13. Chapter 13
“You know, there will be plenty of places to swim in Costa Rica,” Beck said as I stopped for a drink between laps. He’d been dropping hints about the trip all week. And I got it. He needed an answer: whether I’d be joining the bachelor and bachelorette party. But I didn’t have one, not yet anyway.
I downed the last dregs of coffee in my blender bottle. I planned on over-caffeinating to compensate for staying up until two forty-five after attempting to catch up on things for work. I was both still behind and tired. The idea of Victoria’s wedding being over soon would excite me if it weren’t for the fact that I absolutely loved completing those projects.
“Yeah, but if I stay here,” I replied at last. “I’ll have the lane all to myself while you’re gone.”
He frowned at my answer, and I took off for another lap, even though I hadn’t rested nearly as long as needed. I got to the end of the lane, ready to try the kick turn one more time, but I chickened out at the last minute, stopping the movement with an outstretched hand before I could slam into the wall again.
Beck and I ended our workouts at the same time, and as soon as I’d wrapped my body in the safety of my oversized, hibiscus-covered beach towel, I approached him.
“I want to help you,” I admitted.
“You do?” he asked with delighted shock.
“But I think it’s a bad idea,” I said. “The trip is a mere two weeks away. It will be a cold day in hell before Wesley lets us both off with such little notice.”
“You are going to ask first.” He’d given this some thought. “Concoct some excuse—a family emergency: Nana Beth fractured her hip, Uncle Tim has a bunion, something small but urgent. Something they can’t say no to.”
“You want me to lie?”
Beck gave me a look that said, seriously? “It wouldn’t exactly be your first time, Hailey.”
I could have stomped on his foot for that comment. “What if they ask me to prove it?”
Beck laughed. “They aren’t going to launch an FBI investigation, Lane. They are going to take your word for it. Have they ever asked you to produce so much as a doctor’s note?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. But what about you? After my debacle, they aren’t going to believe you have a family emergency, too.”
“No. That’s why I’m going to tell Wesley the truth.”
I scoffed. “You think he’s going to let you off with less than a month’s notice to go on a weeklong bachelor party?”
Beck didn’t seem at all phased by my lack of faith. “He will. Wesley likes me.” He frowned. “Or he likes the idea of me at least, an Atteridge.”
Wesley did treat him like royalty. That last name probably sealed the deal for him to get the senior associate position. I glared at him as the pieces of the plan clicked into place.
“How convenient that the plan involves no lying on your part.”
“I’m not as good at it as you are.”
I did stomp on his foot for that.
“Ow!” Beck doubled over and then laughed. I stalked off toward the dressing room. “I’m kidding! Lane, wait!”
I didn’t see him again until I stopped by his cube right before our four o’clock meeting. “You coming?”
“Was about to head that way.”
Beck closed out of an Excel sheet and clamped his laptop shut. That’s when I noticed the Capiz shell at the corner of his desk with his title in gold: Senior-level Asshole. I turned so Beck wouldn’t see my smile and nearly tripped over his backpack. He kept it at the mouth of the cubicle, probably for a quick escape. It was Thursday, after all.
“Careful, Lane,” Beck said in a hushed voice. “Costa Rica won’t be much fun with a twisted ankle.”
I shoved his backpack with my foot. “You don’t need working legs to sip margaritas on the beach.”
He halted. “Does that mean you’re coming?”
The hopeful look on his face was cute, so I shut it down immediately. “Nope.”
We walked to the huddle room in silence. I didn’t mind. I’d need my voice as much as possible to get through the meeting with Frank.
“Explain one more time why this won’t work?” Frank demanded, his voice already abrasive, ready to weather whoever contradicted him.
I went over the workflow again, dumbing it down as much as possible without being condescending, and, God, I should have gotten an Oscar for that performance.
“You could make an umbrella change,” Frank parried.
“No. We would have to make that change in over a hundred companies.”
I thought of Beck’s idea to take that vacation. No way in hell that would work now. Even the royal Mr. Atteridge wouldn’t be granted leave. We’d both be stuck here, trudging through these changes.
“Well, tough.” Frank leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. “Corporate office does stuff like this all the time.”
“Corporate only has thirteen companies.” I knew I needed to watch my tone, but we’d spent a huge chunk of time fixing parameters that Frank had originally agreed upon. He’d barely confirmed our solution would work before he wanted to make changes again.
“I don’t know what to say. This isn’t what we communicated, Emily.”
“Actually, it is.” Beck’s voice surprised me as much as the authority in it. “I have our notes from a month ago, on March 24th.” Beck read the meeting minutes, his voice calm and professional. I recognized them as my notes. “I sent you these the day they were taken, and I have your email stating everything looked good. Do you want me to resend the document?”
My mouth dropped. Beck was sticking up for me. Beck had taken my notes seriously.
“What the hell do those notes matter? We need these fixed. This is the way family office wants it done, so that’s what’s going to happen.” The coloring on Frank’s face deepened to a dangerous—someone should probably check his blood pressure—shade.
“Now, hold on.” I thought Wesley would choke on his spit the way he sputtered across the table, working to get a handle on the direction of the meeting. “Don’t worry about it, Frank. I will see to these changes myself.”
My head snapped in Wesley’s direction. Did the king of delegating just offer to take on a project of this magnitude? Maybe I needed to take a page from Beck’s book and get mouthy more often.
This seemed to appease Frank, and the meeting adjourned shortly after with tense, awkward silence. Beck got up to leave with everyone else, but I gestured for him to come over.
“Hey, I’m having a hard time with this error. Do you think you can look at it?”
By the time Beck had made it to my side of the table, we were alone in the huddle room.
“Thank you,” I said. “You saved us both a mountain-load of work.”
“Can you imagine?” He plopped down on the seat next to mine. “I don’t know how Wesley plans to tackle it by himself. It would have taken us weeks to fix that mess.”
“Especially without Anna here.” My smile lessened at that. I”d squeezed in a little bit of time the day before to visit her and sweet Grace. It was amazing, holding that bundle of fresh life in my arms, but it didn”t stop me from wishing Anna hadn”t resigned.
“Are you okay?” Beck asked.
“Yeah, fine.” I pretended to focus on closing out my Excel sheet.
“Because you look like you could use a vacation.” He gave me an expectant look as though he’d dropped the perfect dad joke.
“Still on that, are we?”
“I don’t get it. You’ve been dreaming about taking a vacation. A free one drops into your lap, and you are going to pass?”
“It’s not a good time—”
“It’s the perfect time.”
“Work is busy—”
“It always will be. But we’re almost done with this project. We can finish our end of things for the convergence. Wesley agreed to make the changes Frank is asking for. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. This is my job.”
“You give so much for this company. And what has it given back?”
“A salary,” I said flatly. “Benefits with dental and vision.”
“I’ve seen your work. You know the system better than I do. Plain and simple. They shouldn’t have hired out, and they did.”
That both stung and alleviated—the echo of my suspicions. He’d validated my thoughts. I worked so hard, but I didn’t matter to this company.
“I need this job, Beck. I can’t afford to fuck it up.”
Beck’s gaze skirted past me to the bottom of my screen, the time. “Shit. I have to go.”
He’d made it to the door when I found my voice. “Where do you go? On Thursdays?”
Beck’s hand fell from the door handle, but he didn’t turn to face me. “Does it matter?”
I thought of all the possibilities I’d constructed. If he spent his Thursdays with a female companion, then she could go with him to Costa Rica. “It might.”
Beck paused for a long time, weighing whether or not he could trust me, I realized. He caved with a sigh, facing me. “I volunteer. Teaching ISR.”
Volunteer? That wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. “What’s ISR?”
“Infant swimming resource.”
“So . . . wait.” I didn’t trust my ears. Something interfered with the message before it reached my brain. “You leave early on Thursdays so you can—” I felt silly even saying out loud what I thought he’d said. “—Teach babies to swim?” I finished.
He grabbed onto the back of a chair, not meeting my gaze. “Something like that.”
I gaped. “Oh my god, Beck!” I couldn’t keep the awe out of my voice as if he’d produced a chunky and wrinkly Shar-Pei puppy. “You teach babies how to swim?”
“Fix whatever cute image you have in your head. Because, first of all, it’s not always babies. It’s six months to six years old. Also, teaching a small person how to swim involves a lot of crying.”
I reined in my voice, lowering it back to its normal pitch, but I’m sure my eyes still danced with the idea of all of it. “How did you even get into that?”
“I was on the swim team in high school and college.” Beck suddenly became very interested in picking at the seam of the rolling chair. This topic made him uncomfortable, though I couldn’t fathom why. “I wanted to give back. It made sense.”
I got the feeling he was giving me a half-truth, but I didn’t press. I’d already made a monumental discovery. No further digging was required.
This bit of information complicated things because I liked this newly discovered piece of Beck. Really liked it. So much so that I had to ignore the singing from my ovaries. But this piece of intel did not fit with office enemy number one, the Beck I knew.
The one who’d taken my position.
The one who’d helped me from the waterway only to make me feel clumsy and disgusting.
The one who’d made fun of me for it later.
The one who’d misplaced my meeting notes.
The one who was competitive.
I ticked them off in my head as if presenting my case to the jury. The pretend prosecutor felt very confident in this case.
The one who was constantly messing with me. But that one wasn’t entirely fair. I kind of enjoyed the banter. Besides, I dished it out too. Then the defense got a turn, casting Beck in a positive light.
He’d also been the one who could have outed me to his sister but didn’t.
The one who’d come back to the office just to bring me food.
The one who’d noticed I was drowning at work.
The one who’d stuck up for me at work.
The one who’d calmed me down before my first live lettering event.
The jury was hung.
I trekked back to the stem of the conversation. Making a choice about Costa Rica had been on my mind since the shower, and it seemed like it was on Beck’s mind, too.
“Pretending to date you for two days is one thing. Spending an entire week pretending to be your girlfriend in an exotic country is another. I can’t go on a vacation with you,” I said, with no conviction in my voice. “Think of it from an HR standpoint.” I walked over to his side of the table. “We’d have an ocean of paperwork to tread since we work for the same company—on the same team.”
I looked at him, daring him to disagree. It would be a mercy for him to end this fantasy. But at the same time, I hoped like hell he’d have a loophole. Because I realized for the first time I wanted this. This trip. With him.
Beck’s face fell just a bit. “You’re right, Emily.” It was the first time he’d called me by my first name. A tingle rolled down my spine. “We couldn’t go on a vacation as a couple.” He took a step, leaving only a small gap between us. “It’s a good thing I’ll be going with Hailey.” His brown eyes caught mine, searching.
I swallowed, looking for solid ground again. “And will Hailey be expected to kiss you, share a bed with you?”
I couldn’t help but remember how he’d wanted to make Reagan jealous, which meant something was still there. There were greater things than my job at stake. I didn’t need a heartbreak in my future.
His playful look vanished. “Our rules stay the same. You won’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. And we are staying in an Atteridge resort in Costa Rica. Victoria had no problem securing suites for all of us. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
I could be staying in a suite in Costa freaking Rica. For free.
With Beck.
What would Hailey do?I knew without a doubt. She’d pack her bags.