Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
LEO
She had dozed off on me.
I wasn’t too surprised, because she and I had been through quite a bit the last few hours. So I used the arm I had wrapped around her back and shoulders to pull her closer to me. She adjusted, her hot breath fanning over my naked chest, and stayed asleep.
Turning my head just enough to glance at the ancient digital clock, I saw that it was 12:53 am.
Being the selfish bastard I was, I didn’t wake Jacqueline up. I indulged myself, allowing my nervous system to soak up the skin-to-skin contact I still desperately craved from her.
* * *
I could still taste Jacqueline.
I felt like I had gone mad. I had to apply chapstick throughout the day because I was licking my lips too often. Desperate to remember the feel of her mouth on mine. My hands couldn’t hold still. Zaid and Brandon had both stopped by my office for random questions after lunch and while I couldn’t quite recall the details of our conversations, I could remember the curious glances they gave my restless hands.
I had to stop myself from tapping a pencil against my leg multiple times.
Did Jacqueline regret our kiss that badly?
She wanted to at some point, otherwise she wouldn’t have done it.
I told myself later that night that she probably wasn’t in the proper state of mind. Perhaps she was just confused after I had clocked that prick in the bar, whoever he was. I had to push down the anger I felt when I remembered how he spoke to her. How comfortable he felt speaking like that to her.
I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, kissing her back with more than enough enthusiasm to let her know that yes, I too had been thinking about kissing her again since my interview.
But no.
I was immediately humbled.
So that night I poured myself two fingers of scotch and wallowed in self-pity.
A poor attempt to soothe my fragile ego over the fact that the one woman who had been taking up space in my mind for months still wasn’t thinking about me like that.
And I would go to work the next day and pretend like that car park kiss never happened.
* * *
I couldn’t believe that I was dealing with this so fucking early in the morning, the Monday after the kiss. Jacqueline and I hadn’t talked much, because the morning after, she texted me saying her car was fixed again and she didn’t need a ride.
It was probably true; her car was due to be fixed any day.
But I still worried that she was avoiding me on purpose.
As she had every right to.
Because we hadn’t texted, joked around, or really spoken to each other in any way, I was even more surprised when she decided to rip me apart this morning.
I was giving a quick presentation to Mary and Zaid’s teams. We were in one of the conference rooms surrounded by glass walls. I knew my presentation was boring but mandatory, so I tried to make it not mind-numbing so that employees would appreciate a meeting that couldn’t have just been an email.
Personally, I thrived when I had background noise of some kind. If the room was too quiet and monotonous, I struggled to stay focused. It was part of my brand, the fun relatable CTO that’s just like everyone else.
I didn’t think that adding popular pop music would be so controversial.
“Do you think playing songs like that for your employees during a meeting sets a good example?” Jacqueline was glaring up at me, her company iPad tucked to her chest with both arms, and one hip popped out.
She had two strands of hair framing her face today, which was unusual whenever she wore her hair in a tidy bun like this.
“I think it’s fine,” I replied as I crossed my arms, glaring down at her as well.
I was so tired of this fucking shit.
“Why on earth would you think that’s fine? That song has so many expletives I lost count,” Jacqueline rolled her eyes with her reply.
“Because we’re all grown adults,” I threw my arms out, glancing over my shoulder to see half of the engineers were pretending this conversation wasn’t happening outside of the conference room, whereas the others were intently staring to watch the show, “There was not a single word in that song that hasn’t been uttered in this office before.”
“By you , you mean,” Jacqueline threw back.
“By everyone!” I pinched the bridge of my nose and inhaled, praying to anything to give me peace so I didn’t rip that stupid iPad out of her arms and angrily snap it in half, “Jesus Christ, isn’t it exhausting being this kind of person, Jacqueline?”
She had her mouth open, ready to retort with something before she froze at the end of my sentence.
Jacqueline snapped her mouth shut, her eyes widening a little bit, “What person?”
“The kind of person who is constantly on everyone’s arse. Honestly, are my employees coming to you to complain about my behavior? Or about what slang I throw around in the office?”
Jacqueline frowned, before glancing to the side toward the conference room full of people watching this whole thing.
All the engineers who were practically missing their bowls of popcorn suddenly turned in their chairs and looked very busy on their phones and laptops.
“Because if there are employees who file complaints about me, the music I play in the office, or the language I use, then yes. I will do better. But come on Jacqueline,” I lowered my voice, realizing I was getting more heated than I needed to, “It feels like all the issues here are yours and yours alone.”
Jacqueline flinched.
I thought Jacqueline had been treating me with a cold, unfeeling nature before, but that was nothing compared to what I saw come over her now. I stood there, glaring down at our human resources rep, and saw in real time how each piece of her mask slid into place. The tightening of her eyes. The natural downturn of her lips. The way her body stiffened and her shoulders inched higher.
It wasn’t until I started to see her eyes get red, a small glassy layer filming them, that I realized I had said something horribly wrong.
“Jacqueline—”
“You’re right,” her voice was flat. It felt robotic, unfeeling, numb, “I’m the issue.” I stood there, the anger and frustration in me slowly starting to simmer when I heard her murmur, “As always.”
And then she turned and marched back to her office.
I groaned, scraping a hand down my face before turning back into the conference room. An oddly quiet conference room, considering the number of employees inside.
I looked up to meet too many curious eyes, before I shook my head and marched to the front to gather my laptop, “This meeting is canceled. I’ll send an email summarizing things instead.”
I heard the slow, unsure squeak of chairs moving, “I thought this was mandatory?” A newer intern asked, clearly nervous to voice his question.
“I decided that it isn’t.” I slammed my laptop closed and stood tall to face the room, “And I apologize if my music was inappropriate. If anyone here felt uncomfortable, I’d encourage you to meet with Jacqueline about it.”
“Oh, please,” Mary stood as she gathered her things as well, “No one here was upset, right?” She glanced around the room, where many head nods took place, “That song has been trending for weeks. We all listen to it in our earbuds at our desks. It’s fine.”
I nodded once, annoyed that Mary’s words didn’t make me feel better.
“…She was just being a bitch.”
“That’s enough,” I snapped at one of the engineers from Zaid’s team who whispered the words. Someone who had worked here much longer than I had. The man froze, staring wide-eyed at me, “Jacqueline is doing her job to ensure everyone feels safe in the office. She has to feel comfortable confronting problematic behavior like that so you don’t have to. You don’t get to call her crude names because of that.”
The man kept his eyes down as he left the room, before a flash of blue hair caught my eye. I glanced over to see one of the newer systems engineers we hired. She slowly approached me while most everyone else started to file out of the room, and she glanced over her shoulder one last time before looking up at me.
“Thank you for defending her,” the woman said, with a lift of her shoulder, “If the guys feel comfortable talking about Jacqueline like that…well, they’ll feel comfortable talking about all of us like that.”
I blinked at the employee, before giving her a stiff nod in acknowledgment, “Of course.”
“Maybe check in on her though,” the woman’s brows pinched together, “Whatever that was, it wasn’t about the music you played.”
Don’t I fucking know it , I wanted to say.