They stepped around the corner together, into a staff hallway. I pulled out my phone and pretended to work. I couldn’t hear much of their conversation, but based on her rigid stance and her frequent nodding, she was mostly listening anyway. Her short answers in soft tones came across even less than his smooth baritone.
Getting hurt really had been my fault. I’d been hoping to get away with my buddy and give her space, but once again I managed to muck up a situation. It had been reckless and stupid but I didn’t want Skip and Roxy to see how ashamed I felt, so I played it off like I was fine. I was so sure the universe wanted me to come down here but nothing had gone right since I showed up. I was supposed to be making things better, not worse.
I frowned at my phone screen, feeling a creeping sense of anxiety. Somewhere a person stopped vacuuming or a motor shut off because suddenly their conversation was audible.
“I had a plan,” Roxy said and her drawl a little more pronounced than normal. “I didn’t—”
“But had you followed my instructions as I intended them, this whole situation would have been avoided.”
She said something that I couldn’t quite catch.
Vincent responded, “I’ve been reading through your old performance reviews. Every area is strong except one. You don’t accept help. If you want to be in management, you have to learn how to delegate and work with other people.”
“I understand,” she said.
“I hope you do, because this can’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” she said firmly.
“Roxy, I fully expect you to succeed in any position you’re in, but there is an inherent trust you’re missing. People will sense that. They won’t want to work with us. Neither of us wants that.”
“No.”
“It’s imperative to me that you learn how to share the reins. I can’t be everywhere at once and neither can you. The Lodge is changing fast and I need you to keep up.” I glanced up to see him quickly squeeze her shoulder.
Roxy shot a look my way and I buried my face back in my phone hoping she hadn’t noticed me eavesdropping.
If she responded after that, I didn’t hear it. I fought the urge to stand up for her honor. I wanted to go to this Vincent and tell him that she was only trying to maintain a professional relationship. That I’d been distracted and put myself at risk. Skip could have been hurt too. My actions were self-absorbed. This was my fault, not hers. She didn’t deserve to be scolded for wanting to do her job well. I vowed to be better.
They exchanged a few more words before Roxy came back. I continued to play on my phone. Nothing to see here. I definitely wasn’t eavesdropping.
“I know you heard that,” Roxy said.
She stood in front of me with arms crossed. All the heat between us while holding hands earlier iced over in an instant.
“No, I didn’t,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Not all of it,” I said, standing up.
She crossed her arms and chewed her lip. Anybody else might think she was scowling but my gut told me she was ashamed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“No,” she said instantly. Then deepening her frown, she added, “I just got reamed.”
“That was a reaming? He didn’t even seem mad.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s mad for him. He’s hard to read,” she said without anger.
I yearned to scoop her up in my arms. To be fair, if this was Skip, I’d definitely hug him if he was upset. But I was lying to myself again trying to justify getting what I want at the cost of her. No. I was trying to be better than that.
“He told me that I need to be better at accepting help. Apparently I don’t play well with others.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Her gaze went icy.
“What?” I asked. “You did send me away the second we were supposed to work together.”
“And you didn’t read the signs,” she snapped. Confusion at her words must have registered on my face. “For the river. You didn’t read the flash flood signs,” she added.
Her frustration grew as a flush spread across her neck. This wasn’t what I intended. I certainly hadn’t meant to offend her. I thought it was obvious that she was the independent type. I didn’t know that was an insult or up for debate.
“What can I do?” I asked.
She blinked at me. After a second, she shook her head and said, “This is my fault. He told me to work with you as a team and I didn’t want to.”
“I was at the meeting too. I could have insisted,” I said. “You don’t have to bear this burden yourself. Not everything is on these shoulders.” I squeezed her shoulders, actively fighting the urge to pull her in. She looked at my hands before looking around the room. I dropped them back to my sides. “There are benefits to working as a team.”
“It’s not that. I’m happy to utilize people who bring more experience than me.”
“So long as it’s completely on your terms.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “That’s what I thought.”
“You have all the answers for someone who can’t read,” she mumbled but the side of her mouth tugged slightly.
“Har har,” I said. “I’m just saying, let’s be a team.”
She was chewing on her lip again. How the hell was I supposed to focus when she did that? I’d tasted those lips. I knew their fullness in my mouth as I sucked on them. You don’t eat filet mignon and then crave a McRib.
“I’m planning on that. I just need to—”
“Ah, ah.” I held up a finger. “No ‘I’ in team. We work together from here out. Even now.”
“Fine. Okay, yeah. You’re right.” She rocked her head side to side, popping her neck like she was preparing for battle and not simple team building. “Where should we start?” she asked.
“I have an idea. Are you free tomorrow?”
“I’m free after lunch,” she admitted. “Why?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Her nostrils flared. She really was like Skip. That’s exactly how he’d feel about a surprise. Luckily, I garnered trust for a living.
“None of that, hey. It’ll be great.” I grinned.
She made a sound like Marge Simpson when she was disappointed with Homer. She fiddled with the end of her shirt.
I said, “You don’t have to do anything. Just meet me here tomorrow around one. Wear hiking clothes.”
“Fine.”
“You won’t regret it.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” she said.
Chapter 13
Sanders
We’d been walking for ten minutes and I could feel Roxy’s anxiety ratcheting with each step. My ankle was still a little sore but it was worth it to take a hike with her.
“What sort of trust exercise involves this much walking?” she finally asked.
I held back a triumphant smile. I had bet myself that she wouldn’t last fifteen minutes until the anticipation got to her. I could only imagine the scenarios going through that head of hers.
“Oh, there you go again with the smiles,” she said.
“I just like to smile, smiling’s my favorite,” I said, echoing Will Farrell’s character in the movie Elf.
“Yes. I noticed this about you,” she said dryly.
As the path inclined, our breaths grew more labored. I didn’t actually have a fully formed plan as to where we were going. I just knew we needed to get her away from the Lodge. She needed to feel safe to be herself.
“You’re not a big smiler, I noticed.”
“Does it matter?” she asked sharply.
“Nope,” I said truthfully. Her face appealed to me no matter what expression it held. Like a piece of fine art I could never hope to interpret, it only grew more fascinating to study.
“Is the exercise me trusting that you aren’t a serial killer, luring me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me?”
“Ah, no. I could have killed you loads of ti
mes by now. I don’t need to get sweaty to do that.” I grinned at her.
She rolled her eyes. “I feel much better. Thank you.”
We reached an outcropping of heavy granite slabs jutting out over the valley of lush green trees.
“Here we are,” I said.
“How did you know about this place?”
“I didn’t.”
“This is not encouraging,” she said.
“Roxy, Roxxo, just tru—”
“Trust you. Yes, I get it. Let’s just do this. I have to prepare for a graduation party this weekend,” she said, fussing with her fringe when the wind blew it around.
“At the Lodge?” I asked. “Do Americans have to make such a big deal about everything?”
“How else will everyone know we’re the best?” She bit back a smile. “It’s a well-paying customer. Their little princess only graduates high school once. It’s a huge party. Like a hundred people. With a DJ. It’s a whole thing.”
My eyebrows shot up. That was the first time I heard her ever say anything like that. Like Vincent wasn’t standing there watching her.
Instantly she frowned. “I shouldn’t have said that. That was … unprofessional. I’m happy to give them an experience she will never forget.”
I dropped my backpack and pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to her. Without the protection of the canopy, it was a lot warmer. At least there was no worry about rain. I checked.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I know clients can be a huge pain in the ass. So did you have a big old graduation party too?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t technically go to graduation.”
“Prom?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Do I seem like the type to go to prom?”
I shrugged. “Yeah?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t go to prom. There was a whole thing with Gretchen.” She frowned at the mention of her friend. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get going with all this.”
“That’s not a very healthy attitude,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The rushing to get back to work. Always waiting to be done and on to the next thing. There is only the journey.”
She took a drink of water and handed it back to me. “How very zen of you.”
I shrugged. “I’ve just thought about it a lot. There is no final point that I can reach and think ‘ah, now I can be happy.’ Life is just a series of ups and downs. Best to be in the moment instead of worrying about things that have already happened or, worse, haven’t even happened yet. What an exhaustive waste of energy.”
She sighed but grabbed the other end of the blanket I’d pulled out and helped me lay it flat. “Some people just aren’t wired that way.”
“Sure. If that’s the story they tell themselves.”
“It’s that easy?” she asked. “Just stop worrying. Oh, okay. Thanks, I don’t know why I haven’t tried that.”
“The sarcasm is strong with this one,” I said trying to crack her prickly facade. “I’m not trying to preach. But yeah, it’s that easy and it’s the hardest mental exercising that you can do.”
She gave me a doubtful look.
“I know. Skippo gives me the same face when I say that. We’re hard-wired to want to suffer. We want to reaffirm all the negative thoughts we have, so when something bad happens, we can say ‘see, I was right, everything is awful, this is why it’s best not to try.’ We have this idea that pain is a badge earned in adulthood. Americans especially, I’ve noticed. The long-suffering intellectual.”
Roxy skidded on some stones as she bent to fix the blanket. I was around and helping her before I realized. I helped her slowly stand up. She smiled at me before fixing her fringe. “Thanks,” she said. “You’ve thought about this a lot.” Her tone softened in a way that felt encouraging.
“Yeah, I have.” I dropped my hands back to my sides and walked to the other side of the blanket. I had read a lot about these things when Dad started to get sick. It felt too soon to talk about that. When I glanced up at her, she watched me carefully and I worried I’d thought about Dad out loud.
I cleared my throat and went on, “Maybe some think I’m just not smart enough to know how dark and horrible the world is? I’m perfectly aware. Maybe I’m naive? Also, no. I’ve just decided to try and live in the moment as much as possible. I can walk this earth with the weight of the past on my shoulders, or I can drop the load and walk easier. It doesn’t mean the wounds aren’t there. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel things. It just means I acknowledge them and move on. But it takes work. It takes constantly telling your mind not to go there. Move on. Let it go. Not now, dark thoughts.”
We sat cross-legged on the blanket across from each other.
She picked up a few small rocks and rolled them around in her hands. “Aren’t you just avoiding things? Pushing them off until one day they’ll all come crashing on you? Not thinking about how your choices in the moment impact your future? Or those around you?”
As soon as she said the words, it was obvious she regretted them. I thought I’d been clear in the message I was conveying but it wasn’t coming across how I meant. Did she think I was selfish? Was I selfish? My words had hit too deep. This was not the foot I wanted to start on. I wasn’t avoiding things.
A dark cloud moved over my thoughts. The storm that was always right behind me.
I gently scooted the pebbles from her hands into mine and tossed them to the side. “Just be here now with me. That’s all I’m saying.”
Her swallow was audible. “Okay,” she whispered. Her eyes shifted to the horizon and she seemed lost in thought.
“Phew,” I said blowing out a long breath. “Didn’t mean to get so heavy. Let’s get started and save the new-age babble for later.”
“Yes.” She rolled her shoulders and rocked her head side to side.
“Are you about to start stretching?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Do I need to?” She had one arm stretched across her chest.
The image of her doing downward dog floated into my mind. Me pulling her hips back to deepen the stretch.
I cleared my throat. “No,” I said but it came out as a squeak.
“I thought maybe we were going to do trust falls or something.”
“That’s a great exercise but not for two people. This is simpler. All we have to do is sit across from each other and make eye contact.”
“What? That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s all we have to do. Sit still and hold each other’s focus. At least thirty seconds, but a few minutes would be best. Time to sink into the connection.”
“We can’t blink or something?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “No, we definitely can blink. We just can’t look away.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said with a scowl.
“I’m not!” I sobered immediately. “You’re just cute is all.”
She tucked her hair back. “You can’t say that sort of thing.”
“I tell Skip he’s cute all the time,” I defended without thinking.
“I don’t get it.” She pulled the sleeves of her shirt over her fingers, hiding her hands in them.
“It’s surprisingly difficult to do,” I said seriously.
“Not surprising at all,” she said. “Eye contact for that long is usually limited to babies and sociopaths.”
Seriously, adorable.
“Stop laughing at me,” she said.
I tried for serious. She frowned deeper. If smiling was my natural state, then frowning was hers. It was so damn sexy. That pout brought more focus to her already distracting mouth.
“Well, I’d say that’s generalizing. But yes, to your point, that’s why it makes it a good exercise. You’re trusting me to see you uninterrupted. And I’m trusting you to do the same.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Why is my heart racing? I almost wish we were doing trust f
alls,” she admitted.
My heart was pounding too. In fact, I was beginning to regret this plan. Eye contact was a trust builder for sure. But it was also terribly intimate.
“It’s just me,” I said. “If you start to feel uncomfortable, remember when I biffed it and you had to save me.”
“I don’t like to think about that.” Her brows knitted. “Let’s just get started.” I started to speak and she cut me off. “Calm down, calm down. I’m not rushing the moment. I just want to see if I can do it.”
“Okay, good.” I set the timer on my watch.
“Oh wow, you’re really timing it.”
“I don’t mess around.”
She took a deep inhale of breath and let it out slowly. “I suddenly can’t remember what to do with my arms.” She flopped them out.
“Ready?” I asked.
Turns out that when Roxy was uncomfortable, she was even more charming. This was a version of Roxy I doubted many people got to see. In that way it already felt like we were making progress. And damn if it didn’t make me feel special.
She shook her hair back off her face. “Ready.”
“Three …”
She looked up to the sky.
“Two …”
And then down to the rocks beneath us.
“One,” I whispered.
Her gaze locked on to mine. It was as though the breath was sucked out of my chest. A physical reaction to her undivided attention punched me harder in the solar plexus than I thought possible. But I was the professional in this situation, so I had to make it look easy.
It couldn’t have been three seconds and already the twitching began. Her fingers tapped on her knees. She breathed in and out. This was killing her.
“I keep feeling like I can’t blink,” she tried to joke.
“No talking,” I whispered.
Interestingly, the more she fidgeted, the easier it was for me to pull strength and pretend that sustained eye contact wasn’t almost as arousing as our handholding.
A few seconds later, she noticed how well I was doing and her competitive side kicked in. With her gaze still locked on mine, she blew her fringe off her face dramatically. She raised one eyebrow. She lowered it. Then she lifted the other.
The One That I Want (Scorned Women Society Book 3) Page 11