12
Rowan
Tuesday
The morning had been torture. The night had been torture.
Everything was torture. He had no idea if he should call Vivian or if he was supposed to play it cool.
He wanted to go down to the twenty-third floor, grab Vivian, kiss her, and then possibly cave-man carry her off to his house. That was normal, right?
“Hey,” said Doc, popping in the door.
“What’s up, Doc?” said Rowan, then sighed when Doc completely missed the reference.
“I had an idea about the land dro—”
“OK,” said Mark, walking in the door and past Doc as if he wasn’t there. “I know I was joking the other day, but I’ve thought about it, and I think Jenny is right—you need someone who can kick your ass.”
“What?” Rowan blinked at his VP in confusion. He felt like he’d missed about three steps in the conversation.
“That’s Vivian. She can take you to the mat,” said Mark confidently.
“I held my own,” objected Rowan.
“Yeah, yeah, sure you did. Point is you should ask her to the gala.”
“The gala isn’t for another month,” snapped Rowan.
“Oh, that’s not soon enough,” Mark said, and Rowan glared at him.
Having now read the paperwork Vivian had given him, Rowan was aware of that fact. He was also aware that now, having asked her, that it had gotten all weird. The caveman solution genuinely looked like a better option.
The office door opened again, and Teddy came in looking nervous. “Boss, you got a second?”
“Yeah, Teddy, what’s up?”
Teddy looked nervously at Mark and Doc, who looked at him in puzzled confusion.
“Uh... OK, I’m here. I’m doing it. Just going to say it. When I played poker with Vivian on Friday, I was really impressed. She’s really got her shit together, and she’s smart. And it was pretty clear that she is single and definitely not looking for a lawyer.”
“Where are you going with this, Teddy?” asked Rowan, trying not to growl. If Teddy wanted to ask Vivian out, Rowan would be punching something.
“And I know it’s none of my business, and maybe you’re not in the relationship zone, but I have to say maybe...
It was just that in the elevator yesterday...
” He paused and looked desperately at Doc and Mark, who stared blankly back, apparently still mystified by what Teddy was trying to do.
“She was giving you flirty eyes. Those were definitely signals. I think you should ask her to the gala thing.”
“What is going on right now?” asked Rowan, looking at Mark.
“I think Teddy and Mark are trying to talk you into asking out the same girl,” said Doc.
Teddy looked at Mark in surprise and then held out his hand for a fist bump.
“But he can’t go to the gala with that girl,” said Doc.
“What? Why not?” demanded Mark, pausing mid-fist bump.
“Well, he already asked that pretty girl that he head-butted.”
“Oh, God,” said Rowan, face-palming himself.
“You head-butted a girl?” asked Mark, looking like Rowan had lost his mind.
“She dropped her paperwork, and we both bent over to pick them up.”
“I did offer them an ice pack,” said Doc anxiously. “But then Rowan asked if they were seeing each other at the gala, and she said yes. It was a definite, you know, agreement to be seen.” Doc looked like this topped his list of coolest things Rowan had ever done.
Rowan groaned.
“You can’t ask out random girls,” protested Teddy. “We like Vivian.”
“It was Vivian!” snapped Rowan. “And who is we? Did everyone take a poll?”
“Yes,” said Teddy. “And we like Vivian.”
“Well, if that was Vivian, then she said yes,” said Doc.
“Hoo-rah,” said Teddy. “Now, if you could stop yelling at her for about two seconds, you might have a shot.”
“I don’t yell!” yelled Rowan, then took a breath. “OK, well, thank you all for your opinions, but I will handle my own life. Can you get back to work now?”
“Is it safe to come in?” asked Forest poking his head into the office. “Or is Rowan going to yell about not yelling some more?”
Rowan glared at his dark-haired middle brother.
“Olly!” chorused Teddy, Mark, and Doc, holding out their hands for the toddler on Forest’s hip. Oliver took a plastic ring out of his mouth and chortled in delight at being greeted with that much enthusiasm.
“I’m chopped liver,” said Forest, looking at Rowan.
“That’s OK,” said Rowan. “Apparently, they all took a poll and decided who I should date.”
“Cool. Tell them to take a poll for me,” said Forest, handing Olly over to Mark.
“Here are all the things.” Forest set down what looked like an entire luggage set.
Rowan remembered their childhood and was pretty sure that Asher’s diaper bag had been an old gym bag that Rowan had found at the Goodwill.
He was bemused by Forest’s insistence on having designer everything.
Not that Forest didn’t look good, but it seemed like a lot.
“Are we invading Russia? I thought it was just for the afternoon?” asked Rowan, looking skeptically at the barrage of bags.
“I just want to make sure you’ve got everything,” said Forest.
“I’ve carried less on a three-day patrol,” said Mark, eyeing the pile.
“I just...” Forest hesitated, “like to anticipate the contingencies.”
Rowan translated that to mean that Forest had anxiety and control issues and seriously needed a vacation.
“Half the office are Marines, and what we can’t improvise, Doc can invent,” said Rowan reassuringly.
“And, of course, if shit gets seriously FUBAR’d,” said Mark, extracting Oliver from Forest’s arms, “Rowan will just buy whatever it is we need.”
“That is one-hundred percent accurate,” agreed Rowan.
“Unca Roan!!” yelled Olly, paddling his legs in the air and holding out his arms, much to Mark’s disappointment.
“Olly is going to be fine,” said Rowan, grinning and grabbing his nephew, who threw his arms around Rowan’s neck and hugged him tightly. Rowan hugged him back. A hug from a three-year-old was possibly one of the best things on earth.
“Yeah, of course,” said Forest, smiling at Rowan and Olly. “Of course.”
After Forest left, Rowan made the rounds of the office with Olly in tow, which was both hilarious and frightening as Rowan had never considered how many things Olly could get into.
It was common knowledge that if something needed breaking, all anyone needed to do was give it to a batch of eighteen-year-old recruits, but Rowan now thought that three-year-olds might be the new benchmark.
Olly, on the other hand, was living his best life.
Everyone he met was excited to see him, give him candy, and let him play with previously forbidden toys.
Then there were the bathroom breaks. Olly’s command of his bladder was not the best, and Rowan had to keep an eye out for the potty dance.
Then, it was an all-out race to the restroom, which Olly found hilarious.
By the time Rowan’s three o’clock meeting rolled around, he was more than happy to hand Olly off to Mark for an hour.
No wonder Forest looked exhausted all the time.
Rowan closed off his Zoom call with the promise to have a contract sent over and then went to find Mark and Olly.
He entered Mark’s office to see his nephew standing on top of the desk, hands on his hips, surveying the office triumphantly.
Rowan could see Mark heading back down the corridor, his iPad in one hand and a phone in the other.
“Olly-man, are you supposed to be up there?” asked Rowan.
“Yes,” lied Olly instantly.
“No,” said Mark, walking in. “I swear I walked out of the room for a second! How is he that fast?”
“I don’t know, but you’d better get used to it. You’ve got one coming your way.”
Mark looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers. “Yes, she is coming my way.”
“I thought you and Jenny agreed not to find out?” asked Rowan, amused.
“Yeah, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I called at lunch and asked the doc.”
Rowan chuckled as he picked up Olly. “That’s good. Jenny called this morning and then called me, freaking out, about how to not tell you.”
“What?” Mark looked annoyed.
“Well, she’s really bad at keeping secrets from you, but she thought you wanted to be surprised. So she didn’t know how to not tell you.”
Mark grinned. “Last time she bought me a birthday present, she got so excited that she blurted it out after an hour.”
“Uh-huh. I seem to recall a please don’t tell me if her ring arrived yet, because I’m dying to show her but it will ruin the surprise forty-eight-hour period where you called me like fifty-eight times to ask if the ring arrived.”
Mark laughed unrepentantly. “And you were such an asshole that you didn’t tell me!”
“You asked me not to! Also, your ring was making Melissa even more pissed off that I wasn’t proposing, so I was a little annoyed.”
Mark made a face. “Thank God you didn’t give in to her pressure. I mean… Mel was nice and all, but sheesh, that girl could never figure out that she didn’t outrank the United States Marine Corp. Can you imagine if you’d gotten stuck with her?”
He could imagine it. Melissa had been quite detailed. They would have had two kids, a dog, and he would have been on the advancement fast track because she didn’t drive domestics.
He wondered what Melissa would think about him now.
Her parting shot—that he was a lost cause who was happy being just another Marine—still rankled.
There was not one damn thing wrong with being just a Marine.
Being a Marine meant you were better than a whole fucking lot of the population.
Rowan had told her that he’d had plans for his own company when he got out, but that hadn’t meant anything to her.
And when he’d decided to pull out all of his retirement funds to help Forest start his business, she’d exploded in fury—screaming that he was throwing away her future on Forest. Rowan looked down at Olly in his arms and smiled.
That had been money well-spent. Forest’s company had been able to hit the ground running, and he had paid back every penny with plenty of interest.
“Yeah, well, this time I told Jenny to go ahead and tell you, so act surprised when you get home.”
“Nah, I’ll just call her now,” said Mark with a shrug.
Rowan took Olly back to his office, but he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder at Mark, who was now happily talking to his wife. Mark and Jenny were each other’s permanent hype team. They loved making each other happy. Rowan envied that, and his thoughts turned back to Vivian.
His moment with Vivian had been electric, but she was so much younger than him.
Should he be focusing on someone like her?
Someone who probably wasn’t looking for something serious?
If he wanted any shot at a family, maybe he needed to put his energy toward someone who was on the same page. The idea of that made Rowan depressed.
He looked down at Olly again.
“Olly-man, do you need cousins?”
“Yes!”
“Do you even know what cousins are?”
“No!”
“That’s right. Besides, we still have Uncle Ash. He’ll probably give you cousins.”
“Yay!”
Olly was the best yes man ever.
Rowan hugged his nephew and decided that not every second of his life had to be on plan. Besides, what was wrong with a fling? He’d been dreaming about this life for so long and Vivian made him feel like it was finally coming true.