Brave by Tammara Webber
“Whether I want you or not is irrelevant.” He made our carnal power struggle sound like a debate over eating junk food or sleeping in.
“But you don’t deny it.”
“Regardless, any association between us beyond our working relationship is out of the question. I’m sorry if anything I’ve said or done made you think otherwise.” His eyes slid away. He was fortifying his resolve no matter his desires. “You’re just horny. It’s not me you want.”
The volatile temper for which gingers are known burst into flames in the center of my chest and snarled out. “So you think I just want to get laid?” He flinched, which was gratifying, but I wasn’t done. “I just want a dick and anyone’s dick will do?”
My conscience ahem-ed and recapped the fact that I had gone out last night with that very objective, evaluating each of Mindi’s male friends with the intention of getting laid. Clearly I was horny as hell. But if any old dick would’ve done, Boone was plenty cute, Oliver was hot enough to stuff a sock in his mouth and ride him like a living dildo, or I could have picked door number three and made that banana’s whole year.
Isaac glowered at the blameless waffle maker, which sizzled happily and was beginning to emit appetizing aromas.
I didn’t wait him out this time. “I will take your suggestion under advisement, Mr. Maat. I’m sure someone’s dick will accommodate me.” I felt like a total bitch, but that didn’t put the brakes on my mouth. “Maybe Joshua? He’s not my boss, and I don’t think he’d be afraid of my father. Or my name.”
In trying to goad Isaac into arguing back, I said the first name that popped into my head. Never mind that Joshua’s unpantsed penis would never find itself anywhere near me unless it had a masochistic hunger to discover The Lawnmower, a self-defense move I’d been waiting three years to use since it wasn’t one we could test out on the RAD coaches. Joshua would be a worthy candidate.
I wanted Isaac to vow that his was the only dick for me. Instead, he handed me the first waffle, a miniature pitcher of warmed syrup, and a can of Reddi-wip. When his waffle was done, he took his plate to his desk, sat on his ergonomic rolling stool, opened his laptop, and began tapping at it.
I finished my meal in silence, rinsed the dishes, and went to brush my teeth and wrangle my unruly hair into a knotted bun.
Not a word passed his lips until he handed me a Target bag containing my clothes from the previous night. “I looked for your shoes and found them in the trash?”
“They were covered in dirty water and I think bodily fluids.”
“Ah.” He was holding his keys. “If you’re ready then.”
I wanted to flounce back down on his sofa, cross my arms, and pout like an oversized toddler.
I wanted to put my arms around him and beg forgiveness for being the selfish, horny person he thought I was.
I did not want to leave. He stood there, waiting for me to get out of his home if I couldn’t have the decency to get out of his life.
I squatted and hugged Pete’s neck. He sat patiently and let me, like a movie dog. My parents’ dog, Jack, would have scratched up my arms, poked me in the eye with his nose, and wriggled to get loose until he peed. “Goodbye, Pete.” I rubbed his ears, which had warmed up, as Isaac had alleged they would.
I had a wayward thought as we approached the door. Without questioning the impulse, I slid my phone into my pocket and set my other things on the entry table. “I, um, need to use the bathroom first. Long drive home.” I hurried, hoping he would stay where he was by the door to the hallway, because there was no sound explanation for what I was about to do.
When I left the bathroom, I detour-tiptoed over to the framed photograph, lined it up in my phone’s display, and took the illicit shot. I would run it through filters later, adjusting the color and lighting. I dropped my phone back in my pocket and returned to gather my small purse and bag of clothes.
I felt like Indiana Jones with a stolen treasure in my pocket, anticipating flying darts and body-flattening boulders and displeased Nazis. My heart hammered at a guilty pace all the way to the parking garage, but I wasn’t sorry. I was captivated by that image of Isaac as a cheerful, innocent child with his jaunty, checkered bow tie and his attractive, ill-fated parents, and I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing it again.
“Be careful. There could be glass or broken concrete somewhere,” he said, more mindful of my bare feet than I was.
As we emerged from the parking garage, my phone rang; Mindi’s face appeared on my screen.
“Hi, girl! How’re you feeling?” I asked, my artificially chirpy Erin voice now super apparent to my own ears. Thank you, Isaac Maat.
“Much better. I’m so sorry I abandoned you last night—”
“I’m great. Never better.” Liar, liar, everything on fire.
“Isaac took care of you, then?”
“Yes.” No. I side-eyed him. He pretended not to notice.
“He’s one of Rhys’s best friends—he’s always been really sweet.”
Sweet? Isaac? Um. “He was great.”
The hours since leaving dinner last night scrolled by: Isaac covering me with things because I looked cold. Carrying me through a panic-inducing underworld of bubbles several feet over our heads—which sounded fun but wasn’t. Feeding me and lending me clothes. Admitting that he had adopted an old dog, on purpose, because it needed a home. Keeping a photo of his deceased parents near his bed. Encouraging me to talk about my biggest failure as a human being.
Sonofabitch, he is sweet. I sighed.
“Erin,” Mindi said, “I have to tell you this before Rhys gets back with breakfast. We’re going out tonight. Alone.” The elation in her voice was palpable. She was squeaking with it.
“I take it that’s not happened before?”
“Never. I’ve been hanging out with Boone and them for over two years, and Rhys almost as long. But Boone says Rhys never really hung out with them until I showed up. I’ve tried literally everything. For a while he kept telling me I should date guys my age, until I told him what happened.”
“You told him?” That was huge.
Mindi’s parents had been perfect, supporting her through pressing charges, urging her to get counseling. With baby steps, she’d progressed past the devastating PTSD she had suffered after the assault. She’d left home again to finish college and established a new group of friends on a new campus, in a new city.
But she hadn’t dated or hung out alone with anyone, and she hadn’t disclosed her past to any of her new friends but Madison. The fact that she had confided in Rhys was remarkable. Tears blurred my vision, and I made a fervent wish that he would prove deserving of her faith in him, no matter what transpired with their potential romance.
“He was so angry and upset for me. But it backfired a little.” She sighed. “He stopped telling me to date other people, but he started treating me like I was made of glass, which is just bullshit! And then last night happened, and at one point my guard was so far down from all the throwing up that I told him to please goddammit stop treating me like I was broken.”
“Wow.”
“Hi honey, I’m home!” I heard in the background, followed by a whispered, “Oh crap, you’re on the phone.”
“It’s Erin,” she told him. “I’m just letting her know I’m alive and that I’m very, very sorry for the rancid chicken salad.”
My stomach churned resentfully. “Ugh. Please do not say rancid. Or chicken, for that matter.”
“Deal. Claire and Madison had to take poor Ava to the ER. They gave her meds to stop the vomiting and hooked her up to an IV to rehydrate her. Madison texted around six to let me know they were back home. I’m glad you and I didn’t eat much of that you-know-what.”
“Jesus, no kidding.”
She thanked Rhys for her latte and then, with the verbal equivalence of an exaggerated wink, said, “Well, Erin, I’ll, uh, talk to you tomorrow.” Subtlety had never been Mindi’s strong suit.
I wanted to
“Yes. I’ll want all the deets.”
Isaac pulled up behind my Prius, parked where I’d left it a mere thirteen hours before. I grabbed my small handbag and the plastic bag that held my costume. He’d added my gold pom-poms, which we’d left in his trunk outside the haunted house.
“Got everything?” he asked.
“Yep. I’ll bring your clothes back Monday. Thanks for letting me crash on your couch, and the food, and… everything.”
His hand tightened on the gearshift, but he needn’t have agonized that I was going to have another go at persuading him to reconsider his Erin moratorium. After his coup de grâce assertion regarding my horniness and the myriad choices available to fix it (namely, anyone’s dick but his), my wiles were demoralized and going on hiatus.
I popped the rear of my hatchback, stowed the bag, and removed my flats, mindful of Isaac’s car idling behind me, Isaac watching me, Isaac thinking who knew what. Once I started my car, he reversed and drove away.
I clunked my forehead against the steering wheel a few times for good measure, inhaled a deep breath, retrieved my dark-lensed sunglasses from the hinged compartment over my head, and drove home.
chapter
Twenty-two
Isaac’s office door didn’t stand open anymore. That was the first change I noted.
On occasion it was shut when I passed, but more often it was cracked open a few inches. Enough to say I’m here and also Keep out. The latter was more than likely I’m busy, but I was taking everything he did or didn’t do personally, from his now-commonly-shut door to his seeming avoidance of eye contact during meetings and even when I was in his office, reporting on client progress. He listened and replied in conventional ways, but his eyes were on his monitor or a printout in his hand. Instead of looking at me, he straightened his desk or filed something while I was speaking.
When forced to look at me by Western conventions of conversation, he stared at my ear, or my nose, or the pulse beating at the base of my throat. Anywhere but my eyes—or my mouth. As before, my questions were answered, my opinions validated or negated in a professional manner, and that was the end of the interaction. No crackling current remained between us. It was like it had never been there.
I did my job autonomously for the most part, and when that should have been and maybe was a sort of praise, a gratifying endorsement of my proficiency, it wasn’t. I didn’t know why.
I contemplated pushing his door open and asking, “Why are you avoiding me?”
He would raise one derisive brow and affect a perplexed, confused frown. “What do you mean? I’m right here,” he would say, or something similar. Not so long ago I would have believed it was all in my mind. Silly Erin. Isaac Maat never looked at you any differently.
A kiss had changed everything.
I was in the break room, inspecting a salad I’d brought for lunch—salads and leftovers were no longer indiscriminately trusted to not contain murderous spores—when Isaac entered, coffee mug in hand.
I saw him from the corner of my eye as he pulled up before entering and came to a full stop in the doorway. He took a step back, planning to steer clear of the room until I’d left it, no doubt. Whipping around, I said, “Hi.”
He froze and stared at my ear, forcing his face into a pleasantish façade. “Hi.” Walking straight to the sink, he rinsed his mug and made it clear he had no intention of making conversation.
I rolled my eyes behind his back, poked at my perfectly fresh salad a few more times, and took a sniff. Is that odor from the goat cheese or a lethal microorganism? I wasn’t sure.
“Hey, Erin.” Joshua did not hesitate at the door or stop with a greeting. He left his unrinsed coffee cup in the sink for the janitorial staff to deal with. He ignored Isaac. “Keep that salad for tomorrow. I’m in the mood for Zushi—we haven’t been there in forever.”
The visual juxtaposing of these two men didn’t happen often. In a larger organization, they would have had little to no contact. But JMCH was a small firm—a family place, Daddy said—so it was like a small town. Everyone knew everyone. Even so, Sales was front end. Finance was back end. If not for the client liaison responsibility he’d assumed, Isaac would have been chest-deep in numbers all day with little to no direct interaction with the people we built homes for. By the time he saw them, the sales department’s job was done.
Isaac stiffened at Joshua’s invitation. There was an enmity between them that had nothing to do with me. The earliest things Joshua had said regarding Isaac exposed entrenched animosity, not jealousy that had begun with my arrival. That said, I felt like one of those miniscule neutral territories between two warring factions. I was no one’s property and never would be, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they both saw me that way in relation to each other. I didn’t like it.
“Sure. Lunch sounds great. I’m not trusting this salad anyway.” I stepped on the floor lever of the trash can and dropped the boxed salad in. “I’ll run up and grab my bag. Meet you at the front.”
I glanced at Isaac as I moved between them. He was toweling his mug dry, but his eyes were on me. For the first time in almost three weeks, his eyes met mine, and he was not happy. His eyes were black, whether from fluorescent lighting or dilated pupils, and they would have scorched me to the wall if they’d had their way. I would have been a sooty cutout. A full-sized Erin silhouette.
My step faltered and I tore my gaze from his. This was what the phrase playing with fire meant. I left the room and sprinted up the stairs instead of walking for no reason except the absurd feeling that I was being pursued. I owed him nothing. He’d kissed me and pushed me away. Literally. Beyond that, I had never allowed anyone to dictate my friendships and wasn’t about to start now.
My imagination, which hadn’t ceased its almost nightly Isaac fantasies, now pictured Joshua and Isaac standing in the break room below. Well. Isaac was standing. Joshua was on the floor, holding his rapidly bruising jaw. Don’t speak to her again. No lunches, no coffee dates, no conversation whatsoever. Do I make myself clear, Swearingen?
My breath caught as I entered my office and stood there for a moment, hand to chest, breathing erratically, aroused as hell, and trying to remember why I was there.
“Holy shit.” I steadied myself, one hand on my desk, the other assessing the wild beat of my heart. My fantasies hadn’t intruded on my workday before, for chrissake, nor had any of them ever included another person. Okay, there was one time I included another girl, but I dismissed her a minute later. I don’t share, I’d said as she vanished, taking her voluptuous body (because if I was going to imagine a girl in my bed, I was going all in) with her. Neither do I, he’d answered.
In a flash, I knew why there had been no invasive daydreams, even in the place many of my nighttime fantasies transpired. Isaac had rendered me invisible to him here, and my mind knew it, even if my heart—I mean my body—didn’t. Here, we were colleagues, nothing more. Here, we weren’t friends. I hadn’t told him my deep dark secret. He hadn’t recounted the worst, most heartbreaking memory of his childhood. We hadn’t kissed. I hadn’t met his dog.
He and Joshua could decide on pistols at dawn for all I cared. Their bad blood had nothing to do with me.
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath. When my brain rebooted, I asked myself why I was standing in my office, remembered, and grabbed my purse from the hook on the back of the door. I passed Isaac’s office as his door was snapping closed.
By the time Joshua and I reached his car, I regretted my decision to join him for lunch. Whatever retaliation I had heaped on Isaac in the moment had ricocheted and clobbered me in the head. Joshua spent the entire mercifully short drive boasting about his sales for the current month in comparison to his female counterparts. He didn’t come right out and attribute his success to his superior gender, but he skirted close.
Overall sales hadn’t been good, per usual in November because few people
I didn’t bother mentioning it. His momentum was so strong he was having a one-way conversation.
We were eating before he interrupted his monologue with a series of progressively personal questions. “So, what’re your plans over Thanksgiving? I’m heading to Jackson Hole with a couple of buddies to do some snowboarding. They’ve already had like seventy inches.”
I’d erected a little barrier of glasses and condiments between us to thwart any food stealing. “My family goes to my grandparents’ cabin in Colorado every year.”
“Ah—the venerable Leonard P. Welch.” He chewed a slice of tuna sashimi and continued talking around it. “Is it true he’s a billionaire?”
He knew my maternal grandfather’s name? What kind of stalker shit was that?
“I… don’t…”
“I know McIntyre Welch Inc. operates under the name Jeffrey McIntyre Custom Homes, but it’s common knowledge—well maybe not common knowledge, but it’s no secret—that your grandfather bankrolled the company in the beginning, along with Ted’s grandfather and a secret stakeholder they eventually bought out. He’s not on the Forbes list yet, but he’s probably really fucking close, right?”
I knew Ted Sager’s father had held the VP of Operations position before he did, but I hadn’t known his family was involved in founding JMCH. I had no idea of my grandparents’ net worth either, not that I would chat about it over lunch with some guy I barely knew, for fuck’s sake. Also, Joshua had searched the Forbes Billionaire List, looking for my grandfather?
“Um, I don’t feel comfortable discussing my family’s financial assets.”
My maternal grandparents were loaded; that was plain. Their “cabin” in Colorado was as impressive as my parents’ place, but with mountain views, thirty acres of land, a wine cellar, a private stocked pond, and a horse barn. They had live-in help, and the horses had their own caretaker. Mom had been raised like that from birth; Daddy hadn’t. He’d embodied his up-by-his-bootstraps story and never let my brothers forget it. Never mind his early aggrandizement by way of Grandpa Welch.