by Max Monroe
“I know, Georgie. And seriously, you don’t have to apologize to me. This entire situation is fucked up, that’s for damn sure.”
I nodded, blowing my nose.
“How about you get off the toilet and maybe we can find something else to watch? It’s safe to say Tim and Lyla are little too much for you at the moment.”
“Okay,” I agreed through a hiccupping breath.
“I’ll give you a minute to get yourself together,” she called over her shoulder, moving into the hallway.
I stood by the sink, washing my hands and face. I would not spend another night bawling my eyes out. It was just getting pathetic at that point. Obviously, what I’d thought Kline and I were, and what he’d thought we were, were two very different things.
The voice in my head tried to remind me of the way his blue eyes had looked the night he told me he loved me—tender, vulnerable, his heart resting in their depths.
I told that voice to fuck off. He wouldn’t be the first man or woman in the world to profess love to someone they didn’t really care about. Believe me, I had seen the threads on Reddit.
People did some horrible shit to one another. Relationships, that were otherwise amazing, could end on the worst of notes. That was not how I had pictured things happening with Kline and me, but that was life, right? Sometimes things didn’t go as you planned or hoped they would. Sometimes bad things happened to good people.
Sometimes you just had to suck it up and move on.
I just hated that I missed him as much as I did.
I missed his laugh and his smile and his teasing comments.
I missed my big spoon.
As I wiped my face and hands off with the towel, I glanced down at my pants and noticed a giant grease stain in the crotch region. Normally, I would have just left it, but that night, I needed to not feel like the most pitiful person in existence.
I took off the sweats and headed toward my bedroom to grab a new pair of pants.
“Hey, Georgia, what do you think about The Walking Dead?” Cass asked from the other end of the hallway.
“Sure, why not?” I shrugged. Zombies seemed like a good, safe choice. How could I think about Kline when I was watching humans turn cannibalistic?
She started to turn back toward the living room but stopped in her tracks. “Hold up…are you wearing boxer briefs?”
Ah, fuck.
“No,” I answered, covering my underwear. Well, Kline’s underwear.
She flashed a skeptical look.
“Fine!” I threw my hands in the air. “I’m wearing Kline’s briefs because I’m pathetic and I miss him and they smell like him!”
“Smell like him?” She fought the urge to smile.
“This isn’t funny!” I groaned.
She held up both hands. “I never said it was.”
I pointed toward her mouth. “Yeah, but you’re about two seconds away from laughing your ass off!”
“Honey, you just told me you’re wearing your ex-boyfriend’s underwear because you miss him and they smell like him. His underwear. The material that literally cradles his balls.”
“Oh, God,” I whined, face scrunching into an agonized expression. “This is definitely a new low point in my life.” I leaned against the wall, head falling back. “I’m so desperate for him that I’ll take smelling like his sac over not smelling like him at all.”
Cass moved toward me and immediately pulled me into a tight hug.
“It’ll be okay, Georgie. I promise it’ll be okay.”
I sniffled back the tears, resting my chin on her shoulder and squeezing her tight.
“Do you want me to try to call him? Maybe it isn’t what you think? Maybe he has an explanation?”
“Doubtful,” I muttered. “He would have called. If there was an explanation, he would have called.” I needed to say the words for myself just as much as I needed to say them for her. Her face reflected my misery perfectly.
“I just want to forget him, Cass. I just want to wake up and not have to go through an entire day of missing him and wishing things were different.”
“I know, honey. I know. It’ll get easier, but it’s just going to take some time.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “But you know what? You’re still doing your best to move forward. You went out and got a new job. You’re not just sitting around and moping like most people would. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks for coming home early. I really needed you.”
“I will always be here for you. Even when you smell like ball sac,” she teased, a smile in her voice, “I’ll still be here.”
I laughed and groaned at the same time. “God, I know I said they smelled like him but I didn’t even really do a sniff check on these. I mean, Kline is usually a clean, well-groomed kind of guy, but for all I know, I’m wearing a post-rugby practice pair.”
A quiet laugh escaped her lips. “How about you go take a hot shower while I make those amazing Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownies we have in the pantry? Then we can watch humans turn into zombies and eat one another?”
“I really love you.”
“I love you too. Now go rinse the ball sweat off and meet me in the living room.”
A knock at my door picked at my already raging headache with an ice hammer.
“Yeah?” I asked, my voice heavily laden with days’ worth of heartbreak and aggravation.
The door swung open and closed without delay, Thatch starting on one side and ending on the other.
“Good morning, my old, melancholy friend.”
My eyes narrowed in a power-glare. He noticed immediately.
“Right. Not the time, I can see.”
Definitely not. I shook my head.
“You’re missing out, K. I’ve got some really fantastic new material I tried out on Gwendolyn last night.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tilted it toward the ceiling.
Please, God, give me patience right now.
“All right, all right,” Thatch conceded. “Not in the mood for Gwendolyn either. I get it.”
I sighed.
“I mean, I have a hard time actually getting it, you know? I’m pretty much always in the mood for Gwendolyn. Or Amber. Or Yvette.”
“Thatch.”
“Definitely, Yvette. She does the best work with her tongue.”
I had never been less in the mood for his teasing than I was right now. I wasn’t sleeping, barely eating. I missed my fucking Benny. I didn’t want to hear about any-fucking-body and I didn’t want to listen to jokes.
Nonexistent patience tapped out, I scrubbed through the mess on my desk and shoved the bulleted proposal at him. I’d done my best to outline everything I was looking for it to say, but I was no goddamn lawyer. Neither was he, but he’d know what to do.
Wrinkles formed between his eyes as he concentrated and read.
“Are you serious right now?” Thatch asked, shaking the paper in front of him and looking deep into my eyes. He’d never looked at me that seriously. I was obviously scaring him.
“As a fucking heart attack,” I confirmed.
“K—”
“Just do it!” I snapped, rolling my neck from side to side and blowing out a deep breath to calm down.
Fuck, I was tense. More so than I’d ever been in my entire goddamn life, and my nerves were shot. If people didn’t start doing what I said, right when I said it, I was liable to lose my fucking mind.
He shook his head disdainfully, but either my totally fucked up head was playing tricks on me or the curve of his smile was growing with each pass.
“You are one crazy motherfucker, you know that?” he asked, his lips turned up in a full-on smile. I knew I wasn’t making it up now.
I nodded a few times before the intensity of his happiness had me shaking my head. “Why are you smiling like a goddamn lunatic?”
“Because,” he said in another uncharacteristic display of seriousness. “I’m fucking thrilled to see you this ha
ppy.”
Happy? Was he high? I’d never been this fucking heartbroken.
“Dude, I’ve never been this miserable.”
He nearly choked on a laugh. “Yeah, but see, that’s the flip side. Crazy in love can only mean one of two things.” He ticked each option off on his fingers. “Maniacally happy or butt-fuck desolate. It’s one or the other, and it all hangs on the notion of said person loving you back.”
He shook the paper in his hands. “I admire you. Fucking up but fucking doing something about it. This is what makes a man. Buried to shit in the weeds so he takes out a machete.”
I cracked a smile for the first time in two days.
“Just make sure it doesn’t take me four fucking years to cut my way out, okay?”
“I’ll have the contract ready by Friday at the latest. There’s some red tape, but you can thank me again for stopping you from caving to a structure with a board of directors. If you had, you’d have been fucked.”
I shook my head.
He turned an ear toward me, cocked a brow, and waved a hand in invitation.
I rolled my eyes but played along. “Thank you, Thatch, for having the foresight to make it possible to make a last-ditch grand gesture in the name of love without being completely fucked.”
He bowed slightly, tucking one hand to his stomach and the other to his back. “You’re welcome.”
My office phone ringing had me rounding the desk and meeting his eyes in question. He waved his permission.
“Brooks,” I answered shortly.
“Kline, Kline, Kline.” Wes tsked in my ear.
Jesus. I didn’t know if I had the energy for both of them.
“This really isn’t a good time, Wes.”
“It never is—”
True enough.
“But I think you’ll want to hear this,” he taunted.
Like a starving fish, I took the bait on the line without question.
“What?”
“We just interviewed a new employee—”
Goddamn, everyone was making it their fucking mission to annoy me today. New conquests from one and new hires from the next, I had no desire to hear any of it.
“Wes—”
“Pretty little thing. Can’t be more than five one, five two, but by God, she’s got a body on her.”
My stomach jumped with excitement and roiled with sick all at once. He sat silent on the line, just waiting.
“You saw her?”
“Nope, not me. She’s in with the GM now. He wanted me to call and look into her references while she’s in there, though, seeing as he liked the girl so much and didn’t want to waste time getting an offer together.”
The words burned my throat as I said them. “You’re a fucking moron if you don’t hire her.”
“No kidding.”
I’d never wanted to slit the throat of a friend before, but I guessed there was a time and circumstance for everything.
Thatch looked on as I worked hard to compose myself. Sure, I had a plan, but I had no idea how she’d react. I could very well still be royally screwed.
If that was the case, I still wanted the very best for her.
“Just…look out for her, okay?” My voice didn’t even sound like my own, and Thatch looked away. The big fucking ox couldn’t stand it either.
“You know I will, dude.”
I nodded at the phone, too choked up to speak, and when it made me think of her, a single tear broke through the last goddamn barrier.
“Girl, it’s pandemonium here! Where in the hell have you been? Do you even know what’s going on?!” Dean shouted into my ear, not even offering a simple “Hello” or “How are you?”
I yanked the phone away from my face, my mouth contorting in pain.
Jesus, he was worked up about something. I could picture him pacing, his body vibrating with the need to tell someone whatever gossip he’d grabbed ahold of. If there was one thing Dean was great for when I was at…yeah, that place I’d rather never speak of again, it was keeping his ear to the ground and getting the down and dirty scoop on everything.
“Give me a minute, Dean. I’m trying to hear you over my ruptured eardrum.” I sat down at my new desk, in my new office.
Even though it was a great job with amazing benefits, and the salary alone had me blinking twice when my eyes scanned the contract, it still didn’t feel like home. I didn’t have that sense of relief I had hoped for. I just felt…numb. I felt like someone had picked me up from my apartment and dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, without a lick of instructions or reassurance.
But I knew I could step up to the challenge and rock this job. I had learned from the best, a man who had started building his multi-billion dollar empire when he was a nineteen-year-old college student at Harvard.
Fuck you very much, Kline Brooks.
“Georgia,” he said, ignoring my jab. “Listen. To. Me. Shit is crazy. I think everyone at Brooks Media is losing their ever-loving minds!”
Okay, that definitely caught my attention.
“W-what? Why?”
“Kline’s moods revolve around colossally awful and biggest dick around. And not in the good way.”
I blinked several times, attempting to process that information.
“Georgie? Hell-o? Are you still there?”
I swallowed past the shock. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Can you believe it? Kline Brooks, the man who rarely raises his voice and makes a point to be a gentleman, no matter what, has turned into the kind of guy his employees want to avoid at all costs. Talk about—”
I couldn’t take any more. The last thing I wanted to hear was about Kline and his bad moods.
“Dean, I can’t do this,” I chimed in before he could continue. The mere thought of Kline had my stomach cursing me for eating a sausage biscuit from McDonald’s for breakfast. “I just can’t listen to this. I love you. I miss you. But I can’t listen to anything related to Kline Brooks.”
“Oh. My. Gawd!” he exclaimed. “My spidey sense told me something was off with your rash departure, but I brushed it off, figuring maybe you just wanted to see tight asses in spandex all day. And, girlfriend, I didn’t blame you one bit for that. Hell, I would’ve done a whole lotta things—emphasis on dirty—that would’ve made them football boys blush to snag that job.”
“I didn’t take the job for the tight asses in spandex, Dean,” I muttered.
“Well, I know that now! I can’t believe I didn’t see this sooner!”
“Didn’t see what sooner?”
“You banged the boss.” He sighed dramatically. “I am so jealous.”
“Don’t be.” I snorted in irritation. “Kline Brooks might be good in bed, but he’s even better at tearing your heart to shreds.”
“Oh, no he didn’t!” I literally heard his fingers give three quick snaps through the receiver. “What happened?”
“One day, when I don’t feel like throwing up and crying when I hear his name, I’ll give you all of the gory details. I just can’t talk about it right now.”
“Damn girl. I’m so sorry. It was that bad?”
“Times it by about a thousand and, yeah, it was that bad.”
“If I wasn’t wearing my new three-piece Gucci suit, I’d strut my ass right into his office and slug him.”
That had me laughing. “You’ve never ‘slugged’ anyone in your life.”
“That’s only because I’m a bottom, sweetheart. The men in my life prefer me well-groomed and well-manicured. Slugging would mess up my pretty hands.”
“Wait…you’re a bottom?”
“Well…not every time, but yeah, I prefer to be ridden.”
I grimaced. “Jesus. That’s too much information for nine a.m.”
“Pretty sure you asked, doll,” he said through a laugh. “I miss having my little diva around. Tell me we can meet up for drinks soon.”
“Definitely.”
“And if you’re curious and want to know wha
t a certain someone—”
I cut him off before he rehashed that argument. “Nope. Not gonna happen. But I will make time for you. Call me this weekend and we’ll make some plans.”
“Okay, lover. We’ll chat later.”
After we hung up, I busied myself with the one hundred pages of Excel spreadsheets management had sent my way. I was finding out quickly the asshole who had run this position prior to me didn’t give a shit about tracking expenses. The franchise would be lucky if their marketing investments broke even by the end of the fiscal quarter. No wonder he got the boot and they offered me the job at the drop of a hat.
Three soft knocks at the door grabbed my attention.
“Come in,” I answered, glancing up from my computer.
A young man in his early twenties, and pretty much too adorable for words, hesitantly walked in. The Breakaway Courier logo was etched on his navy blue polo. His hands gripped a thick envelope.
“Georgia Cummings?” he asked, standing in front of my desk.
“That’s me.” I got up from my chair. “What can I help you with?”
“I’ve got an urgent delivery for you.” He pulled a small black tablet from his backpack. “Mind giving me a signature?”
“Uh, sure…” I responded, slightly confused. “But are you sure this is for me? I wasn’t expecting anything today.”
“Definitely for you. I had strict orders to make this my next stop.”
My brow rose. “Really?”
He nodded, holding the tablet out for my signature.
“Did they tell you who it’s from?” I asked, signing and taking the package from his hands.
He shook his head and shrugged. “No clue, but apparently, it’s really important.”
“Okay, well, thanks.”
I scanned the front of the manila envelope for a clue. Only my name and office address were written across the center, along with the words, Urgent. Open and read immediately.
“Have a nice day, Ms. Cummings.”
“Thanks. You too,” I mumbled.
My fingers slid beneath the lip of the envelope, breaking the seal. Still bewildered, I pulled out a thick stack of legal documents and skimmed the first page.
