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At lunch in the coffee shop on Monday, she was eager to see Alex to find out all about his weekend. Well, not all about it. Couples were entitled to some secrets.
He didn’t notice her hurrying toward their table. Usually, he’d get to his feet, ready to pull out her chair. His mind must still be on his weekend, on his love. Lance hadn’t been explicit about how long he was in town. If he’d gone away again, maybe Alex wasn’t feeling so great.
Putting a hand on his shoulder, she got his attention, but kept going, running her fingertips across the width of him.
“Hey,” she said, swooping around into her usual seat. The coffee was there, but so were two huge hunks of indulgence cake. “Oh, sweetie.” Rainie reached across to take his hand. “Did he leave already? It must be so difficult living apart.”
He cleared his throat, his focus locked on the table between the two plates of cake. Worry welled; she’d never seen him so dejected.
“We broke up.”
That was the last thing she expected to hear. “Oh my God!” she said, clutching his hand tighter while dragging her chair closer. “Oh no, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Throwing both arms around him, she pulled him close until his head rested on hers. They sat there in silence. He’d need time to reflect, her embrace was the only strength she could hope to give.
Sitting back, she took his hand in both of hers and stayed close. “Okay, talk to me,” she said. “What happened? Did you have a fight?”
After inhaling, he breathed out an ironic laugh. “Yeah, we did.”
“I’m so sorry. Don’t worry. I’m sure you can fix it.” When his eyes sprang to hers, she smiled and touched his cheek. “Talk to him. I’m sure he still loves you. One fight doesn’t—”
“It’s over,” he said, examining her face. “You’re not like any other woman I’ve ever met, Rainie Tait.”
“I’m here for you, Alex. For whatever you need. You’ll get through this and when you’re ready, we’ll get you back into the game.” She laid a hand on his chest. “Whatever you feel in here now, the pain that’s there. It won’t last forever. I know it’s cliché, and it doesn’t help right now, but you’ll see… You’ll get through this.” Leaning back, she picked up a fork to scoop up a piece of the chocolate cake and offered it to his lips. “Chocolate helps.”
Conceding a subtle smile, he parted his lips to accept the cake. After he swallowed, he gathered her hand into his again.
“Thanks.”
“Do you want to talk about it? What went wrong? Were you fighting for a while? Was it sudden? No one really knows what goes on inside any relationship except the people in it, I know… Was it him traveling? The business trips?” She smiled. “I ask if you want to talk about it, then don’t shut up and give you a chance. Sorry. You go.”
Instead of saying anything, he took the fork from her fingers and stabbed it into the cake, taking off another chunk.
When he offered it to her, she was quick to accept. Tit for tat. He needed someone to accept him. Someone on his side and she’d be it.
“It’s been a long couple of days,” he said. “Do you think we could just… talk about anything else?”
“I can tell you about Stacey being chewed out in front of the whole office.”
“Perfect,” he said, forking up another piece of cake to feed it to her.
“Mr. Donal came down from up on high all stressed out about something. He went into Stacey’s office, the back wall of it is all glazed and isn’t exactly soundproof. They were arguing… Well, I guess you could say he was yelling. Something about expenses on the Northberg account… They did really well with Viva a few years back then went to a cheaper agency.” Alex fed her another piece of cake. “Viva tempted them back, I don’t know how, that’s above my pay grade. Anyway…” Another taste of indulgence, then she leaned closer and lowered her volume. “Word is, they’ve racked up this huge bill with Viva and their payments aren’t covering it. Some say they’re about to go bust. If they do, Viva might not get paid… which could leave a lot of people, namely me and my department, jobless.”
“Do you think Donal is worried? It can’t be Stacey’s fault the higher-ups extended their line of credit too far.”
When he tried to feed her more cake, she stole the fork from him to place the tasty treat in his mouth instead. The chocolate was supposed to make him feel better. It wouldn’t do that if he wouldn’t eat it.
“I guess that’s the catch twenty-two with marketing,” she said.
“Speculate to accumulate.”
“Exactly. I don’t know,” she said, selecting another hunk of cake. “Like I said, it’s not my department. But if they downsize because they can’t keep their numbers in line, relations will be the first for the chop. Especially if the yelling was because Stacey authorized a big chunk of change to keep Northberg happy. Viva absorbs some of those costs for clients, but if Northberg is already in the red with us and Stacey did it anyway…”
Teasing him with the fork, she offered it to his lips only to steal it back the moment he opened them. Smiling, she tried it again, but he caught her hand and guided the food into his mouth.
As he consumed the bite, the light of his smile reached his eyes. Oh, it was a pleasure. Such a relief to be helping, to have lightened some of his burden.
He swallowed and reached over to tuck a loose wisp of hair away from her face. “You like to tease, don’t you?”
