Chapter 10
chapter ten
Mia
Monday morning, I had a full staff meeting in the Branting office in Miami. We operated all over Florida and had offices in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago, to name a few.
Mr. Branting himself was at the head of our long oak conference table, at the top of a tower overlooking the bright, vital city and the most beautiful ocean on the East Coast.
We were zeroing in on the end of Q3, and the incentives for the approaching end of the fiscal year were on every single agent's mind.
Who was going to make the top agent? Who was getting dropped for inability to reach quotas?
Branting was a sought-after landing zone for young realtors trying to reach a peak in their careers.
The prestige of being with our office spoke for itself—we didn't lose.
If there was property or multi-million-dollar listings to be sold, we were the company that got that first call.
We were trusted, innovative, and ever-changing with the highs and lows of quite possibly the hardest economic housing market in twenty years.
I wasn't worried about myself. My sales spoke more than I ever had to. I had worked so hard that people were scraping to catch up with me, which was one of the reasons I'd even been open to taking Angelo on as a client for the month of September.
For two hours, I listened to a numbers report from our accountant as she went from top to bottom of our agency and several other branches.
Mr. Branting tapped his pen periodically against the table or his chin, sometimes flicking it in impressive circles around his fingers like a drummer with a drumstick.
At the helm of the room was a large screen with a Zoom conference hosting the branch team’s principal broker, management associates, and agents.
Usually, I would brownnose. Take notes, make myself look busy and interested, all while the other men would twiddle their thumbs indifferently, boredly. I thought I had to be the one making a concerted effort.
Today, though, my mind was everywhere but in the meeting.
It was still pressed against my car. Sweating from the humidity, and the heat between Angelo and me.
It was reliving the moment his fingers breached my cotton panties, delicately exploring flesh that hadn’t been touched in God knew how long.
I could still feel him when I got lost enough in my daydream.
His whispers, the broken breathing, the way I knew he was as affected as I was but didn't care to do anything but satisfy me.
By lunch time, there was no coming back from it.
We took a break for an hour, and I obsessively checked my phone thinking there would be a text, or at least some type of correspondence.
How could he not say anything after that?
I was wearing myself into a mania over one spirited dalliance in a dive bar parking lot like it was the epitome of romance.
But for me, it sort of had been. I didn't know any differently.
I wasn't dating around. I was focusing on my career, the way a Russo girl was raised to do.
Angelo had tried harder for me than any man I'd ever met. He made me feel wanted. Despite the challenge, and the insolence, the attitude, how I fought him at every turn. That meant he saw something more in me. He saw me in a light I didn't pass through, a way I didn't press to be seen.
Beyond the physical moment we had, I was starting to think I would miss Angelo when the house hunt was over. I'd miss him as a conversationalist, a comedian, as a break in my hard work week otherwise. Being around him was easy.
But we couldn't be friends. Friends wasn’t going to happen.
Branting let us off the hook mid-afternoon after surprisingly only firing three agents from the company.
I had an inkling that his mood booster was from finalizing his second divorce and the twenty-three-year-old he was now dating.
That was none of my business and I had no reason to complain about an early Monday.
It gave me time to walk downtown in Miami, enjoy the breeze, clear my head, and find the absolute most adorable baby clothing boutique.
After spending several hundred dollars on neutral clothing and toys for my future niece or nephew, I drove back to Coconut Creek, directly to Natalia and Mateo's house to share my findings with my sister.
She was at home nesting while her husband was still at work.
"You know I'm only sixteen weeks pregnant, right? Hardly in my second trimester."
"Don't tell me when to spoil my baby," I schmoozed.
I followed Natalia into what would eventually be the nursery with the massive bag of clothes.
The room was cleared out, with only a rogue dresser against one wall that I believed once belonged to Mateo's best friend, Frankie, and a pile of paint swatches and wallpaper samples on top of it.
I helped myself to the samples, holding them against each other in the shadows of the room, and then again in an area where the light from the window hit the wall. "Can I design it?" I asked.
"The nursery?" She seemed surprised. "You really want to?"
"Yeah, I'd love that. My own little gift to the baby, a piece of Auntie Mia every day." I spun in a circle, making framing motions with my fingers. "Crib over against the far wall, a fun accent wallpaper. We could even divide the room with paneling for some texture."
“I’m married to the idea of it being neutral either way,” she hummed. “Pop of color, some fun thrifted frames. A room they can grow into rather than out of in a couple years.”
“Say no more,” I said. “My brain is a churning wheel that you have watered.”
Natalia snorted, sorting through the large trough of baby clothes, pulling each item out wistfully and puckering her bottom lip. One particular light-brown cardigan with a teddy bear peeking out of the pocket earned a sniffle as she hugged it tightly to her chest.
"Aren't these tiny diaper covers precious?
" I unfolded them, wiggling the blooming, ruffled tushies.
"And can never have enough sun hats." There were a handful of bucket-style hats with chin straps that I knew would be a no-brainer given the Florida UV index and the amount of time this spoiled child would spend on a beach.
"These are only some small things," I added. "When we know the gender I'll obviously have to go shopping again."
Natalia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the old dresser with a jovial smile on her face. "There's something different about you."
My head tilted. "What do you mean?"
"You're acting weird."
"Okay,” I huffed. “That's the last time I come bearing gifts and offering my interior design services pro bono."
"No, it's not that." Natalia waved me off. "You're…happy? Don't take that the wrong way." She flailed her hand again and my eyebrow arched. "It's just that you're always in one mood. Like, sarcastic sycophant girl boss. But, right now I'm sensing a carefree, artsy, creative nymph.”
"What am I, a Spotify Daylist?"
She snapped her fingers, a bigger grin stretching across her glowing cheeks. "I know."
"What?"
"You're seeing someone."
I scoffed, but a shy warmth sprouted at the base of my neck. "No, I'm not."
"Liar," she said cheerfully. "Spill it, right now. I can't believe you didn't bring this up sooner."
I pulled a deep breath into my chest and avoided Natalia’s gleeful stare and shimmering eyes as I left the in-progress nursery and padded back into the main area of the house. She cornered me at the kitchen island.
"There is only one good reason for a mood like the one you're in right now, and that means you've been having sex."
If that was the vibe I was giving off, then I might turn into an actual ball of sunshine after intercourse. Mother Theresa-level sainthood.
"I promise you that is not the case," I swore.
"What's his name?"
I shook my head, snorting out a laugh.
"Is he one of the guys you work with? Big money maker, Agent Suave? Are you guys taking over the real estate market together?"
"God, you are such an annoying little sister. It's almost like we still live at home."
"You don't want to bring him around yet because it's new, I get it, it's fine."
My eyes rolled contemptuously, but I was amused, and slightly embarrassed. And I wished like hell I could actually be honest with my sister about what was going on, because talking it out with someone might be the one thing that could keep me sane.
"Tell Mr. Realtor that you're on the market, so he better lock it down before offers start lining up."
"Are you having fun?" I mused. "Has your own job been that boring lately?"
"Self-imposed furlough is torture. What am I supposed to do all day? Clean?"
Before the pregnancy, Natalia was running one of the most successful independent adult content pages on the internet.
She still did, with the catalogue she’d built alongside Mateo.
My older sisters and I were sworn to secrecy about their salacious extracurricular business ventures, and only a handful of people knew, one of them being Angelo.
"Maybe you could help me with something." I bit at the tip of my thumbnail hesitantly. "Say there was sex…"
Natalia lit up like a firework on the Fourth of July. "I knew it!"
I lifted a finger to shush her and she sucked her lips into her mouth. "What is…something that men go crazy for?" I asked, feeling a rush of shame and awkwardness, but Natalia's face was rife with excitement.
"Use two hands." She smiled.
"Two…" I held my fists up, one on top of each other. "Two hands?"
"Mm-hmm."
"What if there isn’t two hands’ worth?"
Natalia blinked rapidly.
The image of Angelo's erection pressed against the seam of his jeans came to mind, and I realized that I likely wouldn’t run into that issue. I might need three hands, actually.
"Never mind," I said quickly.