Fix My Fall

by Carey Heywood

  She reaches up to fiddle with her hair. “She’s acting secretive. If I had to guess I’d say she was seeing someone but there’s no reason for her to keep something like that from me so now I’m trying to figure out what it could be.”

  “Or she could be seeing someone and there’s a reason why she doesn’t want you to know about it.”

  Her hand flexes on the leather steering wheel. “That makes no sense. She’s never kept who she was seeing from me. Even when I didn’t like the guy she wouldn’t hide it. This makes no sense.”

  “What if it was Gideon?”

  Her head snaps toward me and she swerves. “What?”

  Both of my hands come up. “Watch the road.”

  “Shit. Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting that. Jesus, Samantha and Gideon that would be hysterical. There’s no way.”

  “Why not? They’re both single, attractive people—”

  “You think Samantha is attractive?”

  This doesn’t sound good. Do I lie?

  “She’s a beautiful woman but, I’m not attracted to her.”

  “Oh. Well, even if they each thought the other was good looking, they’d never hook up. Firstly, Sam thinks of Gid as a little brother. He’s so not her type. Now him on the other hand loves a challenge so I’m sure he’s hit on her.”

  “Okay, so not Gideon. Is there anyone else you both know that she’d be hesitant to tell you she was seeing?”

  She drums her fingers as she ponders my question. “Maybe, I mean I can’t rule it out. I just can’t think of anyone off the top of my head.”

  “You two work together. Could it be someone in your office?”

  She starts to shake her head but then her mouth falls open.

  “Abby?”

  “Oh my God. I think I know who she’s seeing.”

  “Does it make sense that she’d keep it from you?”

  She wets her lips again and turns to look at me. “Can we swing past my office? I want to see if her car is there.”

  “I don’t have anywhere to go tonight.”

  At the next light, she turns in the opposite direction of where the coffee house is. Her office building is in a small grouping of other office type buildings.

  “I don’t see her car. Is it cool with you if I drive past one other place?”

  I shrug. “I don’t mind keeping you company.”

  “Do you think it’s weird that I’m doing this? You know, driving around town to figure out who she’s with.”

  “I appreciate curiosity in a person.”

  She straightens in her seat and turns back out on to the main road. “You’re like my partner in crime.”

  Funny as it sounds, I wouldn’t mind following her into whatever madcap schemes she comes up with.

  She turns into a modern looking condo complex. After weaving her way deeper into the complex, she suddenly brakes and grabs my arm.

  I look down at her gloved hand gripping the sleeve of my coat before looking up at her. With her other hand, she points to a car parked in a visitor spot.

  “Is that her car?”

  She pulls her hand away and resumes driving. “It is.”

  “Who lives here?”

  She sucks in a breath. “His name is Brent. We all work together.”

  “Are you friends? Could that be why she hasn’t said anything?”

  She rubs her lips together before biting them. “He’s new-ish but seems nice enough. Honestly, I don’t know him that well. He’s cute so I guess I’m not shocked. I still don’t understand why she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “You have no issues with them being together?”

  She shakes her head. “It might suck at work if things end badly but other than that, I have no problem with it.”

  Samantha’s question at Christmas, ‘why don’t you ask Abby out?’ takes on new meaning now. What if it wasn’t because she thought we could be together and was more of a ploy to draw any attention away from herself?

  9

  Abby

  Samantha slowly closes the door behind herself, then reaches down to slip off her heels. She quietly sets them by the door. That’s when I flip on the light.

  She jumps, pressing her hand to her chest. “Jesus. What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

  Time to see what she says. “Working late?”

  She worries her lip. “Um.”

  “Come on Sam, you can tell me.”

  Her gaze moves toward the hall that leads to her bedroom and possible escape before returning to me. “How’d you find out?”

  Well, at least she isn’t going to try and lie. “I drove past the building and when I didn’t see your car, I made a guess.”

  She shifts her weight, her cheeks turning pink. “And that guess was?”

  “Where I could find your car.”

  Her lips part and her eyes widen, but she doesn’t reply.

  “Are you going to tell me if he’s good in bed or not?”

  A blush creeps across her cheeks and I raise my brows. Go Brent.

  My shoulders sag as I ask the question that I truly want the answer to. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I hear her gulp more than I see it.

  “I didn’t want things to change at work.”

  “How would my knowing change anything?”

  She pulls in a breath. “You know it would have.”

  As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. Even now, I’m not sure I can look at or talk to Brent the same way I did yesterday. I mean, now I know he’s good in bed.

  “So is it just sex?”

  She pivots, heading straight for the kitchen.

  I follow her. “Sam?”

  She pulls out a bottle of wine and uncorks it like a pro. I save her time and get each of us a glass. She fills each.

  She downs her glass before she says anything. “I think I’m in love with him.”

  I follow suit and drain my glass as well. “How do you think he feels?”

  She presses the heel of her hand to her eye. “I don’t know.”

  Her voice cracks partway through her words and I pull her into a hug. “Did something happen tonight?”

  “No,” she replies. “It was amazing. He is amazing.”

  I pull back to meet her gaze. “Why are you freaking out?”

  “What if all he wants is sex? What if all he’ll ever want is sex?”

  “Then he isn’t worth your time and you know it.”

  She refills her glass and mine. This time, instead of drinking it all at once, she takes a healthy gulp. “I know, but it would really suck if he didn’t feel anything for me.”

  “It would, but he’d be a moron,” I tell her.

  She laughs but the sound of it is lacking any humor. “And I’ll be even more of a moron for being in love with him.”

  “You need to find out where his head is.”

  She cringes. “What if it’s something I don’t want to hear?”

  Reaching out, I squeeze her arm. “One way or another, you’ll find out. Wouldn’t you rather know now?”

  She sets her wine glass on the counter and starts pacing. “Say I try and define our relationship and he only wants to keep it casual. What happens then? Am I an idiot if I keep sleeping with him? Or should I cut things off with him, and oh God, what if he feels like I’m trying to pressure him by asking and then he stops wanting to be with me?”

  “Stop stressing out over what ifs. There’s no point trying to guess how he’ll react.”

  I finish my drink. “It’s late. We both need sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  “Wait. I forgot to ask how everything went with Spencer?”

  I wave her off, hoping she’ll let it go.

  She squints at me. “You’re being weird.”

  Making my escape, I reply. “Not weird, just tired.”

  My escape is foiled when she follows me. “What made you decide to swing past the office tonight?”

  When we reach my room, I flop down on
the bed while she curls up on the armchair facing it. “Spencer asked how things were going here. I suspected you were seeing someone on the sly and dragged him with me to check.”

  She holds up her hand. “Wait, Spencer was with you?”

  “Ah—”

  “He agreed to tag along? That’s interesting.”

  I peek up at her. “Don’t go reading into things. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  She stands, stifling a yawn. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to argue right now.”

  Lifting my hand, I wave at her back. “Don’t forget about the birthday party. Maybe you can invite Brent.”

  She spins to look back at me. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Okay good, now go away.”

  “Spencer is coming, right?”

  Turning onto my back, I stare up at the ceiling.

  Meow

  All of the noise we’ve been making must have woken up Emo. She pads onto my chest and starts kneading me.

  “He is.”

  “As a date?”

  Emo jumps off me when I groan.

  “Why not?”

  She’ll kick my ass if I ever bring up him being so much smarter than me again, so I go with a safer excuse. “We’re just friends.”

  “Right.”

  She’s gone before I can come up with a good retort. That doesn’t stop me from saying, “I am right, so there,” to myself.

  It’s been a week since I uncovered her secret. “What’d he say?”

  Sam covers her face with her turtleneck. “I chickened out.”

  I close her office door behind me and settle myself into one of the chairs facing her desk. “What happened?”

  She lowers her turtleneck, enough for me to see her eyes. “I was going to do it, I swear, but then he kissed me and one thing led to another.”

  She trails off and I fold my arms over my chest. “You are hopeless.”

  She bends forward and rests her forehead on her desk. “I know.”

  My phone dings with a reminder and I stand. “I have an appointment with Spencer. We’ll talk more later.”

  “What’s going on with you two?”

  “Huh?”

  She crosses her arms and gives me a look, clearly no longer obsessing over Brent and now focused on me.

  “There’s nothing going on between us and you know that,” I reply.

  “Bullshit.”

  It’s my turn to cross my arms. “What does that mean?”

  “Okay, let me put it this way, how many buyers do you have a standing coffee date with once a week?”

  Oh. She does have a point there.

  “He’s not just a buyer. He’s also friends with Gideon.”

  “Does Gideon join you on these coffee dates?”

  “Well no…”

  “And, do you have to meet up weekly with any of Gideon’s other friends?”

  I shake my head.

  She points at me. “You like him.”

  I stomp my foot. “As a friend.”

  “Ha.” With a wave of her hand she motions to my face. “You changed your clothes, re-curled your hair, and you touched up your makeup. Your words say friend but your actions say date.”

  Shit. She’s right.

  “Maybe I just wanted to look nice,” I argue.

  “I rest my case.”

  I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”

  “Go have fun on your date.”

  Ignoring her, I say nothing and leave. Her words bug me my entire drive to the coffee house. She’s my best friend, it’s not a surprise she’d be able to see through me. What about our other friends, my family?

  Was it that obvious that I like Spencer as more than a friend to all of them as well? And, what about Spencer, does he know?

  Considering the time I left, I’m not surprised that I beat him here. Distractedly, I order our coffee and find a seat. Since it’s starting to warm up outside, it was harder to find one.

  I don’t wait long, and watch as Spencer walks in. As usual, I’m not the only one who notices him. Long gone is the awkward boy I remember from high school. You’d think that after months of working with him, I’d be used to how good-looking he is by now.

  He’s wearing a scarf I’d consider silly looking on anyone else, but on him it’s endearing. His light brown hair is mussed, and his glasses are crooked either from the wind or his gloves.

  When he catches my eye, I lift his cup. “I already ordered yours.”

  The women who were watching him, now look my way. I’d crow in victory except there is none, he isn’t mine. My shoulders droop at the thought.

  He uncoils his scarf as he weaves his way through the tables to me. “Thank you.”

  “How are you?” I ask.

  He pulls off his gloves and settles himself into the seat across from me bumping my knee in the process.

  Quick as a flash, his hand is on my leg, the warmth of his palm seeping through the fabric of my tights. “God, sorry.”

  Then as if he realizes where his hand is, he quickly pulls it away before I even had time to process it was there in the first place. My hand covers the spot where his was in an attempt to stop his warmth from escaping. “It’s okay.”

  At least I didn’t beg him to put it back.

  Pulling out my folder, I open it between us. It’s the only way I’ll avoid saying something dumb like asking him how’s the weather. “I have some listings for you.”

  He studies my face.

  Crap, I never let him answer how he was. “We can look at them after we catch up.”

  “Are you alright?”

  My gaze avoids his as I tell myself under no circumstances to bring up what Sam said earlier. “You don’t think these are dates, do you?”

  Holy crap.

  Did I just say that?

  My eyes fly to his as I cringe. He blinks at me and then gives a quick shake of his head.

  “No, no, of course not.”

  Of course not.

  Of course he wouldn’t consider dating me.

  Why did I have to open my big fat mouth?

  I nod, my fingers going to the top page. “That’s good. I was just making sure.”

  “You didn’t want—” He stops himself.

  Before I can ask what he was going to say, he says, “Yes, good.”

  Great.

  I clear my throat. “There were three properties that might interest you.”

  As we drink our coffee, I go over the pros and cons of each in comparison to his wish list. Since none of them were a home run, I wanted to discuss them before we looked at any of them in person.

  Spencer taps his finger on an image of a cape cod. “It’s a shame this one isn’t closer to the university.”

  “My house looked a lot like that one.”

  He leans back in his chair, taking his coffee with him. “What’s the latest?”

  “Well, I’m looking into selling a portion of the property to one of my neighbors. It’s complicated because I don’t own it outright so the bank has been involved.”

  “With the danger of the sinkhole, why would they risk it?”

  “When we first discovered it, I had an expert come out to determine if it could be fixed or not. It can’t, but it only impacted one section of my property.”

  I grab a napkin and draw a rectangle on it. “This is a rough idea of the shape.” I add a star. “This is the sinkhole.” I draw a circle around the star. “This is the area that is still at risk.” I draw a line close to the center of my rectangle, almost dividing it in half and then shade in the section that doesn’t have the star in it. “All of this land is fine. My neighbor wants to put an addition onto their place and if they buy this section of land, they won’t have to lose their backyard.”

  “Is their offer reasonable?”

  “Fair, yes. What I need to be clear of the loan, no. And, that’s if the bank will go for it.”

  “Are they paying cash?”

  I nod. “I need
to get the bank to agree to splitting the property and consider the remaining portion the amount for the loan. The main issue is, in the state it’s in, it’s not worth the amount remaining.”

  “Could you get a loan for the remainder?”

  I close my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”

  My eyes open and lock with his. “No, no. It’s fine. My income is commission based. I have good credit but other than my car, no assets and I want to loan on a sinkhole. All of my brothers and my parents have offered to loan me the difference. Problem is, I don’t believe in borrowing money from family or friends.”

  “If it will get you out of it, I think you should borrow the money.”

  I stare at him.

  He lifts his hands. “Draw up an agreement. Put it in writing, but if your neighbor is willing to take some of that land off of your hands, do everything in your power to make that deal happen. You yourself said the price was fair. With that sale, how far will that move your timeline up?”

  I don’t even need to do the math. “I averaged out my second quarter commissions for the last three years. If this year falls within that amount, I can have the loan paid off by Noah and Finley’s wedding.”

  “Give yourself a full year then and plan on paying it off sooner.”

  “Instead of splurging on a trip to Nicaragua, so I can pretend like this sinkhole never happened.”

  He grins. “Oh yeah, why Nicaragua?”

  I shrug. “I saw an article in a travel magazine and suddenly feel like escaping. Do you ever feel like escaping?”

  He shakes his head. “An escape like that is short term. I like to stay focused on the end game.”

  I exhale. “You’re right. I hate to say it but you are.”

  He smiles behind his coffee. “That happens from time to time.”

  “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

  Setting his mug down he reaches his hand toward me, before stopping halfway and resting it on the table. “I hope by now you consider me a friend. You didn’t offend me and I hope I wasn’t out of line offering advice.”

  I tuck my hair, the hair I had stupidly re-curled, behind my ear. “You weren’t out of line and we are friends.”

  The worry lines that had briefly marred his forehead disappear. “Good.”

  I shift the folder and ask, “Any interest in taking a look at any of these?”