CHAPTER 1DENISE
CHAPTER 1
DENISE
“It’s about time your raggedy ass answered the phone.”
I’d been ducking Cleo, and she was finally tired of my shit. My phone rang four times straight until I was forced to answer.
“Calm down, I just got off work,” I said.
“Bitch, it’s half past ten.” Her tone was scolding, but I ignored it.
Working helped center me. I’d been anxious since that video had dropped. The unease was like a steady river threatening to crest its banks and flood my whole world with a bunch of bullshit. I couldn’t stand thinking about it. I couldn’t let myself get lost in it. It didn’t seem like I had any other option that would keep me sane, so I let everything drift away as I focused on the one thing that I could—work.
It was hard to believe that this was what my life had become. I’d been consumed by work ever since I stepped foot in Foxx, exhausting myself to build a professional reputation, make money, and live the life that I had always wanted. Now, one video was ready to tear everything I’d built to pieces.
Millions of people had seen the video. Millions.
It was surreal to have a private moment blasted everywhere, especially when it was something I hadn’t even had the space or time to really process myself. But that’s where I was.
The video hadn’t hit the crazy stage of viral. Not yet anyway. It had been over two weeks and while the video was being reposted and shared across different channels, we were still waiting for someone to identify us. I was trying not to worry about it, but Cleo, on the other hand, was stressed.
“Why are you working this late?” she asked. My phone was on speaker as I laid on Hugh’s couch.
“What’s up, girl?” I asked, avoiding her question. I was so tired that my eyeballs hurt. She needed to get it out so that I could head to sleep.
“I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing.”
“I’m good. How are you?” I closed my eyes as she sighed.
“Den, really, how—”
“Cleo. Please.” I cut in.
“Fine.” She scoffed. “He hasn’t said anything on his socials yet, but there are a lot of comments tagging him.”
I was trusting her to stay on top of this viral video shit because there was only so much I could think of and all of my bandwidth was on research, connecting with industry experts, and analyzing financials and decks. If this project went according to plan, we’d have our main H1 client picked before the end of the year. But I knew that was an excuse to occupy my thoughts with something else…
“We need to do something, Den. Reporting the videos isn’t working.” She was getting texts asking about the video, just like I was. Our names would be out there soon if this video kept getting traction. I could hear the frustration in her tone, just like I knew she could hear it in mine.
“Doing something puts the spotlight on us,” I said, leaning against the couch. Frankly, I was tired of having the same conversation.
“It owns the narrative. It’s proactive, not reactive.” Cleo’s voice boomed through the living room, and I leaned my head back, covering my eyes. “People are nosey. Give them enough detail, and it’s not as fun to share anymore. It may stop things from blowing up any bigger.”
Her idea was to create a video that told the truth about what happened. She’d spent her career crawling through the belly of the social media beast, and I knew she knew what she was talking about, but I was hesitant.
This had the potential to explode, but I valued my privacy, and acknowledging and explaining this shit wasn’t going to make it stop. Stuff on the internet can live forever. And the idea of that video living forever with my face attached to it… my name, too?
The whole thing sucked.
“Cleo, I really don’t want to do it. If things change, we can talk again, okay?”
I was rubbing my temples as Hugh came through the door from his workout. My frustration skyrocketed, but so did my hormones. I saw him, a sweet and decent human that made lust simmer hot in my veins. But he wasn’t just Hugh anymore. He was Huey. He was Switch.
I was struggling to balance the three. The take-no-bullshit Partner that secured one of the biggest exits SF had ever seen, the cute grandma’s boy who did the dishes and dug around in the dirt for her after Sunday dinner, or the child that put a knife through the throat of a drug dealer.
The version I knew was sweet and stern, he’d never raised his voice. Even when he lost his temper, it was more annoyance than fury. The push and pull was tiring. I couldn’t make sense of what I knew with who I knew, and so I shoved it all in a closet in my mind and shut the door.
I knew my exhaustion was starting to show on my face, but I couldn’t pause and think about it. Thinking meant opening the closet door, and I couldn’t afford to do that—not right now. As much as my brain had tried to talk me into getting a hotel until I got my apartment together, I couldn’t do it. Yes, there was hesitation and confusion, but there was something else. Something deeper that I had with him that I wasn’t acknowledging.
I knew him. Knew him, knew him.
Sure, we got a little kinky, and he used pain and pleasure to push me to a place I didn’t know existed, but we had boundaries, and he would never cross them.
And he’d never hurt me.
Sweat glistened, dripping down his neck and hitting the soaked shirt that clung to his chest. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Cleo’s voice coming through the phone stopped him.
“Denise, we’re in this shit together.”
I rolled my eyes and focused back on our conversation.
“I know that,” I said. She wasn’t implying that she was only in this because of me, and she didn’t have to. The guilt was already eating at me. I didn’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t been there, if I’d really had to fight that man.
“I’m not going to make any moves without you, but we should at least collect everything in one place. I’ll use that to build a narrative for us.”
She was a dog with a fucking bone. I sighed, knowing that I wasn’t going to win this argument with her.
“Fine,” I said, knowing that she was right. That’s why I’d been avoiding her ass.
“I’ll write some bullets down and send them over, and you can add yours. I’ll text you when they’re in your inbox.”
I didn’t want to keep talking about it. Things needed to stop spinning. I needed a second of calm.
“We may not need it. But if we do, we’ll have it. These things are volatile, Denny, especially towards women of color. I need you to trust that I know what I’m talking about.”
I knew she hated this as much as I did. We were both doing our best not to snipe at each other, but I was done.
“I said fine, I’ll read your list. Can we move on?” I snapped.
“I’ll text you later,” she said before hanging up.
“Ugh,” I said, flopping back to my side as I heard him walking towards the sofa.
“Denise,” he said, chiding me. It was unnecessary. I already felt bad for being a jerk to my favorite person on the planet.
“What?” I mumbled, flipping my face into the cushions.
“You know she has a point,” he said gently.
“Yep.”
“Mhm,” he said, waiting for me to continue.
“And I’ll text her and apologize,” I grumbled.
God, this man was infuriatingly right all the time, which was problematic because all I could think about was climbing up on his face and going for a ride.
But wait—no.
We weren’t at that place right now, I had to remind my hormones that we needed to be clear-headed because we still needed to talk. Things between us were still weird. I promised I wouldn’t hold it against him, but we still hadn’t talked about it, or rather, him— Switch . He leaned against the sofa, and I watched the way his forearms bulged as they crossed his chest. He was leaning his sweaty ass against the cream couch. My stomach dipped. Why was this man so fine?
“We should—” he started, looking over at me.
My heart thumped against my chest. I knew where he was going. Not for the first time, he was trying to gently nudge me into talking to him about everything. I couldn’t do it.
“It’s late.”
The second the words left my lips, he sat back. His head cocked to the side, as he watched me, his expression characteristically blank.
“You have something to do first.” Leaning forward, he grabbed my phone and placed it in my hand. The second his skin touched mine, I felt like I’d been electrocuted. The hairs on my arms stood upright, and I rubbed at them as I unlocked my phone and pulled up Cleo’s name.
I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ll make notes and send them over. Text me later.
The three dots popped up immediately as she typed her response.
We’re good. I’ll remind you in the morning. Go and suck some dick.
Smiling, I typed my reply, parroting her words back at her.
Slurp slurp, gobble gobble, glug glug.
I laughed out loud as she sent me a series of eggplant emojis, and he leaned forward to see my phone screen. Putting it against my chest, I leaned up to stare at him.
“Excuse you.”
He screwed up his face in confusion, and I mirrored his goofy, nosey expression.
“Damn, I can’t see why you’re laughing.” He held a hand over his chest and feigned shock and hurt.
“You could fix your mouth to ask,” I replied, my stomach flipping as he crowded me.
The expression he was giving me said he didn’t want to ask, he wanted to demand. To take.
“Hmm, I can definitely fix my mouth,” he said, grabbing my hips and pulling me forward on the couch.
“Really?” I gazed up, my eyes feasting on the man who continually stole my breath.
“No,” he said, smiling as he grabbed my hands and pulled me up to stand.
“Wha—”
“It’s a school night. And you need sleep.” He pushed me forward toward the hallway.
“But—”
“Get your sexy ass on before I forget we have important shit to do tomorrow.”
The words were on the tip of my tongue and I had to fight to keep them in. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he wouldn’t spank the shit out of me and leave me dripping and pissed off.
An image of him fucking me against one of these windows popped into my mind. I was fiending and trying hard not to show it. When I turned, I saw he still had that same stern gaze on his face. Not even the cute hint of a frown he sometimes had when he was ready for me to test him. This grimace told me there was something on his mind.
He walked me over to the guest room and I saw the frustration mounting on his face. I still hadn’t moved back into the main bedroom with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I needed some time to figure everything out.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” he turned and I grabbed his hand.
“I. Can you—stay until I fall asleep?” I had to force the words out. It felt selfish to even say the words aloud, but I did.
His hard gaze softened as his hand came to my cheek, his thumb traced its familiar line across my cheekbone.
“Of course.”