Chapter 16
KENSEY
Ipulled into the parking garage ten minutes early like the professional I was.
The travel mug was in my hand as I climbed out of Mom’s car.
She was allowing me to drive it since she rarely did.
I gripped my mug like a life preserver. The coffee inside was strong enough to strip paint.
I’d been drinking it since five thirty, which was when I’d finally given up on sleep entirely and gone downstairs.
I managed to find three whole pieces in Mom’s puzzle.
I would have loved nothing more than to stay home again today. I didn’t technically need the job. But I had given my word, and at the very least, I was a responsible adult.
Except for the part that had me sucking my best friend’s cock. That was very irresponsible. And now it was time to face the music. I didn’t get to drop off the face of the earth.
The plan was simple. I had rehearsed it for the better part of yesterday.
Act normal. Be breezy. Be the version of Kensey who showed up with muffins and made cross-eyed faces.
That Kensey who was his friend. Not the one who’d been on her knees between his legs.
That naughty girl was taking a seat and shutting up.
I walked to the elevator. Normal. Breezy. Professional.
The morning was already warm. Or maybe I was warm. The store was already humming. A few early associates were already stationed near the displays, adjusting and straightening to make sure everything was perfect.
I took the stairs up to the second floor.
I was secretly hoping he would be the one to call in sick today.
The fitting space from the other day had been restored to its usual configuration, the garment racks gone, the furniture back in place.
It looked like none of it had happened, which felt a little bit like a metaphor.
His office door was closed. I had no idea if he was in there, but I hoped he wasn’t. And that was wrong. I went to the small desk that had been set up for me near the window and settled in, opening my laptop and focusing on work. I pulled up the master spreadsheet.
Most of the event items were green. Done.
Completed. Crossed off. I started working through the remaining ones methodically.
Vendor thank-you acknowledgments. Final invoice cross-referencing.
A note to follow up with the magazine editor whose post had already generated significant traffic to the store’s website, according to the analytics Edith had forwarded this morning.
I worked through it, keeping my eyes on the screen.
And then his office door opened. I kept my eyes on my laptop screen, but I could feel him looking at me. I couldn’t ignore him. That would be immature.
I looked up and was not prepared for what it would do to me. He was in a white button-up with the sleeves already rolled up. No jacket. His hair was neat. The stubble was there. He was holding a coffee mug and a folder and he was looking directly at me.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hey,” I said back.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“Much better,” I said. “Sorry about yesterday. I think the late night just caught up with me.”
“No problem, completely fine.” He looked at the folder in his hand.
I looked at my laptop screen. The spreadsheet blurred slightly.
“If you have a minute, I need to go over a few things,” he said.
“Of course.”
We were being so professional it was almost painful. We sounded like two people who had just met at a very formal conference. I hated it.
He straightened and picked up his folder. “I’ve got a call with the New York office at ten. You don’t need to be on it, but I’ll loop you in on anything that affects the stuff y ou’re helping me with.”
“That works.”
“Okay.” He tapped the folder against his palm once. “Good work on all of this, Kensey. Seriously.”
“Thank you.”
He went back to his office. The door didn’t close all the way this time. I exhaled slowly. Normal, I reminded myself. Breezy.
I worked through the morning with my head down. It gave me something to focus on that wasn’t him and the mistake we made. Was it a mistake? That’s the part I couldn’t figure out. I didn’t know if it was a mistake or if it was the start of something new.
By eleven I had cleared most of the green and yellow items and was into the orange ones, which were the medium-priority tasks that needed attention in the next week. There were things for the next event to get moving on.
Around eleven thirty I went downstairs to get a refill of coffee from the bar. I took my coffee back upstairs and found him leaning against the railing that overlooked the floor, phone pressed to his ear, laughing at something the person on the other end had said. He looked up. Our eyes locked.
He ended the call and straightened off the railing. “Do you have a minute?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Not out here.” He nodded toward his office. “Come on.”
I followed him in. He closed the door behind us.
He didn’t go around to his side of the desk.
He leaned against the front of it, arms loosely crossed, and looked at me.
I stayed near the couch because it put the most distance between us without being obvious about it.
And I could not allow myself to get any closer.
“We should talk about the other night,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I don’t want things to be weird between us.” He was putting on a very casual air, but he forgot I knew him too well. I could see right through the bullshit just like he could see through mine. “They already are, a little. I can feel it. You can feel it. And I hate that.”
“I hate it too,” I said honestly.
“You’re too important to me, Kensey. You know that.”
“I know.” I offered him a small smile. “You’re too important to me too.”
He nodded slowly, looking down at the floor for a moment before looking back up. “So. Champagne. Romantic setting. Fancy clothes.”
“Recipe for chaos,” I said.
“It was a crazy night. Things got away from us. Maybe because of the prom stuff.”
“Maybe.” I was saying all the right things. The sensible things. I was being mature and reasonable and completely full of shit, but I kept going. “It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.”
“Exactly.” He seemed to relax slightly. “It was one night. We got caught up in it. That’s allowed.”
“It happens,” I said.
“And we’re better as friends,” he added. “We both know that. We’ve always known that.”
“We have.” I nodded. “And I go back to New Jersey at the end of the summer.” I shrugged.
“Right,” he said with a nod. “So we’re good?”
“We’re good,” I said.
We were completely lying to each other with the best of intentions. I believed none of it. I still wanted him so badly I could feel it in my bones. But I didn’t let it show. I stood there nodding along like we’d just agreed on a lunch order.
“Good,” he said again and straightened off the desk. He seemed almost relieved, which I wasn’t going to take personally. “I’m glad we talked about it.”
“Me too.”
He walked around to his side of the desk. “Random thing but Hollis has this friend. A woman. He’s been nudging me about it for a while. Going on a date, you know. Getting out there a bit.” He glanced up at me. “He brought it up again yesterday.”
The little green monster wrapped around my insides. Cold and greasy and very uncomfortable. I pushed away the feeling.
“That sounds fun,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice normal, but even I heard it pitch up a bit.
He looked at me. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely.” I smiled the smile of a perfectly unbothered person. “You should do it. You’ve been buried in work for months. It would be good for you.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t say no on my account,” I said. “I mean that. Seriously.”
He looked at me for a second longer, like he was trying to read something in my face that I was working very hard not to let him see.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Maybe I will.”
“Great.” I gave the doorframe a light pat. “I’ll be at my desk.”
I walked back to my desk, sat down, and stared at my laptop screen. I had no idea what any of it said.
It was fine. It was completely fine. He was a single man and I was a woman going back to New Jersey at the end of the summer.
We had just very maturely agreed that the other night was a mistake and nothing more.
A mistake we wouldn’t make again. It would have been insane for me to sit here and feel the way I was currently feeling about the idea of him taking someone else to dinner.
I still wanted him. I’d wanted him for the better part of a decade and two weeks of working beside him and one night on a Malibu patio had not done anything to fix that.
If anything it had made it significantly worse, because now I knew exactly what his hands felt like.
I knew how he kissed and the sound he made when he lost control.
How in the hell was I was supposed to sit ten feet from his office door and listen to him make plans with another woman?
It was exactly why we never should have crossed the line. I couldn’t be the friend he needed me to be. I couldn’t listen to him tell me about his dates like I used to. He would tell me the good and bad. The dinners they ate and movies they watched.
All I was going to be able to think about was his hands on another woman. His mouth on hers. I shrugged it off. Dwelling on it was not going to help anything.
I clicked on the first cell and typed nothing.
I should just tell him how I felt. I needed to tell him and then he wouldn’t go out with another woman. But I had to see the big picture. When I left, he would be alone. I didn’t want him alone and miserable in his Malibu beach house. That wasn’t fair.
He was my friend and I loved him. Totally platonic. And that meant I had to want what was best for him.
And it wasn’t me.