Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Bad idea on the shirt. Horrible.
For once, Slater Faust arrives somewhere after us; Iris, Dexter, and I have been clustered around a tortilla chip basket for eight full minutes by the time they show up to dinner on Friday. Lucia’s here, too, with Alan and Suni.
I’m wearing my favorite dress, a thrift store treasure with an open back and silky drape. Ava calls it my Make him cry dress, which makes very little sense for a woman who’s been single most of her life, but feels like a trillion dollars regardless.
Campbell comes into the restaurant last. Hands in his pants pockets, smiling down at his shoes in response to something Soraya’s said. Everyone stands to shake hands, but I’m stuck on a delay; I stutter up out of my seat like a faulty robot.
The shirt is as good as I knew it would be.
Better, even. With his hair combed back and his leather shoes and that bright, cobalt line pointing right up to the hollow of his throat—Campbell’s devastating.
Worse than devastating when he touches me, when he pulls his right hand from his pocket and shakes my hand.
His warm palm, the cool press of his signet ring into my pinky finger.
He meets my eyes and smiles at me like he knows.
Like he knows how he looks, like he knows the effect it’s having on me, like it’s all my own doing.
“French,” Campbell says, lowly. The shirt’s top button is undone, and my eyes flick to the divot of his collarbone. “You look nice.”
“You’re late,” I whisper. I can’t help it; even as the compliment settles through me, fizzing wildly with each pulse of my blood, I feel nearly incandescent with frustration.
The past few days have given me whiplash.
Why can’t I ever keep hold of any sort of upper hand, when it comes to him?
Why do I see him in that white spa robe every time I close my eyes, like an afterimage of staring right into the sun?
Campbell smiles, still holding my hand. He looks entirely back to normal; none of that drawn, quiet person from the shop on Wednesday. “Waiting on me?”
I drop his hand and curl my fingers into a fist. No, I think as he greets Iris, then Dexter. Yes, comes an answering voice inside me. Always.
Campbell takes the seat immediately next to mine and lifts his menu. “What’s everybody drinking?”
Everyone parrots their drink orders. I lower into my chair and let my eyes rove around the room—the mood lighting, the polished wood, the linens draped along the ceiling beams so the whole place feels like a glamping tent.
There are soaring, framed photographs of magnified ingredients everywhere.
Blue corn, chiles. The veiny eye of an avocado pit.
I’ll look at any of it instead of at him.
“Mattie got the mezcal margarita,” Dexter says, “but I got the tequila. So we can tell you which is better.”
“You’ll let me try a sip of both?” Campbell asks, looking between us. I grimace.
“No,” I say. Campbell’s mouth isn’t getting anywhere near my beverage.
“How will I know, then?” He leans onto one elbow, propping his head on his hand and furrowing his brow.
“Because we’ll tell you,” I say.
“And you wouldn’t lie to me?”
I can feel Dexter watching us, silent but shrewd. The creative directors are chatting with the clients, and Soraya’s inspecting her menu.
Lightly, I say, “Why would I lie to you?”
“Oh.” Campbell affects the same featherweight tone. “All sorts of reasons, I’m sure.”
Lucia’s standing before I can spin up a response. “Well,” she says, “good evening.”
She lifts her voice to the perfect volume to capture our attention without shouting. It’s a relief to look at her instead of Campbell. “It’s so good to gather all together.”
She smiles around the table, and Campbell takes a sip of water. The right side of my face, turned toward him, feels twenty degrees warmer than the left.
“As our time in Aspen comes to a close, we wanted to take this moment to extend our gratitude for all the energy you’ve brought to us, and to the Wicksteed Resorts brand, here in Colorado.
It’s been inspiring. Mattie”—Lucia turns to me, and I rise taller in my seat—“from your phenomenal micro-campaign ideas, to Dexter, your fantastic speed-designs; Soraya, your lovely hand-lettering, and of course, Campbell”—she turns to him, and I brace myself—“the truly impressive number of headlines you whipped up at the headline-off.”
Quality over quantity, I think. It’s like a tic: wanting to be better than him. Even as he sits beside me, the most magnetic thing in this whole room and maybe my entire life, something inside of me is pushing back with everything I have.
“Through it all,” Lucia continues, “your dedication to this work has been so clear, and so very appreciated. That said”—she picks up her wineglass and holds it over the table—“I know we don’t all have our drinks yet, but please—a toast.”
I pick up my margarita and, like an invisible wire is pulling me toward him, glance over my raised wrist to meet Campbell’s gaze. Eye contact, French, that night at the bar. Or it’s bad luck.
“To a wonderful two weeks of creative innovation,” Lucia says, “and an even better two weeks ahead.”
I cheers Lucia and Dexter and skip entirely over Campbell, who I can feel watching me as I set my margarita down. He doesn’t actually take a drink of his water, which I think means bad luck for eternity.
“I’d love to hear how it’s been for all of you,” Lucia says as she leans back in her seat. “What do you make of Wicksteed Aspen?”
“Oh, it’s divine,” Soraya says. She’s wearing sheer, glittery eyeshadow that twinkles when she smiles. “You had me from day one, that horseback ride. And ever better from there, truly.”
Campbell leans conspiratorially toward Lucia. “I know we’re working, but this is the best vacation I’ve ever had.”
I sigh, one frustrated gust. “Well, we’re taking it seriously.”
Everyone turns to me. For a moment the table falls so silent that all I can hear is the high whine of my own panic: Oh no. Beside me, Dexter laughs—a thin titter I recognize because he does it every time he’s embarrassed.
“I just mean—” I hesitate, glancing from Iris to Lucia.
I want to evaporate. “I just mean this is the best office I’ve ever worked from.
Probably the comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in, the best food I’ve ever eaten.
” I gesture at the table. “But mostly I’m grateful to get to do work that really lights me up, from a venue like this. ”
Lucia smiles. I can’t quite tell if I’ve redeemed myself, but Iris is already talking about the Wicksteed oasis and the branded hand soap in her bathroom. When I look at Campbell, his cheeks are red. This man and his flush.
“Bathroom,” I whisper, just as we’re interrupted by a member of the waitstaff.
I scrape out of my seat and click across the marble floor of the restaurant, my shoes announcing my departure as gracefully as a piece of toilet paper stuck to a sole.
We haven’t even ordered appetizers yet, and I’m practically spiking a fever.
“Hey.”
It’s such a shot of a word that I quite literally spin on my heel. Campbell’s right behind me, crowding into the dimly lit hallway that leads to the bathrooms. It’s quiet here, and hidden. I can’t see the dining room around the spread of his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
Campbell’s face is still red. His neck, too. He wears his anger so obviously—heat in his skin, right here for me to see. It sparks in me like a live wire, how he looks when he isn’t in control. How it feels to have this power over him, to know the effect he has on me doesn’t only run one way.
I keep my voice down. “I’m going to the bathroom. Alone.”
“Come on, French.” Campbell punches one hand into his pocket and uses the other to gesture back toward the restaurant. “In there? You’re playing dirty.”
I bite down on my molars. He’s right, which is intolerable.
I’m acting like a child, overstimulated and attack-y.
I made an idiot of myself in there, and I can’t take it back.
For once, I know I can’t blame this on him.
It’s all me: the way I’m spinning out, here, angry at every single way he makes me feel.
“I know we do this,” Campbell says, waving a hand between us. “I know this is—I mean—”
He breaks off, and for a moment we just look at each other. His chest rises in the narrow frame of the hallway, like he’s struggling for air.
This is what? I don’t manage to say. You mean what?
“I know you like to fuck with me,” he says, finally. I’ve never heard him curse before, and the word makes the air between us hum with heat. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t do it, too.”
“No shit,” I say, and Campbell exhales through his nose. He shoves his other hand into his pocket so his shoulders go up around his ears.
“You made me look bad in front of our clients,” he says. But I’m thinking: I made me look bad. “It’s enough, okay? I can be your punching bag in private, whatever, just—”
I press my lips together. Is it whatever? How many times have Campbell Porter and I really been in private? He looks at me, red-faced and flustered, and the hallway around us feels five sizes too small.
“Just not in front of them,” he finishes, finally. Quieter. “Okay? Please.”
I hate myself, a little. Ava was right about him, about me: I’m at my worst when Campbell’s around.
What I really want to do is sprint into the bathroom and stay there until this dinner is over.
Maybe until this entire pitch process is over.
I’ve humiliated myself, and even worse, I’ve done it in front of Campbell.
But instead of admitting it, I swallow my shame and meet his eyes. “Well, since you’re begging.”
Campbell blinks. My words came out breathy and rough, and his gaze slips unmistakably to my mouth. I want to say something else, rephrase it, but my heart has seized up into my throat. When Campbell’s eyes rise back to mine, they’ve darkened.