Chapter 22 Evan
EVAN
Isaac and I barely speak in the office. It turns out he can tackle his calendar tasks on his own and communicates his professional needs perfectly well in an email.
I can’t say it’s a good morning, and I also can’t help noticing how possessive I am of this little space outside his office door.
When I think about someone else sitting here answering his phone and his emails, I get irrationally annoyed.
But, I remind myself, I didn’t get a masters degree to be someone else’s assistant.
Not even Isaac Sullivan’s. I’m reminded of this when the Four Points Freight team crosses the office, clearly having come from the meeting with the contract attorneys.
Hunter spots me, makes some excuse to the people with him, who keep walking toward the elevator. He approaches me at my desk.
Isaac’s door has been open all morning, so I hope Hunter doesn’t blurt out anything we talked about at lunch last week. I smile up at him. “How’d it go?”
He scans my small desk with a look of slight irritation. “This place is pretty efficient. You busy?”
“I’m—” I glance at my desktop monitor and see the empty inbox. The phone isn’t flashing with any calls. That’s when I notice it’s just after noon. “Not at the moment.”
“Mr. Cross. Hello.”
I startle at Isaac’s voice. Hunter and I both look up to see him leaning in the doorway, his arms and legs crossed in that sexy, casual way they make TikToks about. Hunter reaches out to shake Isaac’s hand. “We have your contracts to look over.”
Isaac nods, glancing between the two of us. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“No. Everyone’s been very thorough. We appreciate it.”
Because Isaac isn’t completely clueless, he knows when not to linger and make things awkward. “You have my number if anything comes up.”
“Yes,” Hunter says. “Thank you.”
Isaac peels himself off the doorframe and disappears from my line of sight. Hunter looks back at me with a conspiratorial smile. He mouths, “Lunch?”
I nod and tip my head toward the elevator like “I’ll meet you there.”
Understanding, Hunter walks away. A minute later, I send Isaac an inter-office message saying I’m taking my lunch break, and I get to Hunter just as the elevator’s opening.
“You know,” he says, almost the instant the doors close and we’re alone. “If you came to work with me, I wouldn’t even need Polytech.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m one person, but you’d get a whole team here.”
“You don’t think you could lead a team? I think you could.”
“Do you always try to poach employees from other companies?”
“Only the ones I think are severely underemployed,” he says.
I give him a look of reproach, and he holds up both hands like he didn’t mean that as shitty as it came out. “Seriously, though. I wouldn’t need to be out here recruiting if I had someone like you.”
“I don’t know what you think is so special about me.”
“I just think we’d make a good team. You and me. With what you know about workforce management and my…” He pauses, like he’s searching for the words. “Well, I don’t really have any skills, but I do have a workforce. We could give FedEx a run for their money.”
“Sounds like you want me to be your assistant.”
“I want you to be my COO.”
“Oh.” That’s quite the promotion. “How much does that pay?”
“I’ll have to see what I pay Glenda, and I’ll let you know.”
Poor Glenda. Not that I particularly like the way she seems to run roughshod over Hunter like he’s incapable of speaking for himself, but I assume he’s allowed it.
“I’ve got some things going on here, and I’d kind of like to see how all those pan out before I uproot my life and try starting over in a new city.”
“Your hometown,” he reminds me.
“LA doesn’t feel like home.” San Francisco does, though.
My loyalty currently rests with Polytech.
Isaac gave me the chance I needed, and I do feel like I owe it to him to at least hear him out on whatever he might have to offer me, job wise.
But I don’t want to shut the door on Hunter’s offer either. Would it be weird to work with my ex?
Either way, it looks like that’s what I’ll end up doing, here or in LA.
Whatever. Lesson learned. I’m just glad Hunter and I are on speaking terms.
We don’t talk about much more than his company at lunch.
I’ve got lots of questions, and he’s short on answers, which gives me sort of an idea about what I’d be doing on the off chance I decide to uproot my life and go work with him.
It’s not until he’s walking me back to the office that he asks me out.
It’s nothing serious or overwhelming. Just a simple, “Do you want to grab dinner and drinks tonight? Or tomorrow? Before I head back to LA?”
It’s an invitation that rips me up a little. “I’m not really in a place right now that I can… I mean, I don’t really know what you’re asking, but I probably shouldn’t.”
“Any particular reason?” he asks, a guarded look on his handsome face.
Two particular reasons…
“It’s not you. I know that sounds weak as hell, but I’m in sort of a confusing situation, and I don’t wanna do anything to make it any more complicated.”
He nods. “I get it. I would say call me if you change your mind, but I know you never do.”
I press my lips together and surge forward, hugging him.
He laughs, surprised.
“I’ll probably regret it.” Saying no to a perfectly good single man with a good job and pure intentions.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t do regrets. They suck.”
“I’ll stay in touch, okay?”
“Good.” He presses a light kiss to my neck before we let go.
I check in with Isaac when I get back, and I can tell he knows exactly where I’ve been, and he’s not pleased.
“We had lunch. He asked to see me later. I said no.”
He inhales deeply, all that intensity I once thought was all about wanting to tie me up and whip me with a riding crop—turns out he’s just in love with me. Haha. Silly me.
“Any particular reason you said no?”
“You. Deacon. And I broke up with him for a reason.”
“What was the reason?” he asks, an eyebrow lifted.
“Not something I want to get into right now, but maybe we can talk later.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “I’m gonna get back to work.”
“Okay,” he says.
Once I’m back at my desk, preparing to lock in on work for the rest of the day, I make the mistake of checking my phone.
There are an alarming amount of notifications on my Instagram.
Thinking some random reel I posted must have gone viral, I click into the app only to find that I’ve been tagged in a post by Millie.
I click into it. It’s a carousel with curated photos of Manon as a puppy and now as an expecting mom.
Several pictures I’ve already seen of her nipples make an appearance along with some better ones of her smooshed face.
All that would be fine, but the paragraphs of words accompanying each picture are a whole other story.
After a short biography of how Manon came into Millie’s life (she bought her from a breeder), the tone changes with the first pregnant picture.
My ten-month-old puppy was recently impregnated without my knowledge or consent. The culprit? A GREAT DANE. Because of Manon’s narrow hips and the likely size of the puppies, she’ll be forced to suffer through a surgery to deliver the babies.
She’s already hurting and requiring weekly visits to the vet to monitor her fragile health.
It breaks my heart to do this, but since @evan_lockwood refuses to acknowledge his enormous dog’s responsibility, I’m asking for your help. Please consider contributing whatever you can to Manon’s C-section fund—link in bio—to help her through this difficult time.
All puppies will be available for adoption, if we make it through the pregnancy. Every penny and prayer is appreciated.
My jaw is hanging open.
That crazy bitch.
I’m about to text her to untag me immediately, but Isaac steps out of the office and says my name.
I look up from my phone, close to losing it.
“Can you take notes for me on this conference call?” he asks.
Normally I would give him a hard time about this, because my inbox is now full, and he’s perfectly capable of being on a conference call by himself, but all I say is, “Sure.” It comes out sounding breathy like I just ran five miles.
“Everything okay?”
I set my phone on my desk, face down, and straighten my shirt. “Fine.”
When I get home, I’m going to wring my neighbor’s skinny neck.
In pure psycho fashion, Millie answers her door in a rainbow onesie with a bright smile. “There you are!”
I hold up my phone. “What the fuck is this?”
She leans in, squinting at the screen. “Oh. Well, I assumed you weren’t going to pay, so I had to do something. I can’t afford that surgery.”
“You never asked me to pay.”
“I told Deacon. It’s forty-five hundred dollars.”
“Seriously?”
She nods, seemingly unbothered by the whole situation, in direct contrast to the concerned—my dog is gonna die in childbirth—Instagram post.
“He never said anything.”
“You really need to get him neutered, you know?”
“He’s a giant breed dog. They’re not supposed to be neutered until they’re full grown.”
“Isn’t he two?”
I might explode. Literally. I don’t need to be called out by this lunatic who posts pictures of her dog’s scary nipples online.
“Millie, I have more than eight hundred notifications.”
“I know! And I met my goal already.” She gives me a chastising look. “Maybe you could do one for Apollo’s neuter.”
“Apollo’s not the dad,” I insist.
She sighs. “Do you wanna come in? You seem upset. I have ginger tea.”
“No.” I’ll have a seizure if I go inside her apartment. There’s way too much going on in there. She’s an artist in every sense of the word. Every medium, every color. And the music tonight is country. No fucking way. I need to get the hell out of here.
“Don’t be mad, Evan. I’m solving the problem.”
“You basically accused me of being a deadbeat dad on the internet.”
“Technically, I accused Apollo.”
“He’s not the one who got tagged.”