Текст книги "The Boss's Daughter"

Автор книги: Aubrey Parker

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Now she’s trying to jab me. I’m definitely not a drunk. I go on binges here and there, but they’re isolated. I’ve always been to work on time, always. I’ve never shown up drunk. I’ve never carried a bender past a weekend. Bar girls have been my only casualties, and they all went home happy.

“Marcus came here because of me! I told him to give you another chance!”

My head cocks. Only for a second; I don’t want to give her a point. But I can’t stop my curiosity. I expected her to keep our secret, if she could, but this is strange. She seemed cowed and angry when I left her, and she’s seemed latently angry since, if not overtly angry like now. In my rush and desperation, I’ll admit I came off as an asshole. I can’t really blame her for resenting me. So why go above and beyond?

“Why?”

“Because you deserve it!”

I’ve failed to keep the surprise from my face. Now her eyes look wet. This is how Bridget gets when she’s frustrated. Saying the wrong thing to a crying woman is like making the wrong move around a nervous dog. I’m suddenly sure I’m about to be bitten.

“Why?”

“Oh, fuck off, Brandon,” she says, turning, standing, wiping at her eyes in a way she probably thinks I can’t see.

“Why?” I repeat.

“Why did you tell him what you said, about me?”

“I guess because you deserve it.”

We stare at each other like two fighters squaring off. The distance between us feels a thousand miles away, but still I want to go to her. I’m sure she’d hit me if I approached, but I still want to do it. I can’t not do it.

“It didn’t happen,” she says. “And it won’t happen again.”

“Of course.” I mean it, but now I feel humbled, punched, weak. I’m genuinely agreeing, but mostly saying what she needs to hear. What will make her stop being hurt, stop being angry.

I don’t want her to hate me. A while ago, I didn’t care. But now I do. A lot.

“I have to go,” she says.

“I’ll drive you.”

But she’s already out the door, pulling a phone from her purse to make a call.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Riley

PHOEBE IS SITTING ACROSS FROM me, trying to figure out why the hell her malt is all weird. I’m considering telling her that the “weird crap” in her malt is malt, the stuff makes the old-timey drink and Nosh Pit specialty unique, when she shoves it at the waitress and demands “a clean one without the shit in it.”

The waitress takes Phoebe’s glass. It’s the red-haired girl, Abigail. She seems for a moment not to know what the glass is even though she was the one who brought it over. Her confusion is broken when the tall, beautiful brunette waitress who seems to be in charge shouts at her.

“She has to learn. She has to know to quality-check stuff before bringing it out to customers,” says Phoebe, watching the waitress rush off behind her bitchy gaze. “There was powdery shit all through that drink.”

“It’s malt, Phoebe.”

“Right. I wanted a malt, and she brought me whatever the hell that was,” she says, still watching the waitress. Then she turns to me, and her usually caustic manner softens. Her big eyes seem to smile beneath her jet-black hair. “You sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m not depressed, Phoebe.”

“Sure you are. I’ve known you forever.” Her eyes flick around. “It’s Brandon, isn’t it?”

“What? No!”

“Yes it is.”

I look around the diner, sure that everyone is staring right at us. Certain that my father is at the next table with surveillance equipment, listening for signs of wrongdoing.

“Don’t worry, Ri. I just know these things. You’re not obvious.”

Plenty obvious to Phoebe, apparently. But then again, she and I did already kind of have this discussion. She’s seen me through a few relationships, and I guess she’d already decided I was into Brandon Grant. Which I’m not. Except I’m becoming increasingly afraid that I am.

When he touched me at the Stonegate job site, I decided he wanted me after all. I went back and forth no fewer than ten times during that brief tour, trying to read his intentions. It felt like a real catch-22: If he wanted me, I was, however stupidly, interested in finding out more. But if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be the first to do something idiotic as my father expected. Again.

But then I turned cold and denied it all – not that it happened, but that it meant anything. Just a dumb mistake … from my end, anyway. And somehow, I think I expected him to blurt out something gallant about how it wasn’t a mistake for him at all, and then we could move on. But that was like trying to reach second base with a foot on first, hedging my bets so fiercely that they could never pay off. Of course he hadn’t done what I wanted. We kept calling each other’s bluffs, and now here I am. Sad. Hurt. And wanting a malt, even though I don’t want to admit it.

“You hooked up with him, didn’t you?”

“No!” Then I sigh. “Yes.”

“I knew it! Was he good? Did you come?”

“Phoebe!”

“Come on. Let me live vicariously.” Abigail brings another malt. Phoebe looks at it, stirs it with a straw, and turns on her. “This one has shit in it too!”

“I’ll take it,” I say, pulling the malt toward me. I give Abigail an apologizing look, but then the dark-haired waitress shouts again, and she scuttles off.

“So? Was it good?”

I consider lying. But then I say, “Yes.”

“One-night stand kind of thing?” She eyes me. “No. No, he hooked you.”

“He did not hook me.”

“He did. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey!” She throws up her hands. “Who knew you’d fucked him?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I’m sorry. I’m just excited.” She pats my hand. “It’s okay. You can like him. He seems really great.”

“You just like his six-pack.”

“I want to scrub my laundry on it,” she says. “But no. I mean, he seems like a great guy.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to stay away to prove something to your dad.”

“It’s not that.”

“Sure it is.”

I narrow my eyes. “When are you going to stop telling me what is and is not going on in my own life?”

“As soon as I stop being right. Am I still getting it right?”

Another sigh. “I guess.”

“So, there you have it. You’re a big girl. You’re already proving yourself. Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like you’re on your way. Like Laverne and Shirley.”

“Were they on their way?”

“I don’t know. My grandma used to watch it.”

I sip the malt. It’s delicious. I have a rather existential thought about how everything goes in circles: the Nosh Pit specializing in malts and hence establishing itself as a malt shop instead of just a diner. Phoebe mentioning Laverne and Shirley, which I only know by name. It’s like there’s nothing new, and everything plays on a loop.

“He’s just so different from me,” I say.

“I don’t know about that. When I used to ogle him, he was just a digger. Now you say he’s going to be vice president.”

“Yeah. Dad’s back onboard the Brandon train. Just about the only thing that could screw it up for him now would be if he started nailing the boss’s daughter.”

“You’re both adults.” Phoebe sips her malt then says, “Someone’s got to nail you.”

“Not as far as my dad thinks. I’m still fifteen years old to him.”

“Except that you’re now running a division of his company.”

“I’m an intern.”

Another sip from Phoebe. “Same difference.”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s ambitious. How many people you know have a man like that, who won’t just lie around and accept what comes to him? So there’s that. But he’s also totally hot.”

“Except that beard.”

“You don’t like the beard? I think it’s manly. Like that’s brown testosterone coming out of his follicles.”

“Gross.”

“Do you know why he has it? The beard, I mean?”

I smirk then take my malt back. Phoebe has drained it by a quarter. So much for her not liking the powdery stuff. “I suppose this is part of you being a town gossip.”

“Life coach. Who knows a lot about everyone. Because I network.”

“Whatever.”

“No, Ri. This is just me knowing because a lot of people know. It happened while you were gone.”

“Bridget told me,” I say, sipping. I say it dismissively because I really don’t care. He’s wrong for me. He’ll ruin what I have going with my father and his new faith in me. I’ll ruin what he has going with his vice presidency. And just now, we didn’t exactly part on good terms. I was supposed to go back to the office, but Phoebe called me during my ride, and I asked the car to take me here instead. I guess this doesn’t make me the picture of responsibility, but it felt right. I left the Stonegate site feeling annoyed at Brandon’s self-centered arrogance and bitchy attitude, but for some reason I feel closer to heartbroken.

Phoebe nods. “And that doesn’t tell you all you need to know?”

What? That he got cut in a bar fight? That he has a scar on his cheek that he wants to hide? So what? It doesn’t change anything.

Phoebe’s head bobs. “Oh. I see what’s going on here.”

“What’s ‘going on here?’”

“You’re afraid of leveling up.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that.

“You’re trying to have it both ways,” she says, nodding harder, as if gaining conviction from her words. “How did you feel when you came home from college?”

“Stop life coaching me, Phoebe.”

“Just tell me, bitch.”

“I don’t know. Eager to start putting my degree to work at Life of Riley?”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And sad, right? Like you missed school? Missed your college friends? Your old life?”

“Well, sure. Of course. But … ”

“You’ve always been taken care of by Daddy. Now you’re on your own, but not really. You’re somewhere in the middle. You say you want to be taken seriously, but you still live at home.”

“Only until I find my own place.”

“And you want your dad to treat you like a serious businesswoman, but you’re still worried about disappointing him. By being with his veep.”

“I’ve been with lots of guys my dad didn’t want me with.”

“Not like Brandon. He’d be ‘leveling up.’ He’d be a serious boyfriend. The kind you marry because he’s a real man, not a kid. But doing it doesn’t just challenge your relationship with your dad; it also represents – ”

“Please don’t tell me what my actions ‘represent.’”

“It also represents your first step to settle down.”

“Settle down!” I bark laughter and nod sarcastically. “I see. And you’re getting this because I had sex with him once.”

“Your womanly instincts are kicking in. You know he’s a good catch, and you want him. You want to marry him.” She says “marry” the way we used to say it in grade school, when mocking someone for being into someone we deemed ridiculous. Except that this time, she’s using the same tone to make the opposite point. I consider “life coaching” Phoebe by pointing this out, but she darts for my malt and I lose momentum defending it.

“You’re retarded,” I say. Not the kind of thing I’d say as a woman. It’s the kind of thing I’d say as a girl.

“Not retarded,” Phoebe retorts. “You know he’s good material. Which is why you’re so smitten.”

“I’m not smitten!”

“And the smittenness,” she says, drawing a line on the table with her finger that is probably supposed to represent a profound truth, “is why you’re sad right now.”

“I’m not sad.”

“You said you were sad.”

“I did not!”

“Husband material,” she says. “Fuck now. Marry later.”

I laugh again. I was wrong about Phoebe. She is making me feel better, but just because this is so stupidly funny.

“He’s a hothead,” I tell her. “He has issues.”

“Your lady parts know he could take care of you. Take care of the parts, for sure. But take care of you, too.”

“He’s barely scraping by. He’s all messed up, and even money won’t help. He can’t take care of anyone.” I think of what happened the night he ran off, how he didn’t even look at me or say goodbye, and I give Phoebe my capping argument. “He’s selfish. Only thinks of himself.”

“You’re wrong,” Phoebe says.

“I’m not.”

“You are. I thought you knew about his scar?”

I nod. “So he got in a bar fight. So what? That’s not anything worth celebrating. In fact, it’s exactly what my dad thought happened the other night, and I defended him. It doesn’t say he’s not selfish. It proves he’s a brute.”

Phoebe’s expression says that something isn’t adding up. Her eyes squint down.

“What did Bridget tell you about Brandon’s scar?”

“I told you. Got into a fight. Some guy had a knife.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

Phoebe sits back. She crosses her arms. “So she was too embarrassed to tell you.”

“What?” I say.

“He got that scar defending his sister from her boyfriend, Keith, who beat her nearly to death. He got it the last time Keith came around, after he’d put Bridget in the hospital. The time, Riley, that she needed him most.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Brandon

“YOU’RE SUCH AN IDIOT.”

I turn to Bridget. She’s looking back at me with a matter-of-fact expression, as if she’s just informed me that two and two make four. And worse, she’s gloating because I thought two and two made five, and now she’s about to be a bitch because she was right.

“I liked it better when you couldn’t talk.”

“I still sound like a frog.”

“I’ve never had a frog insult me.”

“Oh, come on,” Bridget says. “Odds are it’s happened. You’ve just never noticed.”

It’s been a week and a half since her surgery. I’m sure she’s still not supposed to talk beyond necessity, but giving Bridget medical reasons not to be judgmental isn’t a great strategy. She doesn’t trust doctors more than any other authority figures and thinks they’re out to get her.

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Really? That’s the argument you’re going to make?”

Bridget winces. She touches her hand to her throat, as if she can soothe the pain or discomfort or whatever she’s feeling from the outside. I push a glass of water toward her. It hits a crack in the table and almost spills down her front. If I’d pushed harder, it would have then we’d need to abandon this discussion to get paper towels. I should have pushed harder.

“Drink.”

She does. Then she looks back up at me. I suppose Bridget has bedroom eyes the same as she says men tell her she has a bedroom voice, but as the only guy her age who isn’t interested in Bridget’s bedroom, they’re just insulting.

“I was right to force you two together. You’re good for each other.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous!” she blurts, actually standing. She touches he throat and winces again.

“Shh,” I soothe. “Please. Shut your fucking mouth.”

Bridget punches me in the arm. “Why did you come here to talk to me?”

“So I could undo your surgery.” It’s worth saying for joke value, but only barely. Part of me is sure that I really am harming Bridget by encouraging her to speak, but that’s not how it works. I’ll just slow her recovery. Because apparently, I want more of this.

“A girl comes into your office then storms out when things get real. So you come here and want to tell me about it.”

“I wanted your opinion on how to handle her, seeing as her father controls my promotion.”

“Mmm-hmm. You wanted my opinion on what you should do to get her back.”

“There’s no ‘back.’ We were never together.”

“You were together,” Bridget says.

“Oh. I see. You mean the night we hooked up then couldn’t look each other in the eye? The night we had to have you come and give us a jump, right before I blew it with Mason?”

“But you didn’t blow it with Mason, did you? You’re back on track, right?”

“That’s not the point, Bridget.”

“And why are you back on track?” She affects surprise. “Because Riley went to bat for you? Told her father how great you are?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Sure it is. Tell me honestly that you haven’t been thinking about it. About how she told her father all about you.”

I meet Bridget’s eyes. I want to lie, but she’ll see through me like always. Of course I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about it since I left work, and on the drive over to Bridget’s. But my thinking has nothing to do with Riley. It has everything to do with the promotion that, it turns out, is back on the table. I’m happy that Mason has come around, no matter the reason. And I’m happy that Riley is willing to move on and put that unfortunate night behind us. Yes, she seemed a little upset when she left, but she was probably just embarrassed. We’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. It’s all okay again.

Bridget nods. “I knew it.”

“You didn’t know anything.”

“Before dinner, you wouldn’t shut up about her. Now, you can’t stop thinking about her.”

“She’s cute. But that’s all.”

Bridget gives me something like an evil eye. The kind of look that stands on its own. She won’t bother to repeat that I’m an idiot because given this look, she might as well be holding up a sign.

“Stop pretending you know me better than I know myself,” I say, annoyed. “I didn’t come here to have you judge me.”

“You like her, Brandon. Just admit it.”

“I like her,” I say.

“Not like that.”

“Then like what?” I decide to play dumb, but it’s not much of a stretch. There are shades of meaning here that I get fine, but that I can maybe make Bridget feel ridiculous for presuming I’ll automatically get.

Bridget stands and takes another sip of her water. Her dark-brown hair is back, and two loose strands hang on either side of her face. Her hands go to her hips, and now she looks like the mother we never had, or at least as I understand such things from TV.

“You need a woman in your life.”

“I have women.”

“You need a sensible woman. Someone to ground you.”

“Maybe you’re the one being an idiot. Is your argument seriously that I should ignore all of the girls I’ve dated, and might date, and focus instead on the single woman who will collapse all that I’ve worked for?”

“You don’t know that. And stop being an asshole. She’s not like the others, and you know it.”

That much is true. But whatever I feel when I look at Riley – when I think of Riley – seems arbitrary. Why would she be worth more notice because of the way her dress swirled around her legs that morning on the open land? Why would the first look she gave me, in Mason’s office, be worth more than any other look anyone has ever given me? Why do I dream about her when I’ve had many discussions worth dreaming about? Why do I want so badly to ask about what happened with her mother? I get the gist, and the gist is plenty given the way our relationship would unfold in a reasonable world. So why do I want to know more? It can’t be pleasant. It can’t be a happy story. If I ask Riley to tell me, I know she’ll cry. So why do I want her to cry, and why am I so eager to be the one to comfort her when she does?

It’s because she’s pretty. And forbidden fruit. That’s all it is. Combine animal attraction with something you can’t have, and anyone would feel drawn. But it’s only an impulse. My higher mind knows better. It’s ironic that Bridget, of all people, is usually the first to tell me I’m thinking with my dick. Isn’t that what she’s telling me to do now? To ignore my brain and aim lower?

“When do you go back to work?” I ask.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I thought we were done with the old one.”

“Ha,” Bridget says. “You wish.” 

I actually tip my head a little. Only Bridget can make a conversation sound like a threat.

Bridget hands me my phone, which I’d left on the counter. “Call her.”

“Why?”

“Call her!”

“I’m not going to call her. There’s no reason to call her.”

Bridget shakes her head and rolls her eyes. I manage to see the latter even while she’s doing the former. It’s like a condescension sandwich.

“You came here to talk to me. You told me all about what happened. She came to you, it looked like you might hook up, then she got mad. But only after you each had an idea how the other really felt.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“She defended you to her father, which is why you’re still in the running. You defended her to him, which is why she now has some responsibility. Trust me, Brandon. She was saying thank you, and you were saying she’s special.”

“I think I can decide for myself what I said.”

“You’re like kids. Two stupid kids.”

“Thanks, Bridge.”

“You might as well be passing notes. Jesus, you’re both fucked up.”

“I’m not fucked up.” I pause. “Okay, I’m fucked up. But I still know what I’m saying. I don’t need you to interpret my encounters. I just wanted to check on you and bitch.”

“And yet you told me every detail, just like you yammered on and on about her before dinner. I don’t know why you won’t just admit that you’re into her.”

“I was plenty into her. But I can’t keep screwing my boss’s daughter. And why are you so interested, anyway? You’re a girl. Girls aren’t supposed to be all about getting it on.”

“Yeah. You know so much about women.”

I’m a little offended. I know plenty. I know what women want and what they seem to need. I’ve been with dozens, and have never to my knowledge left one unsatisfied.

Bridget nudges the phone again. “Call her.”

“And say what?”

“Tell her you want to go out.”

“She made a point about how we can’t keep doing what we did. Her father will flip.”

“She needs you to hit the ball back, Brandon. You’re an idiot, so you didn’t volley. You wanted my advice, this – ”

“I very much don’t want your advice.”

“ – is it. All she wanted was some sort of sign that you feel what she feels.”

“She feels ambition.”

Bridget rolls her eyes again. “She came to see you, Brandon.”

“To see my job site.”

“Which she didn’t need to do. And then she stayed behind.”

“To set the record straight. About how we’re through.”

“Do you know how you’re through with someone? It doesn’t take an announcement – you’re just done. That poor girl came to you and put herself out there, but you ignored her.”

Bridget is twisting all of this. She wasn’t there, so she doesn’t know. I know much better than her. Maybe I should describe it all again. I already told her everything we said and did, right down to how Riley was dressed and how her face looked and …

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Call her,” Bridget says. “Just call her, and I’ll leave you alone.”

I pick up the phone. I have Riley’s number because she gave it to me that first night, and I haven’t deleted it because, you know, I might need it sometime. Her contact entry on my phone seems to have pulled her photo from somewhere online, and I look at it for several seconds, remembering how she was that first day, then at dinner, then meeting my lips. In that thing we can’t do again. In those moments we can’t have more of. But that raises a strange sensation within me, and I don’t like the way it feels.

It’s not the sex that’s bothering me.

It’s the dinner. It’s the morning in the meadow.

I realize how much I’ve been thinking about those two intervals of time. How I’d been checking the Overlook’s schedule, more curious than ever to see what its lineup will be when it reopens. Bridget doesn’t love live music, so I guess I’d thought of inviting Mason and Riley, since I know Riley is into that. And maybe Mason wouldn’t want to come. Maybe Riley and I could go alone. And we could grab dinner again. I could make her laugh, and hear that unique kind of vocal music, too.

Something must shift in my expression because when I look up, Bridget is giving me her most obnoxious grin.

“What?” I say, thinking I might already know, afraid of what it might mean.

“Call her,” Bridget repeats, “and take a chance for once in your life.”