“I’m joking. That is, unless you want to,” he says, flashing his hazel puppy dog eyes.
I ignore him as I pull up my email. It’s from Lizzie, Mr. Moretti’s secretary.
“Ah, work,” Eric says with his phone in hand, as I begin reading the email to myself.
Something came up last minute for Mr. Moretti. He will now send a car for you at 9 a.m. sharp.
-Lizzie
“Yea, me too. It was Mr. Moretti’s secretary. Guess I have one more hour to work off this hangover I feel brewing,” I joke as I playfully slap Eric’s arm again. Except, he doesn’t have any jokes to say back to me this time. Instead, he remains silent, pissed off almost, out of nowhere.
“Everything good?” I ask, but still, he continues to drive as we are just about to approach the front of the apartment building.
He aggressively throws the car in park. “Yea, I know, I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock sharp,” he mumbles.
What? Great, my driver is Eric. Usually I wouldn’t care, it’s not like I hate the guy, anything but. However, having to deal with him every day is going to make him not getting that the hint that I just want to be friends more evident.
Before I can say anything else to him, he mumbles something else under his breath and gets out of the car. He slams the door shut with the level of rage you would expect from someone punching a hole in a wall.
Alrighty, then.I unbuckle and lean over the passenger seat toward the back to wake up Nessa, who remains sprawled out on the backseat, still snoring.
Eric walks over to the back of the car, opening the back passenger door. He inches into the back seat trying to swoop her into his arms.
“Come on, sleepyhead, we are here,” I say as Eric brings Nessa into his arms.
She finally comes to once she is out of the car. The brisk autumn wind hitting her face wakes her up.
“I got it, Eric,” she slurs as she groggily walks past Eric and me. She stops by the door and turns to us, with one hand on the handle. “I’ll wait in the lobby for you, Sienna. I’ll give you two lovebirds a minute.” She winks before grasping the long door handle, stumbling on in.
I hear Eric’s phone go off again. I watch as his tense hands swipe to read the incoming message. Whatever he is reading is pissing him off, because he lets out a chuckle that reads more like, “I’m trying not to slam my phone into the pavement” than “ha ha funny.”
Either way, I take this as my moment to make my exit into the apartment. Solo.
“I think I’m going to head inside. I’ll see you tomorrow, 9 a.m. sharp, right?”
Eric, clearly not listening to me, shakes his head. “Fucking prick.”
Uncertain of who he is referring to, I can’t help but ask, “Who?”
“Ha, you’ll find out tomorrow, that’s who,” he says, cryptically, as he doesn’t bother giving me his usual goodbye hug. He steps off the sidewalk and goes back to the driver’s side of the town car. I want to go inside the apartment, I’m beginning to feel kind of dizzy, and my feet are killing me, but my curiosity is piqued.
Eric rolls down the passenger side window halfway, enough for me to make eye contact with his growingly angry expression.
“Who?” I say once more.
“Your keeper, that’s fucking who,” he seethes.
My keeper?
“Excuse me?” I press him once more.
“You heard me,” he repeats in a sinister tone. I’ve seen Eric angry before, but this—the way the words are spewing out of his mouth like daggers—is new.
He is about to roll up the window, when I instinctively run toward it, putting my hand on the edge of the glass, forcing him to stop. “Eric, what are you talking about?”
He stares straight ahead, past the steering wheel that he is gripping aggressively.
“Eric,” I repeat.
