harvey the tall, dark, and handsome man who looks intense and angry?”
“You know him! He’s been in here?” Teagan claps her hands.
They clearly know what happened last night, but now they are fishing for what happened to lead up to last night. They are like hungry vultures circling us both.
“Well, I don’t know much …” Scarlett begins, and I smirk as I place the three drinks on a tray before I begin pouring a beer. “But I do know he came in yesterday afternoon looking pretty serious.”
Oh, shit.
How did I forget about yesterday afternoon? Scarlett walked in on us!
She does know more than I realized.
“Scarlett!” I growl, turning around to glare at her, warning her to shut up.
“Then,” she continues, completely unperturbed that her boss is glaring daggers at her, “they went back into his office and were in there for a good ten to fifteen minutes. We were closing up, so I went back there to say goodbye and caught them making out.”
All four women gasp excitedly like they have just been told the winning lottery numbers. Well, okay, Cynthia doesn’t sound as excited, but she’s still gazing at Scarlett like she wants to eat her up.
“Oh, wow! Was that all you saw?” Ava pushes.
I’m surprised they aren’t all salivating at the mouth.
“I can’t say if more didn’t happen—I left soon after—but I’m pretty sure Nix here liked the kiss since he couldn’t remember how to speak.” She smirks at me.
I hope my eyes threaten the revenge I will seek after this.
“Do you want to get fired?” I ask, placing the beer down on the tray hard enough that some sloshes over the edge.
“Like you would ever fire me,” she says on a snort. “I’m too important.” She smiles innocently at me before glancing back at the women. “You make this place a regular, and I’ll keep you updated with what I know. But I expect some updates about the stuff he won’t tell me.”
The women all smile warmly at her before she grabs the tray of drinks and takes them away.
I want to yell out that she’s a traitor, but I remind myself that this is a restaurant and this is definitely not the place to be yelling such words out. Once we are closed, I am going to kill her.
“So, nothing going on between you guys, huh?” Sasha winks, and I groan again.
“Fine, but things got complicated last night.” I wave at my face, and all their smiles dim. “So that’s done. I’m a client now, and Harvey reminded me that there are rules against that, or whatever.” I shrug as if this fact doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Ava snorts. “Not likely. I met Zander because he was helping me out of a situation.”
“You mean, after you stole his car?” Cynthia asks innocently, or at least, she sounds it.
Stole his car? What does she mean by that?
“Shut up. All I mean is, Harvey wouldn’t get in trouble if he and Nix here were dating.”
“Does Harvey even date? I’ve known him for what, just over two years? He’s not once introduced us to anyone,” Sasha points out.
“He doesn’t date. I know this for a fact. You’re definitely special,” Teagan states, her eyes back on me as she searches for who the fuck knows what.
Three of the women are looking at me curiously, but Teagan has her piercing gaze tightly on me. I feel practically naked under her direct scrutiny.
“We’re not dating,” I tell them, not that any of them listen.
“We only found out he was gay a year or so ago,” Cynthia points out.
“He was in the closet?” I gape. I don’t know Harvey all that well, but I got the impression he was very much out in his life.
“Oh, not exactly. It’s just … he doesn’t open up much, which is why you’re so special,” Teagan says.
“He opened up about me?” What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.
“As much as what can be considered extreme for him,” she states cryptically.
What does that mean? Since Harvey told me to be wary of her, do I trust what she says?
“Guys are so weird,” Ava grumbles.
Since I’m a guy, I’m not sure why she’s looking at me like I should agree. Am I part of the girl squad in this scenario purely because I’m gay?
“Girls are weird, too,” Cynthia throws out there.
The girls glance over at her in commiseration.
“So, how come you guys aren’t together? If that kiss was as good as Scarlett says, then shouldn’t you be scheduling your next appointment?” Ava asks on a wink.
“Who schedules in a kiss? Is that seriously what Zander does? Well, I guess that would be more a scheduled office fuck,” Sasha says with an evil grin.
“Oh, shut up!” Ava snaps. “I just mean, they should have a date set up!”
“Ladies.” Harvey saves me from this awkward conversation, and I sigh in relief … for about fifteen seconds. “Shouldn’t you all be getting back to work now?”
“Nah, we’re taking an extra-long lunch,” Sasha quips. “We haven’t even ordered our food yet.” For some reason, this sounds like a threat. How long can a long lunch break truly be? And why do I have a bad feeling they will still be sitting here by the time the dinner crowd rolls in?
“Zander agreed,” Ava pipes up.
I watch as Harvey rolls his eyes. I guess, when you are the boss’s wife, you can get away with whatever you want.
“Well, I think you should probably let Nix get back to work now,” he suggests.
“He is working,” Teagan counters. Her eyes look like she is challenging Harvey.
I can’t get their dynamic. Are they friendly? Or are they enemies?
“No, he’s being interrogated,” Harvey rebuts.
“He’s not being interrogated, are you, Nix?” She glances at me.
Since I feel very much interrogated, yet I don’t want to get into the middle of this, I freeze up.
“Of course he is. You know what these women are like,” Harvey accuses, much to the outrage of the others.
“What does that mean?” Ava bursts out.
“Why am I getting lugged into this?” Cynthia whines.
I get the feeling this could explode at any second, and since I have a restaurant I would like to keep out of drama and keep in business, I decide to step in.
“Listen, how about we all just calm down?” I suggest. “Everything is fine here, nothing is going on, except these ladies are about to sit at a table and order some delicious food, right?”
I hope they take my olive branch and leave well enough alone. Getting into a fight over this is stupid, especially when there is nothing between Harvey and me.
“What is this I hear about you making out with our newest client, Harvey?” Sasha blurts out, and I immediately wince. So much for taking that olive branch.
Harvey’s accusing eyes immediately land on me, but Teagan br
ings his attention back to her.
“Don’t give Nix the evil eye. That man is like a vault. We had to get the information from that waitress over there.” She waves her hand over to Scarlett.
“Either way, this isn’t really appropriate talk considering Nix is a client and—”
“Sure it is! So, when are you guys going on your next date?” Ava pushes.
I have no idea why the women are so invested in this, other than they are probably happy torturing Harvey, but I’m not keen on being the collateral damage here.
Harvey has made it perfectly clear I’m off limits, and since I already started to like him, it’s best I step away from this before I get any more invested.
“We’re not—”
“Ooh! We can all go on a group date!” Ava offers just as Scarlett makes her way back over with a new drink order.
“Great, I can be a ninth wheel instead of a seventh one,” Cynthia grumbles.
“You guys going on a group date?” Scarlett asks as I grab the order from her, turning my back on them again and hoping the ground will hurry up and swallow me.
“No—”
“Yes! You want to come? Cynthia is single and ready to mingle,” one of the women says, cutting off Harvey’s attempt to stem this massive bungle. Then I hear a slap, as well as a curse.
“Sash! Shut up!”
“I’d love to. I thought you were hot the second I saw you,” Scarlett boldly admits.
“Wh-what?” I believe that’s Cynthia.
When I turn back around, the two sodas ready to go, I notice she is blushing.
“Give me your digits before you go and we’ll chat,” Scarlett says, giving Cynthia a grin before taking off with the drinks.
“Did I …? Did she …? Did that just happen?” Cynthia gasps.
“Oh, hell yeah, it did! What can you tell us about Scarlett?” Ava asks, leaning close to the bar and staring at me expectantly.
I look to Harvey.
He’s shaking his head at me, looking tired. Did he even sleep last night?
I pour a glass of ale for him as I look back to the women. “What do you want to know?”
“What is she like?” Cynthia demands.
“She’s reliable, good with customers, always happy to pick up extra work when I need her—”
“I’m not looking for a job reference.” Cynthia rolls her eyes.
I Broke Into His Office (Love at First Crime Book 4) Page 7