“Should I have chosen a different restaurant?”
I shook my head. “No, I like it here.” I finally met his eyes. “We are having a small get-together to celebrate our trip. Why don’t you come along and meet my sister for yourself? I can’t guarantee you she will be receptive to your charms but you never know, do you?”
“Oh, she’ll be receptive to my charms all right,” he responded arrogantly.
“Must be nice to be so sure of yourself,” I murmured in a snarky voice.
“How do you think I got my reputation in the first place?” he asked, winking at me.
I smiled. We both stared at each other and burst into laughter.
***
“The cocky asshole. He’s pretty sure of himself, isn’t he? Just because I like to flirt with men doesn’t mean I snog and shag every man who looks in my direction.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and realized I hadn’t laughed this much in a single day in a very long time.
I’d stopped by my sister’s condo after putting in my notice at the halfway house and women’s shelter. She lived downtown as well, not far from Pike Place Market, except she’d inherited her two-bedroom Cristalla condo from our parents. They’d owned it since the building had first opened, as it was supposed to be an investment property. Later, it was supposed to be a home Caitlyn and I could share until we got married or bought one another out.
Caitlyn had officially bought me out after our father’s death and the insurance policy came through. She’d paid me fair market value, and it was with that money I later purchased the townhouse I co-owned with Drew.
My sister had always been a private person and preferred to live on her own. The second bedroom was her office. Since she did not entertain very often, the space was utilized quite well with sparse elegant furniture but nothing flashy except for a very expensive yet ugly Jackson Pollock painting she’d inherited from our father. He’d offered it to me first, but I wasn’t a fan of the work. Caitlyn found something hauntingly beautiful in the chaotic brush strokes that looked like they’d been designed by an overzealous three year old, but I was happy she adored the painting and that it was a constant reminder to her of our dearly departed father.
“He just wants to meet you,” I said softly as she handed me a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
“Yeah, they always do, and then they have one too many drinks and think just because I am blonde, my legs are going to miraculously open up for them. One bloke had the nerve to tell me he heard English girls were easy, so what did I expect? So I told him, ‘First off, I’m American and second off, my other half is French, so if you think you are getting anywhere past first base, it’s going to take a bit more than a dinner at Crush and a ninety-nine vintage bottle of Ristow to get me into bed.’”
“I suppose you got out of there as soon as possible?”
“Of course. I told him I had to go powder my nose and just walked out the front door. No way will I have a man treating me like dirt. And that goes for Liam van der Meer as well. I know he’s your friend’s brother, but I am not going to take shit from him because he happens to be your new boss,” Caitlyn said before she sat beside me.
“How’s work going?”
She scrunched up her face. “Work is work, Deirdre. Seriously, did you really come over to ask me about my day or are there other issues that brought you by?”
I took a sip of my wine. “Why do I get the feeling that I have disturbed something? Listen, I know how often you bring your work home, so just go ahead and finish it. But I will see you tomorrow at the get-together, right?”
Caitlyn smiled with devilish steel blue eyes. “Of course you will.” She chewed on her lip for a moment before she glared at me again. “Tell me you two haven’t slept together!”
“Who? Colin and I? Of course not. It’s just strictly platonic…at the moment. Why? I’m not a whore either, you know.”
“I certainly wasn’t suggesting you were one, but…I see the heated looks exchanged between you two. He likes you a lot, and you’re crazy about him. Whatever happens in Europe, don’t fight him when you come back, okay? Stop letting Drew chase men away from you.”
“Okay…um, is everyone living in an alternate universe? Because there are absolutely, positively no heated looks between us. I like him, as a friend, and he came through when I needed him to be there for me. It’s been tough, you know. Usually I go weeks without hearing from Aubrey, and this time it was a couple of months. I really thought she had her shit together, and then she pulls that stunt with us needing to pick her up at the club? That is so not cool.”
Caitlyn walked to her floor-to-ceiling picture window. The curtains were open, the city spread out beneath us. The lighting was purposefully muted and felt romantic yet soothing at the same time.
“Maybe it’s time you start to cut her out of your life?” She turned toward me, her blue eyes pleading for understanding. “Don’t get me wrong, sis. I mean, I know she’s your uncle’s daughter and a part of the family life you missed because your real mother died, but…that doesn’t give her the right to use you whenever she likes, and that is exactly what I see her do to you on a regular basis. I don’t like it at all, and you need to take a firmer stance when it comes to her.”
I immediately became defensive, though I knew I should just calm down and take a few strangled breaths. “How is she using me, Cait? She’s got nowhere to go, and her roommate was bangin’ her ex-boyfriend. What am I supposed to do? Leave her to her own devices on the street? You know she’s been clean for a while now, and if I can’t be there for her, guess what? She’s going to fall off the wagon. How do you think that would make me feel? Knowing I could have offered the gift of kindness and didn’t for my own selfish needs? At the moment, she’s tolerable. And hopefully by the time I get back from Europe, she will have found another place to stay.”
Caitlyn cocked her head to the side and crossed her arms underneath her breasts. “Do you truly believe that?”
I sipped some of my Sauvignon Blanc and set the glass on my sister’s coffee table. “No, not really.”
“Well then, why don’t you really lay down the law tomorrow night when we have you and Colin’s going-away celebration? Tell her you’re tired of being used and you will help her find a place. Hell, Drew can aid her with finding a roomie. He knows enough eccentric people. The whole point is to have your space back after the trip so you can settle back in and start your new job at uConnect. You know, officially join the world of the living and professional.”
I smiled at her, and she returned my smile.
“It is kind of cool I will be working for uConnect, isn’t it?”
“Totally! You have a cooler job than I do and you know I love me some Amazon, but to be part of a social network revolution…I mean, we’ve gone through MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and now uConnect is the hot property! I expect to hear all the gossip and the dirt because I know there is tons!” Caitlyn stated with tons of enthusiasm as she sat next to me on the sofa again.
“Okay, you are way too excited. I don’t think I will find out much ‘dirt,’ seeing as I am just the manager for HR,” I replied in a non-committal tone of voice. “Besides, I can’t just tell you anything you want to know because an employee’s file is confidential. I could get fired for blathering off at the mouth.”
My sister rolled her eyes. “I don’t expect names, you idiot. Just some juicy details, is all. I’ve heard some pretty interesting stories about some of the employees at uConnect. I’m sure you have too.”
“Actually, no, I haven’t. Liam took me out for lunch at S&S and all we did was make small talk. We talked about the company in general, but he didn’t get personal with me and I didn’t get personal with him either.”
This wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but the way Caitlyn’s eyes lit up at the prospect that I might soon get to tell her a few secrets wasn’t exactly endearing. It reminded me of university life, where everyone was always on the lookou
t for trash on someone else. It felt immature, small, and petty. I didn’t do well with confessing people’s skeletons, and I certainly took no joy in hearing about other people’s suffering or their problems. My job as a counselor at the halfway house and food shelter for battered women had taught me more than I needed to know about secrets. Most of all, I found secrets tragic. To me, there was nothing pleasurable about rejoicing in another person’s misery.
“Fine, I’ll share a tidbit here or there but don’t expect me to replace Society Magazine or smutty tabloids like The Edge of Entertainment, because I won’t do it.” I relaxed my arms in front of my breasts while studying my sister.
She smiled in an ingratiating way, which caused me to believe that whatever she was about to tell me was for the shock factor, and not because it was news I desperately needed to hear. “I don’t want you to call up Liam and resign before you’ve started. It’s all rumor anyway and although there might be a modicum of truth to it, I don’t know the complete circumstances.”
I stared at Caitlyn as she sipped her wine and played with the stem of the glass. “That HR manager whose job you’re inheriting, she isn’t leaving because of her pregnancy. It’s a good excuse to use, but it goes deeper than that.”
“Okay?” I said softly. “What’s it all about, then?”
“Well, from what I heard, she was close to that woman, Stephanie McLaughlin.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t she the one who jumped from her condo after a night of indulging in Bath Salts?”
“Mmm hmm,” Caitlyn replied cryptically.
Everyone knew the story of someone who had known someone who had tried Bath Salts, and all the stories were downright bizarre, if not frightening, to a certain extent. It had officially become an urban legend. The brand new designer drug that had been introduced to the American market less than two years previously had originated in Europe sometime around 2009. It was odorless and tasteless, could be ingested, snorted, smoked, or taken intravenously, and it was dangerous as hell.
The problem was no one knew what was a safe limit, but the people who had tried it often took too much, which caused a reaction that made them act like a zombie or a vampire. However, although these were fictional creatures, a person who was under the influence of Bath Salts had super human strength—similar to PCP users—and could be incredibly dangerous. They also usually suffered from severe hallucinations.
There was a story in the paper a few months previously about a man who had beaten a homeless man to death with his bare hands before he took on three patrol officers, two who were so severely injured, they had to be treated at the local hospital.
For some reason, even “intelligent” and affluent people had used the drug as well. Stephanie’s story was the most famous of them all. She’d been with her boyfriend, Clark Jameson, who had put the Bath Salts in her drink. After they’d had sex and he left, the drug had just begun to take its effect in her system. She’d walked out onto the balcony of her thirtieth floor condo, climbed the railing, and jumped, Lethal Weapon-style. She never screamed or made a sound, and her body merely ended up broken and battered on the sidewalk where shocked pedestrians witnessed her emotionless actions.
There was a lot of talk, and the story made the news. Clark, her boyfriend, came from a well-to-do family, and although it was his actions which caused her death, he’d gotten off with two years’ probation. This did not please the McLaughlin family, who were angry and indignant that there seemed to be no justice for their daughter, but that was the way of the world.
It wouldn’t have gotten the press coverage it received if she hadn’t been an employee at uConnect.
“Okay, so the HR Manager—”
“Her name is Rebecca Desouza. Apparently, she is married to Dennis’ cousin,” I interrupted.
“And I thought Amazon was incestuous!”
“Well, Liam kind of gave me a head’s up about that. They don’t like hiring outside people, so pretty much everyone knows everyone. They also have an internship program with the University of Washington closest to Seattle, and the candidates that ‘fit in’ are offered a position at the end of their internship. It is a very…closed company. I don’t mean it the way it sounds. I merely mean it just seems like they have a lot of issues with being too exposed. I suppose they never want a movie like The Social Network to come out about them.”
Caitlyn shook her head with a wry smile on her face. “Look at you, it’s beginning already. No wonder Liam wanted you so badly. You’re already a freakin’ pit bull when it comes to controlling information. He’s going to realize very soon that the position you were hired for might not be exactly the best position for you. I don’t see you staying in HR for very long. Before you know it, you will be in PR.”
“I hope not,” I said as I scrunched up my face. “I don’t wanna do PR. Surely that would require a degree in advertisement and to be honest, I am through with school. I am not even going to finish my PhD, and I am only a semester away from finishing my degree, but at this point in my life school just carries too many bad memories. Even if I were to complete it, I would always remember why I stopped the classes in the first place and…I’m not ready for all of that yet.”
“It’s up to you. You know I support anything you decide to do. This is your life, and I am just so happy you have decided to get a proper job. I couldn’t give a shit if you didn’t want to enter another university classroom. You’re too educated for the position you are taking, but everyone has to start somewhere.”
I finished my wine and set the glass down. “Okay, babe. I better go before Colin starts blowing up my phone with texts. He gets worried when I’m not home after he gets off work.”
“I thought he worked late?”
“Thursday nights he gets off at eight. I promised I would be home on time because it’s his turn to cook and he’s making beer-battered fish and chips. He’s not too bad in the kitchen, so I don’t wanna miss dinner.”
We embraced quickly before I high-tailed it out of there. I loved my sister to death but like most sibling relationships, there was only so much I could take. And I hadn’t been lying. I loved Colin’s cooking and looked forward to his beer-battered fish and chips.
***
“So, what did you think?” Colin asked after dinner.
We sat on the patio. A small fire had been built to chase away the slight late-May chill. It would be nice to be away from Seattle for a while, but we knew the weather we were bound to face in Europe might not be too different to what we were dealing with now. The only exception would probably be the south of France, which we were both looking forward to more than we were letting on.
I leaned back on the comfortable furniture and took a swig from my Newcastle ale. Within the week I had stayed with him, he was determined to turn me into a beer connoisseur. I’d tried ales, lagers, and everything in between. Newcastle wasn’t too bad, but it certainly was an acquired taste.
However, he wasn’t asking about the ale. He was asking specifically about the delicious dinner we’d shared together.
I pretended to contemplate because the last thing this man needed was a huge ego to match his great looks and disarming personality. He not only could make a killer dirty martini, but he could cook as well. If he was so against getting a proper job, I wondered why he wouldn’t open up his own hole in the wall, a place with great alcohol and bar food where people could relax and enjoy themselves in a friendly atmosphere. He would kick ass, especially with all the juicy entrepreneurial business he would acquire from Liam.
“It was delicious. As a matter of fact, it was such a great meal, I think you need to open up your own bar-restaurant,” I responded, my eyes never leaving his gorgeous crystal blue eyes.
Colin took a swig from his ale. “Oh no, not you too. You’re the second person to suggest a venture like that. The first was Liam, and I am going to tell you the same thing I told him—it isn’t gonna happen.”
“Why not? You work for other people
when you don’t have to. Your brother told me about you co-founding uConnect and how you sold off your shares to the other partners when you and Sierra broke up. I really think it is something you should seriously consider. Just think about it, you could do what you enjoy and be your own boss. What could be better than that?”
“You don’t give up, do you?” He set his bottle down on the table and took a defensive position, crossing his arms across his chest. “Everyone thinks it’s so easy to run an eatery, but it isn’t. The success rate is ridiculously low, and even though the economy here is strong, there are more than enough places to enjoy alcohol and food. I don’t need that kind of aggravation.”
I studied him and tilted my head slightly to the right. “All that is just bullshit you’ve been feeding yourself for so long, you actually believe it. For some reason, you’ve decided to take on this role where Liam is the good guy of the family, the successful and enterprising brother, while you’re the classic fuck-up. You are doing yourself no favors with that kind of attitude. I think you’re afraid of failure, and the fear is so palpable, you’d rather not try at all then give it your best shot and fail. There is nothing written in the cards saying that you won’t be a success, and why you feel this need to make yourself the martyr of the family is beyond me. You are so intelligent, and you have so much going for you. I’m going to quote my sister, though I don’t do it often: ‘Don’t you think it’s time you put that Harvard education to work?’ Why go to such a successful and prestigious learning institution to be a barista at a coffee shop and a bartender at some place here in town? Those are usually jobs for college students and those who have decided not to go to college, not people like you,” I explained sympathetically.
“See, that’s the problem, though. I have everything I want and I have never been that difficult to please. I just wanna live life, have fun, and basically look out for myself. I don’t want to have to deal with invoices and employees and all that shit.”
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