You Again

by M. E. Clayton

  “I’m busy,” I lied, hating how he was right. I’d always been good with computers and had caught on early when I was younger. I had chased my passion to college and before I had even graduated from Stanford, I had sold a security software program to our very own U.S. Government that had launched me into a multi-millionaire.

  It had been fucking nuts.

  I was lucky, though. Scott, being three years older than me, had watched out for me when the money had come in. Mom and Dad had been great with their advice, but they hadn’t wanted to overstep. Scott Sr. and Hope Weston had continued working, my dad as a structural engineer, and my mom as a P.E. coach, because they weren’t the type of people to capitalize on their children’s success. So, while they hadn’t let me lavish them with money, I had still insisted on paying off their house and cars, and they had graciously let me do it.

  My younger brother, Aaron, had already been eighteen and committed to the Marines, so he got a weekly package to wherever he was in the world. But, honestly, even without the money, we’d have done that for him anyway. Mom struggled with having a son in the military, but she channeled all her mom instincts to protect her baby into being strong for him and pretending she didn’t worry about him every minute of every day.

  So, it had been Scott who had made sure gold-diggers and fake ‘bros’ everywhere hadn’t taken advantage of my success. Since he had already graduated and had been working for a securities investment firm, he had taken over my money and has been doing it ever since. Once I graduated from college with my degree, we had started Weston Technologies, with him handling the legal and business end of things, and me being the creator of whatever popped into my mind to create.

  “You are not busy,” he argued. “You haven’t been busy in three months, Dash.”

  “That’s not true,” I automatically denied.

  “Oh, but it is,” he countered. “Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we need the money or anything, but I haven’t seen you take this much down time in years. And that’s saying something since we’ve been at this for almost fifteen years.”

  “Bullshit,” I bit out. “I’ve been plenty busy. I’m still fine tuning the software for Telecorp and I’m still working on that new child-protection blocker.” The silence on the other end of the phone was telling.

  After a few seconds, Scott felt the need to point out the obvious. “Can you count, Dash?” he asked, like the dick he was. “Because I can. And with that magical skill I can tell you that you are currently working on two projects-one that’s almost completed, except for a few tweaks. Two, Dash.” My entire body collapsed against my chair, and my head dropped back, wishing I could tune the sonofabitch out. “Since we’ve started Weston Technologies, you’ve never had short of five different projects going on. You thrive on this shit. So, don’t tell me you’re fucking too busy to attend a one-hour meeting tomorrow.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but I had middle-child syndrome, so I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “How do you know?” I retorted childishly. “You don’t understand creative minds. I could be busy.”

  Scott let out a deep sigh and it was the same sound he made whenever Mom and Dad had needed him to watch me and Aaron. It was his these-aren’t-my-kids-why-do-I-need-to-watch-them sigh. “Look, Dash, I don’t know what’s crawled up your ass these past few months but snap the fuck out of it. I’m willing to give your creative genius only so much leeway,” he said. “Christ, you probably just need to go out and get laid.” I thanked Jesus and all his little baby angels up in Heaven that he couldn’t see my face on that one.

  My mind automatically went back to that night at The Lux with Henley Don’t-Know-Her-Last-Name. It had been-hands down-the best sex of my entire life, and I’m fucking thirty-three-years-old. I went to college, for Christ’s sake. I’ve had my fair share of pussy even if I was, technically, a computer geek. But that night with Henley had surpassed anything I’d ever experienced before. Granted, my ego had been shredded to bits and I had been fighting for my manhood, but it had still rocked the fuck out of my world.

  In the past three months, I have jacked off to her memory more times than I’d prefer to count. I had no idea what demons had been plaguing her that night, but she had given as good as I had given it to her, and I haven’t been able to get a hard dick without thinking of her since.

  Scott was right. I needed to get laid, but my dick only wanted a man-hating, fiery redhead with a pussy that tasted like every perverted teenage fantasy I ever had.

  When I had woken up alone, I had told myself it was for the best. I had convinced myself that I really didn’t want more from a woman who clearly had a very low opinion of men. I didn’t need that kind of stress in my life.

  No man did.

  Sure, I figured she had been hurt somehow by some douchebag that night, but her hate for the entire male gender had been extreme, and I didn’t do extreme. I needed a calm life because work was my main focus. It was one of the reasons I had believed Whitney and I had been so compatible. She had never complained about how much I worked. But, in hindsight, now I know why.

  “Don’t worry about my dick action,” I retorted, still put out a little because Henley had snuck out and my dick had really wanted an ‘atta boy’ after that bullshit with Whitney.

  Scott sighed again. “This isn’t about Whitney, is it?”

  I snorted. “No. Nothing in my life is about her anymore.”

  “Good,” he replied. “She was a plastic bitch who never appreciated you anyway.” Scott had not been Whitney’s biggest fan. None of my family had been. They had tolerated her because she had been my girlfriend, but that had been about it. I had chalked it up to them just not knowing her the way I did. Turns out, I was the one who didn’t know her.

  “I just have a lot on my mind, Scott,” I lied. “I’m fine, though.”

  “You’re lying, but that’s okay,” he said. “You’ll tell me eventually.”

  Not this time, I wanted to say. There was no way I was going to tell him I had a one-night stand, and she had snuck out on me. I’d never hear the fucking end of it. It wasn’t the one-night stand that was the problem, though. It was that Henley had snuck out. That had led to questions I didn’t have the right to the answers. My conscience prayed she had been cheated on and it hadn’t been just an argument between her and her boyfriend, or something small like that. I wasn’t that guy who didn’t care if a woman was taken. I cared. Even before the Whitney debacle, I was never very understanding when it came to cheating. If you didn’t want to be with someone, then don’t fucking be with them. Seemed pretty simple.

  “I’m fine,” I kept lying. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “A million before I’d even begin to pretend to believe you,” he tossed back. “Look, take a bubble bath, lights some candles, or do whatever Zen shit you need to, because you’re going to that meeting with me tomorrow, Dash.”

  “If I don’t?” I grumbled like a rebellious teenage girl.

  “I’ll call Mom and tell her you’re ready to hit the dating scene again, but you don’t trust your instincts anymore after that shitshow with Whitney, so you’d like her to help you find a nice girl to marry,” he threatened seriously.

  I shot up in my chair. “You wouldn’t,” I hissed.

  “I would,” he hissed back.

  “Thems fighting words, Scott,” I informed him, in case he wasn’t aware.

  “I’ll risk it,” he snorted. “I need you at that meeting more than Mom needs her middle child.”

  “Fine,” I snapped out because I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole of wondering if my mother really needed her middle child or not. Us in between siblings were really unto a world all our own. “But I’m not going to like it.”

  “Don’t care,” he replied easily. “As long as you’re there, that’s all I care about.”

  “You’re evil,” I also informed him, in case he wasn’t aware.

  “You and Aaron made me that way,” cam
e his insensitive and false statement.

  Before I could tell him what I really thought of him, he hung up and left me to stew in my immature, yet appropriate temper tantrum. I wasn’t good with people and I hated the legal side of the business. I just wanted to create, and when things got all legal and professional, people sometimes thought they had a say in what I was about, and they didn’t.

  But that didn’t stop them from trying.

  I dropped my head back and let out sigh.

  Scott really did suck.

  Chapter 5

  Henley~

  I didn’t get it.

  I donated.

  I recycled.

  I even planned on getting a dog from a shelter, one day, instead of buying from a pet store.

  So, why in the ever lovin’ hell was the Universe out to get me? Why not someone else who deserved their misery? Someone who cheated at bingo? Or abused the grocery coupon system?

  Why me?

  Monday after I had calmed down and talked myself out of shoving the remaining Arnold congratulation donuts down his throat, Mr. Peridy had approached me and had told me we’d just hit the jackpot. I had racked my brain to see if I had thrown in a five-dollar bill into an office lottery pool, but he had quickly disabused me of my dream of winning millions when he had informed me that S.A.M. had landed a meeting with Weston Technologies. And that little piece of information had translated into S.A.M. hitting the jackpot, not me.

  He, then, further ruined my day (I hadn’t known it at that precise moment, however) when he said he wanted me to be the point person for the account. I had executed the best inner fist bump ever because Arnold’s donuts didn’t look so delicious now if I was being given the Weston account, but that inner fist bump had quickly turned into me wanting to punch myself in the face when I had gone to research Weston Technologies.

  The internet was both a wonder, magical place, and the horrific bowels of Hell.

  Case in point: It had told me everything I ever wanted to know about Weston Technologies. It told me how the younger brother had made his first millions while still in college because, oh, he was a genius of some sort and had a brain that should be donated to science when he dies. And it also told me about the older brother who was a business wiz and has turned Weston Technologies into a powerhouse in the computer science community. It also told me there were waiting lists-years out-for their next invention and advice on forward innovations.

  You know what else the internet was kind enough to rub in my face?

  It had their pictures on the About Us page on their goddamn website.

  Pictures of Scott Weston, the man behind the business end of things. And Dash Weston, the man behind the creative end of things.

  Dash fucking Weston.

  Dash Weston, the man who’d had me cumming like a freight train for hours. The man who had the biggest dick I had ever seen and knew how to use it. The man who had-yes, may God forgive me-had his tongue in places no person with an ounce of good hygiene practices should have had it. Never mind we’d been in the shower at the time, the point was that, even Arnold had never explored that forbidden terrain, and I had been engaged to the bastard.

  And why don’t we just forget how I had-very vocally and very shamelessly-let him know how good it had felt and begged him to keep doing it.

  To which he had.

  And now I was going to have to sit across from him, after sneaking out on him, in a meeting tomorrow, which I was sure was going to go to shit as soon as he saw me. Sure, the meeting was with both men, but that was just details. The second Dash sees me, he’s going to demand someone else to work with, and that someone else could only be Arnold. There was no way S.A.M. would entrust an account this big to just anyone, and as much as I hated to say anything positive about the asshole, Arnold was good at what he did.

  I couldn’t lose this account to him.

  I wouldn’t lose this account to him.

  The entire week, I had pulled up everything I could find on Weston Technologies and I had a folder put together that would make the CIA want to recruit me. I dug into both men’s business histories and went so far as to look into, both, Scott’s and Dash’s high school G.P.A.s.

  I was going to be ready for this meeting like I’ve never been ready for anything else in my life.

  With that unbalanced and slightly frightening professional drive, I called Ellie. “Hey-”

  “You’re never going to guess what?” I said, interrupting her unhelpful greeting.

  “You’re in jail?”

  “No, I-” I frowned. “Why would that be your first guess?”

  “Because you’re crazy enough to end up in jail, Henley,” she replied. “And don’t bother to deny it because we both know I’m right.”

  “I’ll have you know I’ve never been arrested,” I pointed out.

  “Not for your lack of trying,” she retorted.

  “You’re a horrible big sister,” I threw back.

  “The worst,” she agreed. “Now, why did you call?”

  “You can’t laugh,” I said first, laying down the rules. “Absolutely no laughing.”

  “No can do, Hen,” she replied. “If I can’t laugh at you, who can I laugh at?”

  “Mom and Dad really should have given us a third sibling, so we could have options,” I mumbled.

  “They really should have,” she mumbled back.

  Okay.

  Time to bite the sibling bullet. “Remember Dash?”

  “Hotel Guy? Sure, I remember.” She needed to quit calling him that. Seriously.

  “I have an appointment with him and his brother tomorrow,” I told her ignoring the need to correct her on his name.

  “Uhm, what?”

  “I have an appointment with him and his brother tomorrow,” I repeated. Impressive silence followed, and I had to pull the phone away from my face to see if we were still connected. We were. “El?”

  “And you’re…are…you…an appointment?” she asked. “Does that mean…well, Hen, an appointment implies services rendered and payment, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course, I’m getting paid,” I scoffed. “I don’t do this to build character, Ellie. How else am I supposed to pay my bills?”

  It was her turn to scoff. “Then why did you sound so offended when I asked if you were in jail? It’s possible, you know.”

  What the hell?

  “Why would I go to jail for doing my job?”

  “Prostitution is not exactly legal, Henley.”

  What.

  In.

  The.

  Hell?

  “Prostitution?” I screeched. “What are you talking about, Ellie?”

  “You said you had an appointment with Hotel Guy and his brother, Henley!” she screeched back. “Most people refer to threesomes as harmless fun, not appointments.”

  “Threesomes? I am NOT having a threesome with them!” I didn’t know what was shocking me more; that my sister thought I’d have a threesomes-albeit they were both gorgeous as sin-or that she so easily believed that I could be a prostitute on the side.

  “I’m confused,” she muttered.

  “Let me unconfuse you,” I bit out, then told her about Mr. Peridy giving me the Weston Technologies account and what I found during my research.

  The ungrateful, horrible wench laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” I snapped.

  “Oh, Henley,” she laughed. “It’s more than funny.”

  It wasn’t.

  It wasn’t funny in the least.

  “Oh, and thanks for thinking I was a prostitute,” I drawled out. “A prostitute? Seriously, El?”

  “Come on, Henley,” she said, finally calming down. “You said you had an appointment with them. What else was I supposed to think?”

  “Not that I was tricking on the goddamn side!”

  Ellie started laughing again and was completely honest with me when she said, “You’re going to have to call me tonight for advice, Henley. I c
an’t right now. This shit is too funny.”

  I hung up on her.

  It wasn’t even that I really needed advice. I just needed…someone to understand how hard tomorrow was going to be, I guess.

  I don’t know.

  I pushed the phone call with Ellie aside and got back to work. I had more important things on my mind than whether or not my sister thought I was a prostitute. I needed to make sure I had my A-game ready for tomorrow.

  Dash fucking Weston.

  Chapter 6

  Dash~

  Scott was going to kill me.

  I was running late, and I knew he’d never believe I had been genuinely struck in traffic. Scott will chalk it up to part of my protest at having to come to this damn meeting. However, full disclosure, I couldn’t fault him. I’d spent all week trying to get out of it, but to no avail.

  At least it was Friday, I kept telling myself as there was no parking space for fucking miles near Salinas Advertising and Marketing. People claim the saying that the Universe was out to get you was just the beginning of an epic pity party, but in my case, it was fucking true. The Universe wanted Scott mad at me for some reason and that was bullshit.

  I finally found a parking space two fucking blocks away and I glanced at my watch and saw that I was already almost twenty minutes late.

  Scott was going to kill me.

  When I finally made it through the front doors of Salinas Advertising and Marketing, I raced towards the reception desk. Scott wasn’t texting me back, and I knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t rude like that. If the meeting was already underway, his phone was on silent.

  I smiled at the receptionist and hoped I didn’t resemble a psychopath. “Hello…uh, good afternoon, I’m Dash Weston. I have an appointment with…” Fuck. I didn’t know who I even had an appointment with. “Uh, I have an appointment at 3:30 today.”