Chapter 7 Maryellen
Maryellen
Chase did a fantastic job of steering clear of me at work the day after the party. All day. It was for the best. I spent more time thinking about how to handle what to say to him if I saw him rather than doing my job, which stressed me out. The fact that I didn’t have to in the end was better.
But now it was Monday, and we had meetings scheduled together. Talking and being in the same room would be unavoidable.
“Good morning, Maryellen.” Gage greeted me, walking into his office while distracted on a phone call, so I simply waved.
Since Chase did not currently have an assistant, my duties were almost doubled. And today was going to be one of those days where I would almost need to be in two places at once. One of them was scheduled in five minutes, across the floor, in Chase’s soon-to-be new office.
With the contractors…and Chase.
I grabbed my tablet and made my way down the hall. Behind me, the doors of the elevator opened and footsteps fell in behind me.
I felt him.
The temptation to turn and see him was strong.
I kept walking. As I reached the door to his new office, his hand reached ahead of me and opened it.
I wished, at that moment, I hadn’t worn my hair up in a bun. A cascade of hair to cover the side of my face would have been very helpful. Instead, my pink cheeks were on display for him.
“Thank you.”
The clean, fresh scent of his cologne or aftershave wafted through the air between us. I wanted to lean in and inhale deeply but forced myself not to.
“Of course,” Chase said. “And good morning.”
“Good morning.”
He followed me into the room, and we looked around.
It didn’t seem the office would be completed as soon as they kept promising.
There was still so much to do. The plumbing wasn’t installed in the bar area yet, and there were no light fixtures.
Plus, all the painting, furniture, and decorating still needed to happen.
The entire space was covered with construction litter and debris, making it hard to move.
“Who are we meeting here?” he asked. Turning, I found him looking out one of the tall windows down to the street below.
Pulling out my tablet, I tried to find the answer. “Um, it’s either the plumber or the electrician. Let me check.” As my finger swiped along the screen to find the correct calendar, Chase’s hand covered mine, stopping me from looking.
“It doesn’t matter that much. Either way, this is no place for you.”
Shocked and ready to argue, I put my hand to my hip.
“Hey,” Chase said. “All I mean is this place isn’t safe. I don’t want you in here because I don’t want you getting hurt. I’d much rather you wait outside the room. Or better yet, go have a seat at your desk. When they arrive, I’ll manage things in here, then send them down to you.”
It was times like this my head spun with confusion regarding Chase Parker. He completely avoided me on Friday. Because of something he had done the night before. Then he acted like this.
Caring…and thoughtful…and nice.
“OK,” I said. “Thank you. I’ll work on your schedule for the week while you’re taking care of this.”
Chase asked Gage to join the contractor meeting. They’d been with them much longer than anticipated. In the meantime, Harper arrived for her lunch date with Gage.
“Hi,” she said. “Where is my guy?”
“He’s meeting with the contractors down the hall with Chase. It’s been a while. Not sure if there’s a problem, so I hope they’re done soon.”
Just then, the two Parker boys came walking up together. Gage went straight to his pretty blonde girlfriend, picking her up in a bear hug.
Chase was busy on his phone, sending an email or something. Very preoccupied.
“Come inside for a minute, Chase and I have to discuss one more thing,” Gage said as he pulled her into his office with him.
As they all disappeared into the office, I heard a text come through on my phone.
Garrett: Want to go out again soon
Maybe this was the distraction I needed. To get my mind off a certain someone. The fact that he wanted to see me after going to a work function was a good sign. And I loved that this time he was initiating it.
Me: Hey, I’d love that, what did you have in mind
Garrett: Dinner or a movie Friday night?
Me: Sounds great, we can figure it out
Gage’s door opened. I was never comfortable using my phone during work time. But it was too late, Gage saw me.
“I’m sorry, sir, it won’t happen again,” I told him as I placed my phone in my desk drawer.
Gage stared at me in disbelief as the others walked out behind him.
“Two things are wrong with that statement,” he said and smirked at me. “The first one, you know better. I’m not him. The second, are you saying you think I’d be mad at you for being on your phone?”
Chase was at his side, invested in our conversation.
“Wait, who’s ‘him’?” Chase asked.
Gage turned toward his brother. “Dad used to have Maryellen call him ‘sir,’ she’s still having a hard time breaking the habit.”
Chase frowned at his brother’s words.
“Back to your phone, Maryellen. Do I really make you feel like you can’t be on it while you’re here? I hope not,” Gage said.
“Seriously,” Harper chimed in. “That would be tyrannical. You better not be like that with your employees, Gage.”
Gage’s hands went up in self-defense. “Hey, I’m not, I swear. At least I didn’t think I ever gave her that impression.” His worried look, complete with furrowed brow, bounced between Harper and me.
I felt bad for him.
Then all six eyes were on me. I didn’t care for that. My thoughts jumbled inside my head, knowing I had to say something, but what? I couldn’t tell them the real reason I was the way I was. The reason I stuck to the rules in almost every aspect of my life.
So, I stuck with my good ole standby.
“Oh, no, of course not, Gage. It’s habit. Your dad was quite old school, you know that, and I’m just a rule follower.”
I found myself fiddling with a loose string hanging from the bottom of my sweater and became consumed with wanting to fix it. All I wanted was for everyone to leave so I could take my mini sewing kit from my drawer and repair my sweater to make it perfect again.
Harper came to my rescue.
“Jeez, guys, we need to cut Maryellen some slack. It must be hard for her to be bounced around the Parker guys the way she has.” She made eye contact with me and offered a soft smile.
“As long as this guy is treating you right.” She pulled on Gage’s arm as she said it and pulled him back toward his office.
That left Chase.
I wasn’t expecting him to stick around. Yet after Gage’s office door closed, he turned toward me, an expectant look on his face.
My hand still gripped the loose string on my sweater as I waited for his next move.
He sauntered to the front of my desk. But rather than him plopping on the edge like he normally would, he gave me a curt nod and walked on.
It didn’t feel right.
At all.
“Chase.” As soon as I said his name, he stopped. “Are you OK?”
He kept his back to me, but his shoulders slumped in response to my question. He couldn’t hide that. He didn’t hear me approach and nearly jumped out of his suit when my hand landed on his arm. But it got him to look at me.
He might come across as immature to many. Yet, while we were together, I saw a version of Chase Parker I was willing to bet not many had seen.
He was sensitive.
He was caring.
He was thoughtful.
And, yes, he was fucking amazing in bed.
“I thought maybe we could take a minute to talk about your schedule for the rest of this week and next. I got ahold of Simon’s book, so I’ve started familiarizing myself with what you’ve got going on.” I pulled away a bit as I spoke. Being so close to him made it hard for me to breathe.
All he did was nod briefly, then stood motionless in the hall, staring at me. Staring through me.
“Sure,” he finally said. There was so much defeat in that one-word answer. “How about we go downstairs to my office. Does that work?”
“I’ll meet you down there, I just need to grab a few things.” Running back to my desk, I found my tablet, Simon’s old-school datebook, and grabbed a notebook and a pencil.
While on the elevator, I contemplated if I should address his mood change or not. It might be best to keep it strictly professional. These continued blurred lines were making things confusing.
I tapped on the door twice and heard a quiet “Come in.” As I did, I found him sitting at his desk, turned about and facing the window. This was such a stark difference from earlier and not normal Chase behavior at all.
If he was upset about something, there were typically outbursts. There were arguments. There were incidents we had to recover from.
Calm, subdued, upset Chase was scarier.
As I powered on my tablet, I opened the datebook to the current week. He stood and wandered around the room, seeming not to know where he wanted to settle. He walked back to the door, as if he were going to leave, only to close it. Then he came back to where I was seated and sat across from me.
“It appears you have a couple meetings tomorrow we need to confirm. And there’s a dinner meeting next Thursday night that I’ll need to confirm as well. Were you aware of these?” I asked.
“Stop,” he said.
I looked up, confused.
“Excuse me?”
“Stop, Maryellen.”
Chase leaned forward in his chair, his clasped hands resting against his bent knees.
He focused on his hands as if they held the answer to every mystery of the world.
I found myself looking at them as well, wondering what he was going to say or do next.
Then I watched one of his fingers straighten from his grip, lift from his leg, and graze my knee.
I wasn’t sure at first if his finger even touched me, it was so soft and gentle. The shiver going down my spine confirmed he had. Then he did it again, but this time his finger rubbed the inside of my knee, lingering.
I was afraid to look up. If I did, I knew the look in his eyes would destroy any self-discipline remaining in me. I didn’t want him to know how much I missed him.
He couldn’t know.
But my body betrayed me. Totally betrayed me.