Effortless (Less Is More Book 3)

by J. M. Lamp

  I love it.

  “Jesus,” Sadie says, “these people are so fucking rude.”

  “They have places to be and asses to kiss.”

  “I’m just surprised their office is this far into the city,” she says. She slides between two women that are standing in the middle of her path, and the women both look towards her, amazed. “People shouldn’t just stand on the fucking sidewalk when other people are clearly trying to get somewhere.”

  She’s going to fit right in.

  We turn the corner and see it across the street next to a Mcdonalds. Sadie hurries across, and I have to run to keep up with her. The building is laid out in grey marble, and the sign that displays the name of the company is in the middle of the two-door entrance.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  “If that’s any indication,” she says, pointing to the Mcdonalds sign, “I’m guessing they’re all a bunch of fatties.”

  I laugh and follow her into the building. We get to a set of elevators, and I see the board to the side that shows every business that is within the building. The publishing house is on the third floor, and I’m a tad confused as to why the name is on the outside when there are other things in the building.

  It’s smaller than I pictured, as we get closer to the front desk. I peak behind the receptionist’s shoulder and see a few office compartments in the back and then a bunch of people at computers in the middle.

  “Hi,” the receptionist says once we get to her desk.

  “Hi,” Sadie replies. “My name is Sadie Mills. I have an appointment with an Elliot Edwards today.”

  “Yes!” the woman exclaims. “We’re all very glad that you’ll be joining the Brenson & Brackett team. I’ll take you to Mr. Edwards’ office.”

  “Can he come with me?” Sadie points over to me, and I awkwardly smile.

  “Of course,” the woman says. “You guys can follow me.”

  We make our way past the front desk and follow the woman back towards the offices. As we get to the middle where the computers are, I see that the room expands on each side. The left side is just one huge glass window with multiple couches and chairs spread out close to it. The right side has more offices and a hallway that goes deeper into the building.

  The woman knocks on a door that reads, ‘Elliot Edwards – Editor in Chief’, and I see a man get up from his seat through the window to the side. As the door opens, I see the guy I met at work the other night sitting in the chair behind the guy at the door.

  Sam.

  “You must be Sadie,” the man says. He smiles and extends his hand to her. “I’m Elliot.” His eyes move from hers to mine and when he spots me, his eyes grow wide for a second, and he extends his hand out to me, too. “I think I actually already know this guy.”

  “Oliver,” I say, shaking his hand. “I work at Gregor’s Pub.”

  Elliot looks back over his shoulder, and I see Sam get up out of the chair.

  Sam looks up from the floor and locks eyes with me. His mouth opens a little, and I smile as he squeezes past Elliot and stands outside the door.

  “Thank for lunch, El,” Sam says. He looks at me and laughs. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I reply.

  “You two know each other?” Sadie asks me.

  “We met the other night at the pub,” I tell her. “Still waiting on that tour of the city.”

  Sam smiles and says, “How about right now?”

  I look over at Sadie and raise my eyebrows.

  “Go ahead,” she says. She smiles and follows Elliot into his office.

  “She drove me,” I say as Oliver and I turn around and make our way towards the exit.

  “I can take you home later.” He holds the door open for me and we move closer to the elevator. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ve been busy this week, and today was my first day off in forever because the company shut down for the day. There’s a gas leak or something.”

  “It’s OK. I would’ve seen you one way or another.”

  We make our way outside, and I follow Sam as he makes his way across the street.

  “Where to first?” he asks me.

  “Where do you recommend?”

  “Are you afraid of heights?” He puts his hand in front of his face as he tries to look at me, and block out the sun from his view in the process.

  I move my head from side to side and say, “Nope.”

  “Okay.”

  We make our way North and I spot a giant Ferris wheel in the distance. It sits on a high point of the pier, and my jaw drops a little as I take in the view of the water and what surrounds it.

  “Have you been to the pier yet?” he asks me.

  “No,” I say. “We haven’t did a lot because of packing, and I never really visited the city before we decided to move here.”

  He smiles and bumps his shoulder into mine. “I’m glad your first time is with me.”

  After waiting for what seems like an eternity, we get to the front of the line and step up into the seat of the Ferris wheel. It slowly swings us up, and I laugh when we get to the top and see a bunch of random specks, as well as a beautiful view of the city.

  “Pretty amazing, right?” Sam says. I look over at him and smile as I nod my head and take in the features of his face that I didn’t see the first night I met him.

  Sam has very little facial hair, and what he does have connects to his hairline perfectly. His nose has a perfectly edged curve to it, and his skin is flawless. I watch the sunlight bounce off his teeth as he smiles at me, and my heart skips a beat.

  I realize that I’m here to get closer to him as a friend, though, and not find a new boyfriend. I’ve never been friends with someone who I was this attracted to; which I already know is going to make things harder than they should be.

  “Gorgeous,” I say, taking my eyes off of him and looking back at the view of the water.

  “So,” he says, “how long have you been bartending?”

  “Since college,” I say. “I have a business degree, but I realized that wearing a suit and tie and all that just isn’t for me. I make plenty of money bartending surprisingly, so I just said screw it and decided to do what is fun to me. I’d like to own my bar one day, though.”

  “I’d change places if you did.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” I say, laughing. “What about you? Have you been in the video game business forever?”

  “No, actually, I just got into it last year. I’ve wanted to since I started studying up on design and stuff in college, but I just stuck to a bunch of freelancing and building a portfolio, I guess. I never liked being in the same place all the time. This is the only job I’ve had where I can go in and sit all day without wanting to blow my brains out. I love it.”

  Sam seems so comfortable in his own skin. Words flow from his lips like the water waves in and out to shore. His posture is smooth, and he has a way about him that is so laid back.

  “So, your friend,” he says, “it’s crazy that she got a book deal there of all places.”

  “You were literally the last thing I expected to see when I went back with her today.”

  “I hardly see Elliot or my other friends anymore, so I used my day off to kind of catch up, I guess.”

  “Just because of work?” I ask him.

  He shrugs his shoulders and looks straight ahead as we get closer to the bottom of the ride. “Work, and they all have boyfriend and husbands now. Everyone’s got someone. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not actively looking for something right now. I have a lot going on with work, but it is just kind of shitty, I guess, that everyone is paired off.”

  “Am I not the only one with ex-boyfriend drama, I take it?”

  He laughs and leans back against the seat of the Ferris wheel. “My drama is a few years old. I’m over it, but I’ve just never felt the need to find someone again. To be honest, I got cheated on and relationships just never seem to work out for me in the long run, so I just decided after this last o
ne to quit trying and focus on myself.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Still, it would be nice sometimes to not be so alone.”

  We get off the Ferris wheel and make our way down towards the beach-area. Sam finds a spot in the sand, and I sit down beside him. The sand is the perfect temperature, and the air is cool enough that the heat from the sun isn’t too bad.

  “I used to love going to the beach when I was little,” I say. I stretch my hands out behind my back and lean my head back to look up at the clouds.

  “We rarely went to the beach,” Sam says. “We went on a lot of cruises, and we went to Disney World a lot once my sister was born. It was always over-the-top stuff with friends of the family. We never just went camping or to the beach.”

  Sam’s tone changes when he talks about the friends of the family. I get the feeling that all of the vacations were not necessarily amazing ones.

  “How old is your sister?”

  “She just turned nineteen.” He flips onto his side and cups his hands by his chest. “She lives with me. She was going to go to school in Wisconsin, where my family lives, but she decided to go to the university here.”

  I smile, and he says, “It’s nice having her around. I never really got to see her once I left out of high school; besides Thanksgiving and other little things.”

  “Do you not visit them much?”

  He shakes his head back and forth, and he looks out towards the water. “I don’t exactly fit in with my parents, I guess. I never have, and I never will. Do you have any siblings?”

  “Nope,” I say. “Well, I have a stepbrother and stepsister, but I haven’t seen them since I was little, so I don’t really count them as anything. For most of my life, it was just my mom and I. My dad cheated on her when I was younger. She packed up our things, and we moved to Illinois where her family was. She never found anyone else after him. She was fine with just being a mother and being alone. I think she thought that if she ever did fall in love again, he would just do what my dad did.”

  “Do you not talk to your dad?”

  “We call each other every once in a while, but that’s it.” I flip over onto my stomach and lay my head on my hands. “He moved down south and started a new life about a year after my mom left him.”

  “That’s why you visited the beach so much?”

  I nod and try to make out his face through the sunlight. Music starts blaring to the right of us, and I look over and see a group of young kids setting up a volleyball net. I look back over at him and raise my eyebrows.

  “That happens all the time,” he says. “Come June, this place will be scattered with people doing that.”

  He gets up off the ground and wipes the sand off his shorts. “Come on.” He nods his head back towards the city and extends his hand out to help me up. “There’s something else I want to show you today.”

  An hour later, Sam guides me up to the top of the Skydeck of Chicago. I’m in awe as I walk around the room and see the vast expanse that the city covers.

  “Never come here on a weekend,” Sam says. “It’s ridiculous.”

  I step into the transparent box that sits outside of the building and overtop of the city.

  “Let me take your picture,” Sam says. He smiles and pulls out his phone. I sit down on the floor of the box and look up towards the lens of his phone. I hear the click and look up to his eyes. His smile grows wider as he looks from the picture to me.

  “Gorgeous,” he says.

  ***

  Day grows to night, and Sam and I make our way back to his car.

  “Dinner was great,” I say across the roof of his car.

  He smiles, and he says, “I’m glad you liked it. It’s one of my favorite places.”

  He pulls out of the parking garage and makes his way towards my apartment. I roll down the window and let my hand motion through the energy of the air that’s pushing against the car.

  “Today, in general, was great,” I say. I look over to him and smile. “You’re a nice guy, Sam.”

  “I told you,” he says. He raises his eyebrows and pursues his lips. “Best friend award winner every year.” I laugh and look back out the window towards the city.

  Sam really is a nice guy. If I were looking, he would be perfect boyfriend-material. The only problem with Sam, I think, is going to be how attractive he is. I’ve tried not to focus on it since I met him, but in the back of mind, I’m constantly wondering what that nice ass that I saw my first night at Gregor’s would look like on my bed. I wonder what his skin would taste like on my tongue, and I wonder if any of these thoughts have crossed his mind as well.

  I know I don’t want a relationship right now, and I know Sam doesn’t want one because he told me so. I wonder if he’d be up for other things?

  We pull up to my apartment, and I see the light is on in the living room from the window. Sadie is still up, so I have no doubt that I’ll be asked a thousand questions about my day. Sam taps his fingers along the lining of his steering wheel and turns down the music on the radio.

  “Today was fun,” I say.

  “I had a really good time.” He turns in his seat to his side and looks down at his fingers. “I know this city like the back of my hand, but seeing it today with you felt different. It was nice showing you around, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to show you around, too. I’m also glad you had a good time.”

  “So,” I say, opening the door and sticking my leg out, “are you going to text me this time or not?”

  He laughs and turns back towards the steering wheel. “I promise you that you will hear from me soon.”

  “Bye, Sam.”

  “Have a good night, Olli.” He pulls away as I look back over my shoulder and watch his car disappear around the corner.

  I walk into the apartment and see Sadie reading a book on the couch. She looks up at me and squints. “Back so soon?”

  “I know.” I kick my shoes off and plop myself down on the couch beside her. “We had a really good day, though. He’s a really nice guy.”

  “He’s really cute,” she says.

  “I know,” I whisper. “That’s the only problem. Obviously, I don’t want to get into something else right now, but I really want to get to know him better in certain ways.”

  “Meaning his dick in your mouth?”

  I laugh and lie back against the arm of the couch. “That, and he has a really nice ass. I just want to touch it.”

  “Well,” she says, closing the book and setting it on the coffee table, “maybe you guys could get closer and then just fool around or something. Maybe he’ll be down for that?”

  “I wouldn’t even know how to bring that up.”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Just see how things play out, I guess. You never know what’s gonna happen. You could end up talking to him a few more times and then just not talking for no reason whatsoever.”

  “True.” I get off the couch and start making my way towards my bedroom. “It’s stupid to overthink anything. Besides, I can’t let the one gay friend that I now have here be the guy I date.”

  Chapter Five

  Sam

  I ’M A FEW WEEKS INTO MY NEW position now, and it’s starting to get a lot more relaxed. Elizabeth had so many things messed up, but I’m smarter than Elizabeth.

  “Here,” Braxton says, setting an envelope down on my desk. He sits down in the chair across from my desk and smiles.

  “What’s this?” I look at the envelope and see that all it has on it is my name.

  “Open it.”

  I open the envelope and see two weekend passes to Comic Con in New York City this coming October. I look up at him in awe.

  “Every year they give everybody free passes here,” he says. “You don’t have to go, but it’s a big deal, obviously, so they want you to go and mingle. There’s a lot of other gaming conventions before then, but that is the fun one because it has everything.”

&n
bsp; “And I can bring anyone I want?” I ask him. He nods, and my mind instantly wanders into Oliver territory.

  Oliver and I have hung out a few times since we spent the whole day together, but it has just been dinner here and there. My dreams, however, have started becoming more and more frequent, and I’m not completely sure how much longer I’m going to be able to hangout with him before I want those dreams to become a reality.

  My phone vibrates on the table, and I look down to see a text from Oliver.

  Oliver: You and me, this weekend, laser tag. Sound good?

  I smile and look up at Braxton.

  “That your boyfriend?” He laughs and gets up out of the chair.

  “He’s just a friend,” I say.

  I’m not sure if I say it to reassure him, or reassure myself.

  “Whatever you say, bud. I’ll swing by later before I leave.” Braxton closes my door and makes his way to his desk.

  When I got my new position, I went from a desk in the office to having my very own office. It’s still weird being in charge of people who have been here longer, but so far, no one seems to mind, and no one has given me any shit about it.

  I text Oliver back and lay my head on my hands. I close my eyes and try to think about something other than Oliver, but it doesn’t work. My mind flashes back to my dream last night, and my pants grow tighter in the crotch the more detailed the memory gets.

  ***

  My phone dings and I see a text from Oliver.

  Oliver: I’m outside.

  I smile and grab my wallet off the table. It’s Saturday morning, and I have thought about nothing all week other than seeing Oliver today.

  I walk outside and see him standing by a speed bike.

  “I don’t have a car,” he says.

  He hands me a small helmet and gets on the bike. He swings his leg over the seat, and I look away once my eyes lock onto his ass that is practically ripping itself through his tight jeans.

  “Is this cool?” He raises the cover that hides his face, and his smile stops me from saying anything for a second.