Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Derrick Lovell: I submitted you for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Josephine Davis: I think Camila would be a better submission.
Derrick Lovell: That’s what you said last year. Which is why Camila was on the list LAST year.
Josephine Davis: Well then, they probably won’t want me on this year’s list. Too derivative.
Derrick Lovell: Regardless, if a reporter reaches out, you should engage. It’s good press and Revenant desperately needs some of that right now.
Will goes back to New York armed with new assignments and I miss him every single day we’re apart. I think of him constantly, replay our conversations in my head. They bring me a sense of ease, of peace. I lie in bed at night and recall the low rumble of his voice, the upward hitch of his mouth when I amused him. I count the minutes it took us to break the rules I’d outlined. I wonder constantly what Will meant when he said It’s not that I don’t want to.
Then what ? If he wanted to kiss me, what stopped him? I need something specific I can add to my own list of reasons not to want him. Is he dating someone in Manhattan? Given what Will told me about his father, I think the answer is no—he wouldn’t have come that close to me if he was committed to another woman. Maybe our reasons are the same. Distance, time, avoiding the mess of our past.
I lose sleep, wondering. Thinking of him. Wishing for more conversations with him, breaking the rules with him.
Toward the end of June, our interns finish the classroom portion of their program and switch to office work. Today is the transitional breakfast, where all the interns mingle with their department heads for the first time.
Camila and I are watching from the sidelines, having way too much fun dissecting every expression, every lip movement.
“The intern in the khakis, white button-down,” she whispers, “is already crushing so hard on the intern in the blue dress.”
I follow her words with my eyes to confirm, chewing on a cinnamon sugar donut. Sure enough, the khakis intern is gazing with curiosity at a brunette in a blue midi dress. She’s talking enthusiastically at Ilya, the lawyer. Ilya looks like he’s doing mental gymnastics to keep up with the conversation, which makes me bite on a smile.
“She’s the one from Dartmouth,” I whisper back. “And I’m pretty sure the boy came from UPenn.”
“They are going to have,” Camila says, “the most ridiculous summer of their lives.”
“Narrate it for me,” I say.
“I’m betting on at least three couples by the end of next week. By the end of July, two pairs will have broken up, while the third grows increasingly serious.”
“Then what?”
“ Then, amongst the recently single, there will be hookups with other interns who are ‘just looking to have fun.’ As their time in Austin runs out, one of the old couples will come back to each other, begging mutual forgiveness for their late-July wild hair. Meanwhile, the couple that stayed faithful all summer? Guess what?”
“What?” I ask.
“One of them has a serious partner back in their college town.”
I gasp theatrically.
“It’s all going to come out, that final night during the intern farewell party,” Cami warns me. “There will be tears, and proclamations of love, and if we’re really lucky, two interns fighting over the girl of their dreams, now that this is their last shot!”
I snort into my paper coffee cup, drawing a few eyes. Howie, our VP of tech, shoots me a Help me look. He’s talking with my personal intern, Eugenia, who has a way of making you feel like she might be better at your job than you are. Her box braids are up in a half ponytail, and her sparkly pink eyeshadow is stunning against her dark skin.
I stand and walk over to them, listening while Howie finishes explaining SEO. He excuses himself to refill his coffee.
“Everyone here is brilliant!” Eugenia exclaims, straightening her skirt. “I’ve already spoken to every officer and vice president.”
“Who’s your favorite?” I joke.
“Probably Jason Lorcan, the CFO.”
“A sleeper hit,” I say, nodding. “I can appreciate that.”
“It’s pretty crazy you were my age when you started Revenant,” Eugenia says.
“Just about.”
“How did you manage it and take classes at the same time?”
“I didn’t have a social life,” I admit. “When I was a senior, I entered a competition for young entrepreneurs and won ten thousand dollars. I used the money on social media marketing, and everything spiraled from there.”
That’s the point I realize Eugenia isn’t listening anymore. Her gaze has drifted toward the door. When I twist to see what she’s looking at, I understand why.
Will Grant just walked in.
I don’t remember him being on the schedule this week? But my heart escalates into a rapid thrum, pleased without my permission.
“Who is that ?” she asks.
He does look exceptionally good today, I’ll give Eugenia that. Between now and the last time he was in my office with his blue folders, he might have gone on vacation, or at the very least spent a handful of sunny days by a pool, because his skin is glowing and bronzed against his crisp white button-down and black pants. His hair is windswept, making me guess he rode his rental bike to work today. He looks perplexed as his focus drifts over the crowd.
Our eyes find each other a few seconds later and an electric spark runs down my spine. I pull two fingers toward myself in invitation. Will crosses the space to me and Eugenia.
“Are you party crashing?” I ask.
“Depends. Did my invitation get lost in the mail?”
“You’re not an employee.”
“And yet, I work for you,” he counters, tone low but amused. Will’s eyes track to the half-eaten donut in my hand. “Are those from Voodoo?”
“You bet your bottom dollar.”
“I’m party crashing,” he decides.
“Since you’re here,” I say, “this is Eugenia Thomas. She’s one of Revenant’s summer interns, and for the next ten weeks, she’s going to be my executive assistant.”
Will’s ocean eyes sparkle as he sticks out a hand for Eugenia to shake. “So, you’re the Eugenia emailing me about Josie’s calendar.”
“Thanks for your patience,” she says. “I’m still getting the hang of it.”
“Godspeed.” He flashes her a perfect smile. Eugenia looks positively starstruck.
“Will is a consultant,” I tell her. “He’s going to help Revenant become B Corp Certified.”
“That’s amazing,” she sighs.
“Just doing my job,” he replies.
“Why did you make that sound like your job is being a firefighter who just saved a historic landmark from getting scorched?”
He throws me a look, eyes crinkled. “Got to bolster my self-importance somehow.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Camila knew I was in town for another client and asked me to drop by.” Will searches the room for her. “She has something to ask me, apparently.”
She’s busy chatting, so we acquire Will a blueberry cake donut and then listen while the head of HR makes a brief speech about office etiquette. No vaping inside, please, and you can vlog so long as you aren’t sharing privileged information. When the speech is over, Will bites the inside of his cheek and shares an expressive glance with me. His body has drawn closer to mine. The unmistakable scent of his aftershave hits me, so distinctly his.
Out of nowhere, my want slams into me again, sharper this time than the night outside Andalo.
It’s like four years’ worth of untapped desire is cumulating in my center. Does he feel it, too? I think he does; Will’s eyes give him away. He looks at me so plainly, as though he’s finally given himself permission and can’t imagine ever tamping the urge again. Will Grant has manifested into something else, something more significant than a dimple I want to feel with the pad of my thumb, than a chest I want to rest against. I once thought of him as a mistake. Now he’s been repackaged in my head as a missed opportunity.
Will swallows as conversations around the room pick up.
Neither of us breaks eye contact.
“You can’t look at me like that,” I get out.
He shakes his head, and when he speaks, his voice is wistful. “But it’s been a while since I last got to look.”
An emergency flare goes off in my stomach.
“The rules,” I say.
“Aren’t working,” Will says. “What’s the point of them, anyway?”
“What was the reason?” I parry back.
“What reason?”
“The reason you didn’t, even though you wanted to.”
“Didn’t kiss you again?” Will clarifies. He leans toward me as if pulled by an invisible string.
“Yes. That reason. What was it?”
Camila walks up then, putting her hands on our shoulders.
“Garlic Fest,” she says.
I smile. Will frowns.
“Pardon me?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.
“Garlic Fest. It’s tomorrow, and I think you should come.”
“Is that what you needed to talk to me about?” he asks.
“Yep.”
I throw Cami a look. She’s inviting him to Garlic Fest?
Will rubs a temple with his finger. “My flight back to New York is tonight.”
“Postpone it,” Cami says easily. “Stay for Garlic Fest.”
Will opens his mouth, closes it. His eyes pass back and forth across our faces, and he leans against a desk behind him, crossing one foot over the other.
Then he asks, “What the hell is Garlic Fest?”
“Garlic Fest,” Camila elaborates, “is my fiancé David’s favorite day of the year.”
“It’s a chef party,” I clarify.
“He’s grown this huge… garden over the years,” Camila adds, and then she winks at Will, whose neck erupts into red splotches at the innuendo.
“It’s really just a garden,” I say.
“A huge garden,” Cami says.
“Back to garlic?”
“Right. The garlic is all harvested by now.” Cami takes a sip of her coffee. “So, every year at the end of June, we host Garlic Fest, and it’s this giant outdoor party at our house where David and his pretentious chef friends cook the whole menu, and they invite their pretentious wine friends—”
“And their pretentious bread friends,” I say.
“And their pretentious salsa friends,” Cami adds. “Anyway. It’s tomorrow, and I think you should come, since you’re interested in the Austin food scene. Your friend Brooks will be there. I can email you the details.”
Will is smiling so broadly now that in a sight of true rarity, both of his dimples are showing. Still no teeth, though. Only Eugenia gets that smile, apparently. “I have,” he says, “an abundance of questions.”
“Tuck them into your back pocket, and if you still have questions after you come and hang out for an hour, I’ll answer them,” Cami offers. “Doing so now would spoil the charm.”
Will looks at me. “You’ll be there, I assume?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“With her biker gang,” Cami adds.
Will rubs his temple again. “So many questions.”
Camila gets pulled into a conversation with her department’s intern. Will continues to lean against the desk and just… look at me. His lips are pressed together, his eyes like thinly cracked glacial ice.
“Sticking around?” I ask.
“I am tempted to request a meeting in case I can’t have you for a while.”
I rest my chin on my hand. “You must realize the suggestive way you phrased that is either deliberate or obtuse, right?”
“If it was obtuse,” he drawls, “how would I have realized?”
“Stop flirting with me.”
“You’re the one batting your eyelashes.”
“You started it,” I say.
He levels me with a flat, scorched look. “That wasn’t even close to the way I flirt, Josephine, and anyway, I was serious. You’ve been traveling so much I haven’t had time to schedule anything with you recently.”
“I could push my ten thirty with Asset Protection.”
“It’s nice to hear you prefer me over Asset Protection,” Will says. “Eugenia and I are going to be thick as thieves, wrangling your schedule.”
I snort. “It can’t be that difficult to schedule time with me.”
“You are literally the hardest person to schedule around that I’ve ever worked with,” Will says. “For instance, where were you yesterday?”
“Los Angeles. There was a port issue. Mice ate through some of our clothes.”
He makes a nauseated face. “Well, that’s unfortunate, but did you do anything fun while you were there?”
“I got a massage at the hotel salon to de-stress over the mice.”
“I mean, did you do anything fun in the city ?”
“I never go into the city on work trips.”
Will’s face contorts in alarm. “Why not?”
“Because it’s a work trip?”
He’s silent for a few moments. “What fun is being a CEO who’s required to travel half the time if you don’t get to explore while you’re at it?”
“I have plenty of fun on work trips,” I say. “I order room service, I do my CEO classes online, I visit the hotel workout room—”
“Okay, well—” Will grimaces. “When you and I go on our work trip together, we’re not eating hotel food and getting our exercise in a workout room.”
I drop my hand away from my chin and stand up straight as his words digest. “Sorry?”
“We’ll be eating something local,” he elaborates, shooting me an exasperated look through his lashes.
“No, what work trip are you and I going on together?”
“That’s what I wanted to meet about,” he says. “We need to book our flights.”
“For what ?”
He holds up his index finger: “Peru.” Middle finger: “Spain.” Ring finger: “India.”
Suddenly, the packet Will handed me the last time he was here crystallizes sharp in my mind. Those are the locations of his supplier recommendations to replace the ones that aren’t up to B Corp standards.
“Right,” I murmur.
Since then, I’ve researched each supplier on his list and agreed they’re worth pursuing. But with the first store opening so soon, contacting the suppliers got pushed to the end of my to-do list.
Something like panic must be gathering on my face because Will jumps to say, in a placating tone, “It’s okay. I already set up the meetings with the help of your VP of supply chain. We’re going in two and a half weeks, if that works for you.”
When I look at him, his expression is soft.
“Thank you so much for getting a head start on this,” I say, my tone genuine.
“Of course.”
“But you don’t need to come with me.”
“Absolutely, I do,” he says.
“I can take the VP.”
“He’s going on paternity leave,” Will reminds me. “That was the whole point of me coordinating the visits with him ahead of time.”
“I go on work trips by myself all the time,” I remind Will.
“Not to three different continents over a two-week period.”
We stare at each other, at a standoff. “Is Ellis even willing to let you go for two whole weeks?” I ask.
Will shrugs. “I can work on my other clients’ assignments remotely.” He settles against the desk again, waiting me out.
The idea of traveling to three different continents with Will shoots stars up my spine, and not in a way that feels healthy or professional. I imagine us across a dinner table from each other. Saying good night from neighboring hotel room doors. Forming inside jokes, sharing once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The whole thing seems like we might be brushing up against a boundary we wouldn’t be able to uncross. It blinks BAD IDEA like a tacky glowing Vegas sign.
But at the same time, I objectively know it would be good to have Will there. He’s studied the B Corp standards back to front, and that’s what we’ll be evaluating.
“What did Zoe say? When you gave her my message?” I ask.
Will’s expression warms. “She said she felt the exact same way. But she wanted to tell you herself, in person. She doesn’t want me botching it, I guess.” He rolls his eyes.
My chest tightens, nervous and hopeful.
I break my gaze from his. “Okay, let’s go to my office and book the flights.”
Will trails me away from the party. I sit down at my desk and pull up a fresh browser on my computer screen. “We’ll be flying Delta, first class.”
“Great.”
Instead of sitting, he walks to my side of the desk. Then he gives me the dates for each leg of the trip, and I select them on the airline website. We’re starting in Peru, then heading to Spain, and ending the trip in India.
We bicker over flight times. Will says he isn’t a morning person, but I’ve flown enough to know the earliest flight of the day has the highest on-time rate. Eventually, we compromise and even manage to agree on seat assignments.
He isn’t crowding me, and yet I can feel Will’s body towering over mine. If I tilted my chin up, I’d see the underside of his. With herculean strength, I keep my eyes forward, clicking through the screens until we’ve secured two first-class tickets to three continents in July, bought and paid for on my corporate card.
“Done,” I say.
Will steps away from me, tamely making his way to the other side of the desk. I notice a tiny smirk on his face.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just knew you’d be a Delta flyer.”
My shoulders shrug. “I like luxury options occasionally.”
Will nods. “I figured that out, too. You’re funny about it, though.”
“How so?”
“You drive a 2014 Ford Escape you don’t care about leaving a ding in, but I’ve seen you wipe an invisible smudge off your high heels.” Will nods to my LV bag hanging off a wall rack. “Every single time I’ve been around you, you’re carrying a different purse, but I’ve seen your house, and it’s ramshackle. In an endearing way,” he clarifies. “It’s just funny, that’s all. You’re funny to me.”
“I’m just… me,” I say. “And besides, I’m not usually hosting dinner parties, or picking up strangers off the side of the road in my 2014 Ford Escape.”
“Better not be,” Will warns jokingly.
“Even if they look like a reformed finance bro?”
“Well.” He pretends to consider. “Actually, no, not even then.”
The air between us grows tight. Again, I notice the way my biorhythms change for him.
“So what was the reason?” I ask.
He looks amused by my change in topic. “The reason I didn’t kiss you even though I wanted to?”
“Yep.”
He watches me. “Neither of us was sober, that was the reason.”
I balk. “That’s the only reason? If we hadn’t been drinking, you’d have kissed me?”
Instead of answering he asks, “Not good enough for you?”
“Not really.”
“What are your reasons?” he asks.
I rattle them off: “Distance. Lack of free time. The possibility that I could lose my focus when this is a critical time for Revenant’s long-term success.” I don’t mention my insecurity over my yearslong lapse of sexual drive.
“Those are all perfectly legitimate,” Will acknowledges.
“But if I hadn’t told you we can’t become a distraction for each other, you would have—what? Tried to kiss me again?”
“Probably.” Will’s eyes flick to my lips. “Definitely.”
I say nothing, overwhelmed by the bareness of his admission, the roughness of his voice.
Dimples. “Care to explain the biker gang?” he asks, throwing me a lifeline.
“It’s not a biker gang like that,” I clarify. “Cycling girl group is more accurate.”
“What’s your favorite bike route in Austin?” he asks.
“I like taking the Johnson Creek Greenbelt and then connecting at Barton Creek. You eventually wind up at Zilker Park. It’s scenic.”
He says, “Maybe I’ll give that one a try tonight.”
“Enjoy,” I say.
“Given your reasons, ” Will says with an indulgent edge, “are you sure it’s okay for me to stay for Garlic Fest?”
“Absolutely.”
There is no better solution for squashing the attraction between us than spending some quality time together at the notorious Garlic Fest. Last year, I was sweating alliums out of my pores for a week.
“I’m one hundred percent okay with it,” I add with a big, wide grin.