5. Serena
Serena
See? Georgie would say, if she were here, This is your problem, Serena. Too impulsive. You never think things through!
Impulsive enough that when I arrived here for my gig, instead of going to the marketing department like I should have, I pivoted right and barreled down the hallway, into Travis’s office, heart pounding, blood like a roaring ocean in my ears.
It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Alex unceremoniously dumped my shit out on the lawn, and apparently, I won’t even give myself a full day before looking for another Oakley to trample all over me.
My therapist might say I’m seeking out conflict in an attempt to express my rage.
She would have a lot to say about what I’m doing right now.
Self-sabotage.
Travis Oakley stares back at me with a perfectly stoic expression. He’s a decade older than me, with smooth tan skin, deep brown eyes, and a perfect jawline. Before I started working here, I’d seen him on magazine covers, standing in a perfectly fitted suit, his arms crossed.
Even now, wearing a suit just like it, I can imagine the body beneath. The way his biceps and forearms would strain against a short-sleeve shirt. In fact, I saw that very image in an issue of Men’s Health I quickly hid from Alex.
I should not be imagining the body beneath. I should be focusing on the fact that he’s about to fire me, most likely.
Slowly, his gaze refocuses on his assistant before shifting to the exact spot where his security guard’s fist is squeezing the shit out of my bicep. I can feel the weight and heat of his gaze like a physical touch.
“Let her go,” he orders, and the guard obeys like a dog dropping a toy.
My heart continues to pound, but now the adrenaline is subsiding, slowly being replaced with dread.
What the hell am I doing? Marching in here like this? I’m lucky the beefy security guard isn’t hauling me up over his shoulder and tossing me out on the street like you see in the cartoons. Bounce twice, stand, brush off the ass. Shake a fist.
“Dianne.” Oakley directs this at the middle-aged woman beside me.
She has the kind of hair that floofs up and away from her face, defying the laws of gravity.
In all the time I’ve worked here, I never really noticed his assistant.
Maybe that’s the point—but I’d assumed that all big-name business guys hired young, pretty women to sit outside their offices and take their calls.
Not middle-aged women with too much blue eye shadow.
To Dianne, Oakley goes on, “See to it that we hire competent security for my office.” I glance at the guard, whose face has gone slack. For a moment, we all stand completely still, just staring dumbly at Oakley. “Go.”
Dianne and the guard turn to leave, and I turn to go with them, already tucking tail, but Oakley calls me back. So I spin slowly, swallowing, definitely wishing I’d thought this through before launching myself into his office.
There’s something buried in his intense brown eyes that I can’t quite read. With an open palm, he makes a brief gesture at the chair. “Sit.”
And, just like the guard, I obey, dropping down into the seat across from him. Leaning in, lacing his fingers together, he looks me up and down once, and I have to suppress the shiver that threatens to climb my spine. What the hell?
“You’re a photographer,” he says, attention lingering on my camera bag before finding my eyes once more. “And not in-house, correct?”
Mortification floods through my body like tacky, hot tar, flushing my face and making my palms sticky with sweat. Oh god, Oakley doesn’t even remember who I am. Why would he? I must be one of a million photographers, one of a million freelancers working for him. One face in a sea of them.
Yes, I’m Alex’s girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—but it’s not like we ever spent time with his family. According to him, it wasn’t worth it, and he stayed away from them as much as possible for his “mental health.”
“You’re my family now,” he’d said, and as much as I wanted those words to warm me, it had only left me with a faint, hollow pang of longing.
Maybe it wasn’t fair, but I’d always harbored the hope that my partner might bring with them a big family.
Holiday traditions I could join, grandmas to teach me to crochet, annual family vacation photos I could stand, awkwardly, along the edges of.
Alex’s insistence on keeping his distance from his brothers was what he cited when he demanded I quit the contract with Onyx. Never mind the fact that I could finally pitch in with the rent after moving in with him, and never mind what it could do for my career moving forward.
It was one fight I did not back down from with Alex. Everything else, I could concede to. Through couples counseling, I’d gotten better at compromise and admitting when I was in the wrong. But there was no way in hell I was letting go of a chance like this, no matter how Alex bullied me about it.
“No,” I blurt out when I realize Travis Oakley is staring at me expectantly. Now is not the time to be thinking about my failed relationship with his asshole brother.
Maybe it’s a good idea to remind myself that if Alex is a bastard, Travis can’t have fallen too far from the same tree. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m about to lose my biggest contract.
Trying to gather myself, I clear my throat and start over. “Yes, a photographer for Onyx. Freelance. I do shoots for the new properties, for the public and private listings.”
“Right.” Oakley studies me, dark eyes impossible to read. “So, why would I be cutting your contract? Typically, it’s the creative director who oversees our photographers.”
Fuck.
Well, now he’s going to cut my contract because I’m an idiot.
Why did I go out of my way to bring the break-up to his attention? It’s not like Alex got me hired here, but now that Travis knows, he might take his brother’s lead and kick me out. He might think that if another Oakley had a good reason to cut me off, he does too.
If I’d said nothing, maybe he never would have known. Alex and Travis aren’t close. Maybe I could have held onto this just by saying nothing.
But I shot myself in the foot. Typical.
I open my mouth—to say what, I’m not entirely sure—and the truth comes tumbling out.
“Your brother is a real fucking asshole,” I start, and once I’m barreling down that path, it’s like I can’t stop.
I breathe harder, sit up straighter. I can feel my face flushing even hotter as I talk, but he doesn’t stop me.
And it feels good to complain. “He didn’t seem to think he needed to break up with me in person. ”
It feels good to let out all the emotions I’ve been bottling up around my roommates. I didn’t want them to worry about me. I just wanted them to think I was okay.
But it doesn’t matter what Travis Oakley thinks about me, and so I throw it all out there.
I talk about how Alex and I met. When we started dating.
Alex convincing me to move in with him, to leave behind my room in the house with all my friends.
How sweet he was at first, and how quickly things started to cool off.
The couples counseling after I’d been overly suspicious that he was cheating on me.
“That was my fault,” I spit, shaking my head and thrusting a hand into my hair. I don’t miss the way Travis’s gaze follows it. Then, I remind myself that I’m losing my job here, and there’s no reason to make up imaginary flirting. “I have trust issues.”
Travis says nothing, just looks at me with a sort of muted incredulity, and I know this is a bad idea, that I should stop, that this is completely unprofessional. I’m surprised he hasn’t cut me off by now.
But I don’t stop. Instead, I launch into the process of house hunting, looking at all those modern mansions with Alex. Watching him play the sleek, modern billionaire in his suits and his affection for white marble.
Then, I tell Travis about the kinds of places I wanted. How much I was willing to sacrifice when it came to making Alex happy. And for what?
“And then, I came home yesterday, walking in the rain so I could save the twenty bucks on an Uber, and find all my shit on the lawn. Including my grandmother’s vintage, priceless record player.
I’ve lugged that thing around with me from place to place after she died—do you have any idea how heavy it is? How much I?—”
I cut myself off.
My roommates know about the record player, that it’s important to me. But I’ve never really told them about the background. About the sting of finally having a family member, only to have her taken from me again.
I press the backs of my hands against my cheeks to try and cool them.
A sense of doom blooms in my stomach, heavy.
Now, not only is Travis Oakley going to end my contract, but he’ll probably make sure to call around and convince my other clients to drop me, too.
Everyone in Manhattan will hear the story of the crazy photographer who wouldn’t shut up.
What the hell am I doing?
Quietly, I sit in the chair, face in my hands, breathing hard and warring with the wild impatience inside me.
Then, his deep voice cuts through the room. “My brother is an idiot.”
I whip my head up to look at him when I register what he’s said.
Oakley stands slowly, unfolding his tall body with a ridiculous amount of grace. Lacing his fingers together, he walks out from behind his desk. When he passes by me, he leaves a trail of his cologne, and I shamelessly breathe it in.
He moves to the window, standing there like a model, taking in the view of Manhattan that stretches out before him.
Then, the next sound in the room is my own voice, uncertain even to my own ears. “…he is?”
To my surprise, Oakley laughs, his shoulders moving under the expensive fabric of his tailored suit. “I don’t have to tell you that, Serena. Apparently, he had you and was stupid enough to let you go.”
Something thickens in my throat. I ignore it.
Right now, I’m discovering a sort of tenderness I didn’t know Travis Oakley possessed. I never would have expected this from him, but here it is. I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe he and Alex just had a fight about something.
“So,” I swallow, palms flattening against the tops of my knees. “You’re not going to fire me?”
Oakley turns, leans against the window, crosses his arms, and looks me over.
Something ticks steadily in his jaw. Once again, his gaze is like a physical touch, and that thick thing in my throat catches, heating up.
I try to ignore it, but it sends prickles over my skin, raking up the sides of my body like skimming hands.
Then, I’m imagining his hands. On me.
What the fuck? What’s happening to my brain right now?
“The only reason I would be ending Onyx’s contract with you is if you’re no longer the right person for the job,” Oakley speaks evenly, his gaze steady. “That’s what I told Alex before, and that’s what I’ll tell you now.”
My mouth opens. That’s what he told Alex before?
What does that mean? Alex tried to get me fired? When I didn’t follow his orders, do what he wanted, he took it upon himself to go behind the scenes? To sabotage my life?
A fresh wave of rage barrels through me, but before I can fully recognize it, Oakley is looking pointedly at the clock. My gaze follows his without question.
“Shit!” I jump up from the chair, hand instinctively going to my camera bag. I’m going to be late for the shoot.
Oakley and I look at each other for a moment. Something shoots between us, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m imagining it.
I can practically hear my therapist. It would make sense to seek connection—real or not—following a break-up.
I should probably thank him for keeping me on. Giving me another chance. For not firing me just on the grounds of how unprofessional it was for me to hold him hostage and tell him the saga of my relationship and break-up.
How embarrassing.
Instead of thanking him, or doing anything that might save face, I just turn and walk away, push through the door, and start running down the steps to the main floor, hoping I can still make it to the shoot on time.