Page 3 of Collision

“No, you certainly are not,” I say.

She spins herself around to face me with wide eyes and her mouth puckers open into a small o as she holds the phone to her ear, and suddenly the room feels a little too small.

I’ve seen her once in the last five years. Just once since she told me to stay the fuck away and it was two years ago. We didn’t speak then. In fact, I’m sure she didn’t even know I was in the same city as her that night, let alone the same bar. She’d seemed happy then. But now? Now I feel like the pressure of what I have agreed to might be too much, because she is looking at me with the surge and babble of volcanic rage clawing its way into her emerald eyes.

Those same eyes run over me slowly, head to toe, as we both pull our phones away from our faces and I feel the need to move. To say something. To do something. Instead, I just smile. It’s an awkward kind of smile, one that’s almost a grimace and only pulls up half of my lips, and I want to take it back. Mikaela doesn’t smile at me. She appraises me cooly, with a detached disinterest, and I feel my cheeks flaming under her scrutiny.

How on earth did Jamie convince me this was a good idea again?

“It’s good to see you, Mik.” My voice catches in my throat and I think I might just turn and walk away. I think I might just run.

I swallow my pride and walk towards her.

Mikaela

He’s aged a little since I last saw him; soft laugh lines framing the ice of his steel blue eyes and a dark stubble lining his jaw where he had once been clean-shaven and baby faced. But so many things remain the same.

His nose has a small bump where, years ago, it had been perfectly straight - the tell tale sign of that one high school fight that landed him in the ER. His hair, such a dark brown you might mistake it for black, is pushed back, small curls forming in the short cut and he smiles lazily as he looks at me. It’s a crooked sort of smile that would have set my heart racing when I was eighteen, but now it makes me want to cry. Even now, in his neatly pressed, deep navy suit - a suit that screams designer - and his baby blue shirt, he looks like trouble. The same trouble that had an eighteen year old me talking myself down from a very precarious ledge just days after Jamie came home from college. The same trouble that had me swearing at nothing and everything at once as I drove downtown to pick Jamie up from some back alley fight he definitely hadn’t started before Mom got home from pulling another double shift. The same trouble that has always caused heat to rise in my cheeks.

“The feeling is not mutual, Haston.”

Ben watches me as I busy myself by clicking through tabs on the computer, and I try to ignore the way he perches down on the desk and moves closer than I want him to be.

I can feel the heat of his body and I curl my fist momentarily.

I see the way his eyes skim over me, noting the ill-fit of the purple blouse that hangs limply from my shoulders with no shape and the way my skirt scrunches above my knees, and I flush a burning red. I set my gaze ahead, avoiding his eyes as they burn into me and trying desperately not to recall the last time we spoke.

“No?” He grins effortlessly now as I ignore him, chuckling to himself when I still refuse to look back to him and my heart squeezes painfully.He’s really just going to pretend? Act like the last five years didn’t happen? Absolutely, irrevocably, determinedly, fucking infuriating.“It’s probably not good news that I’m here to stay then, huh?”

My head snaps up instantly, eyes wide and jaw slack, and Ben smirks. The fire of betrayal blazes beneath my skin where embarrassment had settled and my mind does exactly what I have been praying it would not do since the second I heard his voice: it pulls up her face.

“What?” My voice is stronger than I anticipate and, by the looks of it, it surprises him too. I don’t feel strong though. I feel like reality is slipping away from me again.

He frowns deeply and stands up from the spot on my desk, holding his hands out in alook at me and see that I’m impressivekind of arrogant display, but his jaw tightens and I can’t be sure, but I think I see him swallow a lump before he speaks.

“Who do you think gave this place a much needed cash infusion, Mikaela?” He shrugs, shaking his head slightly. “You’re looking at the new CFO of Wilcox Writings.”

I’m looking at…

My heart is in my stomach and my body launches into movement without another word.

I can feel Ben watching as I stalk away from him and towards the two glass paned offices at the very back of what I now understand is to be our shared work place. Heat seems to ripple off of me with every step and as I hear him call out to me, I let the sensation embrace me.

“Come on, Mik,” he almost shouts and I know if I turn around he’ll be rocking back on his feet and smirking at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You know you’ve missed me.”

My hands shake as I push forwards, ignoring the questioning glances of everyone now appraising me as if they’ve only just realised I exist, and I fold my arms across my chest. Ducking my head, I weave past whispering women who all look me up and down and turn back to each other to discuss my outfit and my face and my very presence in this hell-hole of an office in hushed judgements until I get to my destination.

My brother’s office.

I don’t knock.

“Areyoukiddingme?”

“Josh, I have to call you back. I’m so sorry.” Jamie holds a finger up to me, as if to put me on pause, and I feel my blood boil. Taking a deep breath, I turn to close the door; grimacing when Haston nods at me, his signature smirk resting against his lips, before entering the office next door. “Great. Thanks, Josh. Right. Yeah, I’ll call again this afternoon.”

Less than half a second passes when the phone hits the receiver before I find my words spilling from me and a familiar sense of painful disappointment washes over me.

“Haston? Really?” I keep my voice measured, even as my temper flares, and watch as Jamie’s shoulders slump slightly. “After everything, you hired him? No. Worse. You brought him in as what? A partner? Damn it, Jamie. I thought you were smarter than that.”

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