Seven
Liem
Living with Bri is awesome. Easy. She’s like a cat, waking up earlier than me, entertaining herself most of the day, occasionally napping on the couch in the sunlight between her busiest times, and only interrupting me when food is needed. Her most human quality is that she hustles.
All week, she’s been in and out of the apartment throughout the day, walking dogs, making deliveries, doing odd jobs around people’s houses.
Every day looks different for her. Without the structure of my job and its unending deadlines, I’d probably stay in bed all day and rot.
But she doesn’t. Or she hasn’t until this morning.
Maybe her schedule is catching up with her. She looked exhausted and said she wasn’t feeling breakfast. Bri not being in the mood for food is very out of character for her. Eventually, she rallied, disappearing to take a job at five and hasn’t come back yet.
I’ve been sitting on the living room floor, using the coffee table like a desk the way I used to do in my last place.
My little studio didn’t have space for an office.
It’s getting late, the sun so far in its descent, I consider turning on the living room light.
The second I think about calling her, I hear the lock on the front door.
I’m relieved. My outside cat came home to me.
“Welcome back. I was getting worried.”
Bri plops a pillow on the floor next to me and sits. “Don’t worry. I took a little longer because I got us a sandwich.”
“Us?”
“Mm-hmm.” She opens the paper bag and splits the sandwich in two. Pesto-scented ciabatta filled with vegetables and sliced deli meat. Chicken. “Did you already eat dinner?”
Did I even have lunch? “No.”
“Exactly. That’s why it’s a sandwich for us.”
“Thank you.” I take my portion, laughing internally. She already knows me so well. It’s been a little over a week, and I feel almost as connected with her as I did with . . . Natalie.
Fucking hell. I haven’t thought about her all day.
When I’m not working, Bri keeps my mind occupied.
I’ve thought about Natalie a little less every day since we met.
Even though I still secretly hope I’ll run into her while I’m meeting with our client in Manhattan, those thoughts no longer consume my day.
They still consume most of my nights, though.
“Still working?” Bri breaks me from my thoughts again, reminding me how grateful I am to have her with me.
“Not really. I’m going through the numbers again before I meet with that big client tomorrow.” And thinking about how to get back with my ex, but that’s not important.
She hums her understanding with a full mouth. Her hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my head, scratching her fingernails slowly over my fade in that perfect way that makes me go stupid like a dog when you find the spot.
“Am I going to bother you if I sit here?” she asks.
“No, you’re good. Stay.” I’d be happy for her to bother me all day. I get an illogical feeling of security when she’s next to me.
“Are you drinking coffee?” she asks with surprise.
“Yes.”
“It’s almost eight p.m.” Her leg brushes against mine when she leans across me to take my drink. She doesn’t ask, but she doesn’t need to. “Fuck. I forget how good Vietnamese coffee is.”
“My grandmother would insist it is the best coffee.” I may only be one-quarter Viet, but her strong coffee gene made it through. Bri takes another swig and hands it back. I have to calm my smile to take a drink of my own. “How did today go?”
“Good. The new dog does well with the first, and I got some college-aged roommates with a ton of cheap furniture to assemble. I might be sore tomorrow, but it made me two hundred, and they tipped me a green smoothie.”
“That’s badass.”
“They were really nice. How was your day?”
I let out a sigh. “I did this.” I gesture to my laptop screen split between Excel files. “My life is thrilling.”
“I don’t even know what you do. Tech shit, obviously, but what’s your job?”
If she didn’t think I was a nerd before, she definitely will now. “I’m a sustainable cloud solutions architect.”
“The fuck is that? Building in the sky?”
“No,” I answer with a laugh, feeling happy she isn’t seeing it as a brag. “I basically assess a business’s needs and execute a plan for the most environmentally conscious solution for digital storage and information systems.”
“Eco-friendly sky engineer. Got it.” That’s . . . not completely wrong?
Her attention goes back to her sandwich, unbothered, seeming to appreciate being in my proximity as much as I enjoy being in hers, downloading about our days like it’s our normal routine. There’s nothing I can’t say to her. Or ask her. I think.
“Are you feeling okay? You seemed off this morning.”
She stops mid-chew. Her eyes linger on mine with suspicion. “I’m fine,” she says with a full mouth. I’m not sure I believe her. After finishing her bite, she says, “I’m going to call it an early night.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Today wore me out.”
“Okay. Get some rest.”
She cleans up our mess, even bringing me a napkin for the condensation on my drink, then goes off to her room.
If I know anything from growing up in the house I did, it’s that women communicate on multiple channels, and men often only understand one.
Her body is telling me something she doesn’t want to discuss, and therefore, it’s none of my business.
I need to focus on making this client happy so I can have more time to spend with her.
~
Tell me why my client is Bri’s fucking ex.
Sitting in the lobby of the Wall Street high-rise, waiting to be called back for my meeting, my eyes stick to him like glue.
It can’t be him. Can it?
He has the face of a movie star, looking like the tall, light-skinned, well-dressed, good-job-having love interest in any clichéd rom-com.
The same face that peeked over his shoulder in that restaurant and smiled in the picture with his pregnant side piece—the two reasons Bri’s heart is broken. Both images are seared into my brain.
He stands behind the glass walls of a meeting room, chatting up some associates or clients, smiling as if he’s not evil incarnate.
I ask the desk attendant to point me in the direction of the bathrooms to go collect myself for a moment, but it’s too late. The demon approaches.
“You must be the tech guy,” he says. His smooth voice isn’t what I expected. I assumed a piece of shit would sound more akin to an asshole, though he did just diminish my job title to “tech guy.”
“Yes. I’m Liem. N—” The word doesn’t want to come out of my mouth. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too. I’m the associate director of finance here. The big bosses are tied up right now. I’ll take you to the room, let you get set up.”
As he leads me into my glass prison, I can’t get over how calm he seems. Once inside, he points me to the TV at the end of the conference table and sits, pulling out his phone. “The rest of the team should be in soon.”
“Great.”
Just the two of us in the room, I set up my presentation in the background while I continue to assess the threat level in front of me.
He has the same demeanor as any cocky finance bro with enough money to fly a woman across the country and pay for her hotel, yet dickish enough not to think about flying her back home, oblivious to the fact that finding out your partner was cheating and having a baby on you might, I don’t know, suck?
It’s lodged in my brain. I can think of nothing else, especially not the numbers I’m supposed to present in less than five minutes. “Sorry, I’ve only been talking through email with two people. What was your name?”
The pissant smiles at me. “It’s David.”
Fuck.