“You’ve read some of my stuff?” Grant had asked.
“Some? I’ve read all of it, dummy.”
As moments went, it could’ve been better, but God knows it could’ve been worse.
Pretending Jane hadn’t intended to drop his hand, Grant caught up with her and reclaimed it. Although he completely agreed they shouldn’t talk about the firm, he was also completely incapable of suppressing his curiosity and not asking about it. “So, something didn’t happen, or something did happen but you don’t think we should talk about it?”
Her fingers tensed under his. “Let’s just enjoy the walk.”
He looked up into the redwoods, inhaled the sweet, earthy smell, and shook his head. “I can’t. I need to know whatever it is.”
“Even if it’s about Troy?”
“I’ve noticed my relatives like to fire people on weekends,” he said. “Was it Troy who shit-canned you this time?”
She tried to pull her hand free.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, holding tighter. “Trying to lighten the mood.”
“They gave my promotion to somebody else, some outside guy.”
“What do you mean, ‘your’ promotion?”
“I admit it may have been Sydney’s promotion. I wouldn’t be upset if they’d given it to her.”
“Sydney of yoga fame?”
“She’s the one who told me what happened on Friday with the new guy.”
He wished he hadn’t pushed it. Now he didn’t know what to say. Troy could’ve hired the man for all kinds of reasons, none of which Grant had anything to do with. “I’m sorry,” he said. Lame.
She nodded and didn’t reply. He relinquished her hand, and they continued walking. They came out of the trees into the open ridge heading north-south along the park. The sun was only a faint glow in the west behind the thickening cloud cover. The San Francisco skyline was buried under fog.
“Do you want me to talk to somebody?” he asked.
She stopped and turned. “What?”
“Just thought I’d ask.” He kicked a fallen log next to the path. “I’m sorry. I just feel like I should be able to do something to help you.”
He expected her to call him an idiot for suggesting anything so stupid. Instead, she put her arms around him and rested her cheek on his chest.
Surprised but pleased, he held her, enjoying the feel of her body pressing against his but wondering if he’d be driving back to Marin tonight to plead her case with his grandfather.
“You do want me to talk to somebody?” he asked finally.
She tightened her embrace and shook her head against his chest. “You are so sweet.”
“I am?”
“You are.” She looked up. “No, I don’t want you to talk to anybody. I’ll deal with this myself.”
The hug was nice, and he didn’t want it to end. “How about Sydney? Maybe I could talk to somebody for her.”
Smiling, she cupped his face. “I can see why you didn’t go into corporate finance. You’re too nice.”
“Now you’re complaining?”
She laughed.
With an exaggerated sigh, he dropped his arms to his sides. “Too nice. Too handsome. Too sexy.”
“Too tall.” She stepped onto the fallen log, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
They did that for several minutes. Under the parka, which he quickly removed, she was wearing a stretchy tank top and skin-tight leggings that made each inch of her particularly soft and inviting. When his hand reached beneath the waistband of the leggings and slipped between her thighs, she squealed and toppled off the log.
Luckily in his direction.
“Let’s go back to the house,” she said.
“Too far.” Arms around her waist, he pushed her against another tree, one that was still upright. “This works for me.” This was a popular trail, especially on a Sunday afternoon, so he was kidding, of course. Mostly.
Almost.
She grabbed his wrist to stop its return journey into her underpants. “Jogger,” she said, wriggling to one side.
Accepting the inevitable, he took her hand, helped her back into her coat, and escorted her back the way they’d come—in a much better mood than he’d been only moments ago.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get in trouble with this woman.
And he’d never been careful about much of anything except filtering his drinking water, so this could get interesting.
25
The new guy was younger than either Sydney or Jane.
“But he has a penis,” Sydney pointed out.
She and Jane were having lunch at their favorite Chinese restaurant. They’d ordered cocktails and didn’t hurry to get back to the office after twenty minutes the way they usually did.
“It’s not like it can add and subtract,” Jane said.
“I know, right?” Sydney glanced over her shoulder and offered her a pork bun. “I don’t have one myself, but computation is not a task they’re known for.”
They snorted into their drinks.
“Is he related to the Whitmans?” Sydney asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you could ask your lumberjack.”
Jane felt herself blush. “No.”
“I updated my resume. I wish I had more clients in tech, because I’d really like to get into tech.”
“Go for it,” Jane said.
“I am.” Sydney pushed away her plate of curried tofu and turned her attention to her margarita. (The restaurant had a full bar that ignored cultural boundaries.) They’d had the talented, flexible bartender serve them in iced-tea glasses so any passing coworkers wouldn’t know they were having an early happy hour. “You should quit too.”
“I can’t,” Jane said. “I don’t have enough saved up to make a change right now.”
“Saved up for what? Get another job first, then quit.”
“I’ve got a lot invested in Whitman. I don’t want to start over.”
“You might come out ahead,” Sydney said. “That’s what I’m counting on. And unlike penises, I’m damn good at counting.” She held up her glass in a toast.
Jane clinked her glass. “You sure are.”
They smiled at each other.
“You know what your problem is?” Sydney continued. “You’re too conservative.”
“Just because I wouldn’t get a tattoo with you last year—”
“Oh, that! How can you not have any tattoos? You’re like my mom.”
“I don’t want one.”
“But you do want one. You sure did last year when we saw the mermaid in that studio in Berkeley. You totally wanted that mermaid, Jane. On. Your. Body.”
It was true, but Jane shook her head. “I’d regret it.”
“So? What’s life without regrets?”
“Happy,” Jane said. “Restful.”
“Boring.”
Jane ate her pork bun. Her life hadn’t been boring at all lately, so she didn’t mind having this conversation with Sydney as much as she usually did.
Sydney raised an eyebrow. “Things must really be going well with your lumberjack. Normally you’d rip me a new one for saying that.”
“I’ve found Zen.”
“You’ve found something that isn’t known for computation, if you know what I mean.”
Jane laughed. “We should get back.”
“Why?”
“To work.”
“Oh, right,” Sydney said with a sigh. “I suppose we should put on a show, anyway.”
“Troy’s wearing that purple shirt you make fun of.”
“The one that brings out his eyes, you mean? His gorgeous green eyes?”
Jane dropped her chopsticks. “That’s the one. You really don’t think it’s dorky after all?”
“He’s got style. I like a man who’s not afraid to show his feminine side.”
“Especially when it’s wrapped around big muscles, a significant pile of inhe
rited wealth, and a charming personality,” Jane said.
“Keep your eyes on your own paper.”
Jane put down cash for both of their lunches, insisting it was her turn, and they returned to the office very full and a little drunk. Downtown San Francisco was in the low sixties, cold enough for a heavy sweater. If they went down the escalator at Market Street and got on a BART train traveling east, each mile would get hotter—Oakland in the seventies, Concord in the eighties, Livermore in the nineties, Tracy in the low hundreds. People who commuted in from the exurbs faced a daily struggle with their clothing choices. At that very moment, a shivering woman in a sleeveless peach sundress was jogging past them on the sidewalk holding a steaming cup from Starbucks.
Sydney opened the door to the Whitman building and waited for Jane to enter first.
But Jane was transfixed by the woman in the peach dress scurrying down the sidewalk. How far away did she live? Where did she work? Did she like her job, her life?
Was she happy?
“Jane?” Sydney asked.
Jane looked up at the skyscraper in front of her. How many hours had Jane spent in this building? How many late nights and weekends?
The sad thing was, she was capable of making a reasonable estimate. Using her calendar and work records, she would be able to come up with a grand total of hours, days, weeks—years—she had spent scrambling in the Whitman hamster wheel.
“If you’re going to puke, we should get you inside to a bathroom ASAP,” Sydney said, touching her arm.
“No, I’m fine,” Jane said. She couldn’t go in. She didn’t know if it was sex with Grant or MSG from lunch or a sudden midlife crisis, but she couldn’t make her legs propel her through the doorway. “Actually, no. I’m going home. Because I’m sick.”
“Food poisoning? Or are we talking in euphemisms here, Jane?”
Annoyed corporate drones pushed past them to get inside. Sydney moved away from the doorway, joining Jane on the sidewalk.
“I’m not sure.” Jane frowned at a pair of men in jeans and T-shirts striding by, eating their lunch out of wrappers as they talked and hurried into the building. One also had his phone out and was texting.
“I feel like I need to lie down,” Jane said.
“It’s my fault,” Sydney said. “I ordered the margaritas.”
“No, it’s probably PMS or something.”
“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Sydney said, laughing.
“No, it’s too soon,” Jane said. Although she could be if the condom hadn’t worked. “Too soon to be sure, anyway.”
Sydney stopped laughing and stared at her. “You’re scaring me. You are way too casual about the idea of a baby. Maybe I should help you get home.” She put a hand on Jane’s forehead. “I don’t feel a fever. Never can tell that way, though.”
“It’s nothing like that.” Jane flashed a smile. “I haven’t had enough sleep, I drank too much on an empty stomach, something like that. You’d better go in. We’ll talk later.”
After Jane promised a status report, Sydney finally went inside. Jane turned around and walked back to Market Street, where she took an escalator down to catch a BART train to Oakland.
When she got home, she walked through the front door and into Grant’s room without putting down her purse. He slept face down on his bed, one arm slung over the edge of the mattress. His laptop was on the bed next to him, wedged at an angle between his hip and the wall. From her perch on the windowsill, Shadow watched over the man she loved, ignoring Jane completely.
She dropped her purse and stretched out next to Grant. “You didn’t close your door,” she whispered in his hair. He smelled like oregano, or was it cumin? Maybe he’d had tacos for lunch. She could only imagine what she smelled like. Margaritas and garlic probably.
He flung an arm out and pulled her into a sleepy embrace. “Mm,” he said. “Is it seven already?”
“No. I came home early.”
He opened his eyes. “You did?”
“I did.”
“Is everything OK?”
“Fine,” she said, and couldn’t resist smiling. His hands were already unbuttoning her shirt.
He rolled on top of her and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Glad to hear that.” His tongue traced the curve of her ear. “So glad.”
“I want to ask you something.” She’d figured it out on the train, and now the idea was a growing bully in her mind, stomping around and dominating everything else.
“Yes, I will go down on you,” he said, moving to do just that.
Straining even her vast stores of self-discipline, she stopped him. “Wait. Talk first.”
“Talk during,” he said, unfastening her pants.
She laughed—no, God help her, it was a giggle—and wriggled out of reach to sit up. “Please. I need you to listen. This is important.”
Frowning, he brushed the hair off his forehead. “Bad important or good important?”
“Good, I hope.”
He continued to look wary. “I hope so too.”
Remembering Sydney’s joke about being pregnant, she realized she should get to the point. “I had an idea,” she said, lifting both fisted hands in a rah-rah gesture. “Let’s go camping!”
His response came after an awkward delay. “Camping?”
“I got the idea after having lunch with my friend Sydney. I just froze up—literally and figuratively. Couldn’t go inside. I realized I really, really need a vacation.”
He nodded. “I agree.”
“Something new. Something that gets me outside.” She was surprised he didn’t seem excited, but she had just woken him up. “It’s so cold in the city this time of year. I’ve got weeks of vacation time saved up.”
“Right,” he said. “What about Shadow?”
“Billie and Ian will take him. They’ve done it before when I had to travel for work.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands. “When were you thinking you’d like to go?”
“Now,” she said. It was a quiet time of year, and she did have an absurd amount of vacation time, but she’d just taken off in the middle of a workday. When she’d taken vacations in the past, she’d informed everyone months in advance.
She couldn’t wait months. As crazy as it was, she didn’t think she could wait another day.
She’d tell them she was sick. Suddenly. Violently. Vomit, fever, pink eye—yes, pink eye was perfect. Nobody wanted her within miles of the office if she had pink eye.
With that plan established, she turned her attention back to Grant. “Are you able to get away? I thought you could bring your laptop along like you said you do sometimes. I completely understand you need to work.”
“I could take a break,” he said. “That’s not a problem.”
“Then what is?”
“It’s peak season. This time of year, such short notice… it might be impossible to find anything available.”
“Anything?” She turned in amazement. “In the entire state of California?”
“The places you’d be comfortable in are really popular. They can fill up a year in advance.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You assume I need pampering.”
“I assume you need a cot and a bathroom,” he said, “and possibly four walls. Curry Village at Yosemite, for example, would be perfect, but we’d probably have to wait until October for a cabin, and then it might snow.”
“I said camping,” she said. “Not cabining. I expect a tent to be involved.”
“OK.” He rubbed his eyes. “Even tent sites can be hard to come by in August.”
“Hard to come by in Yosemite, sure. But not in regular places.” She poked him in the chest. “I’m starting to suspect you’re not interested in coming with me.”
He put his hand around her wrist, pulling her close for a kiss. “I don’t want you to hate me.”
“Why would I hate you?”
“Because you’ll get uncomfortable. You’ll be cold and hungry, and yo
u won’t be able to sleep.”
“But it’s my idea,” she said. “Why would I blame you for anything?”
“You’ll hate how happy and comfortable I am in the same circumstances, and you’ll resent me and then blame me for giving you the idea in the first place to go out into the wonderful world of nature.”
She could only stare at him.
“And you’ll be afraid to go to the bathroom out in the open,” he added.
She snorted. “The only thing I’m afraid of is giving in to the temptation to hit you right now.”
He drew back a few inches. “Really?”
“Don’t have such a low opinion of me.”
“That’s not it at all,” he said. “Most women—I mean, most people—don’t like roughing it. It’s uncomfortable. The thrill wears off the first night you can’t sleep.”
“Maybe so. But I want to go anyway.” She had to admit, she wasn’t thrilled about the bathroom thing. “We’ll just come home if things get really bad.” But they’d be fine. If she truly dedicated herself to something, she could handle anything.
“We can go somewhere not too far from the freeway. When you get sick of ramen, we can drive out for a burger.”
“You really think I’m a princess, don’t you?”
He tackled her again, pinning her to the bed. “I don’t. I really don’t. You’re brave and amazing.”
“You think I’m going to bring an ironing board.”
He laughed. “You can if you want to.”
“Of course I don’t want to.”
“Great. I’m used to being wrinkled.” He returned to his earlier task of unbuttoning her shirt. “My gear is in storage. I’ll need at least a day to get it together. And you’ll probably need a few things. How about we leave Friday?”
“But today’s only Monday.” She didn’t want to waste her vacation sitting around at home, and she’d become obsessed with the idea of getting out of the Bay Area.
“Thursday?”
“Wednesday,” she said. “That gives us all day tomorrow to get what we need. You’re a pro at this, right? You can manage it.”
He looked like he was going to argue, then nodded. “The food is usually the hardest part.”
“Don’t do anything special for me,” she said. “I’ll pack my own meals.”
Going Wild Page 18
