“You’ve managed for five years without them, why now?”
“If you ask me if I made this job up for you again I’m going to hit something.”
“That’s not answering the question.”
“Bailey. I can be a dumb bastard and I can be a lucky fuck. I prefer the later. But if I keep doing things the way I was doing them the lucky part is going to get worn the fuck out.”
Maybe she’d misread Blake, maybe he had a sore neck and a headache. He was staring her down. “There’s nothing else you want to say to me then?”
“Yep.”
“What?”
“Bails, you make a great barista.”
●
This morning’s blog picture was two kids, probably not more than three or four years old, enjoying babycinos at a cafe. The boy had a frothy milk moustache, and the girl wore a glittery tiara. They looked like they’d had an argument. The boy was about ready to crack it and start wailing. The girl eyeballed the camera with the smile of a winner.
Aiden was aiming to be the girl.
He’d let Blake stew for a day, let himself ferment as well. And when he’d stopped feeling like he’d been lied to and made victim, he realised Blake’s blunder had given him the upper hand.
When Cara delivered coffee and they were settled in Blake’s office with the door firmly closed he said, “We’re doing this my way. We get the tough stuff over fast and hard. You don’t second guess me. You don’t look like you might blink at anything I decide.”
There was a long pause where they regarded each other across Blake’s art deco black glass desk, the one Shannon had found him. Then Blake dropped his head forward and groaned at its shiny surface. “Thank fuck.”
Blake talked about current client projects and pitches pending. Aiden asked about the staff and the culture of the office. They spent an hour going through revenue projections and business costs.
With the coffee long gone, and the tension between them evaporated, Aiden tackled his last issue for the day. “Just so you know, I think you’ve sunk to a new depth of subterfuge.”
“I thought we just...ah what are you talking about?”
“You and Bailey.”
Blake pulled a spiny echidna; he bristled. “What about me and Bailey?”
“How many years do you reckon you’ve been telling me stories about you and Bailey?”
“Lots, so?”
That ‘so’ was delivered like a verbal punch which made Aiden shape up and hit Blake with, “Yet you neglect to ever mention she’s a stunner.”
Blake popped him with, “I’m impressed you noticed,” to which he blocked with, “I’m not dead, just socially handicapped. So?”
Blake stumbled, looked baffled. “I, ah, isn’t it irrelevant?”
Aiden put him on the ropes with, “Irrelevant. You’re unbelievable. You have this intense creative partnership with a woman who is drop dead gorgeous, and you fail to consider I might be interested in that fact.”
“What she looks like has nothing to do with how we worked together.”
It was a good come back, but not good enough. “I’m not saying it did.”
“Yeah, you fucking well are. You’re implying if she had a backside the size of a bus and zits like craters we wouldn’t have been a successful partnership.”
Blake didn’t like being on the back foot. Time to change it up; come in low and fast. “Am I?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No—but I think you are, Blake. Did you tap that?”
“No.”
“Blake.” Aiden had him in a clinch.
“No. I didn’t. I love Bailey. She means a great deal to me, but we never did anything.”
He let Blake catch his breath. “Now tell me you never thought about it.”
“I never thought about it.”
“One day your tongue is going to rot and fall out.”
“I never seriously thought about it. It would’ve ruined what we had. Anyway we were never single at the same time.”
And wasn’t that a feint, a dodge and weave. “Like that would have stopped you making a move.” Nothing stopped Blake making a move back then, and not much had changed, except where it came to women. Because once Olivia arrived, he’d been forever knocked out of contention.
“I never seriously thought about it.” Blake’s posture said it all. He was forward in his big leather chair, one hand open appealing to Aiden—eyes locked on, brow clear. This was truth.
Aiden retreated to a neutral corner. “You know you talk to each other like an old married couple.”
“Yeah. Liv says Bailey is my office wife. She thinks Bailey should be my alternate.”
“You’re what?”
“Ah, private joke.”
“And?”
“Ah, Liv’s alternate is Hugh Jackman and mine is Scarlett Johansson.”
Aiden laughed. “This is the free pass idea. Liv would give you a free pass if you had a ghost of a chance of making it with Scarlett. You know I’m crying with laughter on the inside. What’s it got to do with Bailey? “
“If you close one eye she looks like Scarlett.”
If Scarlett had dark glossy curls and flashing eyes. He could see it. “Wait. Liv’s given you a free pass with Bailey?”
“Fuck no.” Blake sounded scandalised.
“What then?”
“You really want to know.”
“You want for me to beat it out of you?” Aiden said, aping a Soprano’s style thug.
“You’re not going to like it.”
Dropping character he said, “I’m deeply experienced at the not liking things caper. Try me.”
Blake took a deep breath. It was a sign whatever was coming was a haymaker. “If Liv was to die suddenly she’d want me to be with Bailey.”
“And if you were?”
“I’d want Liv to be with you.”
“Holy shit, Blake.” There it was. He was down for the count, kissing the canvas. Gone from aggressor to the one knocked the fuck out.
“Told you, you wouldn’t like it.”
Aiden stood. He rested his hands on the cold glass of Blake’s arty desk. “This is because of Shannon, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“I have to walk away now.”
“Sorry, mate.” Contrition bled from Blake, he was the one looking punch drunk.
“It’s not that—it’s the idea of Liv and me.”
“You’re disgusted.”
Aiden paused. He let Blake think he was going to throw in the towel. “No—I’m kinda turned on.”
“Ew!” Blake rocked back in his chair. “Now I can’t look at you.” He tried on a Soprano character as well but his New Jersey thug got mucked up by his laugher. “You touch my wife and you’re dead meat. And stay away from Bailey too. She’s too good for you.”
Aiden sat again, still laughing. Him and Liv. He could see it. But it would be a bad idea. He was broken and she was too much like Shannon for it not to be some shocker Dolly the Sheep, science fiction attempt at cloning. But he could see it.
“What about the girl?” said Blake.
“Willow. She’s a sweet kid, but she’s starter wheels. I’ve forgotten what to do socially with a woman.” She was too young, too keen, too kind and too ready to forgive him anything. He’d not told Willow much about himself except that his wife died, and he was out of practice with the boyfriend role; that he had a new job, so was about to get very busy. Subtext—too busy for a relationship. And Cody. They talked about Cody.
He’d taken her to a couple of movies, dinner once. Nothing too special—a local Italian. They went to the Art Gallery to see a Picasso exhibition and to a skate park with Cody. She was far too easy to please. She made no demands, waited for him to initiate, listened more than she talked. She was a waitress with a stalled Arts degree, a whole lot of HECs debt and no plans for the future. She was advantage being taken and he knew it, and it made him careful and distant.
“Not a bad
thing to start small.”
“Baby steps. She’s young, Blake. I don’t know what I’m doing. I could hurt her so easily.”
“Does she know about Shannon?
“A sanitised greeting card version. All hearts and flowers. She has no idea where my head is.”
“What does she think about that?” Blake pointed to Aiden’s hand, lying across the arm of his seat. He meant the wedding ring.
“I can’t get it off.”
Blake’s thick blonde brows rose like white bread, tempting but not enough fibre. His, “Can’t?” had plenty of ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ substance.
Aiden met his eyes. It was time, and what was the ring but an empty symbol now. He’d tried to get it off, but it didn’t bother him in the least it was grafted on permanently. There was a rightness about that.
“Can’t. Ten years it’s never come off and now it won’t. I know it’s time, but it won’t come over my knuckle. I’ve tried soap, oil, partial finger strangulation. I’ll have to cut it off.”
“I’m a mean saw wielder.”
“Right. World’s greatest handyman. I’d never play the piano again.”
“You don’t play it now. What’s one less finger between friends?” Blake laughed. Then swapped the light for dark. “Aid, are you having fun with Willow? You need to have fun.”
“Between Willow and Cody, I’m less of a miserable bastard.”
“Then there’s hope for you yet.”
16: Evil Twin
“Blake’s a devious toad. We should’ve met before now,” said Aiden. He held his hand out, smiling as Bailey shook it. It was Aiden’s first official day in the office, though Bailey knew he’d been doing his homework, because Blake had her courier him half a file cabinet’s worth of documents as pre-reading.
“All those years hearing about you, I feel like I should be hugging you.”
And shock horror, she wished he was.
Aiden’s grip was warm and firm. Up close Bailey was struck hard by how handsome he was. Who wouldn’t fancy a hug? He had a summer tan that offset his dark hair. He’d adopted Heed’s relaxed casual dress standard and wore black denim and a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
He was tall, lean and broad shouldered and his voice was radio talk show host rich and expressive. He was every bit as magnetic a person as Blake was in his own way and it was a good thing he was married.
This man, single in the office, would be like declaring open season on sexual tension. As it was, he’d still get the hearts of the unattached female execs fluttering. Bailey knew fluttering wasn’t the problem, but captured and pinned butterflies in the workplace were never a good idea. And she was fluttering, the wings of her heart going aerobic in her chest, so it was a damn good thing he was married.
“I’m in complete agreement with you. Blake is a devious toad,” she said, surprised her voice was steady, and pleased she made Aiden laugh again.
“Can I buy you lunch today? Sandwich style, not one of Blake’s three course affairs,” he said.
“Are you sure, your first day and all?”
“First of many. But Blake tells me you only have another few months left on your contract. I’d like to get your impressions of the business before I lose my objectivity and get sucked in to its rhythms.”
“No problem. 12.30?”
Aiden said, “Great. See you in reception,” and when he dropped her hand she felt abruptly as though she’d lost something important.
That encounter took all of three minutes but it was enough to strap Bailey’s next three hours into the poorly padded seat of a fun park ride. One of those ones where you got twisted around and shaken about, and weren’t too sure which way was up. She couldn’t focus, found herself staring out the window, shuffling papers, checking and rechecking email. She sent the wrong thirty page document to print twice, and paid the gas company what she owed the phone company and visa versa.
Then she got annoyed with herself. Aiden wasn’t a boy band, and she wasn’t sixteen and stupid with boy crazy hormones. He’d said less than a hundred words to her and she was sure his smile was the same smile he used with everyone. He couldn’t help how he looked, and he was a colleague. And he was third finger left hand, tied and bound in gold.
And she’d already been wrong about him. It was flamingly obvious he wasn’t sad. He gave off rock steady and in control, not tormented and out of order. Not only was her radar off, so far off as to be identifying alien life forms—he was regressing.
Come to think of it, she’d never been a hysterical teen. No secret signing her name as Mrs Bailey Cute Guy, or lurking around hotels or backstage entrances for fleeting sightings of currently hot pop stars. She spent no time thinking a random famous person would seek her out, fall insanely in love with her, and carry her off to his fairytale life. She didn’t collect autographed signed anythings, buy magazines featuring movie star interviews, or obsess over actors or TV personalities.
Most of her school friends had done all of that, loudly, expectantly and while strategically underdressed. In comparison Bailey had been staid, boring, grown-up and not much fun. She was the designated driver, the friend with spare tampons and bandaids, the one you borrowed money from and copied homework off.
This reaction to Aiden was like a separated at birth evil twin experience. Perhaps she was vitamin deficient, maybe it was a result of the broken sleep, or a side effect of the pain killers she’d started to need again. Whatever! It was stupid and juvenile and embarrassing, and she would not let it happen again.
She was sorting through employee entitlements, finally focused, when a voice from the doorway made her jump.
“Any chance you’re ok to nick off early?”
And there he was, leaning on the doorjamb, distraction personified, nonchalant as all get out.
He walked forward. “Sorry, Bailey. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s ok.” No it so wasn’t, because there was the aerobic flapping in her chest again.
Aiden helped himself to her visitor’s chair. “I can’t get my head around meeting you for the first time. And I really want your take on the business before I do anything else. Can I tempt you to abandon what you’re doing now, and take pity on me on my first day?”
And wasn’t that playing to her not so suppressed crazy state. Showing up early, using words like ‘tempt’, and appealing to her intellect—all at the same time. If she’d ever wondered why Blake kept her and Aiden apart this was the answer. Aiden made her a dimwit.
A one word answer felt like the best way to avoid showing that. “Sure.” She reached for her bag and fished out her wallet. When she looked up, Aiden was standing, watching her, and so was Cara, through the open door.
“Aiden, I’d be happy to arrange lunch for you,” said Cara.
He turned to her. “Thanks Cara, that’s not necessary.”
“I don’t mind doing it for you or Blake,” she said, pointedly.
“Just Blake and me?”
“Yes. Everyone else is quite capable of getting their own lunch. I’m not a catering department.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Aiden turned his back to Cara and gave Bailey an amused look, she couldn’t help but return. He‘d taken Cara’s measure in that one encounter. “Where’ll we go? I’m in your capable hands.”
On the landing he said, “Would you say Cara is an asset to the office?”
Bailey laughed, “Are you going to turn me into the office mole and have me telling stories against everyone?”
“From what I understand about you, I couldn’t turn you into anything.”
Now there was a fact to tuck away and study later. Aiden with his easy confidence and self assurance could be so very wrong. He could probably turn her into his slave for life if he asked nicely over coffee.
“I hate to think what Blake has told you.”
Aiden flashed a smile. “I’m thinking the same thing. You’ve got me nervous, Bailey.”
&nb
sp; And didn’t that have those wings beating double time.
Bailey barely noticed how they made it to reception. The staircase that had been giving the penguin some trouble seemed to dematerialise. They were in front of Evan’s desk and Aiden was holding the front door open for her before she had time to wonder if she’d been gripping the banister in an iron fist or not.
But sitting opposite each other in the coffee shop down the road was a sharp dose of instant awkward. They really didn’t know each other, and neither of them knew where to start, until Aiden handed her a menu.
“Does Blake order for you?”
“Yes he does.” She laughed, hugging the laminated card. “It used to annoy me, but he always knows what I’d order for myself so I stopped worrying about it. Don’t tell me he orders for you too.”
“Yep.”
“Do you think he does it for Olivia?”
Aiden grinned. “He wouldn’t dream of it. Do you know Olivia?”
“Not as well as you would.”
“She’s my wife’s best friend.”
Bailey nodded, relieved. Wife in the conversation was a good thing. A grounding thing. A slice of the real Aiden.
“Olivia is an amazing artist. He’s so proud of her.”
“Yeah, you’d think he was the one holding the brush,” Aiden said with an eye-roll smile combination that told Bailey a lot about why he and Blake were friends.
“What should we do first?”
He laughed, “You mean rip into Blake or tear into Heed?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I figure you probably need one more than the other.”
Aiden was eyes down on the menu. “It’s tempting to forget about what I need,” he looked up, “and go no holds barred on a character assassination of Blake, with the only other person in the world who is likely to hate him, and love him in equal measure, like I do.”
Bailey swallowed roughly, he’d use the tempt word again, he’d coupled the two of them together, and followed that with the knuckle tattoo words of choice for the prison set —‘love’ and ‘hate’. If she’d been sixteen, it would’ve been an invitation to pick out a wedding dress despite the inconvenience of the wife. She needed food badly, because the reaction she was having to Aiden must be because the pain meds were making her light-headed.
White Balance Page 11
