The Tie's The Limit

by Megan Bryce

  Gia walked around him. “Hmm. The pants aren’t hanging quite right. What are you wearing underneath, boxers? Briefs? Boxer briefs?”

  He stared at the wall above the mirror, his face flaming and his fists clenching.

  She tapped her chin.

  “Bikinis? Commando? Here, let me just look,” she said, and Mac knocked away her reaching hand.

  “You can dress me on the outside but you leave my underwear out of it. The tie is the limit!”

  Gia folded her arms, met his angry glare, and said, “What I’m hearing is you don’t want the full-service consultation.”

  He ground out through clenched teeth, “No.”

  She huffed out a breath.

  “That’s fine. Do you like the front flat on the pants or would you prefer pleats?”

  “These are fi—” he began, then stopped. He met her eyes in the mirror and said, “I like these. Get more like this.”

  She nodded. “I would get some in a few different colors if I thought you really did love them. But you don’t.”

  “I don’t want to love them. I want to be able to ignore them. I want my boss to be able to ignore them.”

  Gia didn’t believe him. He just didn’t know yet. He didn’t know what it felt like to be wearing clothes that were right.

  She sighed. “We are going to be at this forever.”

  “Maybe you aren’t as good at this as you think you are.”

  Gia sucked in a breath.

  “I am. I’ve just never dressed anyone so hostile before.”

  “I am not hostile,” he said, adjusting the tie. “I’m neutral.”

  Gia snorted. “You think you’re being Mr. Neutral Switzerland? I think you’re being a Swiss bank. Locked up tight, when all I want to do is make you fall in love with your clothes. I’m not storming your borders here.”

  “You wanted to know what type of underwear I’m wearing.”

  Gia closed her eyes and blew a long breath out her nose and said slowly, “I apologize. I overstepped with the underwear. But in my defense it would really help me to see something personal of yours.”

  She opened her eyes to find him glaring at her and she offered, “What about your home? I could see what you like, how you decorate.”

  He didn’t blink. “No.”

  Yeah, like she hadn’t seen that coming a mile away.

  She smiled at him, deciding that she was going to have to start channeling Teresa or she was going to be here massaging his cuticles for hours.

  Or whatever.

  She said, “Okay. What if you describe it to me?”

  He looked at her blankly and she said, “Your home. What color are the walls?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “White.”

  “Color me surprised,” she said dryly. “What color is the carpet?”

  “It’s tile.”

  “Is it white?”

  “It’s white.”

  She looked at him a long minute before deciding he was probably telling the (sad) truth.

  “Any pictures on the wall?”

  “No.”

  “A view of the water?”

  He had to think again. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s probably something you would have noticed.”

  He looked unconvinced, and truth be told, so was she.

  “Any bric-a-brac, doodads, trinkets? A cute bowl to keep your keys in? Anything?”

  “I keep my keys in a drawer.”

  “So, basically, you’re personality-less. Without personality. Personality challenged.” She blew out a breath. “Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem.”

  “I don’t have a problem. It’s only you who seems to think I do.”

  “And your boss.”

  Mac showed her his teeth and Gia went to lean against his desk before she fainted from exhaustion.

  “How about your name. Is Mac short for anything?”

  He followed to pull a piece of paper out from under her and smooth it.

  “No.”

  “Just Mac Daddy, huh?”

  He must have been pretty exhausted himself because he went around the desk and dropped into his chair.

  “No.”

  “Mac n’ cheese?”

  “Are you done?”

  “I could probably come up with a few more if you give me a minute.”

  He said, “It’s just Mac.”

  Gia crossed her ankles and tapped her nails against his desk.

  “Just Mac, I’ll show you my house if you show me yours.”

  He looked truly afraid for a minute, his eyes flicking up to the blinged-out sunglasses she’d shoved on top of her head.

  He said, “That’s a con. I don’t want to see your home.”

  “That’s a what?”

  “A con. As in, pros and cons. The negative side of a proposed course of action.”

  “My home is on the negative side?”

  He nodded. “In this particular cost-benefit analysis, me seeing your home is a con.”

  Gia slammed her teeth shut.

  “What about your home?”

  “Con two. I don’t want you to see my home either.”

  “Why? And if you say because it’s personal…”

  He steepled his fingers, looking like he was trying to come up with something, and Gia said, “Here’s a pro for you. If I can see your home, and the style of it, then maybe we won’t be doing this for the next ten years.”

  “You’re overexaggerating.”

  “Think so? Really?” When he looked sufficiently concerned, she added, “All I want to see is if your couch matches your armchair. If your dining room table has decorations on the legs or if it’s just a cardboard box in front of a TV. Because your home must have some kind of style to it and maybe you just can’t see it because it’s so you.”

  “I don’t have an armchair. Or a dining room table.”

  “Where do you eat?”

  “At the counter,” he confessed. “I have barstools.”

  “See, now I wouldn’t have guessed that,” she said. “Come on, it’ll only take an hour. Put that in the pro column. We’ll swing by my house for a quick tour—show you my little bit of style that matches my little bit of personality—and then head to yours.”

  He sighed at her, then nodded.

  “Fine. If you drive, I can finish some reading.”

  Gia stood up straight, smiling at him and slipping her sunglasses down over her eyes.

  “That’s great. Then let’s go, Mac Daddy.”

  She walked towards the door, laughing when he said behind her, “It’s. Just. Mac.”

  Mac had remembered at the last minute that he wasn’t in his own clothes and changed quickly.

  Gia had been fine with that since it gave her time to go get the Escalade from the very, very back of the parking lot. She was quite sure he would have a comment about drivers who took up four spots in a crowded lot and she didn’t want to hear it.

  Hey, she already felt bad about it!

  She was waiting for him near the entrance when he came out and he got in saying, “This is not the kind of car I was expecting.”

  “It’s not mine. Just borrowing it until I can buy my own.” She squinted an eye at him. “What kind of car were you expecting?”

  He met her eyes flatly.

  “A two-door POS, rust-colored with crumpled up fast food bags tossed haphazardly in the back.”

  “Uh!”

  He looked in the backseat, where there were no crumpled up fast food bags and Gia gave him a snotty look. Teresa would kill her dead if she defiled the Escalade like that.

  “Consider me surprised,” Mac said blandly, glancing at her hair, and she shouted, “It’s the humidity! I don’t know what to do with it!”

  Mac opened his portfolio with a snap. “I have reading to do.”

  And she had a behemoth to maneuver into traffic but after a few minutes she said, “Now I get to guess what kind of car yo
u have.”

  He stopped reading, looking almost interested and turning in the seat to face her.

  “Go ahead.”

  She thought about it.

  “A Prius.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Or some other electric…hybrid…thingy.”

  “No.”

  Gia pursed her lips, glancing at him to look him up and down like she hadn’t been looking him up and down for the last week, and really thought about it.

  “Some non-descript four-door sedan. Light gray. Recently washed and detailed to within an inch of its life.”

  He smirked—Mac smirked—and went back to his reading.

  He was still smirking a few minutes later when she said, “A two-door non-descript sedan. Light gray. Recently washed and detailed to within an inch of its life.”

  He didn’t look up and he didn’t stop smirking but he did say, “You’ll never guess.”

  She tried to think what kind of car she would never guess and said hesitantly, “A minivan?”

  He chuckled—Mac chuckled—and said, “No.”

  “I don’t like this game,” Gia said. “You do have a car, right? It’s not, like, a bicycle or something like that.”

  He turned a page, still looking way too happy with himself.

  “I do have a car.”

  Interested despite herself, she said, “Is it at the office? Will you show it to me when we get back?”

  “If you like. I don’t see how it will help you dress me though.”

  She shrugged. “Me either, but maybe you keep your personality in your car. Stuffed in the glove compartment with your insurance and registration.”

  She missed the freeway exit to her house but since he didn’t know where they were going anyway just took the next exit like she’d meant to all along.

  And when they pulled up outside her house, she almost let him go inside without a warning but took pity on him at the last minute.

  “My mother will try and feed you. Just say you already ate.”

  “Oh, you live with your parents. That makes sense.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He eyed the beige stucco, then finally said, “It’s a big house for one person.”

  “Uh-huh. I had my own little apartment in New York. It’s just here I have to live with them. Not that I have to, they just are making me.” She waved that away. “It’s a long story and involves an unhealthy amount of parental guilt. You don’t want to hear it.”

  Mac followed her to the front door, “Sounds like a story where you lost. I might want to hear about it.”

  The front door opened before Gia could say anything to that, her mother and grandmother crowding to see the handsome man she was bringing home.

  Not that Gia thought Mac was handsome, it’s just what they would think.

  He was tall, he was blonde, and he had blue eyes.

  Cold, dead blue eyes as far as Gia was concerned.

  She stopped, turning and pointing at each person in turn.

  “Loretta Abelli, my mother. Silvana Abelli, my grandmother. And this is my client,” she said with an evil grin. “Macintosh Sullivan.”

  Megan BryceThe Tie’s The Limit

  Nine

  Gia’s mother said, “Macintosh, what an interesting name. Have you eaten?”

  Gia snickered and he said, “It’s just Mac. And I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Yes, but have you eaten?”

  Gia elbowed him and he quickly said, “Yes. Thank you.”

  Gia’s grandmother narrowed her eyes like she’d been seeing through that lie for a good long time and did he maybe want to rethink that answer?

  He said, “Uhhh…”

  Loretta said, “It’s almost lunchtime. You can’t have eaten yet. Gia?”

  “We’re on official business, Ma. I’m showing him what personality looks like, and then he’s showing me his condo just in case I can find any.”

  “Don’t be rude. Come into the kitchen and eat while we get to know your very first client.”

  Mac elbowed Gia back. “Your very first client?”

  Gia scoffed. “In Florida. Not ever.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her but insistent hands were pulling him inside and Silvana was saying, “Come, Macintosh Sullivan. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

  “Nonnie,” Gia started.

  “It’s just Mac,” he tried again.

  He was sat unceremoniously at a large dining table and Gia blew out a loud breath.

  She said, “Well, we tried,” then fell into the seat next to him. “Hope you like meatloaf sandwiches.”

  Drinks were brought out, plates, sandwiches, a bowl of chips. The two older women sat down opposite them smiling and shooing at them to start eating. They let him take a big bite of sandwich before Gia’s mother said, “So, Macintosh, do you have family around here? Mother? Father?”

  And Gia’s grandmother questioned, “What does it mean that my granddaughter dresses you? Can’t you dress yourself?”

  “I don’t dress him, Nonnie. I’m buying his wardrobe.”

  Mac swallowed and took a large sip. He decided to answer Gia’s mother’s question.

  “My mother lives in California.”

  “Too far,” she tut-tutted, with an eye to her daughter. “Family should be close.”

  Gia said, “I don’t know. California might be nice.”

  Silvana said, “Name me one good reason why.”

  “Hurricanes. They don’t get ‘em.”

  Mac said, “They have earthquakes.”

  Gia snapped a bite of her sandwich, then said around the food, “Movie stars.”

  Mother and grandmother nodded together, murmuring, “Movie stars.”

  Mac said, “Yes, but we have alligators. It evens out,” which made Gia snort her sandwich.

  Loretta patted Gia’s back as she coughed and said over the fit, “Your mother lives in California. Not your father?”

  “My father died.”

  This stopped the coughing fit, and the three women stared with varying degrees of pity at his emotionless declaration.

  Silvana pushed herself from her chair, grabbed his face, and planted it right in her bosom. She patted the back of his head.

  “Oh, Macintosh. All alone in Florida. You come to dinner tonight.”

  Mac didn’t try and correct his name, again, only mumbled, “Help.”

  “Nonnie,” Gia said with remarkable unconcern. “That’s my client, remember?”

  “Everyone needs a soft place to land sometimes, mia creatura. Even your client.”

  Gia took another bite, looking like she was enjoying his predicament, then finally took pity on him.

  “Nonnie, you got to let him breathe.”

  Mac’s head escaped and he took a big gulp of air.

  Silvana patted the top of his head. “No family, but you’re a good boy. I can see.”

  He was worried he’d be pulled back in again, so quickly said, “I have a sister. See her nearly every day.”

  “Oh, good. A sister.”

  Gia’s grandmother made her way back to her seat and Mac smoothed his hair back into place.

  Gia looked at him like she didn’t believe him. “You have a sister that you see nearly every day and she lets you wear the same tie?”

  “She used to let me wear the same-looking tie every day. And then she made me hire you.”

  “Wait…what?”

  “Cara? My boss?”

  Gia blinked. “Your boss?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your boss is your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s your sister?! But you’re so cold together. Like you hardly know each other.”

  “She’s fifteen years older than me. Different mothers. We didn’t grow up together.”

  She still looked incredulous. “But you work together, right?”

  “Yes, and she’s very familiar with my ability to analyze the financial position of a proposed course of ac
tion.”

  Gia wasn’t sure that her laugh wasn’t one of pity. “Pros and cons?”

  “Cost-benefit analysis, yes.”

  “Weird. Very, very weird. She does not act like a big sister, she totally acts like you’re capable.”

  Gia’s mother frowned at her. “Gia.”

  “Really, Ma. I’m seven years younger than Michael, ten years younger than Tony, twelve years younger than Johnny, and do any of them act like I’m capable of anything? No, they do not. They treat me like I’m their baby sister, no matter where we go and what we do.”

  “And you complain about that. Loudly.”

  “Yeah. That’s the normal order of things. They treat me like I’m the baby still and I rebel against it.” She waved her hand toward Mac. “I couldn’t even tell they were related. Although…now that I’m looking at you, you do have the same coloring.”

  Mac finished his meatloaf sandwich, it had been surprisingly delicious, and said, “She did make me hire you, so she does act like my big sister.”

  Gia reached over and tugged on the tie. “I’ve seen this enough times now. That wasn’t overbearing big sister, that was a woman needing to take matters into her own hands.”

  He pulled the offending garment from her fingers. “You’re the only one who doesn’t know we’re related.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Your assistant probably knows.”

  “My assistant?”

  “She set up our first appointment.”

  “Oh, Teresa.” Gia laughed. “She’s really my sister-in-law. See how I just came right out and told you we were related?”

  He mimicked her. “See how we’ve been working together and this is the first I’ve heard of it?”

  “Yeah, well. Teresa is all about faking it until you’re making it, and someday I will have an assistant who is not related to me… No, I’m pretty sure it’ll still be a cousin or something.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’m really starting to wonder if I am your very first client.”

  “You’re not. You’re the first in Florida. It’s an honor. For you.”

  “Feels like it,” he muttered and she poked him in the side.

  Mac remembered suddenly that he was here, in her home, not to be having lunch but to be…he wasn’t sure. Getting Gia off his back about his lack of style?

  He stood, smoothing the tie, and thanking the women for lunch.