by Zee Irwin
Like she did mine. Back then.
I found it curious now. She wanted things professional between us, yet she brought me my favorite coffee and wore the perfume I gave her. My gut told me she was lying to herself about us.
Three video conference calls, two long logistics meetings, one media interview, another grueling strategy meeting with Dad, and ten hours later, my first official day as CEO was over. I still hadn’t heard from Matilda with the new marketing plan, and I was too busy to follow up through the day. I rapped on her door, hoping she would have better ideas and not throw something at my head.
Her face lifted when she saw me, no trace of disappointment from earlier. In fact, a smile plastered across her face. “I was about to come see you. I think I have a winning idea.” She spread out storyboards across her desk, facing me.
Relieved at finding her mood changed, I studied the boards. “Hm. Not this one, too silly. And this one doesn’t grab me.” I picked up the last set.
The storyboard showed a potato character and a chicken sandwich character falling in love. The drawings depicted how they met through a dating app, went through a few humorous dating situations, and finally sat on a couple’s couch sharing their new relationship status. Exactly what I hoped for.
“Yes. This is it. This has the voice, the modern feel, the humor, appealing to young and old alike. Excellent. Your team did outstanding work. By noon tomorrow, I’ll need a full-scale execution plan on my desk.”
She took on a smug tone. “You were right about my other ideas, they stunk, but I knew this one was perfect when I designed it.”
“This is yours? I’m impressed. You have a trained eye for what this campaign needs. I wouldn’t expect anything less given your years of experience. I’ll need full graphic mockups tomorrow as well. Nice job, Matilda.”
“Thank you. I’ll have the production company get started immediately.” She came around the front of her desk and sat her right buttock on the edge near me.
I took out my phone then bolted toward the door. When would Matilda get the hint I wanted nothing more to do with her?
By ten that night, I finished and longed to curl up in bed and sleep for twenty-four hours. My feet dragged as I crossed to the third floor elevators. I should have hit the gym on the way home, but I easily talked myself out of it. When I passed by Cassidy’s desk the faint scent of her lingered as though she spritzed the perfume on her desk for my pleasure. I stopped. What possessed me to pull out her desk chair and sit, I didn’t know, but maybe the way her back was to me all day, or the way my ears listened for every sound or laugh. I looked over the contents of her desktop as it was more intimately familiar with her than me right now.
A montage of fun family photos displayed in a single frame occupied the place of honor next to her company laptop. The largest photo I recognized, an unmistakable, nostalgic memory from the beach at Cape Cod. I had taken the photo. I leaned in closer and looked into her eyes, squinting at me from a younger, happier face. But that was then. The only thing I could do now was go on and make the best of the situation. The best I could hope for was remaining friends. What were the odds of a second chance, zero to none? On second thought, the photo was nothing but an unpleasant reminder to me of how someone else would be in her future taking photos and putting a sparkle in her eyes. Even worse, if it ended up being Hank. I snorted at the thought.
I stood up, leaving her desk behind, when something else jumped out at me. My name appeared on the edge of a piece of pink paper under a folder. I pulled it out and stared. Not one name, but a lot of my name written all over a piece of paper and in various forms. Mrs. Bronson Maxwell. Cassidy Maxwell. Cassidy Masters-Maxwell. Mrs. Maxwell, along with various doodles of hearts and flowers bordering scribbled notes from some marketing meeting. I smiled, recalling her college notebooks filled with doodles and drawings, although the business side of me wondered why my company paid her to doodle like this all day. The sad ex-boyfriend side of me kidnapped the paper and put it in my wallet for keeps.
Was it a sign? So much for keeping things professional. Looks like I wasn’t the only one wanting more than closure. But would Cassidy ever admit it? And how could I break down her walls?
17
Babe Ruth in Bits
Cassidy
Walking into the Chick In Bun building, my eyes immediately floated up to the life-sized painting of the Maxwell’s that I always avoided. I stopped and examined it, forcing employees arriving for work to dodge me on their way across the lobby. The gold-framed portrait of Bronson and his family held court over the comings and goings of the corporation. His face reminded me of the guy I knew back in college, painted before the accident when his hair curled on the ends and bleached golden from the beach sun. His youthfulness had no clue his life would change by meeting me.
While holding the Madden shoebox of memories in front of me containing his precious taped-up baseball card, the painted Bronson chastised me with his acrylic cyan-blue orbs, warning me this plan of mine wasn’t a good idea. But I held the box tighter, committed to my resolve, and continued to my desk.
After tucking my bag away in my desk drawer, I marched to the boardroom with the box. I knocked, then knocked again. The door flung open.
“Hi.” Bronson had the boardroom phone in one hand, resting the receiver on his shoulder and stretching the cord as far as it would go, while the other hand managed his mobile phone with his thumb, texting fast. “Can I help you?”
My resolve lost every nerve, and I backed up. “Um, I can see you're busy. I had some things to give you, but I’ll come back.”
“Stop right there. Now’s good, come in.”
I stepped past him into the boardroom and waited while he wrapped up his calls. He had taken over the entire back wall of the room, filling bookshelves with binders of reports and knickknacks from across the globe. My eyes landed on one item I wouldn’t have classified as a knickknack.
The MVP trophy, a relic from the past, sat alone on the credenza behind his desk.
I remembered I had signed my card to Bronson, Love and kisses to my Slugger, and had given it to him that night at the party where everyone celebrated with him. He was the man every guy wanted to be, the jock with the girlfriend, the slugger with a one-way ticket into the MLB, the winner of the Boston U MVP award, and the breaker of a college baseball record. But later in the evening, he’d be the guy who’d lost everything. One horrible car accident was all it took. Fate was so cruel.
I chewed on my cheek and averted my eyes because this wasn’t the best timing for clouds to roll in as Bronson came up behind me.
“Hello again. How are you, Cassidy?” Without a shift of my head, I knew how close he stood to me. The smell of his cinnamon breath wafted forward as my eyes glimpsed a pack of Big Red on his desk. I recalled the packs of it he’d buy before every ball game. Some things never change. But this was now, and this was my life, not a painting in front of me or a memory I could avoid.
I turned with the box still in hand, the width of the box the only distance between us. If he had been any other corporate manager, I might have called this sexual harassment, or at least an invasion of space, but the twitching of my thighs liked his closeness.
In the flesh, his eyes were azure, with raw emotion penetrating my thoughts. I should have been uncomfortable with the intrusion, but I was far from it.
“Can I help you?”
I recalled my purpose. “I have some things for you. But now that I’m standing here . . . It’s silly, a waste of your time. After all, you have a company to run.” I scurried around him.
He caught my arm, and this time I wished he wouldn’t remove it because I liked the heat radiating from his palm. I knew other places that liked being heated by his gliding palms. His eyes told me the same because I watched them, those blue devils raking down to my chest and back up. The faint growl escaping from his throat made my skin heat like velvet on fire, burning every inch of my being.
“B-box,�
�� I whispered. It was enough to snap us both out of the momentary trance, a few seconds of letting the past enter.
He dropped my arm and took a few steps back. “What is it?” His voice changed, coming out dark and husky. I knew his sounds. I had heard them in my ears our first time together and in my dreams every night since.
I cleared my throat. Enough of that. I came to slam the door on the past, so I put the box on a chair and pulled out each item, dropping them on the boardroom table.
“Your scarf. Your toothbrush. The first baseball cap you ever gave me.”
He took the cap and played it over in his hands.
“Your first signed baseball. The stubs and tickets to everything we ever did . . .” I left those in the box.
He picked through the items. A half-smile rose to his lips. “You kept all of this? Why?” He eyed the toothbrush and looked at me with eyebrows raised. “Did you brush with this since? And the cap and ball, all of it, you don’t have to return. Wait, maybe I’ll keep the ball if you don’t mind.”
“Okay, Slugger,” I agreed. His head snapped to mine. Oh boy, I hadn’t used my nickname for him in so long. I needed to get on with this. I swallowed hard and bolstered my nerves.
“Bronson, let me preface this final item by reminding you how things had deteriorated so badly between us. And the day you left, I was so hurt, as you know, and I wanted to lash out at you for everything. What you don’t know is . . .”
In slow motion, I pulled out the Babe Ruth special card. No longer worth a half-million dollars, torn into shreds and taped back together with one corner missing. I held it out to him and closed my eyes, protecting against what would surely be his fury.
I waited.
Nothing.
I opened one eye to peek at him.
His face donned a dazzling smile, splitting from ear to ear.
18
Priceless
Bronson
Seeing Babe Ruth reduced to pennies was not for the faint of heart baseball fan or for me. I’m surprised I didn’t fall to pieces, knowing this world existed with one less perfect, coveted, rare baseball card. Once, the card had been worth a small fortune, but now it wasn’t, which didn’t phase me. Well, not entirely.
What bothered me was that I had driven Cassidy to this extreme because of my complete assholery. She hadn’t deserved my shitty treatment for being an amazing girlfriend back then. Staying with me in the hospital when my parents allowed her to, cheering me on through therapy even on my darkest days when shadows lured me into despair, she was the one who deserved a damn MVP award for putting up with my crap back then.
Leaving her standing there, eyes closed, holding out the taped Babe Ruth, I sauntered over to my bookshelves.
Cassidy followed. “Are we not going to talk about this? You’re going to ignore what I showed you? Come on, I know you better. It must tear you up inside. I know what your collection meant to you.”
I found the book on the top shelf. Inside my signed Autobiography of Pedro Martinez, I pulled out a small, sealed, clear plastic baseball card cover and held it up. She moved closer and squinted at it. Inside, it held the missing piece.
“What? How?” Astounded, she placed the taped bits in my outstretched hand.
I painstakingly taped the last corner to the card, making it complete once again—well, as good as it would get. “There.” I held it up and admired the card as if it magically turned to gold.
“But why aren’t you mad?”
I admired the card and shrugged. “By the time I had moved my things to London and went through my card collection, I realized there were missing cards, and then I found the torn corner of my most coveted baseball card. Of course I suspected what happened and who did it.” I smirked but hoped she could see the gleam in my eye. “Hell yeah, I was mad then. Almost booked a flight back to the states to pay you an unhappy visit, but what purpose would it have served? It’s a card. It’s only money.” I put the card down on my desk and faced her, standing only inches away from the comfort of her body yet miles away from reaching for her again for the rest of my life.
“I had already lost so much by the time I landed in London. But the ache in my heart was only due to one thing. Missing you. The card was once worth a lot of money, but you, Cassidy, you were priceless.”
“Oh. Slugger.” For the second time, she used my nickname, this time in a sultry whisper and with eyes forming tears.
My hand, with a mind of its own, reached out, landing on her shoulder at the exact spot only it would know. “Do you still have it?”
The nodding and tilting of her head plus the heaviness of her eyelids told me all I wanted. She still had the tattoo. My nickname permanently marked on her shoulder like I belonged to her.
Only now, with the benefit of hindsight and reflection, I grasped how a woman like Cassidy belonged to herself, and she would determine if she deemed me worthy of her time and space, her body and her soul. I needed her to know how I wanted to be worthy again. She had hooked me, caught me in her net with her love from the first moment she tormented me with her sweet face. And I never left her, more like I denied the feelings all these years.
I’m nothing if not a risk-taker, and fuck the baseball analogy here, but I learned long ago how I only hit the balls if I stepped up to bat. I had to try again. “Cassidy, I’m here now, and if you’ll let me in, I’d like nothing more than to try again with you.” My eyes held her half-lidded beauties in a trance-like dance. The scenes of our past played in them like some romantic movie, reminding me how perfect we once were.
I found my hands rising in slow motion, coming to rest on each side of her face, then lowered my lips within an inch of hers. I wanted this, to kiss her and see where it led, and it was worth striking out to find out if she wanted this, too. My answer arrived from her hands on my abs, and assured me more sure by the second as they traveled up to my neck.
She bit her bottom lip, and I licked mine to prepare for a landing on what I already knew to be the softest lips I had ever tasted. I moved in. She moved in.
And we arrived.
Joined.
Safely at our destination.
Our lips lingered on the initial touch while my body convinced my mind how good it felt to be with Cassidy again. My lips gently explored hers with more kisses until they exploded the barriers between us and let our tongues join in. Our kisses grew more heated, then I blazed a trail of them to her earlobes, and down her neck. She let a moan escape her throat, and the sound titillated my ears, teasing them, wanting more. Until she slowly pulled away from me.
“What happened to being professional?” she whispered, her eyes still closed.
“I doubt we’d know how to keep it professional once we’ve started.”
It stunned me, leading her down this rabbit hole that she joined me there willingly. I wanted more. Now. Could I take her across the boardroom table? Hell, could we take the morning off and hit a hotel somewhere?
We both leaned in for more kisses. Until we heard footsteps and looked at the door to the boardroom as it stood partly open, inviting anyone to witness our reunion. We separated as the footsteps closed in on the doorframe.
A shift of color at the doorway intruded on what was otherwise a perfect moment. In a bright red dress, Matilda entered the room, only stopping when her eyes lit on Cassidy standing near me. My grim face at Matilda should have signaled my irritation.
She glanced between us, conclusions drawing up in her eyes. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything? Bron, I believe your meeting with the vice presidents and directors starts soon. I reserved the large boardroom for us on the first floor.”
“Okay. I have a call to return, then I’ll be right down.” I turned to Cassidy, noting the red rising to her cheeks as she moved further away from me. She gathered the shoebox of our things, except the cards and the ball, and breezed past her boss back to her desk.
With Cassidy out of sight, Matilda moved closer with crossed arms. “Is there so
mething going on between you two?”
“Stick to doing your job, Matilda. Don’t worry about me.”
If she could have shot iced daggers at me, then I’m convinced she would have. I ignored her as if I cloaked myself in a thick-plated shield that repelled ice. Only Cassidy had the fire to melt my armor.
19
Roadside Assistance
Cassidy
I took off early from work and drove home to Cape Cod Tuesday afternoon. I was picking up Emily and driving back to Boston. She’d stay with me and the girls through the New Year’s holiday weekend, and we planned time for partying, shopping and general girl time. Bella was invited, too, but she hadn’t taken time off from Dad’s grocery store, and he relied on her more and more for managing the place.
I appreciated the distraction from work with the drive, but of course my thoughts turned to Bronson. He may have taken up residence in the boardroom, but after the kisses we shared I could feel his presence without even looking for him. If I turned my chair around, I had a line drive directly into the door of the room. If it was open, I saw him working hard behind his desk, or pacing with his phone to his ear, or sitting in another meeting with a vice president of some department or another. Matilda waltzed in and out of his office all day as well, and her fake laugh at anything he said drove me nuts. It shouldn’t, I had no right of possessiveness over Bronson, but there I was, being jealous anyway.
Why did I let him touch me? Yes, I was an equal participant. My lips totally betrayed me. And once there, I needed a taste of him, longing to know what time had done to him. Mm. And now I did. He held a part of the old Bronson but mixed it with something new. Time was good to him, and he proved it in delivering those kisses. Compared to college, where we fumbled our way nervously through new, intimate situations, the kisses today delivered on promises confidently, the way only a grown man with experience could.
