Love Handles (A Romantic Comedy)

by Gretchen Galway

  His temper was warring with his pride. “Yes.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then what, when?”

  “When—when we have problems everyone will know,” she said. “It will be harder than it is already to manage people. To get things done.”

  A strange feeling came over him, like the nausea before a big meet. He could almost feel his toes curling over the starting block, waiting for the gun to pop, knowing his father was already cursing him out from the stands, that his mother was smiling and trying to rein in his father, that he didn’t have to endure any of it if he had the guts.

  If he had the guts he’d refuse to play the game he’d been shoved into. He could make his own rules. Find another way to win.

  He looked into her big blue eyes and managed a smile, even though his stomach twisted. “If I didn’t work here would you turn me down?” He stepped closer to her. “Knowing me as you do, with all my faults, would you want to see how far we could go with each other?”

  She waved aside his question with a joke. “We’ve gone pretty far already.”

  “You know what I mean. You said you could love me, remember.” He managed to keep his voice hard, but he’d never felt so soft in his life.

  “It’s more than just us, Liam. More than me. You can’t leave Fite now—you’re—you’re essential.”

  “To Fite, or to you?”

  She glanced away, then into his face, and smiled. “To me.” Then, while his walls were down, she added, “I never would have survived this long here without you.”

  Insult to injury, he thought, chiding himself for being pathetic, for letting himself sink so deep, for still not being able to tell her off and walk away while he still had his pride.

  “So if you had a choice between coming home with me tonight, and tomorrow night, and maybe the night after,” he lifted his hand to her soft, creamy cheek, “versus only seeing me at work . . . you’d choose the latter?”

  He thought he could feel her trembling. Her skin was red hot under his palm. She was blinking too much and he could hear each shallow breath pass her lips.

  He knew the instant she decided: pity showed in her eyes, and he dropped his hand.

  “It would be selfish of us, given the risk, how different we are . . . ” She reached out to him. “I’m sorry—”

  He spun away from her, not wanting her to see the pain that must be pathetically obvious on his face.

  She was sorry.

  He blinked, frowning, looking around his office—the only place, apparently, she really wanted him. It was an old, familiar pain, to be loved only in context, under condition, with services rendered, awards received, a performance-based compensation. For the first time he wondered if Ed had left him out of his will as a favor. To give him a choice.

  Well, he’d made his choice. Too bad for him.

  He swallowed, trying to suppress the violence in his chest.

  “Liam?” she asked, touching his shoulder.

  He jerked away. “Do you need a walk to BART?” His voice was rough.

  “No—I’ve—got my car.”

  “So, you don’t need me.”

  “Liam?”

  “I think it’s time you learned you can handle things by yourself.” He walked over to his desk, pulled open the drawers, looked for anything he might want to keep. Unlike a month ago, he couldn’t see a thing he cared about.

  She dropped her face into her hands. “See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. Sex complicates everything.”

  “You are so right.” He felt disgustingly complicated. He slammed the top desk drawer shut, pulled out the middle one, blindly shoved his hand through spare buttons and toggles and swatch cards, photos of line boards, tearsheets from Lucky and WWD, the first sell-through numbers for the Fite the Man shorts he’d designed. “I think we can both do without any more complications.” He banged the drawer shut, decided not to even bother with the rest of them, and looked around for his jacket and running shoes.

  “What are you doing? If you’re threatening to leave again—”

  “Not at all.” He met her angry gaze with his own. “I’m informing you of my decision.”

  “But the meeting—”

  “Is Thursday. I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”

  “You don’t mean that. You know I need you—”

  “You don’t.” He pulled his lips back into a grimace. “And even if you did, too bad. You can’t have me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. The mouth he’d never taste again. “You’re quitting because I can’t date you? Don’t you think that’s a bit childish? Or worse?”

  “Worse than childish?” He raised his eyebrow at her. “That’s pretty bad coming from a preschool teacher.” He sneered. “Excuse me. An ex-preschool teacher. I’m sure you’ll never settle for that life again.”

  “I might have to, if you walk out of here now.”

  “So I should stay just for you?”

  “For the company. The one you love.”

  Love. Same word, different thing. “I do love this place,” he said. “Problem is, it doesn’t love me back.”

  “Well, it needs you. Every day I get emails from Richard about some new horrible red ink that’s going to swallow us up, and the sales guys complain the accounts aren’t getting paid, and the returns are eating away our profits, that we’re lucky if Marshall’s takes our September deliveries for a three-percent markup—”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  “You shouldn’t take out your anger on Fite. Hate me, fine, but if you leave me alone right now, it’s the entire company that’s going to suffer—”

  “If you really believe that, why don’t you go home to L.A.? Hire someone qualified?”

  That got her. Eyes bright, she took a step back, staring at him. “Maybe I will,” she said through her teeth.

  “Great. Awesome. Maybe I’ll apply for a job then, after you’re gone.” And with his running shoes under his arm and his jacket over his shoulder, he left Bev and his office and Fite and walked out into the cold San Francisco summer night.

  “Where’s Liam?” Rachel asked late Tuesday morning. She had a box cutter in one hand and Chinese takeout in the other. “His office is all locked up.”

  In the two days since Liam had walked out, Bev had convinced herself she’d done the right thing. She would never have control of the company with that kind of extortion coming from her top employee. Date me or I’m leaving. Sleep with me or I quit. Where would it end? Give me a blow job in the marker room or I won’t ship the second spring delivery to Kohl’s?

  He said wanted to date like “normal” people—but they were the two most powerful, visible figures of a fragile organization that revolved around them. She was already having enough trouble winning people’s respect—even her own family doubted her. Sleeping with the handsome, alpha VP would subtly, perhaps permanently, undermine her authority. She’d become the boss’s girlfriend, not the boss.

  And, of course, the relationship itself would be doomed from the start. Fighting, screwing, arguing, kissing, hurting—all that drama wasn’t healthy. They’d burn out in a couple months—the breakup painfully visible to everyone in the building. They would be like unhappy parents driving the family into divorce.

  No. She’d known if she got stupid about him it would ruin everything. She had already started to care too much—so much she’d almost believed he was devastated by her rejection. But then he left. Just like that.

  She’d done the right thing. Thank God, because otherwise she’d be miserable. Sleeping on the couch in an industrial office building over the weekend, crying and angry and heartbroken—that was bad enough, but to think it was unnecessary, that she’d made some kind of mistake—well, that would crush what little hope she had left.

  With the thick smell of soy sauce and peanut oil wafting over from where Rachel stood across from her, Bev took a deep breath and slid her keyboard away from her on the desk, knowin
g she couldn’t put it off forever. She’d have to tell people. Not everyone, and not today, but she had to start somewhere.

  “He might not be coming back,” Bev said. “He—he says he has some things to figure out.”

  Eyes wide, Rachel dropped into a chair. “Not coming back?”

  “Probably not.” She tried to smile.

  Rachel’s eyes widened further. “You figured it out, didn’t you? About your grandfather’s sick little plan for you guys?”

  A hollow pit gaped open inside Bev’s stomach. “Little plan?” She didn’t want to hear this. Her voice dropped. “What plan?”

  “Only one way to keep it in the family and put Liam in charge. He was totally obsessed with keeping it in the family. Not like he could set him up with Ellen—not that she’d mind being with a younger man, but they always hated each other. I bet he would have made it a condition of the will if that had been legal.” Rachel’s mouth curved up on one side.

  Bev swallowed over the lump in her throat. Kate and Rachel both thought the same thing—

  “I didn’t think Liam would do it, going after you and all, but I guess he really, really loved his job,” Rachel said.

  That was too much. Bev stood up. “You should go eat your lunch and get back to work.”

  Rachel snapped her mouth shut, looked down at the white and red plastic bag of takeout in her lap. “But what are you going to do?”

  Bev smiled tightly. “Do?”

  “Without him. How will you keep it together?”

  “He wasn’t that indispensable. Nobody is.”

  “Liam was. You must be totally freaking out.”

  For the first time she wondered if she’d made the right choice in her right-hand woman. “We’ll be fine. Everyone needs to have a little faith—in themselves most of all.” She got to her feet and walked across the office to the door.

  Rachel followed. “No, their faith in you is what matters.”

  “Then you better start singing my praises.” Whether you believe them or not. Rachel might not love her, but at least she did an excellent job helping Bev fake it with everyone else. “Start with Engineering. They’re the source of all the gossip around here. Maybe I can win over the sales guys after the Target deal.”

  “That’s still on?”

  “Damn, it better be. We’ll be dead with out it,” Bev said. “What are you doing?”

  Rachel put her lunch down on the floor outside Liam’s office and rattled the doorknob. “We better get in there and finish the presentation, don’t you think? Where’s your key?”

  “I was just about to do that.” She had been putting it off, loathe to make Liam’s absence official. “Go have your lunch. I’d rather do this by myself.”

  Rachel hesitated, her hand still on the knob. “You sure? If it’s as big a deal as you said—”

  “Just for now. Let’s meet at five and get it into boxes for tomorrow. That too late?”

  “Five? I wish. I haven’t been out of here before six in years.”

  “You should work on that.”

  “Gee, thanks, boss.” Rachel picked up her lunch, rolled her eyes, and disappeared into her office.

  Bev stared after her for a moment wondering why her family’s most annoying characteristics seem to have been institutionalized at Fite. When Kate and her mother had watched her drive away from the Oakland house, their faces had looked exactly like that. The same wounded-but-disgusted expression.

  She retrieved the master key from her purse and went back to open Liam’s door, trying not to get emotional about it but getting emotional about it.

  “It even smells like you,” she muttered into the dark. Not wanting to deal with Rachel’s moody scrutiny, she closed the door behind her and patted the wall to find the switch. She turned and looked at Liam’s desk just as the delayed overhead lighting illuminated the disaster.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  His office had been torn apart. Tattered clothing sagged off their hangers on the wall, torn sketches covered the chairs, and zigzagging piles of white foam core boards littered the floor. Bev turned around slowly, checked the unforced door latch and locked it. She went over to the desk on quiet feet, listening for any hint of another occupant but deciding she was alone.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to keep it together. In spite of the shocking mess all over the room, most of his desk was untouched. The computer, the cup of pens and pinking shears, the hangtag gun and strands of tape measure—all neat and tidy in the corner of his desk, just like Saturday night.

  But the presentation—every garment and board and sketch and swatch—had been ruined.

  He wouldn’t do this.

  A knock of the door made her heart jump into her throat. She pressed a hand over her chest and tried to breathe.

  But who would? Could Ellen have slipped in without being noticed?

  Her own mother?

  The mere possibility filled her with raw, confused pain. In a daze, Bev walked slowly over to the door but didn’t open it. “Yes?” Her voice sounded calm and far away.

  “Bev?” Rachel asked.

  Eager to commiserate, she reached to unlock the door—and stopped herself. For some reason she couldn’t articulate to herself, she didn’t want to let Rachel see the destruction. It would be horrible for morale, and the temptation for Rachel to gossip would be too great.

  “Yes?” Bev let her hand drop to her side.

  Silence. Then, “I’m done with lunch. I could meet now if you want.”

  “No. Five is still better for me.”

  After another long pause, Rachel said, “All right,” and there was silence again.

  Bev took a deep breath, grateful she didn’t have to soothe Rachel as well as herself. She put her palm on the door and closed her eyes.

  Think.

  All she’d done since Liam had left was think. Nobody was left to talk to—she’d alienated her aunt, her mother, her sister, and now Liam.

  She turned back around and stared at the carnage, jaw clenched. If not Liam or her family, then who would do this?

  Who wants me to fail?

  Her foot caught on a balled-up sweatshirt on the floor. She picked it up. It was the charcoal hoodie Liam had wanted Annabelle to wear, marked up with the dusty wheel-marks of an office chair.

  Her first design, and he’d liked it.

  She sank down in Liam’s chair, picked up the plastic hangtag gun on the edge of the desk and pointed it at the door where she’d last seen him.

  Unsatisfied with her target, she pointed it at her own head, the small metal needle poking her in the temple, and squeezed the trigger.

  “Pow,” she said.

  Chapter 22

  “Liam, it’s for you.”

  It was late Tuesday afternoon. April stood in the doorway waving the phone while Liam scraped the last stripes of peeling paint off his bedroom dresser. “I’m busy. Who is it?”

  “You haven’t slept in days. Take a break already. Lord.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Not her. Unfortunately.”

  Warily Liam put down the scraper and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his wrist, studying April’s face for any hint of matchmaking. Since Sunday she’d been the All Bev, All the Time channel, as though she’d never seen him have trouble getting over a woman before and suddenly was obsessed with uniting him with his one true soulmate.

  He took off his gloves and snatched the phone out of her hands. “You just want the condo to yourself,” he muttered, then into the phone he asked, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Liam,” came a depressed, familiar voice. Kimberly Jaeger, his ex, now at Target. She sounded even unhappier than usual.

  “Hey, good thing you called,” he said. “Change of plans—”

  “Oh, thank God,” Kimberly sighed. “I was feeling guilty.”

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t say it.”

  “I can’t do it. If it was just you and me, unofficially chatting, you kno
w, catching up—”

  “You can still do that. Just do that with Bev.”

  The phone went quiet. “I can’t.”

  “There’s no difference. It’s the same product line. Just I won’t be there.”

  “Why do you care? You quit.” She paused. “What happened—did she get too serious? I thought that was why you never fooled around at work anymore.”

  Liam frowned. “Who told you—?” he cut himself off and stared at the roll of blue masking tape on the floor. “Come to think of it, who told you anything? How did you know I left?”

  “I used to work there, big guy. Things get around.”

  “Not to Minneapolis.” He paced his room, kicking aside lumpy drop clothes and wishing he had a different way of working through depression than starting major home renovations. “Who, Kimberly?” His heart was starting to pound. “Other shit happened, weird shit. I need to know.”

  “It’s nothing like that, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Was it Ellen? You know she—”

  “I would never talk to that bitch. Are you kidding?”

  “Who, then?”

  “I won’t tell you. She’s—it’s an old friend.”

  “Jennifer.”

  “No, I told you, I’m not squealing.”

  He took a deep breath. Time to try a new tactic. “You never were much of a squealer,” he said, loading his voice with innuendo.

  “Very funny.”

  But he could tell she was smiling. “Whoever it is, it’s nobody you liked more than me. Right?”

  “I didn’t like anyone more than you. That was the problem.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m cured,” she said. “Now I can cancel meetings with you without any qualms whatsoever.”

  “You said you felt guilty.”

  “No more than I’d feel for any old friend.”

  “Then it wouldn’t have anything to do with jealousy? Like, say, if you were feeling insecure about my feelings for Ed’s granddaughter—who, by the way, you’d love to meet. You always said there wasn’t a woman alive who could resist me when I turned on the charm.”

  “Only because you hoard it and then use it all at once. Very unfair.”

  “Well,” he said, “Bev Lewis managed to deflect it. And me.”