“Autumn.” Erika smiles as I walk through her open-door office. I close it as I walk through. This case I’m working on is on a need-to-know basis. “Just the woman I wanted to see.” She smiles.
“Really?”
“Since you’ve been working from your joint apartment with Briggs, I haven’t seen you over the last few weeks. How are things going?” She smiles and gestures for me to sit in the chair on the other side of her desk.
She sits in her tall, white leather office chair.
“I just left a meeting with Tessa Tomlin about what she’s seeing on social media. It seems as though we’re getting traction.”
“Ooh, you know I love traction.” She gleams.
“I do. And he could be up for a large sponsorship with a company that could help change his image around, but they want a certain type of athlete that mirrors their brand.”
“Aw, I see. And you’re concerned he doesn’t have the right image for the brand?”
“Right. So I wanted to talk to you about what we could do to attempt to push him toward winning them over.”
“I’d love to discuss this. Getting a household name brand to ‘vouch’ for him could go a long way in changing his image.”
“I agree.” I nod.
“Okay, take the day and get me a list of your ideas. I will go through them and see if I can build even further on your list. Maybe I can pull out a favor or two to get big exposure on him.”
“That would be great. I’ll go back home right now and jump on it,” I say, standing out of my seat, amped to get back to tell Briggs what I learned.
I make it out of the office without running into Derek. It was almost the end of the day, and he probably already went home. I get in my car and head for my apartment. The one I still have on lease since Briggs and I won’t be dating and living in a team-paid-for apartment forever.
I can’t go back to the apartment where Briggs and Isaac are currently. For all I know, World War Three might have broken loose, and it could be a blood bath. Briggs put himself in this position, inviting my brother to stay with us, so he’ll have to be the one to get himself out of it. I have bigger fish to fry, mainly ideas on how to fast-track turning Briggs into America’s sweetheart and how to resist him for the next few months in order to keep my promotion. No matter how great Briggs is in bed, this is all temporary, and I don’t want to throw away everything I’ve worked for to get me here. I have to try to keep things professional with Briggs.
It’s been over an hour since Isaac got back from the bar around midnight and headed to his room to turn in for the night. I sit on the bed, debating whether or not to call Autumn. I don’t like that I haven’t heard from her since she left this afternoon. Now it’s almost eleven o’clock, and she hasn’t even sent a single text to let me know she’d be home late.
I can’t take the silence anymore, and I’ll only stress more if my text goes unanswered.
I pick up my phone and dial her number.
“Hello?” I hear her groggy voice, relief hitting me that she’s not in some car accident on Highway 99 or something.
“Hi.”
I try to think of something else to say, but I run the danger of sounding like a real boyfriend asking where she is or where she’s been. I’m not sure that any of that is technically my business.
“Hi,” she echoes. “Everything ok?”
“Yeah. It’s just… it’s late,” I say.
“It is?” I hear her voice further away, probably pulling her phone from her ear to check the time. “Oh shoot, it is.”
A small bit of vindication that I’m not overreacting hits me.
“Are you coming home?” Nerves prickle at the back of my neck at the thought that she might be at Derek’s and isn’t coming home tonight to sleep next to me.
“Yes. I am.” I hear her yawn. “I lost track of time.”
“Where are you?”
Please don’t say Derek’s.
“At my apartment.”
Alone? But I can’t ask that. Can I?
“Your apartment? Why?”
Did she need a break from me? The thought of that is deflating.
“I’m working on some ideas to get you more public favor.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“A toy drive for kids in foster kids, a golf tournament for international health aid, a meet-and-greet for a new children’s cancer facility—”
“I’d do that,” I say quickly.
“The cancer wing for the hospital?”
“Yeah. When is it?”
“Uh…” She seems a little surprised over the phone that I picked something so quickly, but this one means something to me, and I want to do what I can. “It’s the day before you leave on your next out-of-town game. That will make for a long week, and it’s a little last minute, but Erika has a friend at the hospital that could use a celebrity pull to bring in more donations.”
“I’ll do it. What do they need me to do.”
“Just show up, sign autographs and take pictures with fans. There’s a silent auction, too. If you could sign a hat or something, that would go a long way.”
“Tell Erika I’ll be there. You’ll come with too?”
“If you want me there. It will be a good chance for us to be seen out together.”
“Of course I want you there.”
I can practically hear her smile over the phone.
“Well, the hospital will be elated. I’ll let Erika know. You made my job really easy.”
“Haven’t I made your job easier since day one?” I poke.
“True. Just an absolute delight since the second you stormed out of our first meeting,” she gives back.
“I’m still sorry about that.”
And I am.
“It’s fine. I’m just playing.”
I have to ask the question because she still hasn’t given me any reason to understand why she couldn’t have done this brainstorming here in this apartment where I wouldn’t have wondered all afternoon if she had ended up hanging out with Derek.
“You could have done your work here and bounced these ideas off me in real-time. It probably would have saved you time.”
“I could have, but it’s quieter here. No distractions.”
She thinks I’d bother her?
“I’m a distraction?”
“If you recall, you stopped me from finishing a project earlier today, and I ended up on the kitchen island and then in the shower.” She snickers.
I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face. She thinks I’m that kind of distraction. I’ll take it.
“Sorry. Would you have rather I left you to take care of your cookies on your own?”
She laughs, and my smile widens. “It was a great distraction, but I still have to do my job.”
Good to hear we’re on the same page there.
“I appreciate what you’re doing. I don’t think I’ve said that yet,” I tell her.
There’s silence for a moment on the other line.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry again that I was a jerk at the first meeting and stormed off. This whole thing sort of sucks.”
“Oh… right.”
Damn it, did she think I included her in the sucking part? She’s turning out to be the only thing I look forward to these days. Well, that and skating.
“Shit. Not you; the whole thing with Dixie and my bosses are on my ass. And I have to lie to everyone who means something to me.”
She can probably relate to all of this. And I guess her promotion is just as much on the line as my job is. But she doesn’t face public humiliation… or worse, just because someone thinks I make a good payday.
“I get it,” she says.
More silence.
“You still there?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Are you coming home?”
“Yes. I’m grabbing my things and walking out the door.”
“Okay, I’ll stay on the line until you get to your car.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I’m going to. Now leave your apartment,” I demand, anxious to have her inside this apartment.
She huffs. “You’re bossy.”
“Yep.”
I hear her grab a set of keys off some counter or desk and some rustling around that sounds like a backpack or a laptop bag in the background. A few seconds later, I hear a loud bang, like she just closed the door to her apartment and then the sound of a key locking the door behind her.
“Did you leave?”
“Yes. Jeez. Must you know every move I make?” she says playfully.
“If that’s an option, then yes, I’d like to know your every move.”
“I was kidding,” she says flatly.
“I’m not.”
Then I hear the sound of her heavy breathing as she walks down a flight of stairs. I saw her two-story building when I dropped her off at her apartment when she attended her first game as my girlfriend. I’m glad to know what her apartment looks like and that I seem to be in a good neighborhood.
“I don’t like that you don’t have a doorman.”
“I don’t need one.”
Bullshit, you don’t.
“Besides, much good that did since Derek sailed right on past him.”
A discomfort hits me in the chest at the thought that maybe she ditched the girls and spent the whole day with him today.
“What happened after you two left?”
Silence on her end. I have a feeling she didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“Nothing happened. I was just making a point.”
I don’t like her answer, but I’m not going to press her about it right now. She’s only a small cellphone button away from hanging up on me and deciding to stay at her place tonight, but I know she wouldn’t because Isaac would ask reasonable questions as to why we’re a happy couple, but his sister kept her apartment and opted to stay there then with me. It’s too risky.
“Where are you now?”
“I just got to the parking lot. Relax. My brother doesn’t even hover this close.”
I ignore her jab.
I hear the sound of her opening her car door. It shuts, and then a few seconds later, her car revs to life.
“Okay, nosy… I’m on my way home.”
“Call when you get here. I’ll come down.”
“You don’t need to.”
“It’s late.”
“We have a locked private parking garage with cameras.”
“Someone could still be down there. The parking garage is for all tenants.”
“We have security.”
“Not standing around in the parking garage this late waiting for you to get home.”
Home. That slid off my tongue pretty damn easily.
She doesn’t say anything back, so I say it again.
“Call me when you get close so I have time to take the elevator down to meet you.”
“Okay,” she says softly.
Relief hits me again.
She hangs up first; if she hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have ended the call.
I would have stayed on the line and listened to the noises of the street as she drove and the rhythm of her breathing. Then I’d know when she was pulling into the garage when the beep sounded as she used her lanyard to open the underground garage gate to get into our apartment parking.
Twenty minutes later…
I push send on my call log that says “Briggs”.
“I’m pulling into the garage. I’ll be up in a minute,” I tell him when he answers.
“I told you to call before you got here so I would have time to get down there.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in a minute.” Then I end the call before he can reprimand me over the phone.
I pull into the garage after the gate slides open for me. I hang a right and head for the two parking spots reserved for our apartment, but when I pull up on it, there’s a tall, brooding man standing in it dressed in a pair of basketball shorts low on his hips, a white t-shirt, and flip-flops he usually keeps by the door. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he doesn’t look happy.
How in the world did Briggs get down here so fast? A fire station pole straight from our apartment on the tenth floor probably wouldn’t have even beat me to my spot.
He steps out of the way as I pull into the parking spot.
I barely have the vehicle turned off when Briggs opens my door.
“How did you—”
“I was already down here. I figured you’d do this.” He scowls while he holds my 4Runner’s door open for me.
“Do what?”
“Be a brat and not listen.”
I snicker at the name he calls me.
“Look,” I say as I step out of the car and do a full 360-degree turn. “I’m in one piece. Told you I would be.”
“Let’s go, smart ass,” he says, reaching around me and into my car, pulling my laptop bag out of the passenger side and then closing the driver’s door.
I scoot out of the narrow walkway between my car and his as he follows me. He takes large steps and begins to pass me but then reaches for my hand, taking it into his. He slides his fingers between mine, lacing them together, and it feels like an electric current zipping up my arm and bursting around my heart.
I should pull my hand from his. I should find an excuse to release my fingers from his own, but I can’t bring myself to do it just yet—one more night.
He pulls me along with him until we get to the elevator, and then he lets go to hit the call button on the elevator lift.
The elevator opens immediately since it’s late; this was probably the last place it was. Dropping off Briggs, it was already here.
It starts moving as soon as Briggs hits level eight. The doors shut and then shoot us up.
Briggs looks over at the pajamas I had already put on while I was at home. My face is cleaned of all my makeup, and my hair is braided for bed.
“Were you planning on sleeping there until I called?”
He’s frowning. Does he really not like the idea of me sleeping at my apartment for one night?
“No. I needed a brain break around 9 p.m. and decided to do my nighttime routine. I wouldn’t have stayed there. My brother would have asked questions in the morning.”
“Okay.” He nods and then stares back at the elevator doors.
“Speaking of. You look no worse for wear than when I left you. Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah. We had a great heart-to-heart.” He smirks to himself.
I’m guessing that’s his way of telling me that they didn’t talk.
The second the elevator stops and the doors open, Briggs wraps his fingers around mine again.
He leads me out of the elevator and down the hall to the apartment we’re living in temporarily. He opens the apartment door and pushes it open for me, leading me through the door jam. He still doesn’t release my hand.
He walks over to the kitchen counter and lays my laptop bag on the island. I look over and notice that none of the cookies are lying on cooling racks and that the entire kitchen has been wiped clean.
He cleaned the kitchen?
“Where are the cookies?” I ask, partially expecting him to say that he and Isaac ate their feelings this afternoon after I left instead of talking them out with each other.
“I put them away,” he says and points to the tower of Tupperware that was furnished with the apartment, all stacked nicely beside the fridge before he turns toward the hallway, bringing me along with him like the caboose to his steam engine, following his path exactly, only one step behind.
A man who uses Tupperware. Why is that a total turn-on?
He leads me down the hallway and toward the master bedroom. He pushes through the door that was left cracked open and pulls me through with him.
“You said you’re ready for bed?”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the bed that he leads me to, “Teeth brushed and everything.”
“Do you need to pee?” he asks.
I laugh. “No, I went right before you called.”
“Okay then, get in,” he says, pulling back the sheets on the side I slept on last night.
It seems like an odd request, but I’m exhausted. I yawned the whole drive over and was excited to get to climb into this expensive memory foam mattress, so I go along with it.
I climb in and pull the sheets over me, but then Briggs yanks them back. When I look back toward him, he’s pushing into my personal space.
“Scoot over,” he instructs.
“Why? What are you doing?” I say as I start scooting.
“More,” he says, following me on his knees further into the bed.
Before I know it, I’m settling into my usual side of the bed, and Briggs slides in under the sheets, pulling me back against him, sliding his arm into the gap between my neck and my pillow and then his other arm wraps around my middle.
“Is this why you wanted me home so badly? You can’t sleep alone?” I tease. “Do you want me to check under the bed for you like my mom used to do?”
He grumbles.
“It’s almost one in the morning. Go to sleep.”
“This feels like déjà vu.”
He leans in and kisses the back of my head. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
When I don’t say anything more, he hums his approval. The kind of sound I make when I’m so incredibly comfortable under a warm blanket with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. My heart squeezes at his reaction to being snuggled up with me.
This feels just as decadent, but I can’t get used to this if I want my corner office… not that Briggs is even offering the reason for me to turn down the promotion. As far as I know, this is all temporary, and I’m guessing so is the sex.
A few moments later, he speaks against the back of my head. His mouth pressed against my hair.
“You’re right… I can’t sleep alone. Where would I put my hands?” he says and then squeezes me against him tighter.
I bite down on my lip to stop myself from squealing with glee.
But he’s right… we do have to talk. Mostly about how after tonight, sex is off the table.
Erika was clear.
It’s Briggs or the promotion.
And I already know which one makes the most sense.
