Page 14 of Green
I’d never purposefully listened in on his calls before, but found myself pressing my ear up against the closed door, because this had already been the shittiest weekend ever so I might as well.
From what I gathered, he had forgotten that he had late-dinner plans with a girl and she was at the restaurant up in San Francisco, waiting for him.
His voice was so different with this phone girl. He was polite, but sexy and commanding. He apologized twice, not at all profusely, told her that something came up at home that he had to take care of, but he could see her after the big meeting with his investors. Until then, he was fully-booked. She probably hung up on him. I didn’t blame her. He called his assistant to ask him to have flowers sent to Carly in the morning. “Nothing extravagant—just two dozen yellow roses.”
Carly.
This guy, with his Nikkis and Carlys.
I hustled over to the kitchen, to pour a glass of milk to go with my donuts and fury. I expected that Carly would be equally perturbed when she received yellow apology roses. Yellow roses symbolize friendship. I was the one he should have been giving yellow roses to. If I were designing a set for a character who’s received flowers from a guy she’s boning, I would suggest peonies of any color (if they’re in season), or lavender roses (because they aren’t a cliché). But I would not be advising Theo on this matter.
By the time he emerged from his room, looking somewhat sheepish, I had perfected myI Couldn’t Care Less About Thisfacial expression, but my voice betrayed me. “Everything okay up in the Frisco Bay?” I practically growled.
He shrugged. “Yes and no.” He didn’t quite join me in the kitchen. He approached the counter between the kitchen and the dining area. Despite being a runner, when Theo Walker walked, he took long, slow strides. It was like he moved in slow motion so you could get a good look at how sexy and beautiful he was. It seemed to take forever for him to cross the room, and I was losing my carefully-cultivated resting bitch face. I could feel it morphing into theAngry Sexually Frustrated Platonic Friendface that would surely become my mask for the foreseeable future. He pressed his hands down on the countertop. The bulging veins in his arms only made me angrier.
“So youweren’tgoing to work all night tonight anyway.”
“I was going to go back to work after a late dinner.”
“After dinner or after ‘dessert?’”
He gave me a quizzical look and then deftly ignored my question.
“Seriously—do you even like these girls that you bone?” I’d never straight-out asked him this before.
He looked at me cautiously. “Why?”
I shrugged, ever so nonchalant. “Well, I’m a single girl now, I’m just psyching myself up, getting super excited about what it’ll be like to date all those awesome single guys out there.”
His jaw clenched and his whole body tensed up. “Well, I really can’t speak forallthe awesome single guys out there.”
“Speak for yourself, then.”
“Of course I like them.” He sounded annoyed with me now. “I’ve just never fallen for any of them and I’ve never liked them more than I like my work, so I make it very clear to them up front that it’s just going to be a fling. If they want to get all mad or emotional that’s up to them.”
“Wow. You’re so evolved.”
He watched me. I stared down at my glass of milk.
“Gemma.”
“No.”
“We should—”
“Nope.”
There was a tapping on the patio door. Chloe and Ethan were on the back porch.Thank God.“Hey!” I rushed over to unlock the sliding door, thrilled by this interruption. Theo stayed where he was.
“Hey,” Chloe said, hugging me. “I hope it’s okay that he found out. I specifically told my idiot husband not to tell him.”
“My idiot wife didn’t make it clear that she really, really meant that I shouldn’t tell him.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s all fine.”
The Marvin Gaye song started up again in Theo’s pants. He pulled his phone out and excused himself to his room.
Ethan didn’t wait for him to shut the door before saying: “His latest fangirl slash girl toy?”
