Page 41 of Hard to Forgive

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As soon as Yvettefinished Thursday morning’s huddle, I joined Jonas at his desk. He already had his sketchbook open and slid it over to me the moment I was settled.

“What’s this?” I asked, looking down at the design.

“Compilation of our notes from last night,” he answered, angling it so I could get a better look at the carefully drawn lines. “I couldn’t sleep.”

I studied him for a moment, taking in the look of the bags under his eyes, and sighed. He really did look like he hadn’t slept a wink, and I wondered if that was on me. Had the stress of us working together kept him up? I didn’t like the way that sat in my gut.

“What?” he demanded.

I guess I looked too long. “Nothing,” I lied. I was not going to admit to studying him. He’d probably snap right back to his usual defensive self, and then we’d lose time due to his moping. With these mock ups being due the next day, we couldn’t afford that delay. I also didn’t want to admit it, because then I mighthave to examine why I was so concerned over his obvious lack of sleep.

It was just a whole stack of things I didn’t want to do.

“Did you get any others drawn up?” I asked instead.

He flipped through the sketchbook and showed me a mock of the messaging screen. It was exactly as we’d talked about, almost like he’d pulled the image directly from my brain. It was eerie the way he could do that. I wanted to find something wrong with it, something that I could poke at or a suggestion to make it better, but I couldn’t.

“I guess we should get started rendering these?”

“Probably be a good start. If we get done before lunch, we can work through lunch and knock out the rest of them.”

“And if not…”

He cut me off with a glare. “I’m not canceling my plans.”

“You will if we’re not done,” I snapped back immediately.

I could almost see the reaction, the way his walls went up. I hated it. I hated the ball that formed in my gut at the knowledge that I’d caused that. More than that, I hated the fact that a ball formed at all. I wished I didn’t care about how he felt at all, but that wasn’t the truth of the matter.

I sighed. “Maybe we can work around your plans,” I amended.

His shoulders loosened. “I’ve had the same plans, every Thursday night, since kindergarten,” he told me softly. “Every week, hell or high water, my friends and I get together and do something.”

It was my turn to feel some kind of way about something he said. I envied the fact that he had that. I’d never had a group of friends like that. I hadn’t been a loner in high school, far from it, but I hadn’t had the kind of friendship that lasted once the graduation caps were thrown and we went our separate ways. Judging by what he said, he and his friends had somehowmanaged to keep up the tradition even when they went away to college.

“What do you do?” I asked as I navigated to the design program on my laptop.

“We go to either the Rusty Nail or Goliath, and we hang out.”

That was it. That was the unbreakable plans? “Couldn’t you just do that on a Friday?”

“We could, and sometimes we do, but Thursdays are sacred.” He said it with a tone of finality. “So we either finish this today, or we find a way to work around my plans.”

There was a stubborn set to his jaw that told me arguing with him would be a bad idea.

I wanted to anyway.

“I think not getting fired or pissing off a huge client would also count as sacred,” I pointed out.

He narrowed his eyes at me. I locked my own at him, refusing to back down.

“If we’re not done, I’ll be at your place at eight,” he compromised.

I was a little let down by the lack of a fight, but I guess I made too good of a point. Damn my logical brain. There was something fun about getting him riled up, something that brought my blood to a boiling point. Maybe it was the memory of that night in his apartment, the way he’d taken it so well, practically begged for more until I was slamming into him. My cock danced at the memory.

Fuck, that was not the thing to be thinking about in the office.

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