Chapter One #3
So much of my friendship with Olivia happened right here in this building, it was hard to imagine her not being here.
I’d often sit at the bar and eat dinner while she worked before going upstairs alone or heading out for the night.
Once a week or so I’d go home with her after her shift and we’d share pizza and wine, watching a movie while Kaylee slept in the next room.
I knew my moving out would reduce our frequency of connection, but I’d also known I could come here for dinner whenever I wanted to see her and just go back to my condo across town when I was done.
That wouldn’t be an option anymore if she left.
The fear of seeing her less made my stomach twist into knots.
“My assistant quit,” I said, staring at her and waiting for a reaction.
It wasn’t a lie. I seemed to have a revolving door of assistants at Acker Real Estate.
I’d been the Vice President of Sustainable Housing and Equitability for four years and in that time I’d had five assistants.
I’d yet to figure out what the problem was, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t me—or at least not all me.
Is this a ludicrous idea? Yes. But please let it work.
Olivia tilted her head to the side, a curious expression on her face as she shifted Kaylee onto her other hip. “I’m sorry, Jace. I imagine that’s going to make your life difficult for a while.”
I shook my head, feeling overwhelmed with the ease of this solution. “Work for me.”
“What?” she asked with a laugh. “I can’t work for you.”
Kaylee started poking at her mom’s cheeks and neck, getting impatient to leave.
“Yes, you can,” I said, looking between the two people I needed most in my life. They made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Yes, I had a great family with my moms, my aunt and uncle, and my cousin and his wife. But at the end of the day, they each had someone to go home to, and I came here—to Liv.
“Look, it can be temporary,” I said, hoping to ease her into the idea. “Just while you look for what you really want. You’ll be able to have a job during school hours right away and I’ll have an assistant who I actually like.”
“Mommy, I want to go home,” Kaylee whined.
Olivia scoffed. “You hate all your assistants, Jace. I’ll lose my closest friend the first time I screw up your schedule. Or when I realize you’re actually a complete bull to work for and that’s why you need a new assistant every six months.”
I laughed nervously and ran a hand through my thick curls, feeling Kaylee’s impatience and my own desperation working against me. “I’m not that bad to work for and I could never hate you.”
Olivia searched my face like she was considering the offer.
Kaylee started bouncing up and down in her arms. “Mommy,” she whined again.
“One more minute, honey,” Olivia said.
“Just think about it, okay?” I said. “I know you need to get her home but take the weekend. I’ll even have someone send you an official offer letter tomorrow so you can review the pay and benefits first. They’re good, Liv. Really good.”
Adrian took good care of all his employees, but his wife, Sutton, had inherited Acker Real Estate from her father four years ago and it was a multi-billion-dollar company.
She’d split her shares with me and Leo, and the three of us had made sure the compensation and benefits structure was top-tier.
Olivia wouldn’t find benefits like ours just about anywhere else.
“Making people send things to you over the weekend is probably why your assistants keep quitting,” Olivia said with a knowing look.
I chuckled. “I never make my assistants work weekends or as late as I work, for that matter. This will take someone in HR less than an hour and weekends are paid at double-time—because we have good benefits,” I said with a cheeky smile. “Besides, that’s how much I want you to consider this.”
“I’ll think about it. I promise,” she said as she set Kaylee down on the ground. “Thank you.”
Kaylee grabbed her hand and started pulling her mother toward the back door.
Olivia followed her and turned back to look over her shoulder. “Have a good night, Jace. I’ll try not to envy your wild night out while I’m in my pajamas on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in an hour.”
I laughed and bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from admitting that spending time with her sounded way better than any experience I was about to have looking for someone at the bar to warm my bed for a few hours.
“Night, Liv.” I watched her walk down the hallway and out the back door into the small parking lot until I couldn’t see her anymore.
“Someday, you should really follow her out that door, Jace,” Jackson said, startling me. He always seemed to sneak up on me when I least expected it. Mom and Adrian had grown up with him and they insisted he’d always been like that; quiet, reflective, and way too observant for his own good.
“It’s better this way,” I said, turning around to face him.
“No, it’s not, man,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Have a good night.”
He went back into the kitchen, and I walked through the bar and out the front door.
There were always people looking for a one-night stand or a short fling at Fusion, both of which would help me to ignore the fact that I was pining over the single mom in my life.
The friend who did not need me making her life any more complicated than it already was.