Unwritten (The Unspoken Series Book 1)

by M. C. Decker

  “I’m sorry, but did you just say ice cream punch cum?”

  Shit, I didn’t even realize I’d said anything out loud. And,” cum?” Crap I said, “cum?”

  “No, I said ice cream punch CONE.” I made sure to enunciate “cone.” I continued to recall the memory in hopes of distracting Rich, or maybe myself.

  “I haven’t seen one of these in decades. I remember I begged my mom to buy me one at a storytelling festival we attended one summer. I took it home and bopped our cat in the face, repeatedly. As I recall, he growled, hissed and ran in the opposite direction.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.

  “Lucky for you, sweetheart, I won’t hiss and run away, but I can’t promise that I won’t growl.”

  I had no words, but just rolled my eyes in Rich’s direction.

  I bought the pink punch cone for Kaitlyn and we headed back into the open neighborhood, losing track of time as we strolled hand-in-hand through the community.

  “Is this up to your standards, Brooke?” Rich said as he caught me gazing up at the sky.

  “What?”

  “Do you like this area?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, it’s beautiful here. I was just wishing that I didn’t have to go back home tonight. It’s been such a whirlwind these last two days. I almost feel like I’m dreaming.”

  “You aren’t dreaming, Brooke. Everything you’ve experienced is real. Every place you have visited is real. I am real. And, most importantly, sweetheart, we are very real.”

  I swear this man knew exactly what to say that would take my breath away at that exact moment.

  “We can’t be too real, Rich, not if I intend to fly home tonight, pack my bags and move here to accept this job, this job that you are supposedly offering me in the morning … this job where you’ll be my boss. This job has been my dream longer than I can remember.”

  “We can make this work, Brooke.” His eyes and his voice were almost pleading with me to consider what he was offering.

  My dream job and my dream man … all wrapped up in one pretty package. Who am I kidding? … One fucking gorgeous package. All I needed was the goddamn red bow.

  As much as it pained me to say it, I knew it could never work between Rich and me and I couldn’t lead him on any more than I already had.

  “It can’t work for us, Rich – not for you and me. If we were going to make it work, it would’ve happened years ago. We’ll be colleagues and nothing more. It’s all that I want.” I had to lie to him and hold back my tears all at the same time. I could see his chiseled jaw drop at my confession. He looked utterly crushed and that was all my doing.

  “You know you don’t really mean that, Brooke.”

  “I … I should get back to my hotel to grab my bag. I’ll understand if you’d like to say our goodbyes here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Babbling Brooke. You may have just gutted me, but my mother still taught me to be a gentleman,” he said, with both sarcasm and dejection in his voice.

  The muffled roar of the engine on my right was doing little to ease my nerves, as I sat aboard the plane, waiting to take me away from Rich and back to my tiny apartment in Michigan. I had never been much of a fan of flying and my nerves had already been through the wringer.

  After our talk in Georgetown, Rich took me back to my hotel and waited in the lobby while I packed my suitcase. He insisted on driving me to the airport and luckily agreed to drop me off at the door. He gave me an awkward hug and a chaste kiss on the cheek before telling me I would hear from him in the morning about the position. I couldn’t erase the pained look on his face from my memory as he drove away from the entrance. The cocky, conceited, and arrogant Rich Davis had never looked so defeated … at least not until that evening.

  My mind was swirling faster than the engines … “What if he changes his mind about offering me the position?” Then my stomach sank upon realizing I might be more disappointed at not seeing him every day than at the thought of not getting the job for professional reasons. “Can we make this work? Can I have both my dream job and Rich? What if we try and break up? Could I handle working with him after losing him? Is it going to be weird working for him after I just slept with him? Oh, crap, crap, crap … What have I done?” I said, out loud to no one in particular.

  Suddenly, a woman sitting next to me, and looking like she stepped off the set of The Golden Girls, spoke to me as if she were answering my questions. “Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into quite a predicament, young lady,” she said.

  “Um, yes, I suppose I have. I’m sorry for bothering you. I hadn’t realized I was talking out loud.”

  “Not to worry, darling. May I offer you a piece of advice? I never had a daughter. God blessed me with three sons. I always wanted a daughter, though. I mean I love my boys, but a girl would have been fun, I think. Someone I could shop with and gossip about boys.”

  “Sure, that would actually be nice. My mom was my best friend and I lost her several years ago. I miss gossiping about boys with her. She always knew exactly how to solve my problems. I feel a bit lost without her.”

  “Well from what I heard a few minutes ago, you need to follow your heart on this one, Dear,” she continued. “Don’t walk away from love. Love is more important than work. Jobs come and go, but true love may only happen once in a lifetime.”

  She smiled and the twinkle in her eye gave me goose bumps. It was like my mom had sent this stranger to tell me exactly what I needed to hear, at that moment, but I still wasn’t sure if I should listen. My heart and my mind were definitely fighting World War III over this one.

  The plane had already leveled off to its cruising altitude and the captain had turned off the seatbelt light, before I even realized it had taken off. At least my thoughts of Rich Davis and my subsequent conversation with the lady next to me had occupied my mind long enough to forget the typical “taking-off jitters” that I often experienced.

  Flying was not my favorite mode of transportation. Cassidy often reminded me of the statistics about dying in a car accident versus dying in a plane crash. “Blah, blah, blah,” I would always sputter back at her.

  She was so mad at me when I made her make the twelve-hundred-mile road trip to Tampa for spring break our senior year at Western. “We are losing out on at least two good beach days,” I remembered her whining, as we were packing up the back of my parents’ Chevy Blazer. She still liked to remind me of the flat tire we encountered somewhere between BFE and Tennessee.

  “Excuse me, Miss? May I offer you a beverage?” I snapped out of my deep thoughts and looked up to see the flight attendant hovering above me, holding a tray of tiny cups filled with various sodas. Wow, I thought, they really had downgraded these days. What happened to the cans of pop and bags of peanuts?

  “Um, no thanks. I’m OK for now,” I told her, before she walked toward the next row of seats.

  The rest of the flight was uneventful and, before I knew it, the pilot was coming over the speaker to tell us to prepare for landing. I buckled my seatbelt, let out a deep breath and closed my eyes until I felt the landing gear connect with the tarmac. As soon as we got the all-clear from the captain, I turned on my phone and shot Cassidy a text.

  I just landed. I need to see you right now. Please tell me you’re still up.

  Cass: Yep, just put Kaity-bug to bed. I’m just sitting here in my sweats with my two main men, Ben and Jerry. Be safe and I’ll see you in a few. Love you, girlie.

  Oh, ice cream and my best friend were just what the doctor ordered right now. I grabbed my car from the long-term parking area and headed straight for Cassidy’s apartment. It was a little after eleven by the time I made it through traffic and to her tiny two-bedroom apartment. I didn’t even bother knocking as I barged through the front door.

  “You really should keep that locked, you know? I could be a deranged serial killer.”

  “Relax, I just unlocked it. Besides you couldn’t care less about my cereal, you are just a deranged ice crea
m killer. Now get over here and spill it. This must be big if you are here and not in your own bed after what, I assume, was an exhausting interview process.”

  I couldn’t stifle the laugh that escaped my throat. “Exhausting … you don’t know the half of it.”

  Cassidy just stared back at me with a confused look on her face. “What the hell are you talking about? You know how I hate all your cryptic stories. Talk!”

  “OK, here goes nothing. The editor of the Washington Post is Rich Davis.”

  Her eyes got as big as saucers … “Like, THE Rich Davis? Douche Monkey Davis? Hotty McAsshole?”

  “The one and only. I ran into him, ironically enough, while I was getting off the elevator. He was the one interviewing me.”

  “Shut the front door! Holy shit, Brookie. Is he still hot? Please tell me he’s still hot. Oh, and single? Please tell me he’s single, too,” she spit out without taking a single breath.

  “Relax over there little bird, will ya? But, yes – he’s single and gawd yes is he ever hot. I thought he was hot ten years ago, but he’s so damn sexy now. He’s just manly perfection at its finest.”

  “So did you fuck him on his desk then?”

  “Jesus, Cassidy. No. I went there for an interview. I want this job.”

  She looked at me skeptically. “OK, fine. But, please tell me you had hot, passionate sex after the interview. Oh em gee! You did, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t answer your phone last night. You were getting busy with Hotty McAsshole!”

  I didn’t need to answer her. The minute she guessed, my face turned the brightest shade of crimson red.

  “You little devil, you. So, are you two like together now?”

  “No, I told him today that if I accept this job that we can’t be together. This was a one-time deal. OK, maybe a four-time deal … But, regardless, when I accept this job in the morning, he will be my boss and only my boss. I’m not in the business of being that girl who fucks her boss. I just can’t. I can’t, right?”

  “You little slut! Four times?!?!!?!.”

  “THAT would be the part of what I just said, for you to focus on, wouldn’t it?”

  “I know what you think is best, Brooke, but do you like him? I mean aside from what, I assume, was mind-blowing sex.”

  “Yes,” I replied without even needing to think about how I felt about Rich. “Of course, I like him; I’ve always liked him. I think even when I hated him, I liked him. I just can’t. We can’t. … Now hand me the damn ice cream.”

  Cassidy and I popped in Can’t Buy Me Love, our favorite ‘80s movie, and downed two entire tubs of ice cream. We alternated between our two favorites, Chunky Monkey and Karamel Sutra. The irony of the name was not lost on me that night.

  We laughed until our insides ached at the nerdy Patrick Dempsey all through the film. You would think we’d never seen it before, rather than quoting nearly the entire movie line by line. Oh, I remember the days when we both wanted to be the iconic Cindy Mancini.

  “Who would’ve guessed Ronald Miller would become the one and only Doctor McDreamy,” Cassidy swooned, as she hit eject on the DVD player.

  “I know, right? Crap, it’s after two, Cass. I need to get going. I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to crash in my own bed.”

  “Of course, you’re exhausted. You were too busy ‘getting busy’ last night to sleep.”

  I rolled my eyes at her use of air quotes.

  “Whatever,” was all I rebutted before getting up, grabbing my purse and making my way to the door.

  “Give that little goddaughter of mine a kiss for me, won’t you. Thanks for the talk, Cass. I’ll sure miss you when I take this job. Love you,” and with those words I left.

  I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing, shortly before eight the next morning. My head was pounding after my late night, spent with my best friend. I almost let it go to voicemail before I snapped to it and realized it was probably Rich calling to offer me the position he had nearly promised me the day before. I quickly coughed, hoping to rid myself of the morning frog that always took up residence deep in my throat.

  “Hello, this is Brooke,” I managed to get out, hoping I didn’t sound as if I’d just been in the deepest of sleep.

  “Hi, Miss Anderson, this is Mr. Davis’ secretary, Caroline, calling.”

  I don’t know why, but I was immediately saddened that it wasn’t Rich on the other end. I missed the sound of his voice, already. I missed him.

  Rich’s secretary offered me my dream job on the phone that morning and I immediately accepted the offer. The salary was more than double what I was making at my current position and the benefit package was more than I could have ever imagined.

  I knew the salary wouldn’t be quite as impressive as it seemed at first. The cost of living would be much higher in D.C., than it was in Michigan, but my bank account would be padded with more money than ever before. Maybe I would finally be able to pay down the large student loans I had acquired while earning my master’s.

  Caroline told me on the phone that morning that Mr. Davis expected me to begin my employment in thirty days. That would allow me to give my proper two weeks’ notice and also allow for an additional two weeks to find a rental in the city. I would also have to start packing my belongings and hire a company to move me hundreds of miles.

  During Caroline’s phone call, she also informed me that Rich wanted to personally cover all of my moving expenses as well as the security deposit and first month’s rent at my new apartment. I almost declined his offer until I realized that I probably didn’t have enough money in my savings account to cover it myself. I could always ask my dad for a loan, but that might wipe out his savings for awhile and I didn’t want to put him in that position.

  So, after briefly hesitating, I told her that I would accept his very generous offer, but on one condition: that it was only a loan and I had every intention of paying him back. I just hoped he wasn’t using that as a way of getting closer to me.

  I was excited by the new adventure, but scared at the same time. Not only was I apprehensive about leaving my comfortable job, the only home I ever knew, my dad and my best girls, but I was terrified at the thought of working in such close proximity to Rich. Would he pretend to not even know me around the other employees? Would he act like nothing happened between the two of us? Would he flirt with me incessantly? As much as I hoped he wouldn’t, I knew I would be devastated if he acted as if nothing had happened during my night, or following afternoon, spent in D.C.

  Fortunately, this fear was laid to rest later that night when my cell phone rang, just as I was leaving the office. My stomach began twisting in knots, the minute I saw Rich’s number appear on the caller ID.

  “Hi Rich.” There was so much more I wanted to say, but the truth was that I didn’t know how to say any of it.

  “Hi Brooke.” After a long pause, Rich continued, “Caroline told me that you accepted the position, as well as my offer to help you get settled into your new place. Just so you know though, sweetheart, I have no intention of accepting your condition, so you might as well drop that idea right now.

  “But, Rich …” I managed to get out, before his deep voice stopped me once again.

  “Please, Brooke, not another word on that issue. Aside from that, I am very pleased that we will be working together and I just don’t want anything to be awkward for you. I meant every word that I said last night. I want us to be together, Brooke, but I understand if it’s not the right time for you … for now, anyways. I just want it to be made clear, though, I don’t believe for a second that we wouldn’t work, or that you don’t have any interest in me. Our time together wouldn’t have been so easy, or so perfect, if that were truly the case.”

  He paused before continuing, “I will give you your time, but just know that one day … you will be mine.”

  My panties were dripping wet, maybe even literally dripping, and his words turned my brain to mush. “Rich …”

  “Shh, you don
’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. I hope you have a wonderful evening, Brooke, and if you need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to give me a call, sweetheart.”

  Before I even had time to say goodbye, he’d disconnected the call. For the rest of the night, I just kept replaying Rich’s deep voice in my head … You will be mine. It was the memory of his words that lulled me to sleep that night.

  The last two weeks at work flew by, and thankfully, my editor didn’t really give me any large assignments, once I gave my two weeks’ notice. He knew my mind was on bigger and better endeavors.

  I’d decided to leave my car with my dad until I was sure I wanted to make D.C. my permanent residence, at which time, I would probably just sell my car for the extra cash. With good public transportation, someone could easily maneuver around without a car in D.C. So, without the additional cost of gas, insurance and parking, I could easily afford a nicer apartment.

  Cassidy insisted on helping me pack my belongings and then drive me to my new home. She made arrangements to leave Kaitlyn with her mom and wouldn’t accept no for an answer. Honestly, I was thankful for her assistance and company. I really don’t think this was something I could have done on my own. I probably would make it as far as Ohio before turning my rental car around and begging for my old job back, the following Monday.

  “Have you heard from Hotty McAsshole lately?” Brooke asked, as we were packing up the rest of my apartment. The movers had already hauled most of my furniture and larger items to a storage locker, thanks to Caroline’s arrangements.

  “No, not since the day I accepted the job. He said he would give me space, so I suppose that’s what he’s doing?”

  Truth be told, I was thankful for the space, but I really did miss the sound of his voice … his calming laughter. Even though I hadn’t spoken to him in those two weeks, I heard him vividly each night in my dreams. Let’s just say my B-O-B had gotten quite the workout recently.