Chapter Six
A fter the mixer, Lan and I head to one of the resort’s many restaurants to continue our evening. We end up at the Taproom, paneled with dark wood and filled with plush velvet chairs. The menu specializes in locally made charcuterie and Prohibition-style cocktails.
After we find seats, more WMC rising stars join us, pushing tables together.
Gossip is the lifeblood of any corporation, and tonight, it receives an infusion while everyone scoops up heaping teaspoons of dirt on each executive member. Thanks to WMC’s fondness for nepotism, we’re regaled with transgressions committed at Thanksgiving dinners and family weddings delivered by silver-tongued nephews, dropping judgments like princes holding court.
I try to be interested, but the entire thing feels like a waste of my fleeting youth. I’ll get wrinkles just listening to this drivel. I wonder where Rafe ended up and try not to examine that thought too closely.
On my left sits Andy. He’s from Sacramento, and he’s kind of cute. Maybe more than just kind of, with nice grey eyes and wavy brown hair and a little more fashion sense than the average Khaki. We’ve been chatting for a while, but I’m out of practice. My vagina’s so dark and dusty it’s layered with cobwebs, but I think he’s into me.
“So, what made you choose engineering?” he asks, leaning in closer than is strictly necessary. Yeah, he’s definitely flirting, but this is typical for these events, where the ratio of straight men to women is as lopsided as the wage gap. In a field of dead grass, we become wildflowers attracting bees.
Still, he’s not entirely uninteresting, so I allow it.
Maybe Molly is right, and I need to loosen up on my strict no-work dating policy. What happened years ago has no bearing on the present. Besides, it’s just flirting, and it doesn’t have to mean anything. I just hope he has a flashlight.
Of course, he’s just asked the most boring question in the history of questions, but I answer it with good nature. “I really wanted to do something that makes a difference,” I say, earning me a curious blink. “I’d hoped to work in the environmental sector on projects that would bring clean water to people who needed it. Stuff like that.”
It’s partly the truth. In a way, I sort of fell into this. I was good at math and science in high school, and my teachers encouraged me to consider engineering.
My parents never pressured me to choose any particular career path, but I knew how happy they were when I opted for something sensible and stable with good pay and good benefits.
When my dad immigrated to the US decades ago, he struggled. He spent over a year searching for a job despite his electrical engineering degree. He met my mom a few years later after he was more settled, but those early days never left him. He did everything he could so my brother and I could have a comfortable life. That’s all both my parents ever wanted for me, and I’m trying desperately not to disappoint them.
Andy runs a finger under his collar. What I’ve just described is the very antithesis of what WMC stands for. In fact, WMC doesn’t create or protect anything. We’re simply contracted out by other corporations when they want to upgrade or build a new plant, and it makes more sense to work with us than to hire entire new design and construction teams. While WMC does have an environment division (the one I wanted to lead), it often feels like that work is only for show.
“You?” I ask.
Something nudges my arm, and a chair is shoved into the too-small space on my other side. Rafe plops onto it, his eyeteeth elongating into fangs.
“What the—”
“Hey, Tris,” he says, staking me with his Count Dracula stare before it swivels to Andy. “Hey, man.”
The air around us becomes weirdly tense, and I lean back.
“Hey?” I reply.
“Rafe,” Andy says, sitting up straighter as he attempts to match Rafe’s patented Dark Lord glare. But in comparison, Andy’s a fluffy duckling waddling behind his mother. I should probably find that sweet. “Nice to see you again.”
I frown at them both. “You know each other?” I ask.
The way they’re looking at each other suggests there’s some history here.
“We met at the team lead meeting in Spokane in the spring,” Andy says, and I press my lips together. The team lead meeting that I should have attended.
“Rafe and I work together in the Chicago office,” I say, feeling the need to explain his sudden and overbearing presence.
“That’s cool,” Andy replies, still looking at Rafe like he wants to challenge him to a duel in the middle of the bar. I think about Rafe suggesting we wrestle for the bed, and an unbidden smile comes to my face. No, that wasn’t funny. Or cute. Or charming in the slightest.
“Anyway,” I say. “Andy, you were telling me why you got into all this.” I make a pointed effort to angle myself away from Rafe, hoping he’ll take a hint and find someone else’s blood to drink.
“Yeah,” Andy says, returning his attention to me. “As I was saying…” Andy continues talking as I zone out, catching snippets that predictably include something about Lego and dismantling radios with his father.
It’s not that Andy isn’t captivating (maybe he is, I’m not sure); it’s that in my attempt to turn away from Rafe, I’m now pressed against his arm. Thanks to the inexplicable way he’s wedged himself in between me and Lan, all I can feel is a line of heat burning down the middle of my back. I hear him chatting with her while he shifts, his scent collaring me around the throat.
Against my better judgment, I inhale deeply, filtering the smell of babbling brooks down through my lungs, where it settles just beneath my navel.
Rafe shifts again, draping his arm over the back of my chair as he leans forward to speak with a guy across the table. His actions seem reflexive because he’s ignoring me entirely. While it frees up a few inches of space, the side-effect is that I’m now pressed along the shape of his ribs with my shoulder cradled in the nook under his arm.
Our previous position was a cool arctic breeze compared to how I’m currently boiling under my skin. Andy is still talking, and eventually, he has to notice I’m not really listening.
Suddenly, I wonder what it would be like to just sink entirely against Rafe? To lay my head on the swell of his shoulder? To slide my palm flat against his—I go rigid, banishing my thoughts into an iron box sealed with titanium chains.
Andy has finally gone silent, drawing my attention to where he’s staring at Rafe’s hand, casually dangling over my chair. I witness the scene from his perspective. To a casual observer, it might seem like Rafe is staking a claim, and a bead of sweat meanders down the length of my spine. But Andy has this all wrong.
“You need another drink?” Rafe asks, his mouth so close to my ear that I leap an inch from my chair.
“What?” I’m not entirely in control of myself right now.
“A drink? Yours is empty.”
I look down at my glass, and sure enough, my mocktail is gone. I barely remember drinking it. The ache in my temple has returned, and I massage the corners of my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. I need to lie down.
“I think I’m okay,” I say carefully, studying him closely with a skeptical eye.
“You look a little flushed,” Andy says. “Do you want to go for a walk? Get some air? It’s a really nice evening.” He says it pointedly to Rafe in a challenge that he bats away. At least there’s one other person in this room Rafe refuses to smile at.
A shooting pain climbs over my scalp, and I try to stand, but I’m nailed to my chair. It’s Rafe’s arm. His scalding muscular arm has snaked its way around my waist, pressing an inferno of heated flesh against my back.
“Why don’t you stay?” he asks, still speaking into my ear, his breath pulling up gooseflesh across my skin. What’s happening? Why is he doing this?
I turn my head to find his mouth so close to mine that his exhale ghosts against my lips. I know he feels the shiver that works through every crevice of my soul because his eyes darken to the shade of hundred-year-old bourbon.
“Because I want to leave,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “But have a glass of water first. You look like you’re about to faint.”
Sure. No. Why is he being so bossy? I want to lie down, but I can feel Rafe’s thigh touching mine, and my synapses have short-circuited.
“Run along, Andy,” he continues.
My hand moves of its own accord, gripping Rafe’s forearm. This is my kryptonite. My silver bullet. My stake through the heart. His arm flexes, and it takes a moment to settle the flutter between my thighs.
But then my mind clears, and I wonder who the fuck he thinks he is. It’s clear Rafe doesn’t care for Andy, but I don’t belong to him. I’ll do what I want with who I want.
I shove him off, leaping to stand up.
“Let’s go,” I say to Andy, ensuring my purse is secured across my body.
Andy stands, but Rafe grabs my wrist. “Tris. Don’t leave.”
I inhale a shuddering breath, exasperation swelling in my chest, threatening to crack a rib.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?” I gesture to Rafe, pointing to the corner like a schoolteacher who’s over everyone’s shit. Then I march away, spinning around and folding my arms over my chest while he jogs over.
“What?” he asks, running his hand through his hair, blasting through all my defenses. It’s like he knows exactly what that does to me. He stands so close that I have to look up.
Dark lashes frame deep brown eyes flecked with the tiniest golden sparks.
“What are you doing? We agreed to stay away from one another. Why are you interfering?”
He steps even closer, his hand gently circling my bicep, and my heart does an erratic leap in my chest. “Andy isn’t a good guy. Don’t go anywhere with him.”
I blink through a tangled nest of thoughts and emotions that straddle many lines between confused and annoyed. “I don’t know what your problem with him is, but I can handle myself.”
His expression collapses into some hidden version of Rafe I’ve never seen before. It’s vulnerable and imploring. “Just trust me.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing.”
My eyes grow so wide that I feel the edges of my eyelids scrape at my patience.
“Oh, that’s very helpful. Why are you being even more annoying than usual tonight?”
The Rafe of a moment ago vanishes. He dons his cape and twirls his mustache, resuming his starring role as the villain in my story.
I take a step back, hitting the wall behind me and pressing a finger to his chest. His very hard and very sculpted chest. Focus.
“Look, we may be stuck here for the next three weeks, and we might have to share a room, but I want you to stay out of my way. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I want no part of your dick-waving contest. Leave me alone. Is that understood?”
Rafe’s fists ball at his sides as he looms over me like a very sexy but very angry tower. For some reason, I think of a tarot card reading I once did and how the woman with her fake plastic jewelry told me the Tower represents chaos and destruction.
I don’t wait for an answer as I slip around him and return to the table, where Andy is still waiting. But Rafe spoiled any possibility of a good mood, and my headache has reached decibel ten. “Sorry. I’m going to have to take a rain check on that walk. Maybe some other time,” I say.
“Sure,” Andy says. “Do you need help getting to your room?”
I pause, wondering if he’s being chivalrous, but Rafe’s warning about Andy has taken up rent in my mind. Can I trust him? Rafe is making me doubt my judgment. And that, more than anything, is the icing on tonight’s layer cake of annoying.
Regardless, I’ve had enough of men in general tonight.
“I’m good, thanks. See you tomorrow.”
I catch Lan’s eye and wave goodbye, but not before delivering one last withering look at Rafe. He’s standing in the corner watching me with a satisfied twist to his mouth.
I know it’s childish, but I mouth the words I hate you as I exit the bar and return to my room.