Chapter 22
“Rough weekend?”
I lean back in my office chair and cross my legs, shooting lasers at the ground beneath Spencer’s loafers. His voice grates on the only surviving nerve I have left after Friday night.
“Not as rough as today is going to be for you if you don’t turn around and leave me alone.”
“Yikes. You’re testy today,” he presses, doing the very opposite of what I want him to.
Instead of doing the intelligent thing, he slinks forward, poisoning the air in my office with his overpriced Burberry cologne.
I roll my lips and slump in my chair, already drained.
Despite it being early afternoon, I feel as though I’ve been here for days.
My workload hasn’t shrunk from what it was the moment I arrived, and I’m realistic enough to recognize that it won’t be by the time I leave.
I’ve been spacey all day, my thoughts split into a thousand different threads.
“What do you want, Spencer?” I ask dully.
“Do you ever warm up, or are you just perpetually frozen?”
Rolling my chair forward, I drop my arms to my desk and tap my nails to the space bar on my keyboard. “If you’d like me to jam an icicle up your ass, all you have to do is ask.”
His eyes fall on my saccharine smile and harden. “I want an update on the Walsh v Walsh case.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice. Victor is asking.”
“If that’s not a lie, then he can ask Rowena. I don’t answer to Victor.”
“We answer to all the managing partners,” he hisses, folding his arms across his evergreen suit jacket. “You don’t get to pick and choose.”
“I do when I highly doubt you’ll be taking this information to Victor afterward. If he is truly interested in an update, then I’ll send him an email before I leave tonight.”
“Are you hiding something? If you’re further behind than you want him to know, maybe it would be better if I—”
“I’m drafting my motion to compel a crypto disclosure,” I announce, shutting him up.
Without waiting for his reaction, I reach across my desk and grab the yellow folder with the Walsh V Walsh label printed on the front before flipping it open. When I glance back up, he’s staring at me blankly, his brows lifted.
“You’re actually going through with that?”
“Obviously.”
His laugh is heavy with mockery. “Ambitious. Judges don’t love fishing expeditions.”
“Good thing it’s not a fishing expedition, then. It’s a response to the five inconsistencies in his disclosure. Including a four-hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar transfer into a numbered Alberta corporation.”
He blinks once. Just that single time. I take so much fucking pleasure in the beautiful sight of his surprise.
“I didn’t see that in the file.”
“No,” I say smugly. “You didn’t.”
Dropping his arms, he strolls further into my office. I look up at him when he stops at the edge of my desk and peers down at the file folder.
“Look, I’m just suggesting caution because Rowena won’t appreciate an overreach. Crypto disclosure motions can get messy.”
“Oh, well, in that case, fuck off. I don’t need your phony concern. I’m not about to let our client get steamrolled by a man who thinks he can hide assets because he understands bro technology better than the average judge,” I bite out.
His mouth pulls tight, and I can almost taste his disdain. “Did you run this by Rowena?”
“Yes,” I lie smoothly.
Technically, I’ll be running it by her in a few hours. I’m not about to tell him that and have him try to stand over my shoulder and watch as I build a winning motion.
“Right. Well, if you want me to look over it—”
“I don’t. You can leave now,” I say, offering him a razor-thin smile.
He glares hard. “Aubrey—”
“I’ll circulate the draft once Rowena reads and approves it. If that’s all, please, for the last time, get out of my office.”
I reach for the folder and tuck it away before reaching for another, effectively dismissing him. For a moment, my office is peacefully silent once again.
Then he spoils it.
“Try not to choke on your workload. It would be a shame if someone with your . . . potential stumbled,” he sings, the smugness in his voice as thick as molasses.
I tilt my head, sizing him up with slitted eyes. “My concern is that you’ll strain yourself trying to keep up, Spencer.” Bit by bit, I watch his empty grin drop until there’s nothing left of it. “Close the door on your way out.”
It slams, but I take it. The moment he’s gone, I grab the computer mouse and shake it until my screen comes to life again. When I open up my draft, I stare at the blank page.
I’ve been trying to start it all day but haven’t been able to.
Spencer’s visit hasn’t helped matters in the slightest. Other than fill me with a bit more pettiness, I’m not further enticed to begin.
I love my job, and I know I’ve got this case in the bag with my motion, yet here I am, disregarding it once again to grab my phone.
The lack of messages from Finn is hard to swallow.
It ate at me all day Saturday, and by Sunday, I was an embarrassing sight of typed but not sent apologies and social media refreshes.
He’s giving me space after I ran from his house like I was afraid the walls were going to swallow me whole, but I don’t want it.
Still, I haven’t taken the steps to reach out, either. All of my texts get deleted the moment I finish typing them. There’s something wrong with me, but I’m too afraid to put a name on it.
That’s why I continue to stare at the message he sent me before my date, wishing another would pop up and fix all our problems.
What would that be, though? What could he possibly say that would fix this?
If he told me he hated the kiss, I’d be devastated, not relieved. And if he said he wanted to do it again . . . I don’t have an answer for that. Not one that I’m prepared to say to him, at least.
I can hardly even admit to myself that our kiss was the best I’ve ever had.
My phone buzzes in my palm, and I stare at the name at the top, feeling my stomach dive. Brielle’s been the one person I did speak to this weekend. I forgot about the plans we made for tonight.
Brielle: Still good for drinks????? I’ve got a reservation at my new FAVOURITE place. Six work? I can always move it to seven if you need me to
I sigh, hating that I’m not excited for this. Going out sounded like a great plan when I was drinking wine from the bottle Saturday night, alone and watching a Hallmark Christmas movie in May. But now, I’m not so sure.
Me: Which place??
Her reply comes instantly.
Brielle: Pretty Little Pour. It just opened a couple of weeks ago in Yaletown!
Right. She’d invited me to the launch, but I was too far down the Ford case rabbit hole to go out drinking.
The pictures she shared looked beautiful, and considering the place doesn’t have any TVs, I wouldn’t be forced to watch the Havoc game like I would at a regular sports bar.
Or if I was home alone and turned it on the way I always seem to do, regardless of my mood.
Me: Want to go earlier? I’m taking a half day.
The impulse decision isn’t met with any pushback.
I stand and gather my things quickly before dumping them into my purse and stalking out.
My assistant’s behind her desk, and I swallow the scolding words that immediately want to escape when I think back to Spencer’s visit.
Instead, I tell her to let Rowena know I’m leaving and to shift my schedule around for the rest of the day.
I can’t focus on anything here, anyway. I’m better off drinking with my girlfriend and inevitably telling her everything that’s got me so twisted inside.
“Wait—you’re not kidding?” Brielle asks, her hot pink lips parted in response to my information dump.
“Nope.”
“Why didn’t you call me after it happened? You’ve been keeping this to yourself for days!”
The pink glitter swirling around in my martini fits the entire vibe of this place a little too well, even if it took a minute to get used to. From the pink walls and checkered floor to the various signs hung above each matching sparkly booth and various girly cups, it’s a Barbie dream in here.
Brielle’s tequila sunrise was brought over in a silver cup shaped like a disco ball, and I swear I saw a waitress bring one out in the shape of a blinged-out cowboy hat. I’m not sure if I should be disappointed that mine is in a plain pink martini glass.
“I didn’t want to talk about it, honestly. It’s been . . . a lot,” I admit around the rim, sipping on my cocktail.
“But now you do?” She shakes her head, heaving a sigh as her eyes hold mine across the table. “Hold on. I need to ask if you’re okay before we keep talking about this. You never leave work early.”
“I couldn’t concentrate, and there was only so much staring at a computer screen I could take.”
“That didn’t really answer my question.”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m losing my mind? I couldn’t be further from okay, Elle. I want to scream because as much as I know I shouldn’t want to kiss him again, I really, really do. It’s so fucking complicated.”
“Well, why did you kiss him in the first place?” I scowl at the question, and she shakes her head, adding, “I’m not trying to turn this into a game of pin the tail on the perpetrator.
It’s just . . . I thought that maybe you could be into him, but I always told myself I was just being a romantic.
I mean, being best friends with a guy almost always leads to this, doesn’t it?
I’m just wondering what made you kiss him when you’ve been very vocal about not seeing him that way. ”
I take a long, much-needed gulp of my martini before setting it down but not releasing it. “No, I don’t think all girl-guy friendships lead to someone catching feelings. Having a platonic soulmate is an ongoing phenomenon for a reason.”
“So, is that you admitting to catching feelings?”
“Brielle, I swear—”
Her laugh cuts me off as I deflate, letting my shoulders roll forward. My hair falls heavily down the slope, cascading onto the table. I pull it back and exhale, itching to be done with this conversation before I admit to something I shouldn’t.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But honestly, you’ve just got me curious. Why did you kiss him? You’ve never let an argument get between you two before, and we both know it would have resolved itself by the time you woke in the morning if you hadn’t gone over there. So, why did you?”
That’s the question I’ve refused to answer.
Why did I go to Finn’s place instead of home, where I could have taken a cold shower and put this date in the rear-view?
Brielle stares at me, her curiosity blunt but genuine. She’s the only person I’d talk about these things with, and God knows I don’t make it easy. Still, she’s here, and I want to just blurt it all out to her.
“Because I knew it wouldn’t have resolved itself. Not this time.”
She absorbs that slowly, nodding a beat later. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve felt this . . . whatever this is, getting worse every time we do something involving this whole dating thing.
First, it was when we did these stupid little speed dates.
He was playing the part of all these different men to see what exactly was setting me off about each one, but then he switched it up, and for the first time that night, I didn’t want to throttle one of his personas.
At first, I just thought he was trying to be someone completely opposite of what he’d seen me reject, but I think he was being himself.
No pretending, just doing everything that he would do with anyone else,” I ramble quietly, feeling my blouse stick to the base of my throat.
“It was the first time that he’d done anything that had given me butterflies.
Not the nervous type, but romantic ones.
It was interest, Brielle. And that one night ruined everything. ”
“The first time?” she asks, the corner of her mouth turned down. “Really? After all these years, you’ve never felt
like that with him at all before that night?”
“If I felt it before, I didn’t recognize it.”
And it’s the truth. I’ve been so busy, so focused on my work that even if he’d done something that had made me blush or question my own feelings before now, I wouldn’t have been paying enough attention to pick up on it.
Having my work be the reason we started this has opened me up to more than I was expecting.
“Alright. What do you want to do now? You can’t pretend this didn’t happen, Aubrey. Not if it’s got you so worked up.”
“I don’t want to ruin anything,” I whisper, fear clinging to every word.
She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her array of silver rings is cool against my fingers as she squeezes them tight. “Who says you will? He kissed you back, didn’t he?”
“He’s too nice to have shoved me off, even if he didn’t want to kiss me.”
“Come on. Don’t be purposefully na?ve.”
“I’m not trying to be. But you can’t deny that he would do anything to spare my feelings.”
“You’re right. I still don’t think he’d have gone on with it unless all you did was give him a peck, which it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.”
“It wasn’t a peck,” I say, flushing.
Far, far from it.
“Exactly! Honestly, Aubrey, you need to just yank the Band-Aid off. The sooner you get it over with, the better it’ll be.”
“And how do I do that?”
She releases my hand with a soft pat and palms her drink, holding the disco ball cup instead.
“You tell him you liked kissing him. That way, he can either tell you he feels the same, or you can move on. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
You two kiss again to see if it was a fluke and then both decide you never want to do it again? ”
“That sounds more like the best-case scenario,” I mutter.
Her eyes roll. “You say that now, but we both know you want him to tell you how much he loved kissing you.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a know-it-all?”
“A handful of times, actually.”
I snort a laugh and straighten a bit. Some of the weight has lifted from my shoulders, but not enough for me to gaslight myself into thinking I’ve fixed the problem. Brielle is right, as much as I wish she weren’t.
Finn and I need to talk.
Sooner rather than later.