Page 70 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
I’d never called him that, I realized as soon as I said it, and I stiffened momentarily, but he didn’t say a word. He sure didn’t stop holding me, so I closed my eyes, snuggled closer to his radiant warmth, and in another minute, fell asleep, because if I was his security blanket, he was mine, too.
Of course, that had been then, this was now, and he hadn’t even sent me a text after I’d walked out on him this afternoon. I didn’t know if he’d show up at seven, or what I’d get when he did.
And if you think that might have excited me a little…well, color me guilty. I’d been right to say no, and I reserved therightto say no. You bet I did. That didn’t mean I wasn’t imagining the consequences of having said no, or that the tingles weren’t hitting me like sharp little shocks at the suggestions my naughty brain conjured up in answer to that interesting question.
The dirty truth was that it was more for Hemi than for Nathan that, at five-thirty on that endless afternoon, after a final check-in call with Karen, I stopped in the ladies’ room, site of my most recent disaster, did some hasty freshening up, dabbed on a little more perfume, and headed down to the lobby.
Nathan was leaning against one of the polished granite walls when I showed up, a dark, casually elegant figure typing on his phone with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his dark, handsome face.
“Hey,” I said when I reached him and he still hadn’t noticed me.
He looked up, his expression clearing a bit, and said, “Hey.”
Well, that was a great start. I said, “OK, what? Job got you down?” I resisted the idea that it was awkwardness with me. He’d worked with me for nine months, we were friends, and surelyNathanwouldn’t treat me differently now.
Of course he wouldn’t. It was probably about the job, just like it always was with Hemi. Nathan had been promoted to full-fledged Publicity Associate a few months earlier, a much-deserved jump. Despite his laid-back attitude, he had a knack for the work like nobody I’d ever seen, and I could tell he enjoyed it.
“Ha,” he said. “The job? I should be askingyouabout that, from what I hear.”
“Oh. News gets around, I see.”
“Well, yeah. If you’re going to post your political manifesto to the entire marketing department and torpedo their whole campaign, not to mention the interesting aftermath? That would tend to happen.”
“What interesting aftermath?” The Mean Girls had talked about what they’d said in the ladies’ room? Surely not. Talk about torpedoing. You didn’t have to know Hemi well at all to know howthatwould have gone over with him. He got mad if somebodylookedat me wrong.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Being kept after school to bang erasers?”
I sighed anddidn’tblush. “Oh. That. I wasn’t kept after school. I cannot believe people. Let’s go. I’ll tell you about it, if you want to hear. Except that you already have.”
“I could hear it again from the horse’s mouth. Beats talking about me.”
Really? That was odd. At that moment, though, I spotted Gabrielle coming out of the elevator. I hesitated, torn, before I put a hand on Nathan’s arm. “Hang on one sec, will you?” I waited until Gabrielle had caught up to us, then said, “Hey. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you. Do you know Nathan Forrest?”
She smiled her secretly-amused, no-BS-tolerated smile and told him, “In a manner of speaking. Your reputation precedes you. Gabrielle Washington.”
“We were just going for a drink,” I said. “To celebrate my disastrous day.” I tried to make that sound a whole lot lighter and less catastrophic than it felt, and then threw caution to the winds, risked another rejection, and asked, “Want to come?”
“You know,” she said, “since I’ve officially kissed your ass now—why not?” She glanced at Nathan. “If I’m not interrupting.”
He was looking a whole lot more cheerful himself than he had been a few minutes ago. “Now, would I ever turn that down?”
She studied him, long and slow, then said, “Ah. I heard about that, too. All right, then. I’m coming.”
That was why there were three of us snagging a table in O’Doul’s, thanks to a departing group and Nathan’s quick reactions, and, five minutes later, three of us with wine glasses in front of us, Friday night starting for real, and me realizing how much I’d missed this. Hanging out. Being…normal. Having friends.
After a couple minutes during which Gabrielle and Nathan made some pretty good inroads on their wine and I worked much more slowly on mine, Gabrielle said, “After all that excitement today, I feel like this should be tequila.”
“Tell,” Nathan urged. “That’s the only reason I’m here tonight aftermyweek, even though Hope’s about impossible to pry anything out of. I’m hoping you’re easier.”
“I know you are,” Gabrielle said.
He grinned. “Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Tell.”
She staged a performance, then, working through her wine along the way and loosening up with every sip. She described the meeting, and the moment when I’d started to talk, as if it had been a whole lot more exciting than it had actually been. She ended up by jumping to her feet, pounding the table with a fist, throwing her arms wide, and proclaiming, “This is for the skinny-ass little white girls like me. For the brown people, the wheelchair-bound, the sisters with junk in the trunk, and our brave veterans home from war. This is for the downtrodden people, the real people. This is for the world. This is… For Every Body!” By which point, Nathan was hanging onto the edge of the table and laughing his handsome head off, and I’d long since stopped protesting and succumbed to my own fit of the giggles.
“I shouldn’t laugh,” Nathan said, straightening up as Gabrielle sat down again, looked with disappointment at her empty glass, and accepted my nearly full one as a substitute. “My mother was a model. Family disloyalty. Butdamn,girl,” he told me. “Do you have to live dangerously?”
“Apparently I do,” I said, some of the laughter dying away. “Since I went from bad to worse after that.”
