Chapter 15
DREW
Iwoke up and didn’t move for several seconds.
I searched my memory, trying to decide if last night actually happened.
It had. My lips still felt the ghost of it.
My cock twitched at the memory of her lips around me.
I groaned and reached down to adjust the erection that got the wrong idea about the memory.
It had happened. Her hands in my hair. The sounds she made. The way she’d looked up at me with her eyes dark and her mouth slightly parted. I’d done that. I’d wanted to do that for longer than I was willing to admit to anyone, including myself.
The joy was real. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. It felt like relief, actually. Like I’d been holding my breath for a decade and hadn’t known it. We’d both wanted that. Maybe needed it. I also wanted a lot more than that. I just wasn’t sure if she was looking for more, too.
She’d left abruptly, saying she was tired. It had been a long day, so I could understand that. Lord knows, I had slept like the dead afterward, totally spent. But my fear was that she’d left because she regretted hooking up.
I ran a hand over my face. She was my best friend. The person I called when everything went sideways. I’d spent years watching myself blow up relationships with women, and it had never cost me anything I couldn’t afford to lose. This was different. This was Kensey. Losing her would be catastrophic.
I made myself get up. There was no point lying there, running the same loop.
I showered and stood under the hot water, contemplating my schedule for the day.
But dammit, every time I thought about a task that needed to be done, I thought about the sounds she’d made.
I turned the temperature down until the water was cold enough to be unpleasant and stood there until my thoughts were back in the PG range.
I dressed in slacks and a button-up but skipped the jacket and tie.
It was too fucking hot and I didn’t have any meetings I needed to impress anybody at.
I sipped my coffee, staring out at the view that had impressed her last night.
And then I thought about what Callum said the night before.
One of you is going to have to be brave at some point.
I had been brave with Kensey last night. Now I needed to find out if it had been a huge mistake.
By the time I pulled into the garage, I had more or less convinced myself that it was going to be fine.
We were adults. We were friends who knew each other better than most people knew themselves.
Whatever happened last night could be talked about or not talked about depending on what she needed.
I would follow her lead. I was good at reading her.
As soon as I read her expression, I would know which way the wind was blowing.
I kept one eye on the time as I sat in my office. She was usually in by nine. Nine came and went. I read the same paragraph in the report twice and still couldn’t have told you what it said. Nine fifteen. Nine thirty.
I got up and walked to the window overlooking the floor. I told myself I was checking on the morning crowd. There were a handful of browsers already. A couple in the bridal section. Edith was stationed near the bar talking to one of the associates.
No Kensey.
I went back to my desk, and finally, she texted me. Not going to make it in today. Exhausted after the late night. I think it caught up with me. Not feeling great. I’ll be in tomorrow for sure.
“Shit.”
She wasn’t sick. I knew her. She was thinking. She was doing the thing she did when she needed to process something. I’d watched her do it after difficult conversations when we were teenagers. After her first bad breakup. After she got the news about the New Jersey job.
Me: That’s fine. Rest up. Take care of yourself. The wrap-up is handled. Don’t worry about it.
I sat back in my chair and kicked my own ass. Why hadn’t I controlled myself? I knew who she was to me and I’d let the champagne and the dress and the dancing override every reasonable instinct I had. Bravery was dumb. Callum’s advice was dog shit.
The morning dragged. Every task I picked up, I set back down half finished.
The wrap-up report from the event sat open on my laptop with three lines typed into it.
Work was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to see Kensey.
She made working so much better. I thought about calling her.
I could say I was checking in, but it was also pretty clear she didn’t want to deal with me this morning.
The sharp click of Edith’s heels on the hardwood outside my office door were not enough warning. Two quick knocks, and then she was already pushing it open before I’d said a word. Classic Edith.
“The invoices from last night need your signature,” she said, approaching my desk with a folder. “The club sent over the final bill. It’s in line with what we budgeted, so no surprises there.”
I reached for the folder without looking up. “Fine.”
She didn’t move away from the desk. I signed the first invoice. Then the second.
“The post-event numbers are strong,” she said. “The editor from the magazine posted three photos this morning and tagged the store in all of them.”
“Good.” I signed the third invoice and pushed the folder back toward her.
She was watching me with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.
“What?” I said.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me.”
“You just signed off on a vendor invoice without reading it.”
“Are you saying I can’t trust you with what you put in front of me?” I asked, ready for a fight if she wanted one.
“You never trust the numbers without reading them.” She tilted her head. “The event went off without a hitch. You should be in here celebrating. Instead you look like you swallowed a lemon.”
I leaned back in my chair, surprised by her concern. “I’m fine, Edith. It’s some personal stuff. It doesn’t involve the store.”
“When your personal life bleeds over into how you’re operating, it does involve the store.” She wasn’t being rude, but it was more than I wanted to deal with. “You’re distracted. You’re short. So, it involved me too, quite frankly.”
“I appreciate the concern,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Genuinely. But I’ve got it handled.”
Edith gave me a look that said she didn’t entirely believe me but she was choosing not to press further. She picked up the folder, walked to the door, and left.
I texted Hollis and Micah to see if they were available to get a drink.
I didn’t want to go back home to the scene of the crime and stew about things.
Hollis picked the bar. It was a low-key place two blocks from his place in Santa Monica, with good bourbon, low lighting, and no one who was going to recognize us and want a photo.
I got there first and ordered. Micah arrived a few minutes later, with Hollis right behind, still in his workout clothes. He’d obviously been running.
“You look terrible,” Micah said, dropping into the chair across from me.
“Fuck you, too.” I nodded at Hollis. “Speaking of terrible, you could have showered first. You stink.”
“I’m sweaty but I don’t stink,” he said. “Clean living. You should try it. Now let’s get a drink.”
Micah laughed. “Clean living includes booze? I might have judged your heath obsession too harshly.”
“It’s not an obsession,” Hollis said. “I’m building a new wellness company. Sales are doing well and I’m looking to scale up soon.”
A round of drinks was delivered. I sipped my beer. Micah had a bourbon and Hollis had a vodka tonic.
“I think I’m ready to direct my own movie,” Micah said, looking into his bourbon.
“Tell Dad,” Hollis said. “He’d line something up for you.”
Our father, Max Blackwell, ran Blackwell Studios here in LA, a real powerhouse in the industry.
Despite that, most of us wanted nothing to do with show business.
Micah was the only one, and he had been doing art direction and set design for the past decade or so.
He had an eye for it, much like Cleo and our cousins had an eye for fashion.
“I’ve never worked for Blackwell Studios and I never will,” Micah said. “People already call me a nepo baby, which is not completely untrue. I don’t want to actually use Dad to pull strings for me. Anything I do, I want to work for it. Otherwise, why bother?”
Hollis and I nodded, no strangers to hard work ourselves.
“So how’d your thing go last night?” Hollis asked. “I would have gone, but I didn’t want to.”
I snorted a laugh. “Thank you for being honest at least. And it went great. The cousins showed up and people loved the new designs on the models. But there was one little wrinkle at the end of the night.” I turned my glass in my hands. “I crossed a line with Kensey last night.”
Neither of them said anything immediately. Micah’s brow furrowed. Hollis smirked.
“Define crossed a line,” Micah said carefully.
“We kissed. In the limo on the way back from the event.” I paused. “And then she came back to my place.”
“Where she came again?” Hollis asked, eyes twinkling with humor.
“Let’s just say things went further than they should have. Not all the way. But far enough.” I exhaled through my nose. “And then she left. This morning she texted me that she wasn’t coming in.”
“She’s avoiding you,” Micah said.
“No shit.”
Micah shook his head and sighed. “Sounds like you suck in bed, bro.”
“Or she’s processing everything,” Hollis said.
I nodded. “She said something like that.”
“Okay,” Micah said. “So you finally did the thing you’ve been not doing for the last decade. It’s about damn time.”
“We’re friends,” I said. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Nobody plans it. That’s kind of the whole point.” Micah leaned forward. “How do you feel about it?”
“Good,” I said. “Which is the problem. I feel good about it and I feel like I might have just detonated the most important friendship in my life, and both of those things are happening at the same time and they don’t cancel each other out.”
“She’s thinking,” Hollis said. “Just let her take a moment.”
“I’m not great at letting things sit,” I said. “Especially with her. When I have a problem, I talk to her.”
“Or us,” Micah said.
I gave him a look. “But I want to talk to her.”
“Here’s the thing,” Hollis said. “You’ve been telling yourself for years that you don’t go there with her because you’re afraid of what happens if it goes wrong. But the part you keep skipping over is what happens if it goes right.”
“I don’t have a great track record with going right.”
“You’ve never been with someone you actually give a damn about,” Hollis said. “That’s a different situation. You can’t compare it.”
I didn’t argue with that. He wasn’t wrong.
“She goes back to New Jersey at the end of the summer,” I said.
“Even if I wanted to try, she has a whole life out there. A job. An apartment. She didn’t come back here to start something.
She came back because her mom broke her arm and she missed her parents. ”
“People move,” Micah said. “It’s not like she lives on Mars.”
“She doesn’t want to move back here,” I said, shaking my head.
“She could change her mind.” Hollis punched me in the shoulder. “You could convince her.”
“I know Kensey,” I said. “This is going to ruin everything. I fucked up.”
“You’re lonely,” Micah said. “That’s why things got that far.”
“Right,” Hollis said. “I’ve got a friend. Gorgeous girl. Let me set you up. It’ll help get your mind off things.”
I shook my head and drank my beer. “I don’t want to go out on a date with someone else.”
“You haven’t gone out with anyone in a while,” Micah said. “It would give you clarity.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not going to run out and date someone else. What if Kensey does want something? I don’t want her to think last night was nothing.”
They both laughed.
“Then you need to talk to her,” Micah said.
“I know,” I sighed. “But I’m going to give her some space.”
“And she’s still your assistant?” Hollis asked.
“Yes, if she doesn’t quit.”
I wasn’t ready to lose her personally and professionally.