by Zoe Lee
“And in the spirit of being perfectly clear… I haven’t slept with anyone else since a while before our diner hookup,” he said, acting like he was afraid I’d think it was weird.
“Same. Is it silly if that makes me really relieved?” I whispered with a little smile.
With an almost shy smile, he said, “Yeah, a little, but it’s kind of hot too.” But then his expression flickered and he demanded, “Wait, what about you? What about three date guy?”
“Oh my god, I did not sleep with three date guy!” I exclaimed, rolling my eyes.
He brought our mouths together again, this time with his typical assuredness and exhilaration, and I absorbed it and let it heal the sting of our first miscommunication. He kept kissing me through that, until I was sucking in quick, desperate pants between kisses, until I was assured and exhilarated too, until I was straining across my desk to get closer.
“Now I really might be late,” he said, finally pulling back reluctantly.
I slowly unwound his braid from my hand and wrist, so unready to stop touching him yet, and stole another hard, deep kiss before I released him completely.
“Go,” I rasped.
He backed up, almost flipping backwards over the chair he’d been sitting in during the meeting, and his grin was as devilish and delighted as it had ever been. “I’ll call you later?”
“Anytime after ten, I’m meeting my mom and one of my sisters for drinks tonight.”
“Ooh, tipsy Eliott,” he teased, blowing me a kiss before he sashayed out of my office.
I wandered out in a daze and found Mia with her chin cupped in her hands, her thin eyebrows lifted high. “Good thing he’s not a client,” she said, and I winced and opened to my mouth to apologize profusely for my unprofessionalism. But then she added with a smile, “Because if he was a client, then you could get in trouble for dating him, and I’d hate that.”
“I’d have to quit,” I mumbled.
Her mouth fell open and I realized that it was probably the first truly personal thing I’d ever said to her, which was uncomfortable and humbling, because we’d worked together for years. “I’d hate that even more, Eliott,” she said firmly. “You’re the best boss I’ve had.”
“Oh.” My shoulders dropped from where they’d been creeping up. “I like you too, Mia.”
“Now you better get back to work so you can finish on time and go have a life.”
That was more like the Mia I’d known before today, so I smiled and agreed, “I’d better.”
Chapter 22
Gavin
About once a month, Barley had me over for dinner and we decompressed. It was seventy percent venting about the business aspects of Barley’s life, twenty percent throwing around ideas about whatever he was mulling over, and ten percent like any conversation between two friends. Most personal assistants, like any other employee, didn’t have a personal relationship with their boss, but he wasn’t great with boundaries and loved pretty much everyone. And I didn’t want to spend my time with someone who didn’t see me or know me, or who I couldn’t laugh with, no matter how much I got paid.
Tonight he was making chicken salad with pomegranate seeds to go on rolls that were crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I watched him work, moving around his large kitchen with the same command and good spirits as he worked a stage, humming.
We’d already gotten through the ninety percent work-related or work-adjacent things and now I was quiet, my mind drifting away from the moment and over to Eliott. It was happening so often that it should’ve unnerved me, but the bubbles of excitement that burst in me when it did made it impossible for me to try very hard to check the train of thought.
“So,” Barley said, “what’s going on with you lately?”
I didn’t try to deny it; it was much easier to be open with him than with my family.
“I’m officially dating Eliott Navarre,” I told him.
I could hear how bemused I sounded, but I wasn’t embarrassed, still just nervous.
“Tell me about him.” He looked over at me and smiled, then went back to putting together all the components of the chicken salad, giving me the space to answer.
“It started out as a one-time spontaneous hookup,” I started.
But he interrupted me, “Gav, I didn’t ask for the story. Tell me about him.”
That made me pause to really consider how to explain who Eliott was—or, to get to the root of his request, how to explain how I felt about Eliott and who he was.
“If I’m sassy and sarcastic, then he’s pissy and vaguely judgmental. If I’m goading him, then he one ups me. If I’m flirting, then he’s downright dirty. But not in, like, a competitive way where it’s just about winning. And not like he’s doing it to be a people pleaser, adjusting his moods to match mine, either. He doesn’t seem like he’d have as many facets as he does, and he surprises me a lot. He took me to the ballet last weekend. It… I learned something about myself. I feel like that doesn’t happen much past your early twenties.”
“I’m learning new things about myself all the time,” Barley commented.
“That’s because you’re changing all the time,” I countered dryly, making him laugh.
The big, bad rock star shrugged, scooping up the chicken salad and piling it on the waiting rolls. “Come on, let’s go eat,” he suggested, picking up the plates while I picked up our drinks and meandered along behind him, smiling when he started humming again.
We settled in and he leaned his forearms against the edge of the table, leveling me with a serious, penetrating look. “You know, when I first met Astrid, everything about us was this wonderful symbiotic creature. We were together a long time and our lives changed so drastically. I thought that we had to change exactly the same as each other. I refused to see that isn’t possible, or ideal really, once you’re not a kid anymore. I fucked it up, trying to force who we were into the same shape we had been at the beginning. I broke us.”
“Barley…” I began, not knowing how to finish. He’d never opened up to me before about his famous relationship with his first wife, who was still a really good friend of his.
“Hush,” he said, Texas popping up proudly in the word the way it did when he was feeling extra feisty. “So when I fell for Carina and it was that heart-stopping euphoria again, I thought I’d be smarter. I would let us be two beautiful individuals who loved each other. I wouldn’t pressure her to go everywhere I went or go together to every function we each had to attend. I wouldn’t try to bend to her will, or make her bend to mine.”
Wide-eyed, I just nodded. By the time I’d started working for him, Barley had just gotten done with a long, grueling tour, and he and Carina were already drifting apart. I had never seen them at their best, or seen first-hand whatever it had been like between them in the first place. Within six months, they’d split and Carina went to New York to do a play on Broadway while she was off-season from shooting her television show. By the time that was done, she’d gone straight to Vancouver to film the next season of her show, and that was it.
He made a what-can-you-do gesture with his big hands and then shook his head. “But, son, let me tell you, that que sera, sera attitude was just as shitty. Here I am, thinking I’m a modern feminist man, and there she was, thinking I didn’t give a shit. Now these days, I’m thinking it’s better if you cherish the things you share, and respect the things that make you individuals. But most importantly, you have to know each other, all the way down, and you just have to love all those layers and the things they don’t like about themselves.”
I didn’t want to tell him that that seemed like pretty standard advice, to me.
But he surprised me when he went on, “The worst thing I learned about myself during this second divorce is that I have so many boobytraps, I fuck myself up.”
That made me snort, nearly choking on the juice I was drinking. “Boobytraps?”
“Yeah. They’re in my own mind, and they trick me into thi
nking I’m being open and honest,” he admitted. “That I’m always right. That I’m so patient and exciting. That it isn’t supposed to be work to let someone in, which you don’t do once, you do all the time.”
His last words hit me hard and I slumped a little.
“First you need to figure out how much you show people is the real you, and how much is just defensive bullshit left over from old battle scars, you get what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Most of the time I know who I am and I’m proud of it, I’m a happy person, you know? When I learn something new or try something new, I’m always all-in, really dedicated and focused. But that’s not the same as… as dating, and every once in a while something that hurt me forever ago pops into my head and makes me second-guess myself. I’ve never doubted myself like this before, ever, and I don’t know how to get over it.”
“Yeah.” He took a huge bite, groaned with satisfaction at his own creation, and crunched on it like a horse eating hay, his words garbled as he replied, “Well, I don’t fucking know either, do I? Otherwise I’d be sitting here naked eating sushi with Carina, wouldn’t I?”
I rolled my eyes and told him, “You’re not in the worst place, Barley. You’ve been humming nonstop all week, which means you’re writing again, so don’t pretend.”
“Ideas are rolling around, kiddo,” he said happily, his huge echoing off the high ceilings of his living room. “I know people think I must be writing some epic breakup album or something, but that’s not what’s coming to me. It’s last-minute and it’s bad timing since we’re already in the studio and have enough tracks, but we’re going to figure it out.”
Grinning, I replied, “Good. Unexepected is much more fun. Can’t wait to hear it.”
“So how’s the sex with Mr. All-Business Lawyer Man?” he asked unapologetically.
“Fabulous,” I replied gleefully. “We’re still figuring out the dates part because neither of us want to just go out to eat. Him because he’s done it a lot and it never felt natural, and me because there’s no space for spontaneity. But also have this bet going about me getting him to do adventurous things and him getting me to do boring things.”
Barley’s world-famous, eardrum-shattering laugh boomed out.
“He’s going to turn you into an actual adult,” he gauged.
“Maybe he will,” I murmured, not as terrified by the idea as I should have been. “But I still have to come up with something daring to do for our next date. I took him on a motorcycle ride for the first one. If I win, then he has to go skydiving with me.”
Grinning, he rubbed his hands together and we started to brainstorm what things an overly cautious person would categorize as daring and then debated their merits.
Beyond the big windows, the sun set and the crescent moon’s glow brightened, and the birds took off and resettled every time Barley’s laughter boomed out and surprised them. I relaxed in my seat, slouching down and crossing my ankles once I was done eating, and soaked up the peaceful moment. I considered my cousins my best friends, but that was about giving each other shit, white water rafting and going to see MMA fights, and scuba diving. But with Barley, I got to talk about any and everything, always feeling supported.
Chapter 23
Gavin
“Congratulations,” I said sourly, pushing my sunglasses up my nose yet again because it was slippery from sunscreen I’d applied a couple hours ago. “This is an inspired choice.”
Eliott cackled as he cast his fishing line into the water again. He adjusted his feet, his sneakers making that sand-scraping-wood noise subtly as he did so. “Mmhm, I thought so.”
“You could have at least worn one of those dorky khaki fishing hats,” I muttered.
I half-heartedly cranked the reel to pull the line and lure back in, bored out of my mind after an hour of this. I didn’t want to catch a fish, the canoe was just drifting, and there weren’t other people around to look at while we fished. The only good thing was the way Eliott’s biceps flexed under his tight fleece jacket every time that he cast the lure.
Well, and seeing how happy he was—and not only because it was driving me crazy.
If I’d thought he was relaxed in this three-piece suit at the law firm, looking like a cool million dollars, typing on his neon blue lit keys with those elegant, skillful hands…
It was nothing compared to how relaxed he was right now. He wore cargo pants—which I would have thought he deemed a crime against fashion—and a faded Michigan Law tee shirt under the fleece. Plus he had a Cubs hat on backwards and aviators. The Cubs hat pained me—the crosstown rivalry was no joke in Chicago, and I was a third generation die-hard White Sox fan. But given the knowing way he caressed the brim while adjusting it, I knew he was wearing it mostly to add insult to injury on this Boring Date.
He smelled like sunscreen and bug spray instead of cologne, his opaque eyes were hidden by his aviators, and he was wearing clothes that were ratty, for him. He looked like a laid-back, frat boy clone of himself, or an evil twin maybe, and I almost hated it. But his body was liquid and loose, sipping beer and taking neat bites of a sundried tomato wrap with turkey and avocado. There had been pleasant surprise on his lips when I huffed that I already knew how to fucking’ fish, thanks, it just made me want to knock myself out.
“We can’t keep these fish, even if we catch a bunch,” I complained. “What’s the point?”
“How about because I enjoy it?”
My mouth gaped like a fish, damn it.
“And it’s not torture, is it? Sitting in a canoe with me, with beer and wraps?”
“There’s a really long distance between boredom and torture!” I argued, putting my pole down kind of clumsily since there wasn’t a cup holder for it or something like that.
Eliott put his pole aside too, only gracefully, and turned towards me, elbows braced on his knees. I assumed he was surveying me critically from behind his reflective sunglasses, because after a minute, he lifted his eyebrows in silent judgement. “Let’s say you have a few unexpected hours on a Saturday afternoon, after a hard work week. What do you do?”
Knowing it was a trap, somehow, I still answered honestly, “I don’t know, probably go indoor rock climbing or bowling, or hit up my favorite thrift shops. Maybe go to the salon.”
“Before you started watching Riverdale and The Great British Baking Show with me, when was the last time you watched TV?” he asked, and I could see the trap closing in now.
“I can’t remember. It’s boring watching TV alone.”
‘What about reading?”
“I listen to audiobooks alone in the car, since it’s usually at least an hour at a time.”
With a gruff laugh, Eliott leaned over and cupped my jaw. “You never relax.”
“Um, all of that is relaxing,” I countered, “it’s just active. What’s wrong with that?”
He dropped a soft kiss to my lips and laughed almost helplessly. “I honestly don’t know where you find the energy,” he told me. “But I like to be still, or mostly still, and take some time to let my mind quit analyzing and running like it does while I’m working. I need time alone, I get worn out sometimes socializing. So fishing is great. There’s no… goal with it.”
That made me frown in consideration. It was true that I very rarely spent a moment alone, other than sleeping or driving from destination to destination. I didn’t consider myself overly energetic, but now that I was thinking about it, I basically never got tired. Everything I liked to do was productive in one way or another. My hobbies produced a sweat or a thrill, and everything else I did in my free time produced a meal or clean clothes, or a new haircut. The bubble bath I’d had with Eliott weeks ago was probably the most pointless thing I’d done in ages, technically, if you didn’t count the orgasms.
“Okay,” I said slowly, realizing that while Eliott watched TV at night, he also worked very hard, exercised, and saw his friends from college and his mom and sisters regularly. He wasn’t lazy by any
means, so if he liked doing nothing, there had to be some value in it. So I bent down to pick up my fishing rod again. “Now be quiet, I’m trying to fish in peace.”
A big grin flashed across his face, and he got his rod again too, and we both cast.
It was much harder than I’d thought to just fish in peace. Every thirty seconds, it seemed, an observation or funny story I hadn’t told him yet jumped onto the tip of my tongue, and I had to bite the words back. But as the time crawled by, the lazy repetitiveness of fishing, without having the goal of catching fish to eat or show off, began to soothe me.
After maybe another hour, Eliott finished his beer and sighed gustily. “You ready to head back? I’m thinking about a shower with you, some tacos, and a serious game of Risk.”
I jumped in excitement, rocking the canoe, and yelled, “Yes!” When I caught his smirk, I narrowed my eyes and claimed with a sneer, “Whoever wins can call the shots later.”
“Positive incentive, indeed,” he murmured, and I sat down so that we could row back.
Once we’d gotten back to Eliott’s, we showered, making out under the steamy hot water until the doorbell rang. “Shit, the food’s early,” Eliott groaned, turning off the tap.
When he reached for a towel, dappled in water, lips swollen from my kisses, I snatched it from him and wound it around my own waist. “I’ll get it,” I declared. “If you go to the door like that, the delivery guy will kidnap you, and I’m not the one who’s good at negotiating.”
I darted out before he could call me out for just not wanting anyone else to see him mostly naked and so very fuckable, and got the food. We ate the tacos in our underwear and then played Risk, and I was very impressed and turned on by his tactical and historical knowledge.
Hunkered over the board opposite each other, I pretended to be dumb and like I was just making impulsive, clueless guesses for my next moves, while Eliott tried to goad me into admitting I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t a quick game by any stretch, but it still took us three or four hours of intense move and countermove before I cracked.
