15. Rick
Rick
The next few days passed in a blur. But my stress level had decreased, thanks to the many hours that Sofia and I spent together after work. I had doubled my coffee intake during the day, but still slept like a baby with Sofia wrapped around me at night.
I was pretty sure Elizabeth was beginning to notice something was off with us. Our secret was getting harder and harder to keep to ourselves.
Sofia had stayed at my place a couple of nights that week.
She’d claimed that her small apartment was “too small for someone like me.” Besides, she liked the view at my place much better.
I went along with it, knowing that there was a real possibility of someone seeing us going into her building together since it was so close to our work.
Behind closed doors at my house, all the rules dissolved. There were no boundaries, no timelines, just her laughing against my chest or drinking coffee in one of my oversized shirts while we watched the fire in the evenings.
In the office, however, we were the picture of absolute professionalism. She threw herself entirely into the Clear Creek Brewery project and was hard at work creating the framework for the “Tap-and-Trail” application while I worked on finally burying the beast that was my San Diego backlog.
By the following Friday afternoon, the dust had finally settled, and I had Joe and Jax to thank for keeping me from drowning in work.
“Tell me you’ve signed off on the contracts,” Jax asked, leaning against the doorframe of my office, a rare, relaxed grin on his face.
“Signed, sealed, and sent to legal,” I answered, tossing my pen onto the desk and leaning back in the chair.
“You’ve been a lifesaver this past week.
Seriously. I don’t know why Dad didn’t put you in charge instead of dragging me back here.
” Silently, however, I was very thankful.
If I hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have been tackled by Sofia that first day.
“Yeah, well, you owe me.” He chuckled. “But hey, since you’re finally caught up, I need a favor. I shifted some pieces around and put Nova on those retail accounts that I’ve been trying to lock down. She’s already tearing through their market data.”
I looked up at my brother, a knowing smirk tugging at my lips.
Nova. Sofia’s best friend and another one of our marketing secret weapons.
She was wild, brilliant, and fiercely protective of this company.
When Sofia first told me they were best friends, it made perfect sense—they were two of the smartest women I’d ever met.
I’d met Nova a few times over the years.
Unlike Sofia, Nova had been around our house growing up when she and Jax had become friends sometime in grade school.
But there was a completely different layer to Nova that Jax was entirely blind to.
“Nova, huh?” I asked, keeping my tone casual as I watched his expression. “Good choice. She knows how to close a deal.”
“She’s the best we have,” Jax said easily, his voice full of an earnest, deep-seated respect that he didn’t even try to hide. “Dad always said she had a better instinct for the heartbeat of this place than any of us. I just want to make sure she has the resources she needs.”
I watched him closely. Jax had been in the trenches of this firm for years, working side-by-side with our dad while Chris and I were busy building our own lives elsewhere. He knew this place inside and out. But when it came to Nova? The man was utterly, hopelessly clueless.
The fact that Nova had massive eyes for Jax was an open secret to anyone paying attention—and according to Sofia, it had been burning under the surface for a long time.
But Jax, in all his strictly professional, protective glory, seemed to see Nova simply as the brilliant girl next door who helped keep the agency running.
He had no idea the attraction she had for him. Maybe he was just playing hard to get?
“Well, if anyone can help you lock down those new accounts and show the rest of the board what you’re capable of, it’s her,” I said, testing the waters.
“Exactly,” Jax agreed, completely missing the subtext as he tapped the doorframe.
“What’s the favor?” I asked.
Jax took a deep breath. “I need you to convince her not to go with me on the next Vegas trip.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
Jax rubbed the back of his neck. “Just… don’t ask. Just find some reason to keep her here. Do this favor for me?”
I nodded slowly. “Sure.”
“Great. Anyway, I’m heading out to check on the creative team. Don’t work too late. Some of us actually have a weekend to catch up on.”
“Will do.” I smiled. He walked out, and I watched him stride down the hallway with that familiar, determined purpose, much like my own.
Having two little brothers that looked so much like me was sometimes odd. Seeing so much of myself in them was like having kids of my own.
My mind flashed to that idea quickly, and it didn’t even feel odd when I realized that Sofia was the one I was thinking about taking that big step with.
I leaned back in my chair, glancing out the glass wall toward the bullpen.
Sofia was in her office, typing furiously.
I watched as a stray lock of dark hair fell into her face and she swiped it away.
I caught her eye for a split second, and she offered me a tiny, imperceptible smirk before looking back at her monitor.
Jax was right about one thing—we had a company to run and a lot of family politics to navigate over the next few months.
But first we had this weekend, and I had some ideas about what Sofia and I could do together.
Saturday morning in Golden arrived with that crisp, cool breeze that only the Colorado foothills can deliver in the dead of summer.
By eight o’clock, the temperature was already climbing, and the scent of wild pine and dry earth was thick in the air as I parked in the almost empty gravel parking lot that sat at the base of the canyon.
“If we’re going to scout these trailheads for Clear Creek, we need to move before the mid-day heat cooks us,” I said. “Get a move on, Ferreira,” I teased.
I tossed my backpack over my shoulder. I had packed a couple bottles of water, some granola bars, and my first aid kit, which was always stocked at the bottom of the bag.
This morning, Sofia had her long hair pulled back into a high pony that poked through a ball cap.
She was wearing sleek athletic leggings and a tank top under her thin jacket.
She tossed her own lightweight hiking pack over her shoulder.
Seeing her like this—completely stripped of corporate attire—made my chest pull tight. She looked beautiful. Relaxed.
“I’ve been up since six reading the canyon terrain maps, boss man,” she teased with a salute as she tossed on her own pack. “I’m already three steps ahead of you.” She jogged ahead of me while I locked my car.
“Is that a fact?” I grinned, easily catching up with her. I pulled her in, breathing in the clean scent of her shampoo, and kissed her soundly. “We’ll see if you stay ahead of me.” I released her and jogged toward the trailhead while she sprinted to keep up.
We spent the first part of the hike going back and forth between being high-stakes marketing strategists and an everyday hiking couple.
We managed to hit three of the major trailheads, physically scouting the exact locations where the eco-friendly geocache boxes and recycling bins would take the place of the current Parks and Rec bins.
Partnering with the state was a stroke of genius on Sofia’s part.
Sofia was in her element. She took notes on her phone, checking for cellular signal drop-off spots, and taking through how the physical layout would look when the “Tap-and-Trail” app officially launched. And she still kept up with my pace. She was a machine.
By noon, the mountain sun was blazing and our hiking boots were coated in dust.
“Time for phase two of my planned weekend fun for us,” I said, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead as we made our way back down to the car. “The water is calling.” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
We stopped at a sandwich shop and wolfed down cold meat with bread and salad. Fuel for the next leg of our fun-packed day.
We drove back to downtown Golden and parked less than a block from her apartment. Instead of heading there, I took her hand and we made our way down to the water’s edge.
There, we rented a pair of sleek, hard-shelled kayaks at the small place that sat right on the edge of Clear Creek.
The river was fully alive with summer energy. Families and tourists were tubing down the cool water’s gentle stretches or sunbathing on the smooth boulders or sandy areas along the shore as the cold mountain runoff splashed against the banks.
I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
Getting onto the water was like hitting a reset button.
We paddled downstream, navigating the brisk, swirling currents, and laughed like kids whenever a rogue splash of chilled mountain water caught us square in the face.
Sofia was a natural, digging her paddle into the water with a fierce, competitive drive that had her pulling ahead of me more than once.
“Hey, boss!” she shouted back over the roar of a small rapid. “Try to keep up!”
“You’re in my territory now!” I warned with a laugh.
To be honest, at times I worried she was kicking my ass. She was good, fast, and I was finding it difficult to keep up with her energy. Digging my paddle deep into the water, I finally accelerated past her, spraying a sheet of cool river water in her direction as she gasped and laughed.
By the time we hauled the kayaks out near the downtown riverfront, my shoulders were burning in the best way possible, and the sun had left a warm, golden flush across Sofia’s cheeks.
We changed into dry clothes in the riverside facilities. She had pulled on a sundress while I put on a pair of khakis and a T-shirt. We looked like tourists, not like two people who had grown up just a few miles away from there.
We walked down the bustling pedestrian pathway.
The riverfront was packed with patio diners, the smell of wood-fired pizza and craft beer drifting from the open-air restaurants as we headed toward the restaurant where I’d booked us a reservation for dinner.
We were seated in a corner table on an elevated deck that sat right over the rushing water.
As the sun started to dip behind the Colorado Rockies, we held hands and sipped cold drinks. It was the perfect end to an amazing day. Sitting outside with a couple of cold beers while sharing a pizza, I bet we looked like the couple on one of Sofia’s marketing ads for Clear Creek.
Sofia leaned back in her chair. Her shoulders dropped, a look of pure, unadulterated contentment on her face as she watched the river rush beneath us.
“Today was perfect,” she murmured, her hazel eyes turning back to meet mine across the small table. “I hadn’t realized how much I needed this.”
“Yeah,” I said, reaching across the table to entwine my fingers with hers, not caring who saw us out here in the summer twilight. “Me too.”
An hour later, we were driving back to my place. The car windows were down and the warm night air rushed over our sunburned skin.
When we stepped inside, Sofia walked over to the windows and leaned her forehead against the cool panes as she looked out into the darkness.
I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her back flush against my chest. She let out a soft, happy sigh, her hands coming up to cover mine.
Out here, high above the office and the city noise, there was just the quiet hum of the summer night and the absolute certainty that I had everything I ever wanted right in my arms.
“Is it bad of me to not want the weekend to come to an end?” She turned in my arms and held onto me.
I chuckled. “No, I feel the same way.”
I held onto her while we watched the rest of the sunset from the windows. I couldn’t get over how comfortable this felt. How right it felt being with her.
I’d had two serious relationships in my life.
Both had ended in just under a year. There had been issues from the start that I had overlooked.
Holding Sofia later that night as the moonlight flickered across the bedroom ceiling, I couldn’t think of one thing wrong, other than the fact that we were keeping what was between us, well, only between us. I knew it was past time to change that.