“This was a surprise.” I smile over at Derek as I hit the call button for the elevator.
“I haven’t seen you much since you’ve been working from this apartment. Erika is adamant that you stay laser-focused on this project… but… I’ve missed seeing you around the office.”
“I wish you would have called or texted first.”
I look down the hall to ensure no one is listening to us. The coast is clear. “My brother doesn’t know that Briggs and I are doing this to clean up his reputation.”
“Operation De-sleaze Conley,” Derek says, shaking his head like something tastes bad in his mouth.
“Right…” I say.
I might have said it to Briggs in an attempt to cut him down a peg, but I didn’t come up with it; Derek did. But now, from a closer vantage point, I can see that the Briggs I’ve known since I was a kid is still in there.
The question still remains. Why is he back to self-destructive drinking and partying? And how did he get himself in this mess with the exotic dancer? If he doesn’t tell me, I may have to do a little digging myself.
The elevator door opens, and Derek gestures for me to go first. He’s always been chivalrous on the few dates we’ve had. Picking me up instead of meeting, opening doors, pulling out chairs, offering me his coat, and refusing to let me pay, even though I offer.
I hit the ground floor button, and the doors close. He and I stand side by side, staring back at the elevator doors from the inside. I can see both of our oddly warped images in the metallic material of the elevator, but it’s not perfectly reflective, so I can’t make out either of our expressions.
“So… Briggs,” Derek says as soon as the elevator doors close.
We’re both facing the stainless steel doors, and I watch Derek rock on his heels with his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah?”
Was there more to that comment, or are we just calling out any random person’s name? Maybe I’m more irritated with him showing up unannounced than I originally thought.
“You two getting along?”
“So far, so good. It’s been an adjustment.”
“But he’s being respectful…?”
Huh? Respectful? Like leaving the seat down on the toilet and passing gas in a different room than the one I’m standing in? Or respectful in that he’s not tossing me up on the kitchen island and devouring me because he felt like it?
But really, I don’t want to get into it with Derek right now. I have a meeting with the girls that I’m late for, and Tessa seems anxious to get together ASAP. I’m worried something might have been leaked already.
“Sure, I guess.”
“He’s not pressuring you in any way, is he?”
I look over at him. I can’t hide my look of confusion.
“Pressuring me to pretend to be his girlfriend? He’s the one that didn’t want—”
“No,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “Pressuring you into more than what you signed up for.”
He saw my panties on the ground, but I also live there, and he’s never been inside my apartment. For all he knows, I’m a slob. Or I could have been folding laundry on the kitchen island, and those pair dropped from the stack.
I’ll admit, though, Briggs tucking them in his back pocket was incredibly hot, and I can’t deny that I’ll be fantasizing that he leaves them in his pocket all day.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Sex, Autumn. Is he pressuring you into sleeping with him?” He huffs as if annoyed that he has to spell it out for me.
“Derek, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I’m your boss Autumn. Of course, it’s my business. It would be highly inappropriate for you to be involved in a sexual nature with our client.”
I take a step to my left, further away from Derek, and turn to face him, crossing my arms against my chest in a protective stance.
“I will say this again. What Briggs and I do in that apartment is none of your business. This whole idea was yours, and Erika loved it.”
“We’ve been on several dates over the course of a month, and I never so much as got to second base. But you let some manwhore hockey player that you’ve been fake dating for three days screw you?”
My hands tighten around my biceps. I want to reach out and smack him, but we’re in an enclosed elevator still, and even though I don’t think Derek would physically retaliate, I’m not willing to roll the dice for instant gratification.
I’m not a tiny little thing, although Briggs’s arms have a way of swallowing me whole and making me feel Tinker Bell-sized. But Derek is still bigger than me and pound for pound stronger than me.
“You have no right to speak to me that way.”
Angels must exist because the elevator doors open right then, and I lunge out of that elevator car and speed walk for the door.
I hear Derek as I increase the distance between us. He isn’t following after me.
“I came here to ask you out on a date!” he yells.
“I guess you know where you can shove your invitation!” I yell over my shoulder, pushing through the glass doors and out onto the public sidewalk, free at last.
I know I could call my brother or Briggs, and they’d come down to give Derek a good talking to, but I’d prefer they both stay out of jail.
If I nail this account, Derek will be a peer and no longer my boss. We’ll work in different divisions of the firm, and luckily, on different floors too.
Briggs
“So… how’s the gym?” I ask, reluctant to make contact, but we’re both awkwardly standing in the kitchen now with Autumn gone.
“Good,” he says without looking up, his arms folded over each other and leaning against the island as he stares down at his phone. A plate of cookie crumbs is all that’s left of the mountain of cookies he devoured.
“Good,” I say back.
“How’s the team playing?” he asks, again, not looking up as he types a text.
“Good,” I tell him.
“Good,” he responds with zero interest.
Silence sets in, and this is easily the shortest conversation Isaac and I have had in our entire lives.
“I’m heading out to meet a friend at the bar,” he says, leaning up and grabbing his phone off the island and tucking it into his front pocket.
“At two in the afternoon?” I say.
Isaac finally looks up at me. “Interesting coming from you.”
I stare back at him as he rounds the island and heads for the front door.
Why are you so against this?
“My sister deserves better than a drunk who passes out at God knows where for God knows how long.”
“That’s not who I am.”
“It might not be who you’ll always be, but it’s who you are right now. And my sister needs a real man who will provide for her, protect her, help her accomplish her dreams, and give her the family she’s always wanted.”
“And you think I’m not that man.”
He turns and faces me straight on, taking a couple of steps closer to me. “No. I don’t think you are.”
There have been very few times in my life when someone has used words that hurt me as badly as those do. Is it because Isaac thinks I’m not good enough for his sister, or is it because it feels like he was saying, plainly, I’m not good enough?
He turns around without another word and leaves the apartment, closing the door on his way out, leaving me with more questions and uncertainty about where Isaac and I stand and whether or not this fuel over his sister will end our friendship, fake or not.
Will he be relieved to find out we faked the whole thing and his sister was never truly in danger of ending up with me? Or will he hate me for lying to him and making him fly out here to defend her and protect her from a man he finds to be inadequate and lacking to ever deserve his sister? I guess we’ll find out in a few months.
