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“You could just promise not to be weird. If things don’t work out, she can keep her job.”
“And she’d have to take orders from her ex-boyfriend every day?”
“Just to clarify, you’re not denying that you have feelings for her. You’re only worried about dating an employee. Am I getting this right?”
I slammed the bottle down on the counter, fingers tightening. “This conversation is finished.”
21
LOLA
I was finally starting to feel like myself again, even if my symptoms hadn’t completely passed. My clearing thoughts let me see just how bizarre the situation in my apartment was. Cassie and Paisley were arguing over the best way to make a can of chicken noodle soup for me–Cassie insisted the microwave would inject harmful “gamma particles” into the soup and Paisley said the stovetop was too slow.
There was a completely new set of kitchen cabinets installed to replace the yellowing ones I’d moved in with. The new cabinets were a sleek coal gray with cute little gold pulls. Mr. Stone’s designer had already brought in a new couch, paintings, and all sorts of cute little plants and rugs to liven up the space. The walls were still bare drywall with some sort of goop smeared between the creases and over the screw holes, but a painter was currently opening one of several buckets of paint and prepping his equipment.
“Is it safe to paint that much while she’s in here?” Cassie asked. She’d won the battle of the chicken soup and was stirring the contents of the can slowly over the stovetop. I noticed the pan she was using appeared shiny and new. Had Mr. Stone even replaced my crummy cookware?
The painter pointed to two men who were dragging in a big fan. “We have enough air movers to keep it fresh in here. She’ll just need to keep the door open. Will the dog run?”
“Termite isn’t going to leave my side at the moment,” I said. I was cozy on the new couch with a new blanket wrapped around me. Termite was in my lap, snoring softly. I knew if I’d been in my right mind, I would’ve put my foot down and told Mr. Stone to send all his goons packing. I didn’t want to feel like I owed him or like I was his charity case.
But it was too late for that. In less than twenty-four hours, his people had managed to take the apartment from a frighteningly old and gross health hazard to feeling like some swanky new construction place in a good part of Manhattan. It was still small, but all the little touches and new things made it feel high-end. I decided I could always pay him back from my twenty-thousand-dollar bonus in a few days, but even that didn’t feel much better. His huge bonus was just another form of charity, wasn’t it?
Paisley sat down on the other end of the couch and gave me a look. “What’s got you so gloomy?”
I sighed. “It’s nothing.”
Cassie arrived with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. Honestly, I didn’t feel like eating anything quite yet, but I didn’t want to be rude. I smiled, thanked her, and took a cautious sip, nodding. “It’s good, thank you.”
Cassie sat on the loveseat across from my new live-edge coffee table. The wood looked shiny and expensive with colors like chocolate and coffee with cream swirling through. It made me want to keep running my fingers across the silky surface.
“Yeah,” Cassie said, face suddenly serious. “You’re absolutely going to tell us what’s going on. There’s no way you aren’t sleeping with him if he’s doing all this.”
“I hate to say it,” Paisley added. “But I agree with Cassie. There’s something you’re not telling us.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t have the willpower to deny it to their faces right now. “The full truth is I don’t really know what the hell is going on with Mr. Stone. But I do know he gets pissed if I talk to Chase at the office. He’s constantly keeping tabs on me at work through the cameras. And he has called me up several times to yell at me for doing various normal things around the office. It’s like he wants me on my knees and on a leash. His leash. And then I got sick and he showed up and randomly wasn’t as much of an asshole. But he even managed to make giving me all this stuff seem like an asshole move.”
They both stared. “And then you fucked?” Cassie asked.
I laughed. “No! We’ve barely touched each other. I mean, yeah, I kind of touched his nipple this morning. But other than that–”
Paisley leaned in, eyebrows shooting up. “You touched Mr. Stone’s nipple? What? Details, girl. Now.”
I grinned as I recounted the story and they were both smiling by the time I finished.
