10. Chapter 10
Perched on the arm of my couch, I frowned down at my phone while waiting for Hailey to reply to my string of texts listing all the reasons why I messed up colossally by not already quitting Victoria’s job. When she didn’t answer in a reasonable time frame—under three minutes—I called her.
“I was about to text you back if you could wait just a freaking second.”
“That’s it!” I declared as if she hadn’t said anything. “I’m just going to call Victoria.”
“Emily—”
“Tell her the truth, have her call off her brother, avoid a whole mess of embarrassment.”
While I spoke, I folded my favorite fleece blanket and tossed it over the back of the couch. Then I stepped back, decided it looked too stiff, unfolded it to a rectangle, and draped it over the armrest. I’d spent way too much time scrubbing the apartment to a this-is-just-a-model-home-nobody-lives-here clean, only to go back and rough it up a smidge to make it look like someone actually lived here—a very tidy someone.
I should have been working on reconfigurations since I’d lost a half-day, meeting with Victoria, but I was dusting the blinds instead.
“He’s already bringing the mirror,” Hailey said calmly as if working with a spooked horse. “Why don’t you just see how this project goes?”
“And if I mess it up?”
“What kind of marker are you using on the mirror?”
Damn it. She had me, and I knew it. I sighed. “Acrylic.”
“I don’t have to tell you that acrylic wipes clean with any old window cleaner.”
“I know. I know! But I was going to quit. That was the plan.”
“You’re right,” she said, in a tone that warned me this conversation was about to take a back road through the ugly parts of town. “That was the plan. But then you let your coworker get you all riled up. And why is that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, straightening a framed picture of my mom, Hailey, and me. Then I backed up, wanting to swat my own hand. I didn’t care what Beck thought about my apartment. “He’s just—”
“Hot?” Hailey supplied at the same time I said, “Intolerable.”
“What?” I asked, thrown by her off-topic answer and how she’d even leaped to that conclusion based on our conversations about him. Also, at how—objectively—correct her guess had been.
“He’s hot. Isn’t he?”
“God, Hailey. This guy stole my promotion and caused extra work for me because he’s careless. He’s Beckett, Senior-level Asshole. My office nemesis. Enemy number one. Remember?”
“I haven’t heard one denial about his hotness. So, my assumption was correct. The enemy thing only magnifies that. Trust me. All of BookTok agrees.” I glared at her stupid, adorable face in the frame on my wall as she continued, “So, poor baby. You have to spend the next few hours with the office hottie while you do calligraphy—your favorite activity on the planet.”
“At this point, I’d rather spend the afternoon making voodoo dolls of you and Beck.”
A knock at the door made me jump. “Shit! He’s here. I wasted my time to back out on calling you.”
“Always a pleasure, babe.”
I opened the door to a dressed-down Beck, and damn it if the T-shirt and blue jeans didn’t look even better on him than his Atteridge-worthy button-downs. Being able to see the floral work on his arm certainly didn’t hurt.
“I didn’t know you lived on the third floor when I offered to deliver this,” he declared, slightly breathless.
I stepped aside so he could carry the large rectangle wrapped in cardboard.
“You should try carrying the groceries up.”
“I’ll pass. Where do you want this thing?” he asked, hauling the mirror into the living room.
I motioned toward a bare wall. While Beck worked, cutting the monstrosity of a mirror free, I couldn’t help but watch his T-shirt stretch over the muscles in his back. Muscles that were hard-earned from punishingly fast laps in the pool. I forced myself to turn away. He hadn’t even been in my living room for three minutes, and I was already ogling him.
He straightened after cutting the last of the tape and unveiling the mirror, which looked like it had fallen straight out of the Baroque period. It was a piece of art on its own—with its swirling gold frame.
I felt panic rise like bile in my throat. This thing belonged in a museum, not in my modest apartment.
“This apartment definitely looks like your place,” Beck said, distracting me from the welling dread of touching a marker to the masterpiece before me.
I frowned. “What do you mean?” I asked, immediately thinking of the water-stained ceiling, crinkled blinds, and discolored carpet. Insecurity buried itself in my chest. I should have gotten those things fixed and spent more money on making my apartment feel like a home, but I didn’t because I obsessively saved for that down payment on a future house. I’d be there in a couple of years if I kept the course, but I didn’t feel like explaining that to Beck.
He gestured around vaguely. “The pastel colors.” Then he pointed at the blanket I’d draped over the couch. “The flowers.”
“The flowers?” I asked, eyeing the print—made to look like watercolor—with its dots of lavender and bunches of baby blue hydrangeas.
“Yeah. Whether it’s your skirt or just a headband. You always have some sort of flower on you.”
A blush heated my cheeks. He’d stunned me, noticing anything at all about me that wasn’t centered around being clumsy or pushy or something equally annoying.
I looked down at my outfit. Today I wore a plain white shirt and olive green shorts. My pointer finger rose, ready to object to his observation. But there on my wrist was the watchband I’d picked out for today—the design had cacti and wild desert flowers. My mouth opened, just to snap shut.
Then I used that finger to point at the carnations inked on his arm. “So do you.”
Beck’s lips flattened to a straight line. “You got me there.” He leaned against my desk, and God, why did it feel so sensual to see him in my living room?
He nodded toward the mirror. “How long is this going to take? I’m just wondering how long I need to brace myself for your emotional abuse.”
I eyed the pages of names I’d printed from Victoria’s RSVP list. Luckily—with it being a destination wedding in Costa Rica—only 148 of the 230 invited had RSVP’d. Still a lot of names, but considerably less than I’d imagined. “A few hours. Minimum.”
“Do you mind if I sit at your desk? Or do you have a corner and a Dunce cap you’d rather me use?”
“Are you sure you want to stay? I don’t even have a TV.”
Beck eyed where a TV would normally go, but across from the couch sat my desk, and next to that was a wall of shelving that would rival an entertainment center in size. Paper and supplies of all sorts filled each cubby to the brim, like a mini-Hobby Lobby right in my own living room.
“It’s not that I don’t watch shows and movies. I do. On my phone all the time,” I said, feeling the need to defend myself from looking like a complete weirdo. “I just only have a limited amount of space in the apartment.”
“And you chose what mattered to you,” he said as though he was seeing a new side of me.
“Yeah, exactly.” It felt weird to agree with him, even weirder at the way my stomach felt all fizzy with his approval.
“I don’t need a TV,” Beck said, pulling his backpack around so he could reach inside to get to his laptop. “Three hours should be enough time to knock out those reconfigurations.”
I blinked. “I was supposed to do that.”
“I know, but you seem like you have a lot on your plate.”
I started to protest, but I really was drowning. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” I motioned toward my desk. “Make yourself at home.”
I moved my mirror kit and RSVP list out of his way, allowing Beckett Atteridge to get comfortable in my living room.
I wasted no time cleaning the mirror and taping my guidelines. It was the actual placing of my marker against the mirror that made me pause. Oh, how out of place the mirror looked, sitting by a mystery stain on the carpet, not two feet from a roach trap.
I fought the urge to yank Beck by the collar and demand he take the mirror back to Victoria.
I can’t do this.
I’m going to fuck this up.
My thoughts went south quickly, the delusion of pulling off this job dissolving with the reality of the situation. What was worse, I had an audience. While he seemed busy working, my hesitation felt palpable, thick. I didn’t want him to realize my alarm because nothing said unqualified quite like fear.
I huffed out a breath and then thought of Hailey’s advice: Try on my life.
What would Hailey do in this situation? She wouldn’t second guess herself. She’d throw on some nineties rap, put her hair in a high pony, and get it done.
I decided to give Hailey’s method a try. Just go for it. I opted for my own style of music, a playlist of punk music stripped down to acoustic guitar with vocals devastatingly soft and raw. Beck’s eyes slid over as I started it up, but to my surprise, he didn’t object. Then came the rest of the ritual—pulling my hair into the nest of a low bun and lighting my favorite pineapple-scented candle for good measure.
Along the edges of the tape, my reflection peered back at me. The girl in the mirror might have had more freckles and darker eyes than Hailey. Her cheekbones weren’t as defined, and her nose wasn’t quite as long. But she did have Hailey’s confidence. And why shouldn’t she? I thought back to my conversation with Beck earlier in the week. I’d done this before, not to this magnitude, but I’d completed mirror projects dozens of times. More importantly, I trusted my skills.
An hour into lettering, Beck’s deep voice made my marker slip on the glass.
“Can I bother you for—” he stood, looking at the streak I’d made. “Oh, shit! Did I mess you up?”
I laughed and wiped it away easily. “It’s fine.”
He let out a breath. Then he seemed to get distracted, watching me work. So much so that he left his initial question behind.
I had just started the calligraphy for table five when he spoke again, “You’re lifting your marker up.” He said it like he’d finally caught me—the fraud he knew me to be the entire time.
“. . . And?”
“And isn’t that . . . cheating?”
“You are thinking of cursive.” I finished the word and turned to him, my head cocked. “You know, I think you’re the one who is unqualified here. How can you determine if I’m a legit calligrapher if you don’t know the first thing about it? Could you have bothered to . . . I don’t know. Do a quick Google over calligraphy practices?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, but the corners of his lips turned upward. “Mind if I get a drink?” he asked, not entertaining my review of his qualifications.
“Sure.” I used my marker to point as I said, “Cups are in the cabinet by the fridge. You can take your pick of water, coffee, or almond milk.”
“How will I ever decide?” he said with mock enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I forgot I was having royalty over. Sorry I didn’t stock the fridge just to your liking, Mr. Atteridge.”
But he hadn’t even heard my dig. He froze, staring at my cups. For a split second of horror, I thought a roach had gotten into the cabinet.
But then he pulled out a mug and said, “This is fantastic.”
He turned it toward me. With one glance, I knew which one he’d found. An Excel spreadsheet wrapped from handle to handle. Overlaid on that, the words Freak in the Sheets stood out in bold black letters.
I think I died a little at that moment. Or perhaps knocked a decade off my life. I turned back to the mirror to hide my face from him, only to get a look at my scarlet cheeks behind the lettering I’d completed.
“That was a gift from Hailey,” I mumbled like an apology.
“I think I’d like her,” Beck said, filling the mug with water instead of using a glass like a normal person.
“Everyone does,” I said, going back to lettering. “I’d offer to set you two up, but she’s run off to Florida with her boyfriend of two whole months.”
Beck was quiet for a few beats, and that’s when I realized my error.
“Is that why she can’t finish Victoria’s wedding?”
I risked a glance at him in the mirror. His eyes locked on mine, waiting for an answer.
“Yes.” I turned to face him, afraid to ask my next question but needing to know the answer. “Does that make you mad?”
His fingers tapped on the mug as he decided. “I think it would if I weren’t staring at your work right now.” He stepped closer, once again seeming mesmerized by my lettering. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Since eighth grade.”
“What makes a thirteen-year-old want to do something like calligraphy?” he asked, leaning against my shelf.
“It’s a long story.”
Beck looked at his watch. “Don’t you have two more hours on this thing? Can you talk and letter?”
I thought about telling him no, and it would be three more hours if he didn’t stop bothering me. But the truth was, I kind of wanted him to know this part of me. Maybe because I wanted him to understand where my passion stemmed from, so he’d understand how seriously I took my craft. Or maybe some small part of me wanted Beck to know this side of me so I could gauge his reaction.
“The year before, we were homeless for a little while.” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Beck stiffen. He’d probably been expecting an answer like, I needed some cutesy lettering to go with my Lisa Frank pictures, or I wanted to ask a boy out to the dance, so I wrote him a pretty letter. Homelessness didn’t seem like a pathway to calligraphy. “Everything about calligraphy is controlled,” I explained. “And after months of uncertainty, I just wanted something in my life to be structured.”
Most people backed up when I told them about that time of my life. It was human nature to shield your eyes from the pain, from the harshness of reality. I think most people meant well; they simply didn’t know how to respond to that statement. I didn’t tell many people about being homeless, but those I did would often say things like, Look at you now. What a success story. Or Things happen for a reason. It looks like everything worked out in the end. They wanted to flip the script, give it a fairytale ending, and then move on.
Not Beck. He didn’t back up. He leaned in.
“What happened? Why were you homeless?”
“At the time, my mom was a teacher,” I said, surprising myself by starting a story that I usually guarded so closely. “But she dreamed of living off her art. One day, she thought she got her big break when someone bought a painting for quite a bit of money. She broke her teaching contract so she could focus solely on her art. She sold a few pieces after that but none for nearly as much as that first sale.
“Eventually, she ran out of money for rent. Some guy she met from an art class offered to let us stay with him for a while. Long story short, we felt the term ‘starving artist’ firsthand, and Mom’s art buddy . . .” I thought of how he’d screamed at me when he’d found me admiring his pens. How he’d told my mom the painting she’d spent weeks on was a far cry from art. Or how he had come home from a gallery and thrown a vase against the wall, littering the floor with amethyst-colored shards. “Well, he wasn’t nice.”
“Did he . . .” Beck swallowed, and his voice was gruff when he spoke again. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, not physically. It’s just, my mom is a gentle soul. She never raised her voice at us. So, moving in with someone so angry was frightening.” I tilted my head as if I could empty the memory of his hollering with the movement. “We didn’t stay with him long. He kicked us out when it was clear my mom’s paintings wouldn’t fetch a steep price anytime soon. We lived out of our minivan for a while.” The memory sat like a stone in my stomach. I could have spent hours telling him about that experience. But I didn’t want to be dragged back to that place, even if just mentally. “My mom eventually found a job teaching at an art studio, but it was a while before things felt steady.”
“What about your dad? Where was he in all this?”
“My mom was a single parent. I’ve only known my dad as a sperm donor and a spotty child support check.”
“So that’s why you haven’t pursued calligraphy as a career before this?” Beck guessed.
I nodded once, then started to write the next name on my list. “Living off your art is just too risky.”
Out of the corner of my eye, he seemed to mull that over, chewing on his cheek.
I ducked my head. “What about you? I want to know why you don’t have an office next to Victoria’s. Aren’t you second in line for the throne?”
Beck scoffed. “My story isn’t nearly as interesting. I can’t work for my father.”
There was nothing simple about not getting along with a parent. I wondered what kind of history they had—what initial force had driven them apart, what barbs had made them keep that distance.
“Why not?”
Beck shrugged, but the topic seemed heavy for him. “I think I’d be a bit of a disappointment.”
I wanted to ask him to elaborate, but his short answers told me he was about to shut down. I steered the conversation in a different way. “Do you visit your sister, Victoria, often?”
“As of late, yes.” He seemed to brighten marginally at the subject change. “She’s having problems with the system they use. It’s outdated and inefficient. She’s requested a change, but some of the older crowd is resistant.”
“Doesn’t she own the company, though?” I asked, imagining anyone telling the fierce Victoria Atteridge no.
“Yes and no. She is getting ready to replace my dad as CEO and is doing most of the job’s heavy lifting to get ready to take it. But she still answers to other members of the board. She can’t go making a bunch of changes to the company without pissing off a lot of valuable team members. So, she asked me to help show her what the system could do if change was implemented. And honestly, there is a lot of opportunity. Things could be more accurate, quicker.”
“Easier,” I offered, finishing a name and removing the next row of masking tape.
“Exactly.”
I looked over at him, surprised to have agreed with him again, even about something so basic. Then he smiled, so I smiled, and I realized I’d just had a pleasant conversation with Beck, one that even dove a bit deep. The realization made me pause, and I wondered if Beck was contemplating the same enigma because he pushed off the shelves, muttering something about needing to get busy on those reconfigurations.
I started on the next name with a zip of urgency.
Hours later, I stood, ankles and hips popping from the relief of stretching out after being crouched at such a weird angle to get those names at the bottom. Taking a step back, I took in the completed project and knew I was right to trust myself, to trust my skill. The calligraphy had near-perfect symmetry, with each letter consistent in size and shape.
It looked like my lettering belonged on that mirror.
It looked like it deserved to be showcased at Victoria’s wedding.
Beck appeared beside me, taking a long while to size up the mirror. I watched his reflection as his eyes slowly rolled from line to line, studying my work. And for some weird reason, I felt nervous about his opinion. Beck’s. The man who thought calligraphy and cursive were the same thing. I shouldn’t have cared what he thought.
But for whatever reason, I beamed when he responded with, “This is good, Emily.”
“Like professional, I’m not a fraud, good?”
“Like you should ditch The Arlow Group and start working with your sister full-time good.”
My smile faded.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, eyes on mine in the reflection before turning to me.
“I can’t do your sister’s wedding.” I picked at a streak of white marker on my hand as an excuse not to meet his gaze. “She has to find someone else.”
“Why?” he asked, voice quiet. “You did such a great job.”
“I should have never pretended to be Hailey, and I shouldn’t have put you in a position to lie to your sister. I was going to call it all off, tell your sister everything. But then you made me mad, cornering me at the office. I wanted to show you I’m not some con artist.”
“Okay,” he said. “Well, you showed me. I know you are a true calligrapher . . . even if you cheat by picking up your marker.”
I ignored his attempt to lighten the mood. “Even so, I can’t do this. I wanted to pretend that taking on Hailey’s business had no risks. But there are. This is your sister’s big moment. If I screw this up—” I blew out a puff of air.
Beck paused for a moment. “I promise, I’m not trying to shit on what you do.” He put out his hands, a universal sign of, I mean you no harm. “But it’s calligraphy, right? It’s not like the wedding is going to be called off because the menu isn’t written in elegant cursive, right?”
I decided to take the high road and not remind him of the differences between cursive and calligraphy. “I understand the service I offer is not a cornerstone for the big day, but I also know your sister has probably thought about her wedding for a long time. I don’t want to be the one to disappoint her expectations.”
“So don’t.” He gave me a daring look, and I realized how close we stood. My body tingled at the idea of him being less than an arm’s reach away. I could touch that freckle on his throat, trace the tattoo on his arm, and run my fingers through his curls.
God. What is wrong with you?I internally shouted at myself, then made myself busy cleaning up the mirror. Beck increased the distance, going to my desk to get his backpack.
“So, you are encouraging me to lie to your sister?” I finally asked.
He slipped his laptop into his backpack, but not before tilting his head in contemplation. “No. You already did that yourself. I’m simply telling you to keep it up.”
I scoffed.
“Look.” He shouldered his bag. “You enjoy calligraphy. Enough to fake your identity at the chance to keep at it.”
I gave him a look.
“I guess I’m just saying that this seems like your chance. Why don’t you see what you can get away with?”
He grabbed the cardboard slats and a roll of packing tape from his bag, getting to work on wrapping up the mirror.
I thought about it. I had the live lettering left for Victoria’s wedding as well as the signage: menu on a chalkboard, directions to the reception, and things like that. It would be difficult to finish them because work was the crying baby that always wanted to be held, but if I managed my time and skipped out on some sleep, I could get it done. It was possible.
The idea of the live lettering made my stomach somersault, but if I quit now, with the shower being in two weeks, Victoria might be unable to find a replacement in time. At this point, staying on as her calligrapher seemed like the right thing to do. Even if it meant I had to keep lying.
But then there was Beck. I didn’t know if I could trust him to keep my identity a secret.
“So, you’re not going to tell your sister about me?” I asked after he finished rolling the tape vertically.
“No.”
I eyed him, suspicion swelling at the glint in his eyes. “That seems awfully generous of you, Beckett.”
He winced at that. “Please. Only my father and my ex call me Beckett. And no. Not generous.” He took his time lifting the mirror, a smile widening on his face. “You’ll just owe me one.”