Zoe’s jaw drops. “Holy fucking shit,what? You were just gonna leave that out?”
“It just, I don’t know, it happened when he was giving me the tour of his house and then everything got weird because I didn’t know how to react, and then he got weird and was like,’I’d prefer to keep things professional,’and then there was the whole issue of him pretending to date me for Aaron’s wedding and I… forgot to mention it to you sooner. It’s been a long couple of weeks.”
She abandons the counter entirely, asks one of the other members of staff to cover her, and comes around to my side, planting both elbows on the bar as she takes the stool next to me. “Tell me everything. Now.”
I tell her about him stepping in at the restaurant, about Aaron’s reaction, about Grayson putting an arm around me like it belonged there. I’d only given her the barest rundown over text before, but I drop everything on her this time, talking quickly, checking my phone every few sentences to keep track of the time.
Then I tell her about the kiss, andZoe listens with enough focus that it’s almost unnerving.When I finish, she just stares at me, and I can almostseethe wheels turning behind her eyes.
“You’re telling me he isn’t interested? Afterthat?”
“Yes.”
“Carly.”
“He literally gave me the whole professionalism speech afterward. He probably got his wires crossed and then realized the position he put me in.”
“No, that just sounds like he’s trying not to be interested. That is not the same thing.”
* * *
By the time dinner is finished and eaten that night, I’m tired down to my bones.
Penelope is curled into one corner of the couch in pink pajamas, watching some animated movie about a singing rabbitwhile picking at the last of her dino-nuggets. I’m clicking the tupperware container of Penny’s lunch for tomorrow closed when I hear Grayson’s voice behind me.
“Carly.”
He’s leaning one shoulder against the kitchen doorway like he’s been there for longer than a second, hands in the pockets of a pair of dark lounge pants, T-shirt stretched across his chest in a way that is deeply unhelpful for the way my thoughts have been spiraling lately.
“Yeah?” I say, trying to keep my voice level instead of that pitched-up version it wants to shift into.
“Can you come to the office for a minute when you’re done?”
It shouldn’t make my stomach flip. It’s a normal question. But he’s asking me to be alone with him, and it feels like the worst idea possible. “Uh. Sure.”
He pushes off the wall and nods toward the stairs. “Meet me in there when you’re done.”
It takes me approximately two minutes to finish packing a juice box, write out a little note for her, and seal up her lunchbox before chucking it in the fridge for tomorrow.
When I get up to his office, he’s already inside, sitting in his chair with his ankles crossed up on the side of his desk, slippers on, looking so unfairly comfortable in his own skin that it shouldn’t be allowed. The overhead light is off, just the desk lamp and a floor lamp in the corner. His laptop is open, papers scattered to one side, and when he looks up at me, there’s none of the distance he wears so easily at work. There’s just a quiet ease that I have no idea what to do with.
“Come here,” he says, tilting his head toward the stool beside him. “I need to go over some things with you.”
I circle around the desk and carefully sit in the stool next to his chair, close enough that I can catch a hint of his cologne, can see the way the silver in his hair catches the light, can feel the warmth coming off of him.
He turns the laptop slightly so I can see the screen. “Legal sent over the revised terms this afternoon. The NFL wants preliminary designs for the rollout by Friday. I know that’s aggressive, but they’re trying to move while the momentum’s there.”
His forearm rests on the desk between us, bare, a little veiny from his post-work work-out, dark hair peppering it like it’s taunting me.
“Okay.”
“I printed off those sketches you sent earlier,” he says, flipping open a folder in front of me. “Thought we could go through them together and figure out what to keep and what to axe for now.”
Two weeks ago, I didn’t expect to be going through my sketches in my bosses home office with us both wearing pajamas, but here we are. I walk him through the ones I’d sent, the ideas behind each, the ways I think they could be marketed, the ones I think will land the hardest. There aren’t enough for a full collection, but it’s enough for the initial pitch.
He goes quiet while I talk, but it’s not the kind I’m used to, not the kind Aaron used to give me when I tried to show him ideas after dinner. He’s fully locked in, which, weirdly, is so much worse. Every time I glance at him, he’s looking right at me, hisdark green eyes boring a hole past every mask I try to keep in place around him. He’s barely looking at the drawings.
“Are you... uh, happy with them?” I ask, cringing internally at my own desperation for approval.
