When It Hits You (The It Series Book 1)

by Nicki Elson

  “Because I re-signed my lease. I wanted another year, but he said if I wasn’t ready to move in with him now, I never would be, and why should he waste his time?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” The two friends stayed silent for a moment before Lyssa offered, “I’m sure he’s just hurt and overreacting right now. He’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe. Not sure I will, though. He was pretty nasty.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Yeah. And do I really want to be with someone who’s not willing to give me the time I need?”

  “True. But is that really all it is? Or is there some truth to what he said—will you never be ready to take the next step with him? I mean, if you were sure about him, you wouldn’t hesitate, right?”

  “Right. Except…I am sure about him. Well, I was before last night, and that’s exactly what made me want one more year on my own. I want marriage and kids and all that, with him, but it means everything will change, and I like my life right now. I just wanted one more year of it before signing up for forever.”

  “I thought you said he was only committing to living together.”

  “Oh, did I forget to mention that he asked me to marry him?”

  “Trish!” During the silence that followed, Lyssa visualized her friend’s sad shrug on the other side of the phone. “And you said no?”

  “I said not now. That’s not the same as no, but that seems to be how he took it.”

  “You know I’m on your side no matter what, right? But I can’t say I blame him. He’s ready to start now and you’re not. That’s got to hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Trish said, and Lyssa didn’t know if she’d ever heard her friend sound so dejected. “What are you up to tonight?”

  “Just getting ready for Lizzie McNeill’s, but I can blow it off if you want me to come over.”

  “Oh, that’s right, the annual company party. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got my whole night planned—gonna watch something sad, cry, and go to bed. I just wanted to give you the update. Do you want to meet at the gym tomorrow afternoon and maybe grab some sushi to have back at my place after?”

  “That sound’s great. But are you sure you don’t want me to come over tonight? I don’t have to go to this thing.”

  “Nah. Go have fun.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “’Kay. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. What movie are you watching?”

  “Mmm, what do you think—Titanic, Toy Story 3, or Marley and Me?”

  “TS three gets me every time.”

  “Okay, Woody and Buzz it is. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Talk to you tomorrow.” Lyssa clicked off and sat still, looking into the mirror at her desk-turned-vanity.

  She hadn’t dressed yet and was only wearing lacy panties and a low-scooping black bra. Keith would often lounge on her futon across the room and watch her while she got ready to go out. She’d liked the feel of his eyes on her as they roved over her bare, lush curves. That had been a nice thing about being in a relationship, but as Trish’s call had reminded her, the bad things far outweighed the good. A few sweet moments were hardly worth navigating the treacherous emotional labyrinth. She wondered what the real-life stats were on happily actually accompanying ever after.

  She threw on black jeans and a long, cowl-neck sweater, covering it all up with her thick, wool pea coat and a knit hat before heading out into the wintery weather. Fox & Keaton saved their annual party for the end of January, giving its employees time to recover from a December filled with wining and dining clients and being wined and dined by investment managers. The party was always low key and casual, and this year the planners had rented out a small Irish pub at the east end of the river, just before it joined Lake Michigan.

  The L train dropped Lyssa off at a station a few chilly blocks from McNeill’s. When she stepped into the neighborhood pub, its cozy warmth wrapped around her like a fuzzy blanket. Julie greeted her almost immediately and then called the waitress over to add Lyssa’s order to hers.

  “You remember my husband, Charlie?” Julie asked.

  “Yep, from last year’s party and the year before that. Is there a place to put my coat?”

  “Over there.” Julie pointed with her thumb, indicating a coat rack not far away. After removing her outerwear, Lyssa checked her hair in the reflection of the window before rejoining her friend. The waitress returned with their drinks. As Lyssa lifted her full pint glass to her mouth, sharp fingernails dug into her sides in an aggressive tickle.

  “Carla!” Lyssa screamed.

  “Merry Focker Day!” Focker had become Carla’s new favorite nickname for F&K.

  Lyssa licked the spilled beer off her fingers and rolled her eyes. Mid roll, she spotted Henry Beecher not far off. “Merry FD to you, too. I’ll be back, but I want to say hi to Beecher before he leaves.” The senior staff usually only made a brief appearance at these events, which were primarily for the benefit of the proletariats.

  “Suck up,” Carla said.

  Lyssa went to Beecher and they made small talk for a few minutes. On her way back to Carla, she noticed Hayden by the bar, but his back was turned. She’d get to him later. The place was small and crowded, making movement difficult, so she and Carla staked out an open place to stand and stayed put, mingling as people passed by them.

  After an hour or so, Sabine came over on the arm of a tall guy with strawberry blond hair. He said, “Cheers!” in a British accent, and Lyssa recalled that she’d met him before—the previous summer or spring when Sabine had been with him out at the bars.

  “Hey Sabinowitz, let me see the ginormous rock I’ve been hearing about,” Carla said. Sabine smiled, holding up her left hand to display a large diamond ring.

  “You’re engaged?” Lyssa asked.

  Sabine nodded and wrapped her arm around the guy’s waist, leaning her head onto his shoulder. “Daniel proposed last night.”

  “Congratulations, you guys!” Lyssa’s mouth spread into a huge grin while her eyes inadvertently flicked toward where she’d seen Hayden. He was still there, pouring a shot down his throat.

  “Thanks,” Sabine and Daniel said in unison and then went on to answer Carla’s and Lyssa’s questions about how he’d popped the question, when they planned to get married, how long they’d been dating—on and off for three years—etc. etc. Sabine’s fluent answers indicated she’d been asked these exact questions dozens of times already.

  When the newly engaged moved on, Lyssa returned her attention to Hayden and let her gaze linger, studying him. He didn’t talk to anyone and kept his back unsociably turned to the crowd. Carla had become distracted during wedding talk and had wandered off, so Lyssa took the opportunity to weave through the throng and check in on her partner.

  “You’re doing a great job of holding up the bar, cowboy,” she said, coming up behind him.

  “Bates!” Half turning, he threw an arm into the air in greeting, then let it drop heavily around her shoulders. “How are ya?” He pulled her in close and pelted his wet lips at her temple in a series of small kisses.

  “I’m fine, Hayden.” She pushed away and looked for a napkin so she could wipe the side of her head. “How long have you been here?”

  “A while. Bar-keep, we want two…two of those things with the little glass in the big glass. An’ you drop it in…bah! What’s it called?”

  “Boilermaker?” Lyssa asked.

  “Yes! That’s it. Two boilermakers,” Hayden said, placing his order.

  From behind him, Lyssa caught the bartender’s eye and shook her head no. At the risk of getting slobbered on again, she moved closer to Hayden and asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothin’—what could be wrong? The top brass has left the building, an’ now I’m gettin’ hammered, that’s all. Just havin’ fun.”

  “Getting smashed in a corner all by yourself is fun?”

  He reached his hand out and tweaked her nose, forgetting to let
go. “Too serious, Lyssie.” She removed his hand from her nose, and he scowled. “C’mon, lighten up. No need to be serious around Hayden King. Haven’t you heard? I’m king of the man-ho’s.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Sabine getting engaged?”

  “Ya heard, huh? The strumpet had another bloke in ’er back pocket the whole time.” He grabbed his glass from the bar and took a long drink.

  “I think we need to get you out of here.”

  He jerked his head back and raised an eyebrow. “You want a piece of the man-ho? ’Bout time.” He raised his glass again, but Lyssa grabbed it and set it on the bar, pushing it away. “Impatient, eh?” He wrapped his arm around her.

  “Let’s go.” She held his hand at her shoulder and let him use her as support as they walked past their co-workers on their way to the coats. She grabbed hers and put it on, telling him to find his.

  “I don’t need a coat.”

  “Hayden, it’s freezing out. Get your coat.”

  “You’ll keep me hot enough, baby.” He had his arm around her again and kissed the side of her face—she’d turned her head just in time to avoid him making lip contact. Rifling through the collection of coats while he leaned against her, she identified what she was pretty sure was his and threw it over her arm. Winding her other arm around his waist, she led him toward the door while he nuzzled his nose in her hair, telling her how glad he was that they were finally going to do this.

  On the way, she saw Carla and told her, “Hayden’s bombed. I’m just taking him outside for some fresh air—please squash the rumor mill before it gets started.”

  “Wait,” Hayden said, pulling his face away. “We’re not going to do this?”

  “No, Hayden, we’re not,” she answered on their way through the door.

  “That’s a double negative, which means…” They’d moved a few paces down the sidewalk, and a January breeze hit them. “Shit, it’s cold!”

  “Told you.” She untangled herself from his arm and helped him into his coat. Once it was on, he seemed to sober up a few notches and shoved his hands into his pockets. Lyssa pulled on her knit hat and fur-lined mittens while she and Hayden kept walking. She steered him around a dry fountain bed across the street from the bar so they couldn’t be easily observed from the pub windows. “Feeling better?”

  “I’m not sure seeing straight is better.” He tucked his chin and mouth into his upturned coat collar, reminding her of a pouting little boy.

  “I don’t get it. You didn’t seem to care at all about the breakup a couple of weeks ago. Why does Sabine being engaged make it any different?”

  He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. Lyssa noticed a sheen of potential tears across his eyes. Before compassion set in, she felt a brief twinge of irritation—she’d elected to stay relationship-free, thus avoiding the pitfalls, yet she still kept getting dragged into the aftermath of romantic demise.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to,” she said. “But I highly recommend that you don’t go back in there.”

  He nodded and lifted a finger to nudge his collar down an inch, uncovering his lips. “A few weeks ago, I thought she’d dumped me for just some guy. But he wasn’t just some guy. She’s fucking in love with him and must have been the whole time we were together. I was only a fling to her. She never took me seriously for one second. And Roni…” He threw both hands up, and his face fully emerged from its shell, sending an angry cloud of breath into the night. “I wasn’t even a fling to her! I was a…a booty call. She plans a move to fucking Madagascar—”

  “Malaysia.”

  “Wherever! And she doesn’t even think to mention it to me? I get that it was top secret, but fuck, she still hasn’t even tried to call or e-mail.”

  “Maybe she’s not sure if you know yet. She’s probably waiting to hear from you first.”

  “Even you don’t believe that one, Bates. Our relationship was just a wham, bam, thank you, man-ho. Cuz that’s all I am. Men get a bad rap for being players, but the way women do it is twenty times worse. Bitches. All of ’em.”

  “Present company excluded, of course.”

  His eyes had been darting during his spiel, but now they settled on Lyssa. His top lip pulled up into a half-snarl. “You’re just as bad. Poor programmer guy was just trying to tell you he wanted more of your attention, and you fucking cut him loose—for a robot.”

  Lyssa inhaled the frigid air too quickly, stinging the back of her throat. But she fought through it. “Stop the pity party, Hayden. It’s hardly like you cared about them either. You can’t ask for something you’re not willing to give.”

  “I gave! I might not’ve fallen in love with either of them, but I cared about them. I always do. And you know what? I’ll keep on doing it. They might stomp all over my heart, but I know she’s out there—the one who’s going to make all this bullshit worth it, and I’ll never find her if I close my heart up like a stone. Like you do.”

  “This isn’t about me.” The warning in her harsh tone went unheeded.

  “Even if I never find her, I’d still rather be a red-blooded, heart-thumping human. Not a cold, marble statue. That’s all you’re going to be, you know. No, not a statue—a robot. That’s all you’re going to be if you keep fucking that thing.”

  She struggled to keep her voice steady. “I know you’re drunk, but I came out here to help you. Are you really going to do this?”

  “You act so hurt because he threatened to dump you over something as stupid as a piece of plastic. Well guess what—you did dump him over it. How does that make you so much better than the rest of us? It doesn’t. It makes you a chicken-shit robot who’s never going to find love because you’re too scared to even try. No risk, no re—”

  “Fuck you, Hayden!” As soon as she screamed it, she turned and took long strides down the sidewalk along the river, heading in the opposite direction of the bar. She was shaking, unable to believe he’d use something she’d confided in him as a weapon against her.

  “Shit,” she heard him hiss. “Bates, stop. Come back.” She started running and heard the slap of his shoes behind her. She was almost out of sidewalk, and her hesitation while her mind worked out where to go next gave him the opportunity to catch up. He circled his arms around her, trapping both of hers at her sides. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m a drunken, heartbroken moron, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

  “Fuck you, Hayden,” she repeated through gritted teeth, but she stopped fighting and let him hold her.

  His mouth was at her ear. “You’re my Lyss. Please don’t hate me. I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want to do anything without you. Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. I’m sorry.”

  She leaned back into his chest. “Don’t you ever say anything like that to me again.”

  “I won’t; I promise. I won’t.” His arms tightened around her biceps, and she reached her mittens up to cup around hands and squeeze them, clenching her eyelids together in a failed attempt to stop fat tears from leaking out.

  Chapter 17

  LYSSA’S PHONE BUZZED as she walked to the gym to meet Trish the next day. It was Hayden.

  I didn’t say thank you last night.

  For what?

  For saving me from being a drunken ass in front of our colleagues.

  Yeah. I kept all the drunken assness for myself.

  Right. So another sorry and now a thank you—THANK YOU. And sorry.

  UR welcome. Can we be done with sorry?

  Maybe. What are you doing right now?

  Walking to gym. Trying not to bump into people as I type.

  Ugh. Just the thought of being vertical makes me woozy.

  Hehe. Hungover much?

  VERY much. Aren’t Ur fingers cold?

  Nope. The miracle of techno friendly fabric at my fingertips.

  Cool. Er warm.

  Well I’m at gym now.

  Ok. Bye. I’ll go back to c
radling my head and moaning.

  Hehe. A just punishment.

  Dominatrix

  Man ho…JK!

  So we r good? You don’t hate me?

  We r good. :)

  Good. I’ve never had a woman for a BFF before and I don’t want to blow this.

  Lyssa paused, surprised to know that was how he thought of her. She was more surprised to realize she felt the same about him—the guy she’d thought was an arrogant prick the first time they’d met.

  “I can’t believe that was our last official manager visit for Project Pineapple,” Lyssa said a month later as the seatbelt sign dinged, signifying the approach to O’Hare.

  “DH has F and K on retainer. There’ll be other projects.”

  “Yeah, but not on the same scale. And we won’t be partners anymore.”

  Leaning his head against the back of his seat, he turned it to face her, giving her a small, melancholy smile. “I know.” His blue eyes lingered on her face.

  “But I guess we shouldn’t start counting this thing done until the final presentation,” she said. “Too bad Shep wasn’t able to make progress with Lula.”

  “Yeah, it’s a shame. Will you re-assume your old client load when this is done?”

  “Mostly. How about you? Is Beecher giving you new corporate clients, or will you move back to Taft-Hartley or on to endowments?”

  His gaze shifted toward the front of the cabin. “Still being worked out. Haven’t made a final decision yet.”

  “Have you heard the rumors about Beecher leaving to head the west coast office? Think he’ll do it?”

  Hayden shrugged. “Hard to say. All depends on whether he’s willing to move his family out there. Career-wise, it’d be foolish of him to pass it up, assuming it’s more than just a rumor.”

  Lyssa sighed and let her gaze drift to the window. “Everything changes; everyone leaves.”

  “Change doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

  “Not always a good thing either.”