“What? How?” She looked genuinely surprised.
“I guess you didn’t talk to him?”
“I tried,” she said. “He’s not talking to me right now.”
“Do you blame him?” Theo was hit with another flash of Elliot’s broken-hearted expression again, and it made him flop down to sit on the couch.
Brianna moved over to a chair, the chair that he and Reid had bought during a trip down to Guadalajara one summer, six months after they started dating and Theo had finally moved in with him. There actually was a time when Reid treated him like he was a worthwhile human being and not another piece of furniture barely a step above the chair that Brianna sat in now. She said, “When you texted me last night, you said everything was going great.”
“It was. Everything was—” He felt his lip tremble, but he shoved it down. “We were great. We had a lot of fun. He’s really a good guy.” He covered his face. “God, I feel like such an ass!”
“Theo, come on,” she said. His reaction seemed to catch her off guard. She watched him with a frown on her face like she wasn’t sure what else to say—which was a first for her. The way she studied him made him conscious of how he was acting, letting his feelings show like this. He never even cried when he found out about Reid, but now that level of emotion bubbled close to the surface, and it was all he could do to stop it from happening.
“It was your message this morning that tipped him off,” Theo continued. “I was in the shower, and he read my phone.” Theo stared at a pile of Reid’s shit tossed on the floor. Why did today feel like he was being broken up with twice?
“I sent that at ten this morning. I figured you were already home by then.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t. I spent the night with him.”
She furrowed her brow. “Really? The whole night?” She sat back in the chair. “Huh. I didn’t think you would actually go through with that. I figured you’d have your way with him then go home.”
“Yeah, well…”
Brianna’s shoulders dropped. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah, shit.”
They sat in silence for a moment. He thought maybe he should offer her something to drink, but he really didn’t want to. And he didn’t feel like she deserved it after spilling everything on him and putting him through it all.
Why did he feel this way? It was a one-night stand. That’s all it was ever supposed to be. Honestly, he felt worse about last night than he did about this whole mess with Reid. Reid was a prick. Elliot deserved better.
It must have registered on his face, because Brianna sighed and leaned toward him, and she put a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Theo only shrugged and shook his head. He still frowned. He rubbed his face again, and he tried to move past as best he could. He sat forward.
Brianna seemed to take in the living room for a second time. It was a bright, airy apartment with high ceilings. Usually it was spotless. Today it was a mess. She looked at all the boxes of Theo’s stuff and everything else that belonged to Reid left untouched. “Wow, so this is really happening. You guys are finally splitting up.”
“Yup.” Theo kicked at a half-full box next to the coffee table. “I’m supposed to be out by Wednesday, but the sooner the better. I should have everything ready to move on Monday.”
“Shit,” she said again. She huffed a breath up to her forehead that tossed her bangs out of her eyes. “You got your place lined up yet?”
Theo only answered her with a noncommittal shrug.
Brianna studied him, and then she swatted his knee where she’d touched it only moments ago. “I thought you’d at least be jumping for joy to get away from this prick you called a boyfriend.” she said. “For too long, if you ask me.”
“No. I mean, yeah. This was a long time coming.” He glanced around the apartment.
After a second, Brianna scooted to the edge of her chair and stared. He knew that look.
He met her blue eyes with his. “I’m fine. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be fine.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking something. Something is cooking around in that blond head of yours.”
“What did Elliot say to you this morning?” she asked.
“He was hurt. He threw me out. There wasn’t a lot of heart-to-heart after he read your text messages.”
As Theo spoke, Brianna kept watching him until he stopped looking at her. “You were hurt too.”
“You think?” He threw up his hands. “Yes. Okay.”
“You liked him.”
“What do you want me to say?”
She sighed. “How much?”
“Enough!” He shouted. She didn’t back down. “I liked him enough, okay?”
She didn’t press it any further. She only sighed and frowned and touched him again. “Shitty day, I guess.”
“No kidding.”
“Well, if it will make you feel better, you fulfilled your end of the bargain.” She reached for her purse. “I’m still going to pay you. That’s why I’m here.”
Theo shook his head. “Keep it.”
“What?” She had her purse open on her lap, but she stared at him.
“I don’t want the money.”
“I thought you needed it.”
“I do, but…” Theo sighed. “I’m making some changes. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
“What are you going to do?”
Theo shrugged. “I guess I’m going to do what my father wants me to do. I’m going to join the Navy or something.” He mocked his father’s voice. “Get some discipline.”
Brianna shook her head. “Get out of here.”
Theo didn’t say anything.
“Weren’t you the one who said you never could see yourself in the military? You’re not your brother, Theo. He’s the one who went to high school, wearing camo pants. He’s the military kid, not you. You cut up a pair of his camo pants and wore them as hot pants to gay pride one year.”
Theo half smiled. “So many guys grabbed my ass that year that I actually had bruises,” he said. “You were jealous.”
She rolled her eyes. “It was pride. The only ones who wanted my ass were the lesbians.”
Theo sighed. “Anyway, I don’t feel like I have a choice now.”
“You always have choices.” She stood up. “You can take my money.”
“I’m not going to take your money.”
“Then you’ll just have to stay with me.”
Theo stared at her for a long moment, and then his eyes narrowed. “What if I’m mad at you right now?”
“Get over it.” She put her hands on her hips and squared off with him. “You can be mad at me all you want, and God bless the military, but it's not for you. I’m not going to let you throw your life away and do something you’ll regret doing even a month from now.”
Theo crossed his arms, and Brianna bent over and stared harder at him.
“You’re not going to give in to your father, Theo. I may be an asshole to you right now, but I’m still your friend. I will always be your friend. Your father is never going to change.”
This was a no-brainer, he knew. “Well, you’re an asshole,” he said, though.
“I’m your asshole,” she said.
That broke through and made Theo grin.
She grinned, too. “Yeah, I said it. You heard me.” She mock clocked his chin with her fist. He turned away from her, but the walls were already coming down. She turned and dropped down next to him on the couch. “And I’m a pretty asshole. I wear it well.”
When he didn’t respond, she bumped him with her shoulder.
Theo bumped her back.
Then Brianna shoved her shoulder into him even harder. Hard enough that it forced a bigger smile to squirm onto Theo’s lips.
“Whatever,” Theo said. He still had his arms crossed, but he laid his head on Brianna’s shoulder. “I better have my own bathroom.”
“
Bitch, please. It’s a three-story townhome. I have five bathrooms.” She held her hand up like checking her nails. “I don’t think I’ve even seen three of them past the day they showed me the place.”
Theo turned his eyes to the ceiling, but he laughed. “You crazy-ass rich people.”
She clicked her tongue. “I know, right?”
They sat that way for several minutes until Theo let out a long breath. “Why’d you set me up with him?” The pain in his heart was back.
“Who else was I going to set you up with?” she said. There was something in her voice, in how she spoke to him. Inevitability.
“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” he said.
She reached up and patted his head. “You’re going to figure it out. Trust me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Elliot
The interview was at eleven on Monday. Elliot finished by twelve thirty, and he rode an elevator down to the IT department and strode through the IT dungeon’s double doors. Someone had pasted a paper sign over the doors that read, Abandon hope all ye who enter here…
When he reached his cubicle, he fell back into his chair. The rest of the IT department was out on work calls or at lunch for some of them. He was famished. Food was purposely avoided all morning, though. All he’d had since he woke up was a cup of coffee and a small piece of bagel. He was sure he would throw up before the interview due to nerves. He even went into the bathroom and bent over the toilet when he thought he had the first rumbles of nausea.
But he didn’t throw up. And for him, that was saying something.
The interview left him feeling good, hunger notwithstanding. He was nervous. Of course, he was nervous. There was one point where he even noticed his hands trembled, so he held them beneath the desk and out of sight. He still managed to keep the shake from his voice and answered each question with a surprising confidence. Many of the questions were technical, and he breezed through those. Network settings, how he would handle various employee situations, the process for prioritizing technical requests. No surprises, and the typical questions he expected in an interview for the head of an IT department. When he left the interview, the woman winked and smiled at him. That was probably the most embarrassing part of the interview, and his cheeks grew hot as he blushed.
“You did well,” she said to him. She shook his hand, and he thought she held on a little long.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I mean it. You’re a pro at this stuff.”
He blushed even harder, enough to make her laugh.
Before she gathered up her file folders and put them into a briefcase, she leaned toward him. “You should learn how to take a compliment,” she said.
And that reminded him of Theo. Not for the first time, either.
Theo was on his mind a lot all weekend. Elliot caught himself daydreaming of Theo. When he sat at his computer, Theo was there on his mind. He could only log onto Beasts of War for a short bit on Sunday, because it reminded him of Theo. In his kitchen, Theo. Even when he laid down on his bed, Theo was there, hovering like a ghost in his room. He almost slept on the couch last night, because he was sure he could still smell Theo on the pillow next to his head. One night together, and suddenly Theo was like the chorus of a song he couldn’t stop singing over and over in his head.
The interview was over; the job could pretty much be his if he wanted it. He should be happy about that.
But he felt hollow. And sad. He sat at his desk, his arms on his desk, and his tablet sitting dark in front of him. He didn’t feel like doing much.
He missed Theo.
You can have anything you want if you’re willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it. And there was Theo once again, his spoken words of wisdom.
He believed he could do this job he interviewed for. He believed he could do it in his sleep.
But is it what he wanted? Was this job really that special anything he could have? That’s what he wasn’t sure about.
Theo was right. The only reason he couldn’t compete in what his heart really told him to do was because he was too afraid to put himself out there. Dammit, Theo.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
She still startled him, though he was expecting to hear her voice at some point today. Elliot looked up to find Brianna standing in the entrance to his cubicle with her arms folded.
He sighed and he sat rigid. “Don’t you think there’s a reason for that?” he said.
She sighed, and she came further into his cubicle to lean against his desk. “Yes, I do. And I deserve it.”
He was sure she would put up more of a fight, that she would lay out her reasons for doing what she did. He didn’t expect her to give in so easily. Dammit, Brianna.
“Okay then,” he said.
“Will it help if I say I’m sorry?”
Elliot turned in his chair and put his arms back on the desk. He flipped up the corner of some papers on his desk with his thumb. He wasn’t looking at her. “I don’t know if I’m ready for an apology yet.”
She bent down then, and she pushed him by the shoulder to turn his swivel chair. “Ell, I’m sorry. Okay?
Elliot shook his head and wiped at his eye. There were no tears, but he felt the need to check. “Why did you do it?”
“God, it was stupid,” she said.
He didn’t have an answer to that. He didn’t feel there needed to be one.
She said, “All I wanted was for you to have a fun night for once.”
“So you paid a guy to have sex with me.” He frowned.
“Not just any guy,” she said.
No, he wasn’t just any guy. He was Theo, and Elliot had to admit that the night was pretty damn fun. But he leaned back in his chair and pulled away from her. “Do you know how worthless it makes me feel?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She opened her mouth then closed it, and she propped her elbow up on his desk, her head leaning into her hand. “I didn’t think that part through. I admit that.”
“Yeah, you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
He didn’t say anything.
“Geez, Ell. You know I love you. Worthless is the last thing I wanted you to feel. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Well, it did.”
“I know, and I feel like shit about it.”
“You should.”
“You’re right. I should.”
He watched her face. He searched it for any sign that she was being smug, trying to brush this under some rug as if it didn’t matter. But he saw none of that. There was even a gathered tear at the corner of her eye. The tension built up in his shoulders started to loosen, and he clicked his tongue. “Whatever,” he said. “You’re being far too agreeable. I wanted to yell at you, but you’re taking all the fun out of it.”
She narrowed her eyes with a strange smile. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I’m not mad, okay? I should still be mad. I should make you take me out to an expensive dinner and buy me all kinds of stuff as penance, but I’m not.”
She touched his arm. “Really?”
“Really.”
The tear at her eye spilled, but only because she smiled and it squeezed the corners of her eyes. She reached out and hugged him, and Elliot hugged her back. “I thought I was helping,” she said into his ear.
“I know. And you were probably right. I probably wouldn’t have found the nerve to do anything like that on my own.”
After they separated, she smiled up at him and touched the side of his face with her hand. “You’ll find a guy, and you’ll do it all on your own,” she said. Then she tilted her head. “Well, I may have a couple others that I think you should check out.”
“Stop,” he said. But he laughed.
Brianna laughed too. She took in a deep breath and let it out, then she stood up. “I heard the interview went well,” she said.
“Yeah, it did.” It came as no surprise to him
that she had already checked up on him. “It went better than I thought it would. I thought I’d be a lot more nervous.”
She touched his shoulder. “You’re a pro at this stuff, Ell. It’s no shock you weren’t nervous. Not to me.”
He tried to appear happy, but he couldn’t. There wasn’t much he felt like smiling about, and Brianna cocked her head as she studied him.
“What’s wrong?”
He blew out a breath and met Brianna’s gaze. “Would you be mad if I said I didn’t want the job?”
She shifted where she stood against the desk and crossed her arms. “What? Why? I keep telling you. You’re so perfect for that job.”
“But I think I want something else. I don’t know. I think now’s the time to do it.”
“Do what?”
Heat rose into his cheeks, but this time, he forced it back down. He met Brianna’s gaze with confidence. “I want to make games,” he said. “I think I can be really good at it.”
Brianna considered. Her reaction wasn’t one of laughter. That was a good thing. There was no reason for him to expect she would react by mocking his decision, but an internal voice, the voice that always kept him back from pursuing these things, told him she and anybody else who heard he had dreams would only find them silly. But she didn’t. Instead, her expression was that look she got when she talked business. “Game making. Have you done anything toward that?”
“Yeah, I have. I have a lot of stuff at home that I’ve been working on.”
Brianna lifted her chin, a finely plucked eyebrow raised. “When can you show it to me?”
Elliot furrowed his brow. “Why do you want to see it?”
“Elliot, if there’s one thing you need to learn about me if you don’t know already is that I am fiercely loyal to the people important in my life. You’re part of a very elite group, whether you like it or not.” She grinned. “There’s a reason I made you stay up late with me all those nights during college, and it wasn’t because I needed help with my chemistry homework.”
“Pfft. You helped me just as much.”
“I know people. Show me what you can do, and I’ll make a few calls.”
He sat up straight. “Really? You’d do that?”
You May Have Met Him Page 15
