Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Social conduct for hate-free inter-colleague teamwork
Short: SCHIT
Paragraph A (addendum):
Neither party may contaminate the other party’s living space with excessive presence and/or newly created memories!
(I thought that was obvious!)
He wanted a fresh start.
Why the hell wouldn’t she let him go?
He wanted to get married.
Why the hell didn’t she want to know that?
He wanted a truce.
Why the hell wouldn’t she stop fighting with him?
Exhausted, Hazel pulled her suitcase out of the elevator of her top-floor luxury townhouse. She shook her head.
She had spent five days in Philadelphia visiting various clients, preparing ice hockey players for the start of the season, and congratulating figure skaters on their Olympic qualifiers.
She had also had dinner with a few baseball stars she had signed more by accident than design.
It was mostly a personal favor to Cole Panther, owner of the local baseball team, who had been a few years ahead of her at Harvard and couldn’t stand dealing exclusively with complete idiots.
She had slept little, thought too much, and, if she were honest, had too many clients.
If she truly wanted to start a family sooner or later, she’d have to expand her business, maybe open a second location in Philadelphia or New York to save herself the hassle of traveling.
She could bury herself in work, find a trusted partner or employee, and share the workload.
It seemed like a good idea at the moment because the search would demand an incredible amount of her time and energy, which would mean less opportunity to think and, consequently, banish from her mind the sincere face of Gareth Clark begging her for a fresh start.
She rubbed her temples, as if that would speed up the process, opened her door…and froze.
Her loft consisted of a single, enormous room with red brick walls, a bright, built-in kitchen, and a loft level on the right, where her bed was. Dominating the room was her gigantic white couch, plainly visible from the entrance.
Hazel had ordered it a few weeks ago and was fairly certain it hadn’t arrived with a sleeping man on it.
Her abdomen tightened as she shook her head, set the suitcase aside, and closed the door behind her. A single dim floor lamp burned in the corner, bathing the loft in warm light. Apparently, it was perfect for sleeping.
“Gareth?” she asked, but he didn’t respond.
He lay in the corner of the sofa, his head leaning against the back, his noticeably dirty hands folded in his lap, his chest rising and falling evenly.
A tight, light blue shirt stretched across his chest, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his sinewy forearms. A tie hung loosely around his neck, and his jacket hung neatly over the back of a chair at the dining table.
He must have come straight from work, considering it was almost midnight! How long had he been asleep?
“Gareth!” she said more loudly, stepping hesitantly toward the couch. His thin lips were slightly parted, and his dark eyelashes rested at the top of his high cheekbones. Dark stubble adorned his chiseled jaw, as did dark circles around his eyes.
The man appeared to be more exhausted than she was, and that was saying something. But at the same time, everything about him seemed…gentle and soft. It was such a stark contrast to the wakeful, bossy Gareth Clark. Her heart lurched in her chest.
“Hey.” She nudged her foot against his, but he still didn’t wake up.
Sighing, she brushed her hair out of her face.
He might have wanted to start over, but some things didn’t change.
Gareth never slept much, considering it a waste of time — but when he did sleep, he slept like a dead man no necromancer could resurrect.
Okay, that was enough. Time for more drastic measures.
“Gareth fucking Clark!” she yelled, grabbing his knees and shaking them. “You should be watering my plants, not keeping my couch company. Wake up…”
Suddenly, strong fingers closed around her wrists, startling her. She looked up.
Gareth had opened his eyes – just a crack, allowing her to see his dark blue irises – and frowned. “What are you doing?” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
She swallowed and tugged at her hands, but he held them tightly. “Waking you up. You fell asleep on my couch.”
“I’m…” he began, looking around slowly. “Oh. Fuck.” He abruptly let go of her and rubbed his cheeks, leaving dark streaks on them.
“Why are your hands so dirty?” she asked, confused.
“What?” He blinked, disoriented — and her heart sank. He seemed so soft. So confused and completely vulnerable. She hadn’t seen this Gareth in seven years. The Gareth who hated mornings and always took forever to think clearly and… Her heart fluttered. Shit, he looked cute.
She swallowed, stepped back, and sat carefully on the edge of the couch, far enough away from him so that she wasn’t touching him, but she was tired and needed to rest her legs. “Your hands are caked with dirt,” she whispered, kicking her high heels off. “Why?”
Gareth put his hands to his face and sighed softly. “Oh. I killed your plants and had to replace them,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
She opened her mouth. “You killed them?”
“Well, it was more like failure to render assistance than murder or manslaughter.” He closed his eyes again, as if keeping them open was too taxing.
Hazel stared at him, perplexed — before laughing. “You forgot to water them.”
“Yes.”
“And here I thought I’d given you a light punishment.”
“On the contrary. It was exhausting driving to the store, finding exactly the right plants of a similar size, and transplanting them. Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
Her laughter grew louder, and she saw the corners of his mouth curl upward, as if he was too weak to remember that he never actually smiled around her. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“My plan was foolproof,” he muttered absently.
“If you hadn’t fallen asleep at the crime scene, you would have at least had a chance.”
“That wasn’t a smart move on my part, I guess. Sorry about that. But your couch is very comfortable. Even if it’s white.”
“What’s wrong with the color?”
He chuckled softly and opened one eye to fixate on her. “You made fun of three things in college, Hazel: students who came to class in suits instead of sweatpants, people who wore matching outfits with their dogs, and owners of white sofas.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Who would want to wear a tie in a stuffy, smelly lecture hall? We needed all the oxygen we could get! And dogs should be able to choose their own clothes…”
“…and if you buy a white couch, you live in constant fear of stains and therefore, get a slipcover, so the actual color of the couch becomes irrelevant,” Gareth finished her tirade.
“Well…yeah!”
“I concur. So why the hell do you have a white couch?”
She bit her lip before whispering weakly, “It looked so pretty. And I don’t eat much here anyway.”
Still laughing, Gareth nodded. “Of course. Because you hate eating alone.”
“Yes.” Perhaps she should have been surprised that he still remembered that, but she wasn’t. She didn’t know a man with a better memory, which was probably why he remembered what she’d said during sex when she…
She blinked and quickly made a face. This was not the right time, not the right place. She was afraid Gareth might guess her thoughts from her expression. He’d always been incredibly good at that. But he’d already closed his eyes again and didn’t even notice.
“You should wash your hands and go,” she murmured, her gaze skimming his exhausted features.
“Mm hm,” he said, taking a deep breath but not moving.
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Gareth…are you okay?” she asked, her voice so gentle she surprised herself.
He nodded slowly, but kept his eyes closed. “I’m just tired. So damn exhausted. It’s exhausting having to have the same conversations over and over again. Having to prove over and over again that I’m good enough. That I’m okay the way I am.”
Hazel’s mouth went dry — and the next moment Gareth’s eyes widened in shock.
It was as if he’d suddenly realized he’d been too open and honest. As if he’d slipped back a fraction of a second to when they’d told each other everything and was shocked by his carelessness.
But Hazel didn’t mind. Quite the opposite. She preferred it this way. Gareth spent too much time not saying words.
“You don’t sleep much, Gare. It’s not strange that you’re tired,” she whispered.
He took a shuddering breath and rubbed his thighs with the palms of his hands, spreading the dirt over his immaculate suit trousers, but he didn’t seem to care.
“It’s not the sleepless nights that tire me out,” he said hesitantly.
“Being me makes me tired. Fuck. Has life always been this exhausting?”
She smiled. “I think so.”
“Yeah?” Slowly, he looked into her eyes. “I feel like I didn’t use to have strange ideas imposed on me back then by everyone and their mother. Back then, not everyone knew better.”
“Knew what better?”
“How to live my life,” he whispered. “What I should want from life. Back then, no one ever told me I should be nicer, more empathetic, more emotional, to show that I wasn’t a robot. Before, no one told me what I should do and say to justify what I own and what I’ve achieved.”
“That’s silly. You don’t have to justify what you’ve achieved.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Just for being an asshole and giving up on trying to get along with the people around me?”
She swallowed. “I wasn’t trying to tell you how to…that you…”
“I know,” he replied sharply. “And I think even if I was nicer, people would still say I didn’t deserve my money and power.”
“Of course you do!” She pressed her lips together because, of all the things he should be worrying about, that wasn’t even on the list! “Gareth, you’ve always worked harder than everyone else.”