by T. K. Rapp
Clean break.
“Don’t you get it? Look, I know you have this idea we can be friends, but I think we both know it’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” she asks in protest.
“You can’t be serious, Em,” I object, surprised by her stubbornness. “I do want to be around you, but not as your friend. So you have to leave me alone. Maybe someday we can be friends, but today is not that day, and I can’t promise you it will happen. Besides, Ryan would have to be stupid to think you and I being friends is a good idea.”
“Ryan trusts me -,” she begins to argue, but I interrupt which causes her to narrow her eyes at me.
“But he doesn’t trust me and he shouldn’t. Smart man.” She shakes her head, but I continue speaking. “Someone told me once that men and women can’t be friends, and I thought it was a stupid idea. But the thing is, it’s true. One is always interested in the other and if one is in a relationship, maintaining the friendship is trouble. So as much as I’d like to say it’s possible to be friends, I think we both know it’s not. You decided to get back with Ryan, and I respect your decision. And I respect you enough to know my presence in your life, would cause problems at some point. So I think it’s best if you stop contacting me.”
“You don’t mean what you’re saying,” she responds as if I have knocked the wind out of her. She can’t really be surprised by my reluctance.
“I do, Emogen. I really do wish you and Ryan all the best, but I can’t be a part of your life anymore.”
“If that's how you really feel -”
“It is.” I walk to my office door to open it for her and watch as she grips her purse a little tighter. I know I’ve shattered her idea of what friends are, and she may not see it now, but I am doing what is right by her. I know what I feel for her, and I know what she doesn’t feel for me, and it’s the reason why I have to let her go.
When she’s standing in front of me, she pauses for a moment before turning to me. I brace myself for whatever words may come from her, but she surprises me by throwing her arms around my neck and hugging herself to me. “For what it’s worth, I’m going to miss you,” she whispers.
My arms wrap around her waist, despite myself, and I allow the last chance for her to infiltrate my fantasies. In another moment, Em will be out of my life for good. I inhale her scent, and note she smells of her signature flowery perfume and shampoo. They could bottle that shit and make a fortune. Everything about her, about us, feels so right, but her heart belongs to someone else, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. “I’ll miss you too, Em.”
I hear a sniffle escape her, and I do my best to ignore it. It takes everything in me to remove my arms from around her, to let her leave me again. But somewhere inside, I know it’s the right thing to do. When I finally release her, I kiss her forehead, my last act as her friend, someone who could have been in love with her. But not before giving her a warning.
“You need to walk away now before I kiss you.”
She looks up at me and gives me a lopsided smile, one that tells me she doesn’t quite buy my words. But when my expression doesn’t change, her smile fades at the truth behind them. She gives me a small nod and turns to the door.
“Thank you, Mr. Miller.”
And with those words, she crushes me. The door latches shut behind her and a loud sigh escapes as I walk back to my chair. I think she understood what I was trying to tell her, and maybe now, she’ll stay away. I wasn’t lying when I told her work is busy. Hell, the reason Jett is coming in to town is to help with the workload. My brother being in town will be a nice distraction, but my brother in my apartment is another story.
Through the door, I can hear Hattie’s muffled voice speaking to someone and I wonder, for a moment, if Em is still out there. As I get closer, I recognize the voice belongs to a man, and swing it open to find Jett, fresh off the plane and flirting with my assistant.
“What the hell are you doing here already?” I ask, stepping through the threshold to hug my little brother.
“Not good with greetings are you?” He says, slapping my shoulder. “Caught an earlier flight, so I had a cab bring me here.”
“Hattie,” I nod to my brother who is giving her his biggest smile. “This is Jett, my little brother.”
She smiles at him and nods her head. “Yeah, we just met.”
I glance at my brother who gives me a shrug and walks past me and into my office. When I look at Hattie, her gaze follows behind Jett and I shake my head and stifle a laugh. He’s always done this. Women think he’s attractive, and then he speaks.
“Hold my calls, please,” I inform her before following after him.
I’m barely in the office before he spins on me, hungry for information. I’m going to have to lay the rules out for him, like no dating the staff. But before I can start in, he speaks up.
“I saw some chick leaving the office when I came in all cryin’ and shit. What was that about?”
Chapter 2
She was crying?
I shrug my shoulders and give him my best, ‘I don’t know’ expression, but he knows me better than that. He walks to the chair Em was occupying moments before, sits down and puts his feet on my desk. “I’ve got time.”
I slap him on the back of the head like I did when we were kids as I walk around my desk. “Feet.”
“Yes, sir,” he salutes, flipping me off. “So, what’s the deal there? She was pretty cute, except for the red nose and leaky eyes.”
“She’s no one” The words come out, but I’m not sure he’s buying it.
“Impressive, bro.” He smiles, leaning forward. “Hooked up with some strange, and she wanted more?”
“She was never ‘strange.’ Hell, I’m not even sure you could say we dated.”
He’s quiet for a moment while he mulls over the information I shared, but Jett is an ass and letting things go has never been his thing. Sometimes I swear he’s a girl with the way he latches on to anything that could be construed as gossip. “Did ya tap that?”
“No,” I answer curtly. “She’s a nice girl, but she went back to her ex and now she’s engaged.”
“So then you’re flyin’ solo?”
“It would appear so,” I respond without giving him any more information. I shuffle some papers on my desk and wait for his next words.
“Nice! We’re going out.”
I glance at my watch and look at my brother as if he’s lost his mind.
“I’m not going anywhere and it’s too damn early.” I pin him with a serious stare. “I have a full day ahead and I’m waiting to hear from a potential client out of Chicago, so I can’t leave until then.”
“C’mon, I’m sure they’ll send you an email or something if they can’t get you. You do have those newfangled devices there, don’t ya old man?”
I can’t help but laugh at the joke he makes at my expense. He’s always been the carefree ‘baby’ in the family, and he’s always given me hell about my uptight nature.
“And, I’m not talking about right now, I mean later. Besides, I need a drink and you need to get laid.”
“Jett -”
“I’m kidding. I need to get laid.” He rephrases and wags his eyebrows in anticipation.
Leave it to my brother to push me into a better mood. If nothing else, having him around should be entertaining. He loves to think of himself as a ladies’ man, but he mostly crashes and burns because he uses pick-up lines that were around when our parents were young. I’m sure those same lines sucked then, too, but I like to sit back and watch the fallout.
“Why don’t you see if Hottie wants to join us?”
And there’s my cue.
You would think, at his age, he would have stopped with the stupid nicknames he gives people, but not my brother. As a kid, he had a hard time memorizing things. Mom suggested that he rhyme names, places and things with other words or made some other association to make it easier to remember. I wonder if she regrets that pi
ece of advice because he has yet to outgrow it. In fact, Jett has managed to butcher almost every name he’s encountered.
“Listen, if you’re going to work here with me, you have to abide by the same office policies as everyone else. So that means no dating the staff. I have a pretty good group here, and I don’t need the drama. Okay?”
“Shit, Trey! You would have been better off telling me she’s a lesbian or something. You’ve made her off limits, so of course that means I want the forbidden fruit.”
“Fine, she’s a lesbian. Move along.”
“Hell no, I saw it in her eyes. She wants a ride on the Jett.”
“God, you’re an asshole. Do you ever listen to the crap that comes out of your mouth?” I laugh because he sounds like a tool. I know he’s been able to date a few girls, although I’ve never met any of them, so I can only assume how bright they were.
How in the hell am I related to this guy?
My brother is a smart guy, but at twenty-five, he tends to act more like an eighteen-year-old with a constant hard-on.
When we were kids, our three-year age gap gave me the advantage; I could kick his ass and did, pretty much every day. But as we got older, he caught up with me in height, and passed me in build. We never hung with the same people because he was younger. But even then, he didn’t censor the shit he said out loud. We couldn’t be more opposite in personality or appearance if we were adopted. He played basketball; I stuck with baseball. His brown hair turns almost blond in the sun, and he keeps it longer than my dark, cropped hair. He’s always been the loud one; Mom decided it was because he was the baby. I think it’s simply because he’s an ass. We’re easily matched in height at six-foot-two, but he looks like he could kick my ass. I guess most girls are into the brooding bachelor thing he has going on, but he’s got his damn mouth working against him.
“Hey, all I’m sayin’ is she was out there, checkin’ me out. Can you blame her?” He throws his arms up to model himself, as if it makes the point for him.
“I’m only going to say this one more time, and I’m not kidding. Jett, if you hook up with anyone from the office, I will fire you.”
He throws his hands up in concession, and I wonder what I was thinking when I asked him to come out here and help me with the business. He’s had a few jobs since college, but none of them were his ‘thing,’ and now he’s going to be staying at my place. But I’m not too worried because if his record holds up, he’ll be out of Colorado by the end of the month.
“What time are you gonna be done here?” he asks as he stands and walks to the door.
“Five,” I say, keeping my eyes on the task in front of me.
“Aight,” he answers, “Why don’t we go to the bar you were telling me about? Something Spirits?”
Hell no. I try to determine if there’s any chance of running into Em or her friends there, but I doubt it. Besides, am I going to be a little bitch and avoid her forever? We live in the same town, I’m bound to run into her at some point.
“Yeah, sounds good. Lemme get you a key to my apartment.”
He lifts his finger in the air and shows me a key that is dangling from it. “Covered.”
“How did you - never mind. I’ll see you at home.”
* * *
If there’s one thing I can say about Jett, it’s that he loves to party. I got back to my place an hour later than I expected, and he was chomping at the bit. I thought my brother was an adult, not some damn dog that needed to be fed, walked, and exercised. In the short time he was there, he managed to turn my place into his bachelor pad. I could only assume he drank all of my beer because bottles were strewn across my coffee table, along with opened bags of chips and dip he didn’t bother to put away.
Thankfully, I am able to get him to relax a bit before heading out. I don’t know anyone who goes to Wired Spirits before nine, so we grab some dinner, several drinks and time it so we can arrive after ten. Walking into the place, I can’t help but remember the first time I saw Em here. She was arguing with Ryan, though I didn’t know either one of them at the time. I don’t make it a habit of involving myself in other people’s problems, but something about her made all of it fly out the window.
“You think?” I hear Jett ask over the music.
“What?” I strain to hear what he’s saying over the blaring noise.
“I said, I think we should hang back here so we can see everything.”
I give him a nod and turn to the bartender to order a Boilermaker. She is a petite blonde, and she reminds me of Em, except for the small stud she has in her nose. That and the tat on her arm. Okay, so she looks nothing like Em, except she’s blond. She offers me a smile when she hands me the beer and whiskey shot, so I ask her about the band that’s playing.
“They’re from somewhere in Texas, pretty good.” She smiles at me, and I swear my balls retreat into my body.
Holy, fucking shit! Nails on a chalkboard.
Her voice is an ear piercing shrill and makes every part of my body cringe, but I try to cover as she continues, “The lead singer’s voice isn’t the greatest, but they make up for it with their music.” I laugh at the ridiculousness of her comment. Is she really talking about someone else’s voice? A voice like that should come with a warning label - look but don’t talk. I drop the shot into the glass and chug it quickly before leaving a bill on the bar large enough to cover the drink, the tip and get me the hell away. I push Jett toward a bar table, far away from the talking chipmunk.
“That chick was fucking hot,” Jett remarks, checking out the bartender and waving. She cocks her head to the side, clearly confused by my sudden departure.
“And then she speaks,” I say before taking a swig of my beer.
“With a body like that, I can wear earplugs,” he says, waving at the girl again, whose name I didn’t bother to get.
I shake my head and laugh because he has no idea how bad it was. I know my brother well enough to know he has an eclectic type, but that is on no one’s list. Hell, there’s a reason she’s a bartender, I’m sure. Loud music every night, you don’t have to talk, all you have to do is nod and take orders.
“Yeah, I think she might be your type.” I pat him on the back and shove him in her direction. “Get me another drink while you’re there.”
I turn back to check out the stage and wait for the band to start the next song hoping maybe they can erase the grating sound of the woman’s voice from my memory. The drummer taps his sticks and the band joins in with an upbeat tempo song that most people seem to enjoy. There’s a woman standing next to a booth near the stage who turns in my direction, and I immediately recognize her as Emogen’s friend, Joss. I duck my head, hoping to avoid eye contact, but it appears I have no such luck. She waves at me, and I give a half-assed wave back. But I’m not that lucky. She’s with a few other girls, none of whom are Em, and says something to them before heading in my direction.
Shit.
As she gets closer, I notice she’s cut her hair since the last time I saw her and it suits her. She’s wearing a shirt that displays her assets well and a pair of worn jeans. The look says she didn’t try too hard, which probably means she did.
“Trey Miller,” she says when she’s close enough for me to hear. Her eyes scan over my body as she takes me in. For some reason, her blatant perusal of my threadbare jeans and black button down shirt is a turn on, but this is Em’s friend.
I bow my head in greeting. “That would be me.” A grin spreads as I take her in and she returns it with her own. She probably thinks I don’t remember her, but in the brief times we met, she made an impression. “How ya doin,’ Joss?”
“Wow, impressive memory. You were so smitten with my bestie, I didn’t realize you knew my name.”
“Something tells me you don’t go unnoticed for long,” I wink playfully.
She fans her face, feigning flattery but stops as her eyes scan the length of my body. “Too bad I’m taken, because I would be all over that.”
<
br /> “Ah, too bad for both of us then, huh?”
She nods and then turns serious. Hell, guess I’m not going to get out of it. I was so close. “Em told me she stopped by to see you today.” She’s not expecting me to acknowledge this because we both know, so she continues. “For what it’s worth, I think it was pretty cool of you to do what you did. I know you were into her, but you gave her and Ryan the chance to work it out. I told her she can’t have it both ways, that she needs to give you space. I think she really heard you today, and maybe now she understands.”
Before I have a chance to respond, Jett comes walking back to the table bellowing, “And that’s how it’s done.” He slaps a napkin on the table in front of me with the name Alissa scrawled on it and a phone number. Joss swipes the paper from the table and studies it for a moment before laughing.
“What the fuck?” he yells as he tries to get the napkin back. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Joss almost doubles over in laughter when she reads the napkin. “You can’t be serious!” She can barely catch her breath as she tries to explain. “You got a fake number from Squeakers over there? Shit, dude, that’s harsh.”
“What are you talking about?” Jett asks, looking at me, but I shake my head because I have no idea. I’m as confused as he is.
She wipes her eyes, making sure to not ruin her makeup, but she’s still chuckling. “That, my friend, is the number to the free clinic down the road.”
With wide eyes, my mouth curls up to the side as I give her a ‘how would you know’ look, to which she shrugs and explains her outburst. “Hey, I get my share of losers.” She glances at Jett. “No offense. They buy me drinks and want my number, that’s the number I give them.” She finishes and hands the napkin back to Jett. I’m now laughing pretty hard, and he’s getting pissed off, which only spurs me on.