The thing is though, it’s not true.
Partly you and me are a factor of timing that should’ve been obvious to us both. You weren’t working so you didn’t have any reason not to give your attention to me. Now that you’re back to your regular life at Plus, you don’t have any time left to give. I understand that and I’m not asking you to choose between the things you love, so I’m making it easier for us both.
The other thing that should’ve been obvious to me is that at heart you’re still the weird, loner kid. You turned your brand of weird into greatness and you learned to be loud, but you’re perfectly happy alone. You got that tattoo for a reason. ‘It’s your road and yours alone, others can walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.’ I looked it up. It’s Rumi. When I first saw it I thought it was sad, now I understand it’s part of your strength. And with your work, I don’t think you even feel alone.
The confusing part is the sex, right? We kept having it, right up to last night, and it was never bad, not even from the first time when you almost gave yourself concussion on the bathroom tiles. I loved the sex as much as I love you. The problem is we can’t just be about the sex. You said it in Paris. That’s how we started and that’s on me. That’s all I wanted. But you showed me more and going back to that is simply not enough for me.
I think it’s an algorithm, those things you like so much. I understand them as a kind of sum and I think ours looks like this:
Loner guy (special virgin edition) + free time x crisis of the soul + scorching hot pole dancer lust = unexpectedly beautiful sexy relationship.
But if you subtract the free time and the crisis of the soul, strike out the special virgin edition and add in the fact that you know everything you need for a healthy sexual relationship, all you have left is loner guy and scorching hot pole dancer, and that’s the story of every man every night at Lucky’s.
I deserve more than that. But I need to make more of me at the same time.
You know I fudged it when I said my sexual fantasy was you on your knees at my pole bidding for me to strip. I was messing with you. I didn’t think it would be cool for me to tease you about having a fantasy if I didn’t put something on the line for myself.
What I didn’t tell you is that not everyone has a sexual fantasy. Some people only want to fall in love with a person who gets them, and work at that love for the rest of their lives. I thought that was what you wanted, and you’d found it in me, but I didn’t understand all the things that drive you then like I do now.
We had a good thing, Reid, it became a great thing, but now the last thing either of us wants is for what we had to sour.
There’s good news. I kept it till last because you’ll worry otherwise. I didn’t win the Madame Amour scholarship. I did better. Eglantine Foss, that’s Madame’s real name, wants to pay my college fees and has offered me a low interest business loan if I decide to start something up for myself. I think I know what that is and one day when we’ve both got the time and this doesn’t hurt so much, I’d like to tell you about it.
I know you’ll want to call me. I’m asking you not to. I already feel like a coward for writing instead of talking to you. And please don’t hassle Cara.
The night in Paris, when you told me you loved me you said if I didn’t love you, you’d still build a great life. I know you will. It’s time for me to do the same.
I’ve ticked some boxes to help you put all this in perspective.
Had this great thing with a sexy pole dancer
She taught me everything I needed to know about sex
Tried some kinky stuff—you only live once
I’ll always regret our timing was off
We’ll always have windows and park benches and Paris.
Zarley
THIRTY-ONE
There was a disturbance in the atmosphere. Reid trusted whatever sixth sense told him things weren’t right. It’d always bothered him how other people ignored that prickle of awareness that made his brain do a double take. And things weren’t right. The way she’d kissed him. On the cheek. That meant . . . what? Zarley had kissed him on the cheek before so it wasn’t about that one thing. But their thing wasn’t right.
God, he wasn’t spending enough time with her. She’d said she missed him that one morning, and she hadn’t meant to let that slip because it sounded like a complaint and she never complained. And he’d told her he wasn’t going anywhere. Flaming idiot. There was more to missing a person than their physical presence.
He started going cold from the soles of his feet, by the time that icy uncomfortable feeling hit his chest he had to move, needed motion to help him think this through. It wasn’t only this morning’s kiss; it was last night’s sex. He closed his eyes to see it better. It was amusing and glorious and Zarley was incandescently bright but what he’d missed in her last night, he found now.
She was also unbearably sad.
He gripped the edge of the table and stood.
“Whoa, where’s the fire?”
“Is it something we said?”
He snapped back to the meeting room. Fifteen or so faces looking at him with what the fuck expressions.
“Do I need to be in this meeting?”
Nerida was standing too. “Reid, are you okay?”
He sat, “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Would you like to take a break? We can come back to this.”
This was a presentation of advertising concepts for their new campaign.
“Is there such a thing as breakup sex?”
If the standing up for no appreciable reason hadn’t enlightened them all to his less than focused on the task at hand state of mind, what he’d said blew a hole in their collective heads.
“There is, right?” He knew it in his cold bones. Zarley was thinking of leaving him. Maybe already had.
“Ah, Reid, maybe you should—” He looked at Nerida. She closed her mouth and nodded. “There is.”
Another voice, one of the ad agency guys said, “Hurts like a bitch.”
His female colleague said, “It’s a damn good idea, the whole concept of breaking up with your current supplier and starting a relationship with Plus. How it’s emotional, the various stages, complacency, fear, regret, relief.”
A conversation started, the attention shifting from him. Nerida knelt by his chair and pitched her voice low. “That’s not what you meant, is it?”
He grunted a no.
“We’ve got this, boss. You should go and do stuff that’s more important.”
“I should fess up. They think I’ve given them an ad concept.”
“You have. Ideas come from everywhere.”
“That’s—” he shook his head. More important things. He stood and the conversation stopped. Everyone in the room looked at him. “Sounds good to me.” He hadn’t taken in a word since the meeting started. “I’ll get out of your hair.” He looked at Nerida, who’d stood with him. “Nerida’s got this. If you louse it up there’ll be breakup sex all round.”
That got a chorus of laughs and groans and he used its cover to quit the room. Two doors down, Dev was running a team meeting. He barged in. No women in this room, less chance of offending. Six engineers he’d worked with for years turned their heads to look at him.
“I have a question.”
Dev tried to shut him down. “If it’s about the changes to the back-end protocol—”
“Are you meant to know if you’ve had breakup sex?”
Stunned silence. No one here was going to misinterpret him. Dev put his head on the table with a thump.
Reid pulled a vacant chair out and sat. “I had. I’m not sure what it was. I might’ve fucked up. I need help.”
“We were meeting about work things, because we’re at work,” Dev said largely to the table.
“I know, but who else am I going to ask?”
“I’ve had it.” They all looked at Greg. Unmarried, untidy, surfed in his spare time. “I really liked that girl,
white blonde hair, crazy blue eyes. I never saw it coming. She stopped answering my calls.”
“I’ve definitely given it.” All eyes to Hank. Overweight, into gaming in a big way, the oldest of them. “You know when you like a woman, but not that much and the sex is good, but she annoys you when you’re not having sex, and so you want to break up with her, but then you don’t, because the sex is good, and it all builds up and one day you have sex and then you break up.”
“Way too much information, dude,” said Greg, while Lorenzo, handsome, the only legitimate player in the group high-fived Hank.
“Swipe, bed and forget, man. It’s always breakup sex,” Lorenzo said.
Dev said, “I hate today.” He sat upright with a red mark on his forehead from where he’d head-desked.
Reid zeroed in on Hank, their least likely Lothario after himself. “What you’re saying is it’s an unspoken thing. You might not know until it never happens again.”
“Yes, but sometimes you do know it’ll be the last time so you make it as good as you can.”
Oh fuck. That’s what Zarley had done. He stood. “Thanks, appreciate it.” He let himself out of the room and went to his office. He was there five minutes and Dev came in.
“Yes, all right. That was a stupid thing to do. I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting.”
“Are you?” Dev sat. Reid hadn’t made it as far as a chair.
“No.”
“What’s going on with you?”
Now he sat. First personal thing Dev had said in the months he’d been back. “Are you asking because you think I’m about to do something worse than what I just did?”
“I’m asking because what you just did was both completely in character and also totally alien.”
“I’m not following.”
“You busting into someone’s meeting for your own purposes, totally an annoying Reid McGrath thing to do. Doing it because you needed personal advice?” Dev’s face darkened. “About sex,” his voice squeaked. “What planet are you on?”
“I’ve screwed up with Zarley.”
“How?”
“You and me are going to have this conversation?”
Dev nodded. “It’s about time we had a conversation that wasn’t about the business.”
“Does that mean you’ve forgiven me?”
“We’ll see.” Dev made a come on gesture with curled fingers. “Out with it.”
“I have a horrible feeling she’s about to leave me.”
“She’s not said anything?”
“Not a word, but then she’s not someone who would complain. She’s not someone who would suffer in silence either so I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What are the clues?”
He sighed. This wasn’t a problem with a typical diagnostic. There was no single point of failure or a range of events with errors logged against them. But this was Dev so that didn’t matter, because Dev believed in sixth sense feelings too.
“It was the way she kissed me this morning. And I woke her up. I normally let her sleep. I don’t know why I woke her. It was unnecessary, but I did it deliberately.”
“Go on.”
“Last night you and I were late getting back and I was a little tense because of the news about Owen and then you and I—”
“Disagreed.”
“Yeah. It was a shitty day. She waited up and she was—” His chest was so tight he couldn’t get the words out.
“Is she unhappy?”
“I only saw it in her last night, but maybe it’s been there for a while. If she wants to leave me what do I do?”
“You love her.”
“More than I know how to feel. My heart is ten times its regular size because of her.”
“That’s it then.”
“What?”
“That’s why you’re different. Sarina said so. I was too angry with you still to believe it.”
He wasn’t different. They all kept saying it. He simply didn’t see it. “I’m trying to be less of an asshole.” He’d made up a set of rules. No interrupting people when they spoke, no calling them names, no implying they’re halfwits, no physical intimidation, no taking his frustration out on the furniture, no yelling, no sulking, no taking over other people’s work, no being bad-tempered for no clear reason.
He’d broken every single rule, daily, sequentially, serially. He rubbed the back of his neck. It was exhausting. He’d thought Owen was a weaker leader but Owen laughed at his list. There wasn’t a thing on it that Owen would ever have done. The reason doors were off hinges was because Reid was known to slam them. Owen wasn’t the one who broke their coffee machine or kicked the photocopier. Owen didn’t have to apologize and no one was confused about whether his excitement was a precursor to a flame out.
“It’s working, Reid.”
“Not if I’ve lost her.” He slumped in his chair and the back creaked. There was a piece of tape holding the lever that adjusted it because he’d broken it off instead off yelling when Lashaya told him they had a problem with the billing system that he’d warned accounts about dozens of times.
“I made her compete with all this. When we met, I was out. I had time. Now I have the little spaces between the next critical thing to do. I made her unhappy because I don’t know how to separate myself from here.”
He knew what he had to do. To keep Zarley, he had to quit Plus.
“Stop thinking like that.” Dev put two fingers to his temple then pointed them at Reid. “Why would she want you to choose?”
“She’s worth it.”
“I’m assuming she thinks the same about you.”
Reid covered his face with his hands. “This is why I never did relationships.”
“No it’s not.” Dev groaned. “You didn’t do relationships because you were shit scared of women.”
“Not denying it. I’m not made for emotional turmoil and all the mess people make with, well, emotions.” Dev eye-rolled. “I failed with Zarley.”
“You also have the biggest goddamn ego. And you haven’t stopped to think this is about her, not you.”
“About her.” Thought stopped his brain; the world went still. “Still means I failed.
“You’ve got better at handling that lately.”
No single thing he’d ever fucked up would be as bad as losing Zarley. “She’s my personal ziggurat. If I lose her . . .”
“So don’t.”
“Are you going to tell me how to achieve this piece of impossible?”
“Nope. You’re the one does the pieces of impossible around here.”
“Not this kind of—shit, Dev. Are we at least okay again?”
“We will be if you keep her.”
He pushed back into his chair, but forgot it was broken. It didn’t ratchet back, just made him bounce forward again. “Our friendship is contingent on me keeping Zarley?”
“Yup.”
“How is that reasonable?”
“It’s not. But neither are you. You were born without the reasonable gene. One day we might be able to steal you one on the reasonable gene black market, but until then having Zarley in your life makes you a more acceptable human being. I kind of like you again.”
Oh far out, that was good to hear.
“What are you doing sitting there like a packet of unsent data? It might not be as bad as you think.”
He could only hope it wasn’t, even as his gut told him it was. “It’s called work.”
Dev stood. “It’s called stalling.”
He reached for his cell. “Aren’t you paid to do something around here?”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Dev said, repeating what he’d said at the hospital, but this time he looked like he meant it.
Zarley didn’t answer her cell. She didn’t answer at the apartment. He called Sports Pro because maybe he’d forgotten when her shift was. They told him she was on a break. She didn’t get breaks. She got straight four-hour shifts. He rang back. This time he was told she
wasn’t working today. He had an urge to wreck something or to scream at someone. He got on the bike and went home. Before he put his key in the door he knew she wasn’t there, but he had to see what she’d left behind.
He saw the note on the dining table and understood in a wave of nausea that rolled through his body that it was the worst set of words he’d ever have the misfortune of reading. Worse than those he’d had to write to explain his own humiliation.
He had to sit.
He had to fall in love with Zarley all over again at such a great pace from such a great height he’d never fear flying again.
He had to get her back or nothing made sense.
He called Sarina. She was visiting Owen at the rehab center, so that made it opportune. He tried out an idea on her. The timing was right for that, and they all agreed.
When he could talk again without his voice being five kinds of cut up, he called Plus and asked for Cara.
“Any chance you know where Zarley is now?”
“Uh. Hey, Reid.”
“Cara.” Might’ve been smarter to start with a greeting, and since he’d never called Cara at work that could’ve put her on edge.
“You can’t ask me that.”
No edge then. “I’m asking. You’re a grown-up, you can tell me to fuck off.”
“Fuck off.”
Right.
“Are you going to fire me now?”
“No,” he shouted. “I’m not going fire you, idiot.”
“Good, because I like this job, though the guy running this company can be a nutter.”
“Okay,” voice back to conversational human. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too, Reid.” Oh shit, she didn’t mean this exchange. “I can’t tell you anything. But you could try Kathryn and if you don’t find Zarley don’t worry, I’ve got her.”
Jesus.
He rang off and began the painstaking process of trying to isolate Kathryn’s number on his called list. It would still be there from the time she called to thank him for their breakfast. He made a number of wrong number hang-ups before he got her.
“Kathryn?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“It’s Reid McGrath.”
Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) Page 33
