Chapter 2
ADAM
Sitting forward at my desk, I dragged my hand across my jaw.
I had an hour till our flight and about thirty emails to send but despite staring at all the words on my screen, I wasn’t actually seeing a single one, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the bullshit that had been bothering me all week or the bullshit that was bothering me right now.
“I mean come on, man.”
My eyes flicked up to the bullshit of the moment, Josh MacMillan—or as he liked to call himself, J-Mac.
He was an entertainment lawyer who consulted at Engelman, generally on endorsement deals, and one of the guys I played basketball with on the weekends.
He was also annoying as all hell, even when he wasn’t doing what he was doing today, which was hanging out uninvited in my office while staring out the door at AJ, who was talking to one of the other assistants down the hall.
“It’s wild. Five years she’s worked here and only now does she decide to start putting an effort into looking hot.”
“I think she specifically avoided ‘making an effort’ to avoid the creepy shit you’re doing right now.”
Josh laughed. “I’m not being creepy. I’m just being a guy with a working dick and eyes,” he said, waving down the hall at presumably AJ, no doubt because she’d caught him staring like an idiot.
“I mean she’s one of the only chicks in the office, and probably the only one who’s actually hot underneath it all.
No way you’ve never thought about hitting that before. ”
“I haven’t,” I said as I finished up one of the thirty emails. “I’m also not engaging in this conversation with you.”
“Good. ‘Cause I don’t actually have anything to talk to you about. I only came in here to get a better view of Adrienne ‘I Was Secretly Hot This Whole Time’ Tan,” Josh said, chuckling at his own dumb joke right before cursing under his breath. “Goddamn, bro. You seeing this shit?”
I heaved a sigh as I glanced up, looking past Josh and at AJ, who was over by The Pit. She was smiling big, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she leaned over Liza’s desk, discussing something on Liza’s computer.
And as she did that, I took the time to fully process her look today.
I did this often enough, and pretty easily considering I saw her way more than any of these other clowns at work.
I’d seen her at home in her pajamas before.
Noticed the way her body looked in a fitted cotton tee.
On pure instinct, my dick had definitely twitched that time I saw her at the hotel gym in Chicago.
All I remembered was a grey hoodie that cut off above the waist of her black yoga pants, and thighs so toned I’d been compelled to look for longer than a second as we walked past each other. “Gross,” AJ remarked, to which I’d snorted, and then we kept it moving.
Because that was generally what I did with her in these situations: Assess the difference. Catalogue it in my head. Carry on with my life.
But today was different.
Today, it wasn’t quite as easy to move on from looking at her, because I knew she looked the way she did specifically for Caspar, and while I had always known his weak ass didn’t deserve her, I was pretty sure I had the hard evidence now after seeing him outside a cafe on La Brea three days ago.
When he was supposed to be location scouting in Sydney.
As in Australia.
The lie itself would’ve been bad enough, especially since AJ had been waking up at a quarter to five all week just so she could call him before bed, but his shittiness didn’t actually stop there, because I hadn’t just seen him in LA.
I’d seen him with his hands stuffed into some girl’s back pockets.
And his mouth buried in her neck.
Christ.
The memory of the image made me grimace and curl my lip at my desk, because I’d already disliked this guy before all this—for always forcing AJ to tend to his needy ass, and for making her step outside to call him every twenty minutes when she was with me at work parties.
It didn’t help his case that he started every sentence he goddamned spoke with “as a filmmaker.”
But now I had a much realer reason to hate the little shit, and I was struggling hard with the decision not to tell AJ about what I saw.
So as Josh went on about some bullshit, I grabbed my phone off my desk and shot a quick text.
ME: You’re sure I shouldn’t tell her?
I attempted in vain to read an email as I waited for the reply, which took about twenty seconds.
HOLLAND: Yes. She literally spent her entire week getting ready to surprise him and you’re only 70% sure the guy you saw was Caspar.
I grimaced, rubbing the back of my neck as I read my little sister’s text.
Admittedly, with his stupid face buried so deep in other-woman neck and my car going sixty miles an hour, I hadn’t been able to confirm with total certainty that the blond douchebag with the man bun was in fact Caspar.
But he was about five-ten with a slight build and a T-shirt with Quentin Tarantino’s stupid face on it, so all signs seemed to be pointing in the cheater’s direction.
ME: Fine. But for the record it’s more like 76%
HOLLAND: Weirdly specific but my point stands. Don’t tell her.
My brow furrowed at her insistence, but just as I went to text my number two for his opinion, she texted again.
HOLLAND: Save it pal. Iain agrees with me.
“Alright, damn,” I said under my breath, laughing because eight months later, I was still getting used to the fact that my kid sister and best friend were an item.
I was also getting used to the fact that Holland, despite being ten years my junior, was a whole lot wiser a lot of the time.
HOLLAND: I know it sucks because you tell AJ everything but if it helps, I don’t think it was Caspar you saw. He might be annoying but he’s always been loyal.
HOLLAND: And to be totally fair, you’ve hated the guy since day one. Don’t you think there’s a chance your bias might’ve influenced what you saw that day?
I frowned hard as I read the latest text, but as I started typing a rebuttal, I stopped myself.
Because I didn’t actually have a defense.
I did hate Caspar. He constantly wasted AJ’s time and thus mine and I certainly wouldn’t complain if I didn’t have to hear his name again.
But at the same time, I didn’t want this to be AJ’s reality.
And as much as I hated having to defend Caspar—even if it was only in my own head—the fact was that I much preferred to hate the guy than have to kill him, or to see AJ made a fool.
So I went with the only move I had left, which was to assure myself that everything was probably fine.
“Hey, so now that you’ll be in town, you gonna be at the party tomorrow?” Josh asked, referring to the Engelman Foundation Fundraiser, which was held every year at a luxury resort in Palm Beach.
I blinked out of my thoughts but didn’t look at him. “Yeah,” I said, returning to my work.
“Is AJ going?” he asked, making me snort.
“No, she’ll be with her fiancé.”
“Ah, right. Forgot about him,” Josh said distractedly, staring down the hall for another few seconds before adding, “Man, fuck that guy.” To which I smirked.
At least there was one thing we could agree on.