by Kent, Julia
“Yes, you can.”
This was a well-worn argument between the two and Mike was having none of it. “Fine. I can, meaning I am able to, but I categorically reject the premise.”
“Why?” Jeremy had made it no secret that he wished that Mike would be his traveling buddy, his companion on world adventures. And that he wanted to find another Dana for them to share. Mike knew that he would just end up being his caretaker and vomit wiper, and would essentially get him out of whatever messes he got himself into. On three different occasions he had had to take a plane across thirteen time zones in order to rescue Jeremy from some mess.
Only once had it involved law enforcement, but that one had been a doozy, when Jeremy had attempted to procure the services of three different prostitutes at once, two of whom were underage and one of whom was an Interpol agent. He suspected that mess had been less intricate and had fewer implications, though, than what he was facing right now.
“Let me be really clear here, Jeremy,” Mike said, going cold. “She’s off limits.”
The last response Mike expected was for Jeremy to peer, intently, at the pocket of his tux jacket. “Nice pocket silk.” Poke. “What is that? You don't normally have silk there.”
Caught! “It's just some standard piece of – ” Jeremy's fingers deftly pinched the top corner and pulled, Lydia's panties unfolding out of the pocket, lace and frills dangling from his friend's enormous hand.
“Give me that,” Mike growled, snatching it back. Laughter poured out of Jeremy in great whoops. What Mike had thought would be a fun secret for himself had just turned into a humiliation he didn't need. Fuck.
Jeremy recoiled slightly, his face slack with concentration. Mike hadn’t seen that look in nearly a decade. “Are those Diane's or Lydia's.”
Mike refused to answer, trying to stare him down.
“You’re really falling for her, aren’t you?” Hating that he had to look up to answer, his eyes burned into Jeremy's, which exuded a humanity, an approval, that Mike didn't expect. Competition? Sure. Acceptance? Wha – ?
“I’m not falling for anyone. I have a television show that needs to be successful so that I can get the bump in profits that I need to get the payoff that I want. I don’t want you, or anyone else, to jeopardize that.”
Jeremy golf clapped politely. “Nice speech. How long did it take you to memorize that?” He hadn’t had this kind of conversation with Jeremy since intense arguments over code reviews years ago. With no more words, he simply broke the gaze, and walked to the car where he knew Dom waited for him.
Chapter Seven
The nightclub was absolutely packed. Part of a three story entertainment complex with a huge dance club and bar on the top floor, a bowling alley and arcade on the second floor, and an enormous restaurant on the bottom. A group of friends from work, which thankfully did not include Dave, had decided to convene for drinks, discussion, and of course – office gossip.
Lydia needed this so much. She didn’t hang out often with her co-workers and Krysta, though technically one, worked five stories down in purchasing and receiving, processing paperwork and like Lydia, a Bachelor’s-degreed woman who was vastly underutilized. Lydia was more vastly underutilized, possessing a Master’s degree, but she didn’t like to think about that. Especially with a few drinks in her.
In that crazy, territorial way that corporations had, the fact that Lydia invited Krysta meant that she had included someone from another tribe. Too bad. Over the past two years, people had just accepted it. Both she and Krysta noticed that very few of Lydia’s co-workers ever spoke to Krysta beyond the requisite “Hi.” By the time the dancing started, though, no one cared. It was all bacchanalian, alcohol-infused fun and for a few hours she could pound, stomp, wiggle, shimmy and shake her worries away.
She was on her third Cosmo (and by the looks of it these were three or four ounces of alcohol per) when a familiar face walked in the nightclub. Even in the dark, those green eyes practically glowed. She ducked her head, leaning in toward Krysta, who was sitting with her, trapped in the giant, semi-circular booth with what felt like a hundred people on either side of them.
“He’s here!” she told Krysta.
“Who?” Krysta’s head twisted wildly around the packed nightclub. “There are lots of ‘he’ types here.”
“Him. Matt Jones,” Lydia whispered and then realized she didn’t need to. In fact, she could have screamed his name and he wouldn’t have heard.
A throng of dancers, arms up in the air, breasts bouncing, chests pumping, hips gyrating, separated him from their group at work. Until Krysta turned traitor, raised her arm in the air, stood up and let out a wolf whistle, the kind you hear at baseball games, except this one was a come hither.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Hey, Matt! We’re over here!”
Lydia had two choices. She could die on the spot or she could kill Krysta. Instead, she froze, then grabbed the fresh Cosmo and drank it all down in one big slurp.
“You’re supposed to sip those.” Krysta’s eyes were wide, calculating what Lydia had just done and the aftereffects of it.
“You’re not supposed to invite the enemy,” she retorted, feeling angry and empty and most of all, indignant that her brain couldn’t assemble the right burning response right now.
“What?” Krysta played innocent. “Just including a guy from the office in our – ”
“Yeah, right.”
“So one minute you let him slip your panties off you, the next he's the enemy?”
“My logic needs no explanation.”
“'Logic' isn't the word for it. 'Bullshit,' on the other hand...” Krysta just shook her head and took another sip of her magarita.
Matt’s eyes locked on Lydia’s. Suddenly, no one else existed in the room. Just him, with those bright green eyes, that sandy brown hair, those broad shoulders that, even in business casual clothes, made him look sensual. She knew that he was muscular, strong, tight – that those biceps underneath could lift her easily if they wanted to. She knew that his ribs tapered down to a narrow waist and that beneath that –
“Hey, how's it going?” he asked, smiling. How in the hell did he manage to make it here so fast? she wondered. Time blinked. One of her favorite songs popped up and she jumped at the chance to get away from what was turning out to be a very, very uncomfortable situation.
A million people – no, actually, six on one side and eight on the other – blocked her from getting out of the giant booth. Some matched up as couples in various states of intimacy, tongues in throats, hands on thighs. Frustrated that she and Matt were not one of those couples, and nearly in tears that he hadn't talked about their latest encounter with her, she decided to get away from him.
And so, in a stroke of brilliance, she just climbed under the table, finding herself at Matt’s feet as she crawled out through the other end. Lydia looked up, head pointed directly at his belt buckle. She tipped her face up to see him smiling down, a wolfish grin on his face.
“Well, hello there. That’s some table service.”
Mike had groaned inwardly when Jeanie from accounting had invited to go out with “the gang,” as she called them, a group of about ten or fifteen folks from work who occasionally went to a giant entertainment complex to unwind, hang out, have fun. It sounded very mid-twenties to him and while he had had his share of those nights, he wasn’t sure that getting that close to his employees was a good idea.
When Jonah had caught the invitation on camera after Jeanie left, a perfectly timed phone call made Mike realize just how watched he was.
“So, hey, Mike,” Jonah said, that voice still filled with oil and, Mike knew, vinegar. “Mike, we saw that whole clip with Jeanie inviting you to the bar and we think that’s a great idea. You should go and we can follow with the cameras and, you know...”
“Cameras? How are you going to do that, Jonah, without tipping everyone off?”
“Oh, it’ll be great. You can wear a
hidden ca – ”
“No. No. Nope. No way.” His voice was cold steel. There were lines that he needed to draw in this reality television mess. “I don’t wear a wire. I don’t wear a hidden camera. I don’t play ‘Mike cam’.”
“Ooooo, ‘Mike cam’ I like that. You have a way with words.”
“Jonah,” Mike said menacingly.
“I understand. I really do,” Jonah told him in a fake tone that made Mike's teeth ache. “But you gotta show some kind of spirit here. The clips we’re getting are pretty dry.”
“Really? The meeting with Dave? That wasn’t intense enough for you?”
“No. That was good. The way you stood up for Linda – ”
“Lydia.”
“Lydia. Yeah. The way you stood up for her and the way Dave was just, you know that – well...” Jonah faltered, then came back with a stronger voice, “It was a good clip but frankly Dave played the Don Draper character there and that’s what we wanted from you.”
Mike let silence say everything for him, holding out for thirty seconds, one minute, and after a minute and a half he realized that Jonah was matching him. He knew, though, that he would win, because he could walk away from this whole thing and lose the profit opportunity at worst. Jonah? Jonah had somebody else’s money sunk into this project and he had more to lose.
When you’re in a showdown you always want to be the one who has the least to lose.
He gave Jonah credit. Two minutes and thirty eight seconds went by before he cracked. “Yeah, so, we think we can work with that thought because for one show we can shape you as the feminist throwback, the whole Get me my coffee, woman! kind of guy. Later, we can show how Lydia redeems you and turns you into a more modern, touchy-feely kind of dude.”
No one had ever used the phrase touchy-feely in relation to him. “Let me tell you something, Jonah. I’m about one step away from being done with this, so you better start working on convincing me why I should stay.” Click.
Three seconds later the phone rang. Jonah. Mike had rolled his eyes and answered it grudgingly. “So does this mean you won’t wear a hidden cam – ”
Click.
Maybe a night of drinks wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Lydia was at his feet, her face in the most intimate of positions, one that had him fighting for control as his body ran through the implications of her location in a rather rapid manner, blood pumping to places that were about to be made public if he didn’t say or do something. Submissive and below him, ready for whatever he wanted to take, desire and power stirred within to make a chaotic blend of heat and need.
It was when she reached over and rested her cheek on his calf, looked back up with wide, unfocused eyes and screamed, “Oh my God! It’s the Green Lantern!” that he realized just how drunk she was. He offered her a hand and the one she gave him was a limp noodle. Pulling her up was harder than he thought it would be, not so much because she was a full-figured woman, but more because she was about as coordinated as a sloth on Xanax.
A commotion at the table made him look up. Lydia, half standing, knees bending like a Gumby doll, snickered. It was another woman, with similar coloring to Lydia’s but wild curly hair, a little younger looking, scrambling to get out, climbing over the laps and hips and asses of various people whose faces he dimly recognized from work.
“Lydia! Lydia!” she called out.
“Oh...thas’ my best friend Kristin...Krysta...Kristie,” she slurred, pulling herself up. Mike had to strain his right arm to find a balance point for her very relaxed and very luscious body. She leaned against him and his hands, as if drawn by an involuntary force, wrapped around her, her arms loose and free, palms splayed and exploring his back. “You're as muscular as I remembered,” she declared, squeezing one of his biceps publicly, nodding with approval.
And he laughed, great rumbling, stomach-aching chuckles. This was definitely how he remember most of his work outings from his mid-twenties. Kristin...Krysta...Kristie...whatever her name was, managed to squeeze her way through and to peel Lydia off of Mike.
“You must be Matt,” she said, the look on her face one of amusement and horror at Lydia’s condition. Something else, too: a curiosity, a best friend’s protectiveness that he knew all too well because he had rescued Jeremy from quite a few bad scenes himself.
“Yes. Matt Jones. I would shake your hand but it’s otherwise occupied.” Lydia was now meticulously cataloging his fingers, touching the knuckles and commenting on how soft his hands were, mumbling under her breath.
“Would you please excuse us? We’re going to go to the ladies room,” Krysta said, dragging Lydia off, who shouted, “But wait! I haven’t seen his lifeline yet!”
They faded into the crowd, leaving Matt standing in front of about fifteen co-workers who now viewed him as not a boss, though he was the boss of some of them – well, technically all of them – not as a peer, but as the guy Lydia threw herself at.
Better him than someone else.
“Oh, my God, Lydia, what are you doing?” Krysta dragged her into the cold, beige, marble-tiled women's room where the cool air and a splash of water on the back of her neck didn’t really make a difference. It just made her feel like getting back to Matt where she could touch that soft skin, where she could look at him with happy, smiling eyes. Oh, how she loved Cosmos. Cosmos were the best.
“How much have you had to eat?” Krysta asked.
“Why are you asking, Mom?” Peals of laughter came out of her mouth. Man, she was on a roll and Matt was waiting for her so why was she in this bathroom with Krysta and what happened to her face? It changed somehow when she looked into the mirror. It was sweeter, it was more sultry, it was the real Lydia. Right? That’s who she was. She was Lydia, the woman who was successful at going out and having fun and being a party girl and right now, that’s what she wanted.
“You’re going to regret this, Lydia. I have never seen you drink that much before when we go out.”
“I’ve never needed to drink that much before when we go out. Plus, Cosmos are my new best friend. You're off the list now. You don't treat me as well as that little drink does.”
“Is this about the presentation with Dave?”
“This is about everything, Krysta. this is about how I follow all the rules and I do everything by the book while holding up this unfailing moral standard and all that does is make me a fucking idiot because this is what I should be doing.” Her words were sloppy and she knew it, and she wanted more control over them because she wanted Krysta to take her seriously. This was her truth finally coming out. “If all that hard work just means that nobody takes me seriously then maybe it’s time I stopped taking myself seriously and have a little fun.”
Krysta swallowed hard and eyed her warily. “You can go out and have your fun, but sleeping with your boss is the kind of thing where I think you’re breaking a few too many rules, Lyd.”
“I’m not going to sleep with him!” she shouted just as two women from work walked in. They mugged at each other and then quickly found stalls. “I’m just having fun.”
“Have your fun with me as a companion.”
“You want to sleep with him, too? A threesome? Oooo.” Titters from the stalls.
“No, Lyd, I don’t. What I want,” Krysta crossed her arms and looked at Lydia in the mirror, “is my level-headed friend back.” They really could be sisters if Krysta weren't part poodle. The super-curly brown hair was the exact same shade as Lydia’s and she marveled at that right now, wondering how nature could give two completely different women the exact same color hair. Their faces, though, were about as different as you could get. Krysta’s was plump and friendly, a well-fed farm girl face with chubby cheeks and eyes that disappeared just a little when she smiled. Lydia, on the other hand, had a leaner face with high cheekbones and a broad plane under the eyes and across the nose, a higher forehead and perfectly symmetrical features.
The look on Krysta’s face made Lydia want to escape and go da
nce. Grind against Matt until he exploded. No – not quite. Until he almost exploded, with a need so visceral he took her out to his car and fucked her silly, her hand slapping the fogged-up window like a scene from Titanic.
“You know what we’re going to do, Lyd?” Krysta said, looping her arm through Lydia’s. “Let’s go bowling.”
“Bowling? You want to go bowling?” Bowling was about as far from the fogged-up car fucking as you could get.
“Yes, I do. They have really cool shoes.”
“Oh! Cool shoes? Yeah, ‘cuz my high heels really hurt right now.” Suddenly Lydia thought that bowling sounded like the greatest idea ever. They were on the way to the elevators that took them downstairs when Lydia remembered.
“Hey. What about Matt?” The elevator doors opened. Krysta grabbed Lydia’s arm and yanked hard, pulling her in.
“Ow!” Lydia shouted as Krysta pushed the close button furiously.
As if conjured from thin air, Matt appeared, sticking his foot in the almost closed elevator doors.
“Going down?”
“I am if you are,” Lydia replied.
An exasperated sigh from Krysta made him hold up his palms in surrender. “Is this a women-only elevator?”
“We're going bowling. You like big balls, Matt? I do,” Lydia giggled.
Matt laughed and took a step closer before spoilsport Krysta said, “Lydia needs some air. We're going...somewhere. Can you give us some space?”
“Space. The final frontier,” Lydia mocked.
Those fucking green eyes tore into her soul as he looked at her, then Krysta, and took a step back. Damn it – he was a good guy, too! The one night she needed an alpha male to take her home and drain every drop of frustration and need from her body, climax by climax, and she gets Mr. Decent.
As the doors closed she turned to Krysta and said, “I'm not even wearing any panties, so don't think you're going home with any elevator trophies.”
Mike already knew how the night was going to go and it wasn’t going to go his way. Lydia was the kind of drunk he felt protective about, not attracted to. It’s not that she wasn’t sensual, and lovely, and delicious, and certainly wanting right now – which made his own willingness difficult to tamp down – but he wasn’t that guy. He didn’t take advantage of drunk women, no matter how incredibly luscious they were.