by B. B. Hamel
It might need me, and I’m not the kind of person to take on a new pet just to ignore it.
10
Justin
Remi’s comment keeps running through my mind: Or you just have nowhere else to go.
She’s right and I hate to admit it. Ever since college, I’ve thrown myself into my work, putting in more hours than anyone else I know. Slowly, my friends started getting married and drifting away, and now here I am at twenty-six, no girlfriend, nothing to show for my life but this really fantastic job.
I don’t regret the choices I’ve made. I don’t regret the late hours working my ass off wile my friends were out getting hammered. I don’t regret the women I’ve passed up, the girlfriends I’ll never have. I don’t regret any of it.
But sometimes, late at night, on my third drink alone at some shitty dive bar trying to get through my work before I can let myself go home and get a few hours sleep before I do it all again, sometimes I wish I had given in and dated those women, hung out with those friends. Sometimes I wish I weren’t alone, even if being alone means I’m better at what I do.
Maybe that’s why I keep thinking back to my friendship with Remi. Those are some of the best memories I have. We were so close back then, tighter than I’ve ever been with anyone since. I was popular in high school, but I never felt like anyone gave a shit about me the way that Remi did. Even later on, up in college when I met some really amazing people, even they couldn’t stack up to my first and best friend.
The friend that I betrayed, like a bastard.
The next day, I work on Spine. I try not to think about Remi while doing it. I try not to imagine her playing with the Tamagotchi and remembering all the good times, just like I did. I keep my head in the game, stay focused, because that’s what’s gotten me so far, not nostalgia. I can’t let myself lose my grip on this.
But it’s so easy to let my mind wander between work, thinking about Remi’s sweet ass under my hands, my body against hers, my cock sliding deep between her legs…
Fucking hell. I want to spank that luscious ass and listen to her moan. I want to hear her beg for her job while I fuck her rough from behind. I want to make her scream like I know I can.
I want to get to know every single inch of her skin.
It goes like this all fucking day. I can manage to squeeze a little work in between daydreaming about fucking Remi on my desk.
If only our past didn’t make everything so fucked up and weird. If only I wasn’t an asshole when I was a kid.
If only I could explain how badly I want her now, and how stupid I know I was.
The day slowly slips past. I’m frustrated, swinging between bouts of hard work and bouts of hard dick. The sun sets and the staff leaves, and I’m alone at my desk, a single lamp illuminating my laptop lid.
I think I’m good and alone when someone knocks at my door. Surprised, I half stand and call out for them to come in.
It’s Remi. I do a double take.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“I’m still here,” she confirms. “Are you busy?”
I sigh and sit back down. “Not at all.”
“I wanted to ask you about the Spine project. They’re still based out of Hawaii, right?”
I nod as she comes closer. “They have this big, enormous compound out there.”
She frowns. “What’s Blair doing out here?”
“Working with us. Normally she’s shut up in her office.”
“She’s in the city just for us?”
“As far as I know.”
“That’s crazy.” She drifts closer and finally leans up against one of the chairs. “You must’ve made a strong impression.”
“Honestly? I don’t know how I did it. I think I was just in the right place at the right time.”
“Probably.” She grins at me. “Not like you could close something even if you tried.”
I bark a little laugh. “You’d be surprised. I pulled in a lot of clients when I was working that side.”
“I don’t believe you for a second.”
“I’d never lie to you.”
Her smile falters a little bit. There’s no witty retort this time, and I sense that I’ve fucked up.
“Anyway.” She shifts her weight away from me. “It’s getting late.”
“Yeah. Holy shit.” I take a breath and let it out. “Let’s get some dinner.”
She hesitates. “Me and you?”
“Sure, nobody else here. We can talk more about Spine.”
She purses her lips. I can tell she’s trying to decide what to do.
I stand up. “Come on. My treat. There’s a little Indian place around the corner from here, you’ll like it.”
“I do like Indian,” she admits.
“It’s walking distance, so you can get away whenever you want.”
“Fine,” she says. “But just so we can discuss the project.”
“Right. Of course.” I come around my desk. “Let’s go.”
She follows me out of my office and down the hall. We ride the elevator downstairs, making small talk about Blair and Spine in general. Turns out, she’s never actually used the VR equipment, which I really need to change. I think her whole perspective is going to flip if she actually gets a chance to test it all out.
The Indian place really is right around the corner. It’s a two-minute walk at most. The restaurant isn’t crowded as we grab a booth in the corner. She orders a chicken curry and I get a lamb dish and a beer. I watch her carefully as she leans back in the booth, looking tired.
“Why are you working so late?” I ask. “New boss pushing you too hard?”
“You wish,” she says, giving me a sly little smile. “No, I just work late most nights.”
“Oh, yeah?” I remember the way she said I have nothing back home, and I wonder if that was a little self-reflection.
She gives me a look. “I’m just really busy.”
“I know you are. You always did need to have a million things going on.”
“Even as a little girl?”
“Pretty much. You had like ten different sports teams, ten different books, a million video games, all going on at once. I remember thinking I couldn’t keep up with you.”
“Really?” She seems to brighten up a little bit. “I remember you were the one that always got us in trouble.”
“Sure, that sounds right,” I say, laughing. “I always did have a knack for finding trouble.”
“I was the busy one, and you were the troublemaker.”
“We were a good pair. Spent a lot of time in that stupid creek.”
“Catching frogs.”
“Throwing them at you sometimes.”
“Oh, god.” She smiles huge. “I hated that so much.”
“And we wrestled a lot, which I gotta admit got kind of weird when we were older.”
She laughs, and I notice a little blush on her cheeks. “Yeah, it was confusing, I guess.”
“I don’t think we really understood what we were doing.”
“I think we did though,” she says. “On some level, anyway.”
“True. It’s why we kept doing it.”
“No, we kept doing it because I always kicked your ass, and you couldn’t get over it.”
“Girls mature faster than boys,” I grumble.
“You were just a scrawny little fella back then.”
“I’d like to see you try and take me now,” I say, smirking at her. I’m easily twice her size.
“No, thanks,” she says. “I think that would constitute workplace harassment.”
I laugh a little. “Probably. But I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. Our food comes not long later and we pick at it, reliving our childhood together.
It’s strange, remembering all of this. They’re good memories, even if they are tainted by what happens later. I finish my beer and have another one, which prompts her to order one as well.
/> We drink and talk for an hour. “Remember that time we went through your mom’s closet?” I ask her.
“Yeah, what were we looking for?”
“Spare change. They opened that laser tag place near us and you wanted to play the games.”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, laughing. “We pulled down all her shoeboxes.”
“It was like an avalanche.”
“You yelled and that’s why we got caught.”
“No, we got caught because there were like fifty shoeboxes scattered on the floor, and your mom happened to come upstairs.”
“I seem to remember a girly, high-pitched scream.”
“If there was one, I promise it was from you.”
“Whatever you say.” She laughs and we sip our drinks.
I watch her run her fingers through her hair and twirl the ends with both fingers, flattening and twisting the ends. She used to do that when we were younger all the time. It’s her nervous habit, like she’s stressed about something.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She stops twisting. “Nothing,” she says.
“You’re doing that thing.” I nod at her hair.
She drops her hands. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“Well, I remember.” I push my plate away and run my hands over the top of the table. “What’s wrong?”
“This,” she says softly. “I don’t mean to be dramatic or anything, but come on. What are we doing here?”
“Eating dinner,” I say simply.
“Right, it’s not complicated at all.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“But it is.” She sighs, sips her drink. “We can’t pretend like nothing ever happened.”
“I don’t think we are.” I can feel my frustrating rising. “We were kids, Remi.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t start making excuses.”
“I didn’t make our dads get in that fight.”
“That’s not why I’m angry with you.”
“Why then?”
“Don’t play dumb. You’ll just piss me off more.”
I sigh and look away for a second. I can feel this starting to spiral out of my control. “I know I made some mistakes.”
“Putting it mildly.”
“How long am I supposed to pay for it?”
“You haven’t even started.” She shifts away from the table and moves toward the aisle.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. Thanks for dinner.” She gets up and starts to walk away.
“Shit. Remi, wait!”
She doesn’t look back. I grab a stack of bills from my wallet and put them on the table. It’s way more than enough, but whatever. I hurry after her, pushing out through the front door. I catch up with her on the street before we can make it into our office building.
I grab her arm and she turns around. For a second, I think she’s going to slap me.
I don’t give her the chance. I step closer, pull her tight against my body, and I kiss her.
It takes both of us by surprise. She doesn’t respond right away, but a moment later she kisses me back, practically melting against me.
It’s everything I’ve been picturing. Sweet, sensual, perfect. She tastes incredible, like coming home, like walking next to a creek during a sunny rainstorm. I can feel my desire growing, more intense than I’ve experienced before.
But she pulls away. “No,” she says, stepping back from me.
“Remi.”
She turns and runs away. I stand there and let her go, watching as she disappears back into our building.
“Shit,” I say softly.
I don’t know why I did that. It just happened, almost by instinct. It was stupid and now I’ve screwed it all up. We were just starting to get along again, and although she was a little angry, I think we could get past it.
Now though, I just made shit even more complicated.
I turn away and walk toward the parking lot, not sure how I’m going to get through tomorrow.
11
Remi
I’m so angry, it’s hard to keep it all inside.
I get home after that kiss and throw myself into the bathroom. I get into the shower, thinking that I’m going to wash the taste of him out of my mouth.
Instead, I find my hand slipping between my legs.
I’m so angry, but not at Justin. I’m angry at myself for how much that kiss turned me on. I hate him so much, despise him really, but I can’t deny that he’s attractive.
And he’s still my friend, still that kid I used to spend all my time with. That person is still in there, still inside of him.
I keep thinking about that kiss, his lips against mine, pulling my body close to his. He’s big and strong and I know he could crush me if he wanted to, and that only excites me more. I slide my hand up and down my pussy, rubbing my clit, pressing my fingers inside of myself as moans escape my lips.
I can picture him fucking me in the office, right on the conference room table. I bet everyone would watch while he does whatever he wants with me. I know he’d be rough, pulling my hair, slapping my ass. I want him to make me crawl on all fours toward him, while he strokes his big, thick hard cock.
I’ll swallow it, let him slide it down my throat, make me gag. I want tears in my eyes as he presses his cock deeper in my throat, telling me how disgusting I am, how dirty I am letting everyone watch.
When he’s ready, he’ll push me down, ass in the air, and fuck me rough and deep. Everyone will stare as his cock takes me, plowing into my tight pussy, tearing me wide open. I can already feel the gasps escaping my lips, the moans, the way I’d plead with him to keep going, keep going.
My hands move faster on my clit, pressing harder and rolling in circles. My whole body tightens and tenses as I push back against the cold shower wall and I can feel his cock inside of me, taste his precum on my tongue.
I gasp and come, both in my fantasy and in reality. I come hard and I’m left breathless, back in my shower. I let the water stream down my body and I stare at my fingers, wondering what the hell just happened.
I can’t believe I’m getting myself off while thinking about that asshole. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve anything.
The next week, I do my best to keep things civil. He doesn’t push for dinner again and doesn’t mention our kiss. We work more closely this time, checking in once a day to see what the other came up with. In the end, we synthesize what we’ve both come up with separately, to the point where I don’t think either of us is happy with what we have.
But Blair wants another pitch meeting, and we can’t push it back. She’s not in town for much longer. She wants to get back to Hawaii, and I can’t blame her.
It feels just like the other meeting. Justin goes out to the lobby to meet her and bring her back while I get everything set up. This time, we don’t expect anyone but Blair to show, and that’s exactly what happens. The table is empty except for some water, which she ignores.
The only difference between this meeting and the last is that Justin joins me up front. We run through the presentation, with Justin starting out, and I take over about midway through. We more or less stick to the things we each came up with, or at least the new compromised versions. I talk a lot about big picture branding ideas while Justin goes in-depth into micro social and grass roots advertising.
The presentation is about a half hour. Blair sits through the whole thing quietly, hands folded in her lap, eyes unblinking under her dark mop of bangs. When we’re finished, Justin steps toward her with a smile.
“You got both of us this time,” he says.
“No.”
I blink, surprised. “No?”
She shakes her head once. “No, I didn’t get both of you. I got two people, separated.” She sighs dramatically. “I wanted two people, joined.”
I glance at Justin. “I’m not sure that’s going to happen,” I say.
“We’re trying,” he quickly ad
ds. “We’re hitting some roadblocks.”
“I see.” She leans toward me, keeping eye contact. “This history, it won’t let you go, will it?”
I bite my lip. “No,” I admit, not sure why I’m letting this woman know personal things about me.
“And because of that, you two can’t work as one.”
“We’ve hit some roadblocks,” Justin says softly, watching me.
I can’t look away from Blair. She’s mesmerizing, staring back at me with those eyes of hers. I think if anyone else stared at me the way she does, it would be terrifyingly creepy, but somehow it seems normal from her.
Almost kind, like she really cares.
“I know what to do.” She stands suddenly. “You will both come with me to my compound. There, you will work as one, without distraction.”
I frown a little. “I’m sorry, your compound?”
“In Hawaii,” she specifies.
Justin lets out a nervous laugh. “Blair, I can’t leave for Hawaii. I just took this job.”
She ignores him. “It will be good,” she says softly. “The past can’t follow you there, although it will try.”
I stare at her. “What’s with you?” I ask finally, completely bewildered.
She makes a face, almost horrible in how awkward and misshapen it is. I realize after a second that she’s smiling.
“Just someone who cares,” she says. “Please, you’ll come.”
Justin groans. “We can’t,” he says.
“He’s right. We really can’t.”
Blair looks over at Justin. “You will lose me if you don’t come,” she says, and I can tell that cuts straight through the bullshit.
Justin considers her for a second before sighing. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll come.”
“Wait, hold on.” I stare at him. “You’re joking?”
“Let’s do it,” he says. “Worst case scenario, we have to spend some time in paradise together. Can’t be that bad, right?” He grins at me, and I feel a shiver run down my spine.
Can’t be that bad. Stuck on an island with Justin, the guy I’m supposed to despise but apparently am incredibly attracted to.
He ruined my life. He betrayed me, left me stranded and alone, ignored me for years. I should despise him. He should make me sick.
