She pulled me into a kiss deep enough I could taste the wine on her lips. I was breathless when we let go.
“I’ve been wondering,” she said, the confident expression finally returning. I sank contented into my seat, looking up into her eyes. “About your store. What are your margins like?”
I blinked. “I… we were just talking about how overworked you are, and you want to start thinking about my business?”
“I’m not overworked. I’m okay with working any amount.” She stretched her arms over her head. “The only reason I’m dissatisfied is because I don’t like my job anymore, and it’s keeping me away from you. Your business doesn’t have either of those problems.”
I squinted. “Wait. You don’t like the work? I thought you loved that job.”
“I like…” She chewed her lip, stared up to the roof of the cabin. “I do like the work. I don’t like the job. And I definitely don’t like the boss.”
“So…” I felt my stomach churn. I wanted to support her because she was spending her time doing what she loved and achieving her professional dreams, but if it was making her miserable? “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to solve this damn accounts issue no matter what it takes. And I’m going to keep from getting too depressed by keeping you in my life.”
I flushed. “Melissa, I—I really like you and it makes me so happy to know you like me too, but you can’t just rely on me for happiness. I don’t think I’m that special.”
“Have you looked at yourself?” She shook her head. “Don’t think you’re that special. Please.”
“I mean…” I sighed. “I just want you to be happy.”
“Look, Kayla, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what my future holds. Except that…” She slipped a hand down to take mine, and when she looked me in the eye, there was a little blush in her cheeks. “I’m really happy right now, and I hope that future has you in it.”
I felt my face burn hotter. “I-I hope so too. I mean, I want to be with you. I mean… ugh. I don’t know how to put words together.”
She laughed and pulled me in, kissing me sweetly. “You don’t need to. I can read you loud and clear, Kayla.”
God, she was perfect.
And so… almost happy.
When we landed, the sun was still up, thanks to our private jet experience. We took a rental car to her family’s place again, and there was a smirk playing over her lips as she said,
“Just so you know, they’re going to freak out. I wasn’t supposed to be here for another week and a half. But I couldn’t just ignore Trish’s baby.”
I looked down. “You’re so dedicated and hardworking. I don’t know how I’m supposed to compare to you.”
“Well, I think you’re perfect.”
I kept back a sigh. I didn’t care how premature a thought it was. I knew as well as anything that I loved her.
We pulled up in front of the house, and Melissa pulled her phone out of her pocket, dialed someone. After a second, I heard Trisha’s tired voice saying something I couldn’t make out, and Melissa just nodded along, waiting out whatever she was saying.
“I heard. Yes. I heard.” She nodded. “Trish, I just thought you might want to know Kayla and I are outside the front door.”
I heard the same shriek come from the phone and from the house. There were footsteps racing, voices yelling, and Melissa hung up, laughing. She put a hand on my arm and grinned at me.
“If she yells at you, just keep in mind she’s yelling at me and it missed and hit you instead.”
For some reason, I thought it might be fun to get yelled at by Melissa’s sister. We stepped out of the car just as the door flew open, and out came Trisha, looking like she was about to strangle someone, as fiery as if she hadn’t just given birth the other day. Her husband came staggering out after her looking horrified, and I couldn’t help laughing as Trisha jumped off the patio and threw herself on Melissa, shaking her and laughing and crying all at once.
“Congratulations, Trish,” Melissa said, patting her on the back.
“You little asshole,” Trisha laughed through tears. “I’m gonna choke you out. But first I’m going to hug your girlfriend too.”
She stepped away and pulled me into a crushing hug instead, swaying and laughing. I couldn’t believe she could have this much energy.
“Kayla, you’re the best,” she laughed. “My stupid asshole sister wouldn’t ever do this kind of thing before she met you.”
“I don’t think I really did anything,” I said, but apparently that was the wrong answer, because Trisha squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“You stupid liar. You finally fixed my sister. Dammit, I’m so happy. Oh my god. Come inside, you idiot,” she said, turning to Melissa. “You have a niece now, you stupid asshole.”
She went back up into the house with her husband, and Melissa just nodded, linking her arm with mine.
“That went exactly the way I expected,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier.”
“I don’t think there was anything to fix,” I said, and she turned to me with a strange look. “I think you’ve been perfect all along.”
A smile played on her lips. I wasn’t able to get past Melissa’s guard very often, but this was one of those times. “You really don’t think my working habits are a problem?”
“I think you’re perfect exactly the way you decide to be, whatever that is.” I pulled her into a quick kiss, feeling my heart fluttering as I pulled away. “I just want you to be happy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And you think I’m happy?”
I stared for a while longer, finally giving her a hopeless smile. “You know? I think you’re almost happy.”
“Almost happy?” She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know,” I laughed. “But I know it’s true.”
“Melissa!” Trisha poked her head back out the door. “Stop flirting and get your ass in here!”
Melissa laughed, leading me up towards the house, but I could tell there was something different in her demeanor now. I couldn’t help hanging on it, too, thinking it over.
Almost happy.
∞∞∞
It was so weird. We’d spent maybe six hours in Georgia and we were already flying back in the middle of the night, and next to me on the jet, Melissa had a far-off look on her face. Happy, contented, but there was something else there.
“Are you okay, Mel?” I put a hand on her arm and she gave me a weird look.
“What?” she said.
“What?” I said. “Oh. Oh. Melissa. I heard Trisha—”
“Keep calling me that,” she laughed, looking at me strangely. “That sounds so good coming from you.”
I flushed. “M-Mel?”
She kissed me intensely, her hands on either side of my head, fingertips digging into my scalp. “I always hated that name and I don’t know why it sounds so good when you say it,” she laughed when she pulled away, still holding me so close I felt her breath on my lips. My head felt fuzzy. I still couldn’t believe this incredible, beautiful and passionate woman was mine.
“Um,” I mumbled. “You can call me Kay, if you like that. That’s what Shay calls me.”
“Kay…” She trailed her fingertips along my cheek, down to brush along my neck. I shuddered. “It’s nice, but it doesn’t replace Kayla. I’ll use both. You’d be perfect by any name.”
I burned hot. “Why do you like me so much? I’m just a ditzy candy girl.”
She laughed, resting her forehead on mine. “That’s not all you are. You’re also the top professor at Kayla University. And you gave me my favorite color.”
“I just fed you candy dots and took you to karaoke,” I laughed breathlessly. “You’re a multi-millionaire executive who looks incredibly hot in a suit.”
“I didn’t realize there was this much to life until I met you,” she breathed. “I’d spent so many years pri
oritizing my work at the expense of everything else, when I ran out of room to climb, I didn’t know what I was living for anymore. Now, thanks to you, I see there’s so much more. A happy family that you fit into perfectly, with a beautiful little niece now and everything, and your dreams and ambitions too. How could I not feel this way for you?”
I gulped. “God, I feel like I won the lottery.”
“Me too,” she laughed, kissing me again before she sat back up, just gazing at me. “That’s the sign of a great relationship, isn’t it? I was miserable before I met you.”
“And…” I ventured. “Now you’re happy?”
An odd smile quirked over her lips. “Almost happy.”
“What’s the matter?” I shook my head. “Duh. It’s work, isn’t it.”
“If David finds out I took this little escapade, I’m done for. If he even keeps me around at all, I know for sure I’ll be tied up for Christmas again this year.” She chewed her cheek. “Which is still something I regret more than I can say. I missed Christmas with my family last year because David drove us through the holiday. And I mean, it’s just a day, sure, but… it meant a lot to them. And I left them high and dry.”
“And you’re afraid of the same thing happening this year.”
She nodded. “This was a big risk. But… you know? I’m glad I took it.” She trailed her fingertips down along my arm, gazing into my eyes, and I felt my heart doing flips in my chest. “There are a lot of risks I’ve taken relating to you, and I’ve been grateful for every one.”
I swallowed. “I think you’ve graduated. I think you get an honorary PhD even if you haven’t completed your dissertation.”
She pumped her fist. “All right. I knew I’d do it. What was my score? Did I get over a hundred percent? I know I had that extra credit.”
“You know, it won’t even show up on your transcript if you have over a hundred percent,” I laughed.
“It’s the principle of the thing, Kay.”
I fell into her side, deciding I really liked the way it sounded on her lips, too. “You did great. The highest score in the history of the institution. In fact, the university is closing now because no one will ever top you.”
“I hope not. I’m always the one topping. On principle.”
That wasn’t what I meant, but it was also something I appreciated about her.
Chapter 19
Melissa
Sure enough, David was not happy.
It took a while for him to find out, almost three full weeks. I’d only slipped in a few dates with Kayla, not counting the times I’d snuck into her shop before work or on my lunch break, but it was still those few time slots scheduled with her that kept me going through the hard weeks. Looking forward to the next time we’d get together. Which I needed, because these days, all the weeks were hard weeks.
Everything was on the way down. With the plummeting accounts, middle management had resorted to a mass turnover, and it only weakened our signing potential. Accounts signed up slower, and with the bad news leaking out the cracks of the organization, the exodus of accounts only got worse.
It was dying. The whole corporation was on its way out, unless we did something drastic. We were still darlings in the secondary market, traders speculating on us, growth investors saying we were severely undervalued. People trying to buy on bad news. They were all wrong. We were heading towards the end.
So of course, David was angrier with every passing day, because he could tell just as clearly as I could that the end was coming soon. And when he found out about my private excursion, he came storming into my office—something he did so often these days I didn’t even look up when he did.
I was on the phone, and I signaled for him to wait. He was good about that, at least—he respected phone etiquette if nothing else—and I finished up the call before long and set it down. “What’s up, David?”
“You snuck in a little vacation to Georgia in the middle of the worst crisis this company has had?”
My stomach dropped. I had no clue how he’d figured it out. “What? You mean the half-day trip I took to see my newborn niece, that I told you about ahead of time?”
“I know things are different for women, and you have…” He gestured wildly. “You all think about family and whatever. But you do see the writing on the wall right now, don’t you?”
I threw my hands up. “For crying out loud, David, if you think the reason our accounts are leaving is because I worked a hundred hours one week instead of a hundred ten, you’re not actually solving problems, you’re just looking for an easy person to yell at.”
“I can’t have people just taking unscheduled runs across the country wherever and whenever they feel like, Melissa!”
I sighed. “I can have at least one evening to myself every few weeks, David. Maybe the reason things are falling apart is because we’re pushing core management to work until our brains come out of our ears? There’s not a lot left in any of us other than rote work, and you should know that, looking around the office any given day.”
He stepped closer, putting his hands on the desk and leaning over me. I didn’t move, just looking back into his eyes, with my best you can’t intimidate me look. “Melissa, I hired you under the impression you would be able to withstand the workload. If you need to go pick up a… girlfriend and go gallivanting around the country when we’re in a corporate emergency, maybe I need to rethink my hiring decision.”
I laughed. “You really think you can find someone with my skills, someone with no family and no friends to ever talk to, willing to put in every waking minute—you think you can find someone like that, and convince them to use their talents in this position? The throne with the sword of Damocles actually sticking out of my back right now? Good luck with that, David. Let me know if you do.”
He glared at me for a good long while before he backed up, crossing his arms. “I’m not firing you, Melissa. I just want you to know this is a team effort. This place is heading to the ground. We’re all going to put in everything we have, together, to keep it from going down.”
“Trust me, I am. If you want a magician, check a street show. If you want a CFO, you’ve got the best damn one you can find.”
He sneered at me, but he turned and walked out of the room. I sighed, going back to drafting the last email I wanted to send right now, a horrifically dismal financials report.
I’d probably gone too far. I wasn’t getting off for Christmas this year.
And that one really hurt, because this year I had Kayla.
Those thoughts haunted me until Saturday morning, when I was able to wake up Kayla and take her out to an upscale breakfast diner. She’d just thrown on a t-shirt with a pastel graphic design and baggy pants, her hair down with no makeup on, but I loved this look on her as much as anything else.
“So, David found out I took that trip with you,” I said as I pulled up outside the diner. I’d put off saying any of this over text the past couple days since it happened, not really able to broach it over text.
“Oh.” She frowned. “So, he’s mad at you and stuff now, right?”
“He’s livid. He was talking about replacing me, but, you know. I laughed him off because no way in hell he’d find a replacement.”
“Do you think he’s going to hold you over the holidays again?” Her voice was small as she looked down. I took a deep sigh, my stomach churning.
“Definitely,” I said, my throat tight. “A hundred percent. He did it last year, and I was in his good graces and things were going well then. I think it’s a sure thing at this point.”
She hugged herself. “All right. I understand.”
“Kayla, I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice coming out as a rasp. “I really…”
“It’s okay, Mel.” She leaned over the center console, rested her head on my shoulder, and slipped down until she was lying on my lap. “It’s just so stupid. I don’t want to complain. I know you’re working hard and that’s what’s important to yo
u, but… I can’t believe it. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. I want…”
“You want what?” My heart fluttered as I lay a hand on her shoulder.
“I want more time with you! I know…” She huffed, sitting back up suddenly, folding her arms and looking away. “I know I said everything about supporting you, and I do want to support you. And I know this is really important to you! And it’s selfish of me to say I want more time with you.”
I put a hand on her arm. “I want more time with you, too, Kayla.”
“Am I just making things harder for you?” She shrank in her seat. “I… am I making your job more stressful?”
“No.” I shook my head hard. “God, no. Never. I’d have flipped out and probably gotten into a fistfight with David if I didn’t have time with you to look forward to.”
She looked over at me, just searching me with hurt in her eyes. It crushed my heart knowing I was the one who’d caused that hurt.
I pulled her into a hug, awkward across the center console but it felt right, holding her head against my shoulder, just feeling her breaths. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could be there for you more.”
“I’m just afraid,” she said, her voice shaking. “It was hard leaving everything I knew, and I always felt so lonely, like something was missing. And now that I have you, I finally feel like there’s a place for me again. But… I’m afraid maybe I’m wrong, that maybe I don’t fit into your life.”
“You fit into my life, Kayla. I didn’t even have a life to fit anything into until I met you.”
She sighed. “But what’s going to happen when things get harder?”
“Then I’ll probably get annoying, complaining about my boss for an entire date or something.”
She giggled, and then there was a long silence before she pulled away from the hug and looked up into my eyes. “You’re not going to go find some other girl instead, are you?”
“Of course not,” I said, wondering how you were supposed to know if you were in love. “You’re the woman I want. Out of every woman in the world. Now, let’s go inside. I want to talk about the candy shop.”
Life Is Sweet Page 13
