by Amelia Stone
I would just have to talk to Larkin tomorrow. I’d figure out how to convince her to go on this date, find her a great guy, and we’d have a good time.
On Friday morning, I got a text from Graham while I was getting ready to head out for a run.
“Oh, shoot,” I muttered.
“You know you can say ‘shit,’ right?” Larkin shuffled into the kitchen, scowling at me from behind a curtain of long, tangled black hair. “Father Anselm can’t hear you from all the way across town.”
“It was never Father Anselm I was afraid of,” I reminded her. “It was Sister Mary Agnes and that yard stick.”
“‘Because a ruler is too small for God’s mighty work,’” she cackled in a perfect imitation of our math teacher’s voice.
“She persecuted me,” I complained, for probably the thousandth time. “She was constantly threatening to smack me on the backs of my thighs with that yardstick, shrieking that my skirts were too short.”
“That’s because your skirts were too short.”
“But my legs are amazing,” I argued. “It’s a sin to cover them up.”
“Pretty sure the bigger sin is wearing a skirt so short that your pussy hangs out.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh, must you use that word?”
“Pussy, pussy, pussy,” she sang out.
“You live to torture me,” I accused.
“It’s my only joy in life.”
I frowned, and not just because she was being more morose than usual. “Anyway, you need to get dressed. We’re going running in five minutes. You can’t wear your pajamas.”
I neglected to point out that they were in fact Daniel’s pajamas, because I didn’t want to make her cry this early in the morning. And I totally deserved a cookie for that, so I took a dark chocolate Milano from my secret stash in the back of the cabinet. I munched on it while I watched Larkin fumble through pouring a cup of coffee. To say she wasn’t a morning person was an understatement.
“Yeah, no. Fuck running.” She frowned down at the sugar bowl like it had betrayed her, and I sighed.
“It’s just a few miles,” I reasoned as I refilled the sugar for her. “You need to move more, or your muscles are going to get atrophied.”
“Fuck that noise,” she grumbled. “I’m having a cup of coffee, then I’m going back to bed.”
“You won’t be able to sleep if you drink coffee.”
“Can’t sleep anyway.” Her reply was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
I frowned as she shuffled around, pouring her coffee. She took a couple of cookies from my stash, too. I would normally have protested, since those were my special treat. But her appetite was so hit-or-miss lately, and she’d lost a lot of weight in the last year and a half. She could have some cookies if she wanted.
I took a deep breath before I replied. “You should try to get a nap in today, though. We have plans tonight.”
That caused her to look up. Her violet eyes were narrowed in suspicion, and her gaunt face was twisted in a scowl. “What plans?”
I gave her my best smile, hoping it would go a long way to persuading her. “Well, it’s Friday.”
She gave me a blank look for a moment. Then her cheeks paled. “No. Fuck no. Absolutely fucking not, Tay.”
I bit my lip. I knew this would be hard for her. It would be hard for me, too. Larkin, Daniel, and I had been inseparable for nearly a decade, and Friday nights were our double date night. For years, we’d go out together, the three of us and whoever I was dating that week. I had so many amazing memories of those Friday nights, and I was honestly a little scared to start the tradition with someone new.
But Larkin was miserable, and I couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to get back out there, and a double date was a good way to ease her into it. She could avoid the pressure of a one-on-one conversation, and I could keep an eye on her to make sure she was okay. Win-win.
“It’s one night,” I coaxed, using my most persuasive tone. “Just to get your feet wet. Besides, I found a great guy for you. He’s smart, and funny, and really handsome.”
Okay, so that was a big fat pile of lies. I didn’t have anyone lined up for her. I’d been working so hard all week that I’d completely forgotten about this whole thing until Graham texted me just now, asking for my address. But Larkin didn’t need to know that, or this whole conversation would be over before it started. And that was unacceptable.
“I am not going out tonight. Or ever.” Larkin’s tone was firm, but she gripped her coffee cup with trembling hands, and her shoulders were hunched in on herself, telling me she was about to cry.
I took a deep breath. “Tell you what,” I said. “Come out tonight, and I won’t bug you about dating for another two weeks.”
She looked up, narrowing her eyes at me. “How about never.”
“A month,” I countered.
“A year.” She scowled at me, and I sighed. If she refused to date, to meet someone and be happy again, then I resolved to at least get her a better moisturizer. She was going to get permanent wrinkles on her forehead at the rate she was going.
“Six months,” I replied. “Final offer.”
She huffed. “Fine. But I reserve the right to stab you at the restaurant if it doesn’t go well.”
I laughed, glad to see her weird sense of humor was still intact. “Why at the restaurant?”
The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly – the ghost of a smile. And I smiled back, my first genuine one all morning. All week, really. She wasn’t happy, not yet. Not by a long shot. But she would be. Tonight would be fun, and Larkin would eventually be herself again.
“Because,” she replied. “You like the attention.”
I laughed, because she certainly had me there.
Working late sucked. Working late on a Friday sucked even harder. But working late on a Friday when I knew Taylor was out on a date with Graham fucking Morris – their third date – was pretty much the hardest anything had sucked in the history of things that sucked.
And the worst part was that I’d all but driven her into his arms. The argument we’d had on Monday had haunted me all goddamn week. I’d had the perfect opportunity to say something. She’d pretty much dared me to admit that I wanted her, that I was jealous of all the attention she was getting from the fucking sharks that circled her every day. But like the coward I am, I choked. I looked into those blue eyes of hers, knowing she was angry with me, that she was being real with me for the first time since I’d met her, and I couldn’t say a fucking word.
So I’d been a beast to her all week, alternately gnashing my fangs or shutting her out. I guess I thought I’d be able to get her off my mind that way, get over this obsession with her hair and her legs and her laugh and her voice and her everything.
But it wasn’t working. She still ran through my head all day, every day, and the little glimpses I’d get of her just fucking teased me. I’d hear her wish the security guard a good morning and it would echo in my brain. I’d see her sashay past my door and the visual would play on a loop for hours. She’d come into my office and I’d breathe in her floral perfume for the rest of the day. I was certifiably insane by this point.
Like right now. It was almost midnight, and I had been in the office for going on eighteen hours, long after everyone had gone home for the day. I’d been in a foul mood all day, so I'd closed the door that morning, put my headphones on, and lost myself in work. But even with the music blasting into my ears, I could swear I heard her voice.
I rubbed a hand over my face, deciding to call it a night. Clearly I’d been staring at reports for too long. My brain was fried. So I shut everything down, flipped the lights off, and walked into the outer office.
And slammed right into Taylor.
“What the fuck?” I yelled.
“Ow! God, Julian, don’t you watch where you’re going?” She stepped back, rubbing her shoulder and giving me a dirty look.
“Me? What the hell are you even doing
here? It’s fucking midnight!”
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”
“I’m working!” I huffed, stepping back. “You checked out hours ago, Taylor. Why would you come back at this time of night?”
“That’s none of your business!” she snapped.
“None of my…” I closed my eyes, growling under my breath. “Taylor, how many times do I have to tell you this is my goddamn office?”
She glared at me. “Yes, well, it’s midnight. There’s no work to be done at your office when no one’s here. So just go along home. I’ll lock up.”
I stepped back again, sweeping my arm toward the elevator. “After you.”
“No, no, I insist.” She crossed her arms over her chest, drawing my attention there, and… Jesus.
I stepped back one more time, taking a good, long look. Taylor was wearing a hot pink dress that left very little to the imagination. It was short and tight and cut low in the front, showing miles of smooth, tanned skin and acres of luscious cleavage. Her hair and makeup were perfect, too, even more so than usual. She was hands down the hottest thing I’d ever seen. She’d clearly put a lot of effort into herself tonight, and it had paid off.
For someone else. I blinked, growling once more. She’d put all this effort in for Graham fucking Morris, not me. No, I was just her boss who treated her like shit. There was no way she’d get all dolled up like that for me.
I sighed, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Grab your stuff, I’ll walk you out.” I took one last look at her outfit. “I don’t want you out there by yourself this late at night.”
“It’s fine,” she said, her gaze dropping to her feet, which I noticed were bare. “I just have some stuff to do here, and then I’ll go home.”
Her voice caught on the last word, and I frowned.
“What do you have to do that can’t wait until Monday?”
She shook her head, still not looking at me. “It’s nothing. Just some emails I forgot about. It’ll only be a few minutes.”
I stared at her, not understanding what the big deal was. “If it’s nothing, then just leave them.”
She shook her head again. “No, I mean, I want to make sure they get done. I don’t want to let stuff pile up, you know? We’re so busy right now. I’ll just be a few minutes,” she repeated. “You can go.”
I huffed. “Taylor, I know we work a lot of hours here. But I’m not a slave driver. You can do the emails on Monday.” I stepped closer, once again motioning toward the elevator. “So let’s just go home, okay?”
“I can’t!” Her shout echoed in the empty office, and I froze. She looked up at me, her eyes swimming. “I can’t go home, okay? I messed up, Julian. I messed it all up.” Her voice wobbled, and she ran a hand through her hair. “I can't go home.”
I frowned, my eyes shifting past her to the leather couch in the waiting area. There was a folded blanket and a pillow there. And her feet were bare, something I’d never seen, no matter how high her heels were or how much her feet hurt.
“Were you going to stay here tonight?” I asked.
She looked distraught as she nodded. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she admitted in a small voice.
“What about your family?” I asked. She struck me as your typical spoiled princess. I was sure her parents would take her in with no trouble.
She shook her head, and something passed over her face I couldn’t quite read. “No, I can stay in a hotel or something for the time being. But I just need to go to the bank in the morning and transfer some money.” She sniffed. “Their servers are down for maintenance, so I can’t do it right now.”
“You don't have enough in your checking account for a hotel room?”
She frowned at me. “Not that it's any of your business, but no, I don't.”
I huffed, not at all surprised to learn that. She probably went on a shopping spree with last week's paycheck. I’d bet anything that sinful pink dress was new.
“Well, you can’t stay in a hotel forever. Why can’t you go home?”
“I ran away,” she replied, her voice rising.
“Ran away?” I repeated. “What are you, eight?”
“It’s… I just… I messed it all up, okay? I can’t go back there.”
I stood there, shocked, as tears began to fall from her eyes. Her makeup started to run and her shoulders were shaking and oh, fuck. She was sobbing now.
“Uh.” I closed the distance between us, awkwardly putting an arm around her shoulders. I did not handle crying well. At all. On the rare occasions when someone had a breakdown in my presence, I usually told them to walk it off. But something told me that was not going to work with this woman.
“It’s okay,” I muttered, not really sure what else to say.
She shook her head, turning her body and pressing herself into me. Shit. Oh, shit. Taylor was clinging to me, bawling her fucking eyes out. I had no idea what to do, but she didn’t seem to care. I might have been the world’s worst comfort-giver, but she treated me like her own personal teddy bear, wrapping her arms around my chest and laying her head on my shoulder as she let it all out.
And I felt like a dickhead for thinking it, but the only thing running through my mind right now was finally. Finally, I got to touch her, got to put my hands on her. It might not be exactly the way I wanted, the way I’d dreamed of countless times, but it still felt good. It felt less and less awkward as the minutes wore on. She fit here, with our arms wrapped around each other like this.
But she was not here for cuddles. She was still crying, though it had died down a bit. And though I didn’t relish the idea of her breaking down, at least this was something real. This wasn’t an act she was putting on, the Everything is Awesome Theater. This was just a real person with real emotions, seeking real consolation.
But wait. Did consolation mean I had to ask her questions, listen to her while she vented about whatever was making her cry? Was that something a boss was supposed to do? Was I even just a boss anymore? I mean, I’d been perving on her for months, and now I was hugging her. So maybe I was more than that now.
Did I want to be more than that?
I cleared my throat, and she tipped her head up to look at me.
“So, what happened?”
She was quiet for a beat, like she was thinking of what to say. “We had a fight,” she finally replied, her chin dipping again.
“Uh.” Somehow, during the last couple of minutes, my hands had started rubbing up and down her back. Now, my fingers grazed the bare skin right below her shoulders, and she shivered. “You and Morris?”
“No.” She snuggled in closer. “Me and Larkin.”
I frowned. “Who?”
She huffed. “My best friend. We live together. Lived together.” She sniffed loudly, bringing a hand up to wipe her cheeks. But then she returned it to the small of my back. I felt a weird swooping sensation in the pit of my stomach at that, but I tried not to think about it too much.
“Okay. Why did you two fight?”
“Her husband died,” she mumbled into my shirt.
I frowned. “You had a fight with your friend because her husband died?”
She sighed. “No, I had a fight with Larkin because she’s not happy.”
“Uh.” I blinked a few times. “Seems normal to me that she’d be unhappy that her husband died. Right?”
I mean, I guess there could be reasons why a woman might be glad her husband was dead, like if he abused her, or he left her a whole bunch of money, or she didn’t really love him. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I was misunderstanding the whole thing. Probably that.
See, this was why I shouldn’t have said anything. Now I was confused, and I was embroiled in a whole bunch of drama that didn’t concern me, as well.
“Yeah, but that was over a year ago, and it’s like it happened yesterday. She doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t do anything but hole up in her room and cry.” She sounded angry about this Larkin’s inab
ility to move on from a devastating loss.
“Well, grief is weird,” I reasoned. My dad had died five years ago, so I had a little experience with it. I still couldn’t bring myself to take the tarp off the motorcycle we’d spent years fixing up. I still felt raw whenever I thought about riding it.
At my words, Taylor stiffened under my hands, and she growled in frustration. “Well, of course you’d take her side. How could I be so stupid as to think you’d be at all sympathetic?” She pulled back, glaring up at me. “Why do you hate me?”
I took half a step back. “What the fuck? I don’t hate you!” I ran my hands through my hair. I’d literally just been hugging her, trying to comfort her while she cried. And she thought I hated her?
Why did it always have to be like this with her? No one in my entire life had ever gotten under my skin as easily as she did. It was like we got pissed off just by looking at each other.
“And for the record,” I added, “I’m not taking her side. I’m not taking anyone’s side. I don’t even know your friend.”
“But if you did, you’d take her side,” she accused. “Just like Graham did.”
At the mention of her boyfriend’s name, I growled. “Right. Perfect pretty boy Morris, with his gym muscles and his tailored pants.”
“He has to tailor his pants!” she argued. “He doesn’t fit in regular pants!”
Goddamn it. That was it. That was my fucking breaking point.
“Yeah, and you’d know all about his pants, wouldn’t you?” I stalked toward her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snipped.
“How did your third date go?” I knew I was way over the line right now, irrational with anger and jealousy and something else I couldn’t quite name. But I couldn’t stop myself. This woman was driving me absolutely fucking bonkers.
And I’d had enough. I’d had enough of looking but not touching. I’d had enough of trying not to notice how her nipples hardened whenever I spoke to her, how her eyes would trail over my body, how she licked her lips when I touched my beard. I’d had enough of pretending that she didn’t want me, and I didn’t want her. I’d had enough of wondering what she looked like, what she sounded like, what she tasted like, when she was naked and writhing with pleasure. I’d had enough of fighting with her because I couldn’t fuck her.