Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Shaye
“So, how did it go? Tell me everything.”
I laugh at Lisbeth’s gusto. “What? No hello?”
She groans through the telephone. “Hi, Shaye. How are you? How’s the weather? How’s your mother—no, don’t answer that one.”
I laugh again. “Today went …” Well? Swimmingly? “Great.”
“Mm-hmm. If you think you’re getting off that easily, you do not know me, friend.”
Steam from my pasta carbonara rises in front of me, distracting me from Lisbeth’s demands.
“Shaye!”
“Sorry,” I say, pulling my face away from the plate. “I made dinner.”
She gasps.
“I know, I know. I just felt like celebrating.” The smile that has been painted on my face all evening stretches even farther across my cheeks. “It went so well, Lis.”
My friend cheers. The sound is so loud, so shrill, that I jerk the phone away from my ear.
“That makes me so happy!” She cheers again—more softly this time. “Tell me all about it. What did you decide to wear? More importantly, what did he wear? Did you have a bunch of one-on-one meetings with the door closed?”
I twirl pasta around my fork and try to gather my composure. The last thing I want is for this conversation to turn into something that today was not—namely, a love story waiting to happen.
“I wore black pants and that cream-colored blouse that I wore to dinner with you when your parents were in town,” I say.
“Great choice. Great choice.”
It’s a good thing Lisbeth can’t see me. Otherwise, she’d be hyping herself up over my grin that just turned stupid.
My fork spins around and around as my brain focuses on Oliver standing in my doorway today. The way the denim hugged his thighs. The bright white T-shirt that gave his gray blazer an air of approachability.
How his smile seeped into my skin and warmed me from the inside out.
“And …?” Lisbeth prompts, pulling me out of my daydream.
“And Oliver looked awesome,” I say before filling my mouth with pasta.
“No one uses that word anymore, for starters. Secondly, I know you. I know your vocabulary. Dig deeper, Shayester. Describe him to me.”
I snort, wiping my mouth off with a napkin.
“I hope you didn’t do that,” she says, stifling a chuckle.
Quickly, I take a sip of water. “No. I didn’t make that ungodly sound at work today.”
“That’s good.”
I roll my eyes.
“You had a good day then?” she asks. “I’m being serious. It went well?”
I sit back in my chair and feel a semblance of peace drift through my body. Even with my ability to pick apart any given situation—even if it happened twenty years ago—and still find something to either be embarrassed about or worry over, I still feel good about today.
“Yeah,” I say, blowing out a breath. “It did. I was super nervous this morning, but once I got there, it felt … natural.”
My gaze drops to a stack of folders I brought home with me.
The idea of sorting through them, getting them organized, making notes of all the things that need to be done—the things that should’ve been done and are overdue—fills me with excitement.
I pondered that while I made dinner. I certainly never felt this way when working for Monroe Companies.
Sure, my position there wasn’t that much different from what I’m doing now, and Mr. Monroe always treated me so respectfully, but I was never this motivated to do the work.
I get up from my seat. “It’s really weird.
I walk in, and everyone is so nice to me.
They all made me feel so welcome. Toni, the woman I interviewed with, had everything ready to go first thing this morning with a smile on her face.
Kelly, she works on my floor, told me about her first day to help me relax.
And every one of the Mason brothers were just …
” My cheeks ache from grinning. “They’re so different, yet so much the same. ”
“Ooh. Brothers? Tell me more.”
I laugh. “Holt is the co-CEO, along with Oliver. He seems like he keeps them all in line. And Boone is a riot. I like him already. Then there’s Wade. He seems annoyed with the rest of them. Think … stupidly hot, glasses-wearing architect.”
“I think—hook me up, please?”
I laugh again.
“I don’t want to go to this wedding, Shaye.” She groans at the new topic. “I’ve been trying to talk myself into packing or at least making a list of what I need to take, and I just can’t.”
“So don’t go. Your situation has changed since you RSVP’d. No one will be upset with you if you sit this one out.”
“Ha. Then you don’t know Lydia.”
“I know that if she’s your friend, she won’t want to torture you.”
“Let’s just say that there’s a reason you are my best friend and she is not. Besides, I already gave you all of my food,” she jokes.
I pace around my table, side-eyeing the stack of folders next to my carbonara. My fingers itch to dig through the reports and papers. To be useful. To be helpful.
To impress.
A burst of energy courses through me as I recall the look on the Mason faces earlier today when I rattled off all of their schedules. That felt great—like I was valuable. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.
“Want to come over and eat some of your food?” I ask her, trying to tease her into compliance.
“I made carbonara. We can eat, and you can grill me about work, and I can tell you just how awesome you are and how every guy at that wedding will be trying to get your number. Oh! Come over, and we can plot out every outfit for the events at the stupid wedding. You’ll have everyone looking at Tommy with pity. ”
She hums as though she’s considering it.
“Sounds like fun, right?” I take a bite of the pasta, slurping the end of the noodles up for effect. “This is delish, if I do say so myself.”
“I do love me some carbs …”
“I know.”
She sighs. “I want to come over, and I should, probably. But I know you have other things to do besides coddle me.”
“I coddle no one.”
“Sure.”
It’s my turn to sigh. “Just come over, Lis.”
“No. I won’t. You have an entire day of badassery you need to revel in. And I know you, and you’ll want to prep for tomorrow—”
“Not true,” I interject as my gaze lands on the files again.
“It is true. You can’t lie to me. I’m your best friend.”
I rest an elbow on the table and smile. “That you are.”
“And that’s why I’m going to keep my butt at home and wallow in self-pity. You deserve to bask in your greatness today. I couldn’t live with myself if I dimmed your sparkle.”
I brush a strand of hair out of my face and then motion toward a pretend aura of glitter floating around me. “I am sparkling today.”
Lisbeth laughs. “Girl, I know it. I’m so proud of you.”
I’m so proud of you.
I lower my hand to the table slowly.
No one has ever really said that to me. Maybe my mother when I was a tiny girl over something small—I don’t know. I can’t say I recall Luca ever being especially excited about anything I ever did. My father, whomever he was, wasn’t even proud enough to stick around for my birth.
Lisbeth’s words roll around my head and then over my heart.
It’s not the first time she’s used those words.
She’s been proud of me a few times over our friendship.
She uttered that phrase when I told Luca I wasn’t ready for children.
She said it again when I filed for divorce.
I’m sure she said it when I didn’t curl up in a ball and disintegrate into the carpeting when Luca died, and then my mother basically disowned me.
But this is the first time she’s said it—anyone has said it—over something … happy.
There’s a decided difference.
Sometimes making a huge decision can feel like moving mountains. But making a choice to be happy is altogether harder.
And that’s what taking this job was—a choice to be happy. Or, at least, to put myself on the path to find happiness.
“Okay,” Lisbeth says. “I’m going to get off here and convince myself to do something productive.”
“If you need help picking out clothes, FaceTime me.”
She laughs. “I will. But I’m probably going to turn Game of Thrones on for the hundredth time and wish that Jon Snow was my lover.”
“Sounds like a good use of your time to me.”
“Me too.” She pauses, and I know she’s grinning.
“Call me if you need me. Or if you think of any details you forgot to mention or decide you want to give me about your day. I don’t wanna pry, but I got very little information on Oliver, so I will expect you to rectify that as soon as you’re comfortable …
meaning that you have a week to cough up the goods. ”
“There are no goods!” I laugh. “Keep living in your little fictional world, darling.”
“I fully intend on doing just that!” She laughs along with me. “Talk later.”
“Bye.”
“Goodbye, Shaye.”
I end the call and set my phone next to my plate.
I take a deep breath and let it out in a steady stream. The act is soothing, dropping me back in reality with a soft landing. Shoving my plate aside, I pull the stack of folders in front of me and open the first one. Jewell is written on the cover sheet.
The file is thick. Oliver’s notes are scribbled on half-sheets of paper, along the borders of others, and on sticky notes that have fallen off their original locations. I take a bite of my dinner and flip through the pages.
It’s fascinating. There are reports on everything from the soil composition to solar panels production to man-hours required for moving dirt. I flip through each report, every purchase order, sketch by sketch, awed at what this company does.
At what Oliver does.
Each piece of paper has his signature on it, a note somewhere, and a contact name or the price of materials.
The care that he’s taken on every single element of this project is inspiring.
The CEOs I’ve known in the past have mostly written off this low-level grunt work and passed it along to others.
It’s inspiring to see someone pay such time and attention to detail like this. Admirable.
My phone buzzes beside me, and I pick it up without looking at it. “Hello?”
“Hello, Shaye.”
The voice is not Lisbeth’s like I predicted. It’s low and thick and confident. Sexy.
I sit up straight.
“I hope I didn’t disturb you,” Oliver says.
“Me?” I pass a swallow down my throat. “No. Not at all. Is everything all right?”
My brain switches to panic mode, and I sort through my day, trying to figure out what I might’ve forgotten or might’ve said that would justify a call at home after hours.
Shit.
“Yes, everything is fine,” he says. “How did your first day go?”
“It was great. Fine. Thanks.” I pull my brows together. Surely, he’s not calling me to ask about my day. “How was yours?”
It’s a dumb question, but I can’t take it back. I cringe instead.
“Mine was good. Thanks for asking,” he says, his voice kissed with a smile. “I peeked around your desk this evening. I love how organized you are.”
“Thanks,” I say, biting my lip to keep my cheeks from splitting.
“I, however, am not quite as organized. I can’t seem to locate a file called Jewell. Do you happen to know where it might be?”
My face heats as I spring to my feet. My eyes are glued on the folder in front of me.
“I do, actually,” I say, gulping back a wave of trepidation.
“I brought it home with me. And now, on second thought, that might not have been a good idea. I just wanted to get to know things a little better, and I didn’t think it would be a big deal.
Most things are on the computer these days anyway—wait!
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with not accessing them via an online portal because—”
“Shaye?”
I suck in a hasty breath. “Yeah?”
“Relax.” He chuckles. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure? Because I feel like a twit.”
I stare out the window. The moon hangs high in the sky, a sliver of silver amongst the stars. It would be a beautiful moment if I wasn’t ready to puke.
The squeal of his chair breaks the silence.
“There will be no feeling like a … twit? Is that what you said?” he asks.
“Yes. A twit.”
“I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds awful.”
The corner of my lip curls up. “It is.”
“Well, none of that,” he says. “I’m actually impressed you took files home.”
The heat begins to drain from my face. My stomach relaxes a little.
“I find all of this fascinating,” I admit. “Monroe Companies does a fraction of what Mason Limited does. They are one little piece, and you are the whole puzzle.”
“That’s been said.”
I can hear the smile in his voice. I blush in response.
“Do you need the file?” I ask. “I can bring it to you. I don’t live far from the office.”
My words hang in the air. My insides twist at the offer, and I’m not sure if I want him to take it or not. Would I love to see him? Yes. But also … no.
It’s a conundrum.
I glance down at my yoga pants and What The Fucculent shirt.
“Could you? I hate to even ask you to do that.” He groans. “Maybe you could just screenshot a few things and—”
“I can bring them to you. It’s not a big deal. Honest.”
He pauses. “I can come pick them up.”
“No. Let me bring them to you. I have nothing going on.”
“You’re positive?”
“One hundred percent.” I nibble on my bottom lip as I glance at my pasta. “But … I’m in leisure clothes.”
“Oh?”
I still at the tone of his voice. Suddenly, my heartbeat is all I can hear. “I’m just saying that I’m not in work attire, and I’m not changing. So I can bring you this file, but I’m in yoga pants.”
His chair screeches again. “I don’t think that’s a problem at all.”
I gulp. “Good.”
“Good.”
“I’ll see you shortly then?”
He pauses. The line goes quiet. Despite the silence, the connection is filled with an intensity, an anticipation of what comes next.
“Thank you, Shaye.”
The way he says my name sends a shiver bolting down my spine. I part my lips and take in a quick breath—and hope to the heavens he can’t hear it.
“Goodbye, Oliver,” I say as smoothly as I can manage.
“See you soon.”
I end the call.