Page 38 of Waiting for Acceptance
“There you are.” He smirks at me and my eyes quickly become wet with unshed tears.
“I am so sorry. I don’t—” I blink a few times, quickly letting my tears fall and I can feel my shoulders sag—then they begin to shake. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” I laugh through the question, running my fingers through my hair as I walk farther into my office and away from Fitz.
“I’d like to know the same thing.” I look at Fitz in surprise and let out a half laugh, half scoff.
“Wow, where do I start? My best friend just text me asking if I can share a boyfriend for her wedding, my parents literally told me I would have been better off being someone else’s kid, they disapprove of pretty much everything I do with my life, and as much as I wish that didn’t bother me, it fuckingdoes.So whenthe one time they are excited about something happening in my life it’s, ofcourse, something that’s being orchestrated by them and I don’t have the fucking balls to say no, thank you, but I do not want to date the accountant from Berkeley you picked out for me.” I watch as he processes everything that just spewed out of me and I’m slightly mortified that I just gave this guy any more ammunition to use to make my life hell than he already had. It’s as if I was a Diet Coke and someone dropped emotional Mentos down my throat—I couldn’t have fought the explosion that followed if I’d wanted to. The other part of me feels a little bit lighter that I got all of that out but now I’m waiting for him to say something, anything, and it’s making me more anxious by the second.
“Your boyfriend doesn’t seem like the sharing type.” I pause at his words.
“What?”
“Well, you said your friend texted you asking if you could share him for a wedding? He doesn’t strike me as the sharing type. Very…territorial.” His jaw flexes and my brows draw together as I shake my head.
“No, I have to share my other friend’s boyfriend’s arm when we walk down the aisle becauseIam the only one that doesn’t have a date. Or in this case a significant other that is related to or lifelong friends with her soon to be husband.” I hate the bitterness I feel in my words as they leave my lips, but it’s not like it matters. I’m talking to Fitz for God’s sake, if anything he’ll just throw my single girl meltdown back in my face during one of our petty work arguments and no one else will know how I really feel about it.
“The guard dog isn’t your boyfriend?”
“Thewhat?” My eyes pop curiously.
“The guy who picked you up here the day you heard me on the phone talking about the acquisition.”
“Tank? God, no. He’s married—to my best friend.” Something flashes across Fitz’s face and I swear I see his shoulders drop. As if he’s just relaxed for the first time since walking in here. I get a sobering feeling when he looks at me, the noise in my brain becomes quiet as I study his softer features. The way his eyes widen slightly when he isn’t actively trying to annoy me and the way his dark hair is so much longer now than when I first met him.
“I’ll be your date.” I let out a laugh and shake my head, rolling my eyes and when they refocus I see his eyes have narrowed again, his jaw tight and he’s closed most of the space between us. “Something funny, Trouble?” I swallow down my laughter, feeling the weight of that nickname hit me at full force.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Purely selfish reasons, of course.”
I scoff, “Of course.” I mull it over for a moment, giving the inside of my lip hell as I bite it so hard trying to tell myself this is a horrible idea.
“What kind of selfish reasons?”
“You’ll owe me a favor.” That could be a very simple statement or a very dangerous one. Still, I can’t help but think spending an evening with Fitz might be better than being there alone. Sure I’ll have my girls, but they’ll eventually start dancing with their dates and I’ll be left to man the bar and that bit is getting a little old. I’ll be thirty in a couple of months, for crying out loud, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to take a co-worker as a date to a friend's wedding, would it?
“So it’s just a favor then, not a real date,” I state for extra clarification. His smirk damn near has me refusing this whole thing.
“Unless youwantit to be.”
My eyes roll on instinct. “In your dreams, Fitzgerald.” His last step brings us so close I can practically feel his growl against my chest.
“If you keep rolling those damn baby blues at me, Trouble, I might just be inclined to make them roll for an entirely different reason.” I can practically feel my heart beating through my cheekbones and before I can say something stupid, someone clears their throat in the doorway.
“Sosorry to interrupt.”Luther. “I saw your coffee sitting out here and thought you must have set it down and forgot it.” Fitz has yet to move from in front of me, so I squeeze past where he’s got me practically pinned against the wall and smile at Luther. I open my mouth to say something and he holds a finger up to stop me.
“Mm-mm. Later.” Then he cuts his eyes over to where Fitz is now turned around with his eyes on me like I’m his next meal. By the time I turn around, Luther is gone.
I clench my jaw and walk behind my desk, pulling my small mirror from my bag to fix the makeup I smudged while having a nervous breakdown earlier.
“Next Saturday, six o’clock. Don’t be late—and wear something nice.” I glance over at him and see that devilish smirk on his stupidly handsome face and almost roll my eyes again. Though I think better of it when I remember what he said just before Luther came in. I swallow hard and put my small mirror back in my bag. “I’ll send you the address.”
“It’s a date.” This time I don’t stop the eye roll that happens before they land on the drink Luther brought in. My brows scrunch together and I pick it up.
“Wait,” I say mostly to myself, though it causes Fitz to halt in the doorway. “I didn’t get coffee this morning.”Did I?Am I losing it and forgetting that I stopped for coffee?
“Thought you needed a little bit of your spark back. Caffeine should do the trick, right?” He winks and then disappears down the hallway as I take a sip of the coffee that is my exact order made to perfection. I stand in my office replaying my morning and finally have to shake my head to clear it.
Well, he definitely brought a little spark with him this morning, but it didn’t come from the damn coffee, that’s for sure.
