Not Safe For Work: A Steamy Fake Dating Romance

Chapter 2

“Finally!”Gabby yells, as I walk through the door to our apartment. I haven’t even finished setting down my backpack when she continues, “Why were you at the office so late?”

I ignore her for a minute and sit down at the kitchen table, rolling out my neck from the eleven-hour workday.

“Hey, Kadesha,” I say to Gabby’s girlfriend when she joins me. “Sorry for holding up dinner.” We share a grin, both of us accustomed to my sister’s extreme expectations for punctuality. Expectations that neither of us can seem to meet. “I like the hair. Pink suits you.”

“Oh, I know.” She flips a few braids behind her ear.

I laugh as Gabby joins us at the table, setting down a platter of lasagna. My sister is an amazing cook and I dread the day she moves out and I’m stuck with frozen dinners every night.

Once we’ve all had a few bites—delicious bites—Gabby starts in again. “So, why were you working so late?”

“Come on, you know I work late all the time. Just trying to make as much money as I can. How else am I supposed to pay for that fancy school of yours?” I flash a smile. “I was working on a few contract proposals.”

Gabby leans so far forward on the table that Kadesha has to pull her hair back before it takes a swim in the lasagna. “Mentiroso! You, big brother, are a big fat liar.” I shoot her a look trying to figure out what’s going on, but I get nothing. A silent stand-off forms and Kadesha’s gaze flies back and forth between us like she’s watching a ping pong match.

“What?” I finally say back.

“Be honest. Tell us why you were really there until seven o’clock.” It’s a full stare down between us and I’m starting to guess she already knows exactly what I was doing.

“Who told you?”

“You know Olivia and Andie are like best friends, right?”

Yeah, I did know that. And I really shouldn’t be surprised that Gabby’s boss, Andie, felt the need to tell anyone—especially my sister—that I stayed late to help out Liv.

“Fine. Liv was stressing out about a meeting tomorrow and everyone else was in meetings so I offered to help her prep. Why is that such a big deal?”

Gabby levels me with a weighted look, willing me to read her mind. I just shrug. She’s making a huge fuss over nothing.

She knows I wouldn’t usually spend time with Liv unless it’s obligatory, but she was a mess this afternoon. I’m not sure what went down with her one on one with Mitch, but ever since that meeting, she was extra fidgety and frantic.

“The holiday party was over two years ago. It’s time to move on,” Gabby continues. She’s not wrong but her words still feel like daggers. “She has a serious boyfriend.” And the kill shot.

“I know, okay. I’ve moved on.” I exaggerate each word to help convince her. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be a decent human and help one of my colleagues. The more deals she can close, the better for our company, right?”

“Oh, come on,” Gabby huffs. “I don’t buy any of that. It’s time to forget about her and find someone else to fall madly in love with. How will you ever meet your soulmate if you’re staying late at work every night to help the girl who’s unavailable?”

I sigh. Sometimes Gabby acts like finding a girlfriend is the only thing that matters in the world. Of course I love how much she cares about me, but I’m just not interested in anyone.

“This has nothing to do with my dating life—” She huffs. “Gabs, please relax. Olivia and I work together, and part of my job is coaching the rest of the team. Today it was her, tomorrow it could be Eddie needing a hand. I can’t refuse to work with her just because she…” I don’t finish the sentence because we all know how it ends.

“Maybe you don’t remember how messed up you were over her, but I do. You’re my family and I just—” Her voice breaks. “I never want to see you like that again.”

I roll my eyes, just as Kadesha says, “Dark times,” under her breath. Guilt swells through me, remembering how I ruined their first Christmas as a couple. Gabby and I were so excited to bring Kadesha into the mix, to show her our favorite traditions of days full of baking food from our childhood and watching cheesy holiday movies. But that Christmas, the only thing I wanted to ingest was alcohol, and the only movies I would watch ended in murder.

“It’s not like that, I swear.”

My sister sighs in resignation. “Es que no confío que no te haga da?o.”

“Hey,” Kadesha interrupts. “No Spanish at the dinner table. You know I can’t understand you.”

Gabby cringes. It’s not unusual for her to slip into another language. She speaks five. When it’s just the two of us, it’s common to switch to Spanish since it’s what we both grew up speaking. Even if it has been almost twenty years since we left Argentina.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “I just said I’m worried she’ll hurt him. And you know I can go a little ‘mama bear’ when it comes to my big brother.”

“Gabby,” I sigh.

“What? You need someone looking out for you. Who else is gonna do it if I don’t?”

“Babe, they work together.” Kadesha comes to my rescue, and I’m thankful because I’m more than tired of talking about this with my sister. She’s been pushing me to keep my distance from Liv for what feels like forever. “If he’s fine with it then maybe you should let it go.”

My sister plops back in her chair with a pout, her arms crossed over her chest like a petulant child. I can’t help but grin.

“How about a subject change?” Kadesha offers. “Any new goss at Sizzl?”

Gabby eyes me again.

“What?” This dinner is starting to feel like an interrogation.

“I heard a rumor about Davide…” she teases, drawing out all three syllables of his name like a song.

I let out a long exhale. How the hell did she hear about this? It’s supposed to be confidential for fuck’s sake.

“What’d you hear? Seriously, tell me.”

“Just because you’re friends doesn’t mean he gets a free pass for being a douche.”

Friends? I am not friends with Davide. And he is a douche. But he’s also one of the original eight. Those of us who basically started this company.

When Daanesh and Vaughn—our co-founders—got a huge round of funding by participating in Y Combinator, they hired eight people to build out departments and grow the company. Daanesh was a few years ahead of me at UC-Davis, but we met playing intramural rugby together. We stayed in touch after he graduated and started coding an entire marketing platform. When he reached out about a sales job, I thought he was joking, but he said that he and Vaughn both hated all the salespeople they’d interviewed and offered to give me a shot.

So there I was, fresh out of college, almost no experience, the only one out of the original eight that wasn’t already a Silicon Valley success. I was nowhere near ready, nor did I have any desire to lead a sales team, so once we locked down a few early clients, they brought in Mitch to head up the department.

Daanesh and I are still close friends, but I can’t stand Vaughn. He’s the one who has hired all my least favorite people and is on his way to tanking the company if he keeps letting the culture take a nose-dive.

Davide, our Head of Product, is his right-hand man, and it’s worth stating again, a huge douche.

“Please don’t say Davide and I are friends. You know I can’t stand the guy.”

“But you obviously know about the affair,” Gabby snaps back.

“An affair?” Kadesha asks, her big doe eyes lit up. “Like with someone from work?”

“Yeah,” Gabby continues. “He cheated on his wife with Megan in recruiting and, oh yeah, Megan was mysteriously let go for ‘performance issues.’ You know she might sue.”

“There is no proof that there weren’t performance issues.” I hate myself as I repeat the company line. I know it’s bullshit, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Gabby scoffs at me and I run a hand through my hair in annoyance. This dinner is the worst. “Look, I know Davide is horrible?—”

“Horrible? He took advantage of a girl half his age and got her fired when he was done with her. How can you defend him?”

“I’m not defending him. If it was up to me, he’d be gone immediately, but that’s not going to happen, and Sizzl cannot handle bad press right now. So please, for the love of god, just let it go.”

“What do you mean, we can’t handle bad press? Is something happening?”

Yes, something’s happening. And while I love my sister and want to tell her everything, I’ve been keeping this one to myself. It’s not that I don’t trust her, but this is not a secret I can risk getting out. And Gabby talks to Andie way too much.

Daanesh confided in me a few weeks ago that the board is considering an acquisition offer, a massive offer. If it all goes through, I’ll make so much money from my stock options that I’ll never have to worry about me and Gabby again.

The last twelve years, ever since I became my sister’s legal guardian, haven’t exactly been easy. Between putting myself through college while working two jobs, paying off our student loans in what feels like a never-ending cycle, and now working my ass off to get us out of debt…it’s fucking exhausting.

It’s even harder dealing with it all alone. I should have let her take out loans when she offered, but I hated the idea of her being in debt too. And since I’ve also fibbed a tiny bit on my salary, and our rent, she thinks I’m covering everything without issue.

Which is why I am desperate for this deal to go through, even if I have to keep my mouth shut for a few more months to protect assholes like Davide. Because once it does, I’ll never have to keep anything from Gabby again. I’ll be able to take care of her like I promised I would the day I signed those papers declaring her my responsibility.

“Can we talk about something else, please? We can even go back to Liv if you really want to,” I plead.

“I made Churro a new sweater,” Kadesha offers. “I’m working on sunglasses too, but they’re trickier than I thought.”

“Nice. I haven’t even had a chance to say hi considering Gabby’s been berating me since I got home.” I flash them both a grin to show I’m (mostly) joking, and head to the living room where we keep Churro’s cage. Cage is probably not the right word. It’s more like a tiny Pottery Barn styled habitat. We have a very spoiled hedgehog.

I drape the sling Kadesha made for us over my shoulder and gently grab Churro to place him inside. The sweater she knitted is red and only covers his top half. He looks like a tiny, prickly Winnie the Pooh.

“Hey pal.” He makes a little chirping sound in response, letting me know he’s happy to be in his sling.

“He really loves it in there.” Kadesha smiles at him. “I’ll have to make another, just in case.”

Kadesha is some sort of crafting wizard. Her Etsy shop is killing it, selling mainly pet accessories with a few items for humans every now and then. She pulled in over twenty grand during Halloween last fall and has won numerous awards for being a top BIPOC owned small business.

“That would be great,” I say, right before my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to check the message.

Olivia Diamond:

I’m SO sorry to bother you, but could you remind me about the pricing tiers for our creation team? I’ve been searching google docs for an hour and can’t find anything. SOS!

I must be grinningbecause Gabby actually croons when she says, “Who’s texting you, Gav? Could it possibly be a gorgeous redhead with a loving boyfriend? Hmm?”

“Shut up, Gabby.” I grab a second helping of lasagna and take it into my bedroom so I can cut up a few little pieces of meat for Churro.

And then I call Liv.

“Scottie?” she answers. “I’m so sorry I texted but Eduardo wasn’t responding and you always know everyth?—”

“Hey, Sparkles.” That always seems to shut her up. I can’t tell if she likes or despises the nickname, but I can’t seem to stop either way. “First of all, take a breath.” I wait a second, letting her know I want to hear it. After a few beats of silence, it comes. “Why are you even looking up pricing? You never go through pricing on a first meeting, especially customizations and add-ons.”

“I know, I know. But I just keep thinking, what if they ask? And then I won’t know the answer and then Mitch will say I wasn’t prepared, and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not ready to run my own deals and?—”

“Jesus, Liv. Breathe. Seriously.”

She obeys again and during this moment of silence I get a quick hit of gratification that she came to me in a time of crisis. Normally I’d blow her off, say I’m too busy to talk, but something about being alone in my room with Churro has me wanting to let my guard down for once.

“Liv,” I start, but she cuts me off.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her breathing even again. “I’m so sorry for texting you. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this.”

I can tell she’s ready to hang up and I should let her. But this is the first time I’ve ever talked to her on the phone. It’s the first time I can let myself grin at the sound of her voice without fear of her noticing. I probably shouldn’t find her nervous energy as adorable as I do. But I’ve never been very good at pretending, which is why I usually stay away.

“It’s fine. Just tell me what you need to feel prepared. I’ll help you.”

“Really? You want to help me?”

“Want? Definitely not. But I’ve got thirty minutes to kill.” I look down at Churro as I say this, realizing my Monday-night plans consist of Netflix and cuddling this guy. But she doesn’t need to know that.

“You’re sure you don’t mind? I already took up half your night.” She sounds so apologetic I want to reach through the phone and hug her.

Instead, I grab the tweezers, break up a few small pieces of meat and inspect for cheese before feeding them to Churro. He’s still curled up in the sling as I sink down in my bed and flip the phone to speaker. I can’t show Liv the smile I get from helping her, so I show him instead.

“Tell me what you need, Sparkles.”