Chapter 15 #2
Well, damn. What did I want it to be? The way V and I were going right now, though fun, wasn’t sustainable, especially if he had no real intention of ever revealing himself to me.
And for all I knew about him, he could have another woman on the side or, hell, a whole ass family, which was far less likely, but I’d seen enough episodes of 48 Hours to know that it wasn’t entirely impossible.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “When we met, all I wanted was a quick lay, but now, I may be ready for something a little more than that. I never thought I’d say that again, honestly.”
“You want that with the guy you’re with now?” Loche studied me as though he was deep in thought, awaiting my answer to his question.
“I guess, I don’t know the answer to that. It seems like he would be everything I was looking for, but there is so much about him I don’t know.” Like what the fuck he looks like.
“Maybe he has a good reason to be secretive.”
“You men all stick up for each other.”
“All I’m saying is sometimes secrets are necessary.”
“What secrets are you keeping, Loche?”
A shadow fell over his face as we locked eyes, holding each other’s gaze until he broke our trance. “I’m not quite sure you’re ready to hear mine yet.”
“Figures.” I walked past him, my body brushing against his as I squeezed past him through the doorway, sending a tingle through my body. Calm down, ovaries. I get that ovulation is a bitch, but my coworker isn’t an option.
“Ever,” Loche called after me, his voice almost as stimulating to my senses as his touch.
“What is it, Loche?” I turned around in the hallway to face him.
“I’m going to grab something to eat. Why don’t you come with me? There’s this pub across the street that’s pretty decent.”
Was Loche Greene asking me out? “Uh, yeah. I know. I’ve worked here a little over a year, remember? I’ve been to the pub before.”
“Yeah, of course you have.” He paused, his face flushing in the terrible office lighting. “So, let’s go.”
“I, uh, I don’t know. I have a lot to get done yet tonight.”
“So do I. But you know what? There’s a little something called tomorrow. You’re going to work yourself into the ground if you keep this up. Besides, you need to eat. Even you can’t argue with that.”
“That’s not true. I’m quite adept at arguing about just about anything.”
“I’ve noticed. Look, this is me trying, Ever.” His brown eyes softened when they met mine. “Think of it this way, we can bill our meal to the firm, since I could categorize it as trial prep.”
“Free food, you say?”
“Not only free, but also at Conrad’s expense.”
It was appealing, but if I was going to leave now, I was going home, not out with my coworker who had been growing ever more annoyingly attractive since I quit thinking of him as Satan.
Not to mention there was a package waiting for me at my front door, and I had just as much willpower as V thought I had—which was none at all.
“Nothing personal, but if we’re closing up shop, I’m going home. How about a raincheck?”
Loche nodded. If he was disappointed, he was hiding it. “Boyfriend waiting for you?”
“Why? Are you jealous?” I countered, intending to turn the tables on him and leave the office with a triumphant fist pump in the air like Judd Nelson in Breakfast Club, having gotten in the last word for once. But as always, Loche seemed to be one step ahead of me.
“Yes, actually.” Even he looked taken aback by his response. I anticipated him rescinding it or spinning it into some sort of joke that would land him in Sylvia’s office if she were here. “Yes, Ever, I am. I’m astronomically jealous of anyone who gets to spend time with you.”
“Are you fucking with me right now?”
“What? No. Why—why would you think that?”
I shook my head, struggling to find an answer for him, coming up short instead.
“You know what, I’m not doing this with you tonight.
” If he was trying to get inside my head to fuck with me, he was doing a bang-up job, which I took as my cue to go home.
Ignoring his protests, I turned on my heels and strode with purpose down the hall, stopping at our shared office just long enough to grab my tote bag and jacket before heading to the elevator.
My heels echoed in the empty lobby as I walked past Shelby’s desk, smacking the elevator call button as though it were Loche’s face.
In all our banter, I hadn’t pegged him as being cruel. A dick, sure. He had that mastered.
The elevator door slid open, and I walked in. My hand had just reached out for the button to choose the floor when Loche forced his way inside, stopping the door from closing with his forearm. The steel door slid back open, allowing him to step inside the car with me.
“Seriously? What is your problem?” I asked, slapping the button for the ground floor.
The doors closed, trapping us inside the cramped box together as the elevator began to descend, prompting Loche to hit the emergency stop button.
A sharp jolt forced me to grab hold of the railing while an alarm sounded inside the car.
My eyes drifted up to Loche’s face, catching another glimpse of the discoloration I’d noticed earlier.
He’d tried to conceal it, but a hint of purple and green had bled through the makeup, indicative of a bruise.
“Ever, whatever I said back there to upset you, I’m sorry. I went too far, apparently, and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Where did you get that bruise on your face?” I asked, ignoring his apology.
Loche put a hand up to his cheek. “I drank a little too much over the weekend and smacked my face on my nightstand as I was getting into bed.”
“You’ve come to work with a lot of bruises. Are you that much of an alcoholic or are you engaging in…other activities?”
“I have an iron deficiency. It causes easy bruising.”
“All the more reason for you not to be drinking.”
“I can’t argue with you there.”
His answers were quick and measured, his eye contact unbroken as he spoke.
A sign he was telling the truth. But I couldn’t quite stop myself from thinking his answers were a little too perfect, as though he’d stored his responses away in a mental filing cabinet, ready to pull out when he needed an out.
“What do you want from me, Loche?”
He rested his hand on the railing next to mine, leaning in as he answered me. “I just want you to realize I’m not the villain in your story.”
“Locking me with you in an elevator against my will to get me to talk to you is a pretty funny way of showing that.”
“But it’s effective, right?” He chuckled. “I should have done this sooner.” His smile faded, erased by the scowl I saw reflected on my face in the polished surface of the elevator wall. “Or not.”
“It’s one thing to trade barbs with each other, but it’s a whole other thing to be vicious about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Heat flooded my face in a kind of embarrassment I hadn’t felt since high school when Tim Connor, my longtime crush, read a love note I’d written to him to the entire class.
I had felt small then, and I felt even smaller now, airing my insecurities to a man who could be on the cover of GQ.
“You can’t seriously not know what I’m referring to. ”
His eyes searched mine, ending with a shrug of his shoulders when he didn’t find anything. “I don’t.”
“You aren’t jealous of anyone being with me? Come on, Loche. There’s going low and then there’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pretending you have some sort of feelings for me for a laugh is just dick behavior.”
His eyes remained focused on my face, reflecting what I could only interpret as pity. Great. The last thing I wanted was Loche Greene to pity me. Pity from people was a chapter I thought I’d closed a long time ago with a strategically placed dick drawn on Tim’s yearbook photo.
“I’m not pretending.”
My pulse quickened so unexpectedly, I had to tighten my grasp on the railing even harder to keep myself upright. Had I heard that correctly? “What did you just say?”
He took a step closer to me, leaning in.
“I said that I’m jealous of anyone who gets to spend any amount of time getting close to you.
I said that guy you’ve been seeing is the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.
And I said that you, Ever Moore, have the fullest, most kissable lips I’ve seen in my lifetime. ”
The Hoover Dam couldn’t hold back the gasp that fell from those same kissable lips that would now be the focal point of my morning beauty routine for the rest of my life. What in the fresh hell was this? I had V. Well, sort of. Honestly, I wasn’t so sure I really had V. But Loche Greene?
I hesitated, staring into his eyes, wondering whether the thoughts that were going through my head would qualify as cheating and whether it was even possible to cheat on a man whose real name you didn’t know or whose face you’d never seen.
“Loche.” It was hardly audible, but in my shocked state, I was able to say his name.
“Ever.” A rasp had taken hold of his vocal cords, which in turn was doing interesting things to my lady parts.
“There’s a camera in here.” I nodded at the circular lens that was filming us like a voyeur.
“Let them watch.”
Fuck. Me.
Quite literally, actually. What kind of alternate reality had we fallen into where I was ready to hike up my skirt and let my coworker rail me in view of lord only knew who was watching us? God, what if it was Sylvia?
Oh, maybe it’ll be Sylvia.
No, Ever. Giving Sylvia a stroke is not something we want to do.
Speak for yourself.
Loche leaned in, his lips hovering just inches from mine as visions of V flashed through my mind like some disembodied cock block.
Goddamnit.
I reached for the emergency call button, hit it and then pressed the button for the floor to get the elevator moving again. “I’ve never been one to be able to perform for an audience.”
Loche smirked. “Never say never.”