Текст книги "Shut out "
Автор книги: Cee Smith
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 7 страниц)
Chapter Three
Kerri wandered over to my desk just before noon, an occurrence not uncommon. It was her expression that gave me pause. She looked pensive, with her perfectly drawn-on eyebrows furrowed, showcasing the lines creasing her forehead. A web of primed and concealed lines danced out from the edges of her eyes—revealing her true age.
“Did you already hear?”
“Hear what?” I asked, now pushing aside all the work that had accumulated over the last week. It wasn’t often Kerri came to my desk without that sparkle of exuberance that made her light up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.
“Sarah just penciled in an appointment for Lara to come down to the office today. Henderson is going to council her over the next steps. Have you heard anything from Joel?”
“He sent me flowers and repaired my house.”
She looked hopeful, filled with a glee that I just couldn’t muster. The look vanished from her face when I continued, “Oh, and he gave me his card.”
“What do you mean, he gave you his card? Like his business card? Ew.”
“I know. He told me to call him, but what’s there to say?”
“Are you still going to help Henderson with the case?”
“Yeah. I need this. This could be the one that seals the deal. Will Sarah be taking notes in the meeting?”
“She or Darcy. Why? Do you want me to have them send over a copy?”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, batting my eyelashes and widening my smile.
“Quit your flirting. It’s wasted on me…unless you’ve got something in your pants I don’t know about.”
“Ew. Gross, Kerri. Get out of here.” I shooed her away from my desk, and she gave me a wink over her shoulder as she sauntered away. On the outside I may have been all smiles and giggles, but on the inside I was cringing. This would be the first time I would find myself possibly face to face with Joel’s ex, Lara, and this wouldn’t be a typical run-in of exes. Partly because she had no idea who I was, but more so because if Joel didn’t agree to paying damages out of court, we would be helping her nail him to the wall. And during the six months I’d been at the firm, we’d rarely lost a case.
This wouldn’t be the first time I would see Lara without the bruises marring her face. I couldn’t stop myself from looking her up after the blow-up with Joel and my phone call with Kerri. From what I knew about her, her life seemed to have turned around the moment she started dating Joel a year ago. The earlier images of her spanned from cut-off shorts and spaghetti-strapped shirts to Gucci dresses and Louboutin shoes. I watched Lara transform from trailer-park peasant to couture queen as I clicked through photo after photo. With each click I wondered if the evolution of Lara was precipitated by Joel or if he was responsible for the change.
My desk was located on the second floor adjacent to the elevators, so anyone exiting the elevator would only be able to see me if they glanced back or if they were specifically looking for me.
Luckily, when Lara exited, she didn’t glance back, which gave me the opportunity to look at her without feeling awkward that I’d been staring at her petite 5'4" frame. Her hair was glossy black, like patent leather, cut just above the collar of her blouse in an inverted bob, without so much as a hair out of place. She was polished in every sense of the word. Her blouse and skirt were unwrinkled—a feat that seemed impossible if she’d driven anywhere in this Vegas heat. The seams of her stockings weren’t askew in any way, and her shoes looked like she popped them out of the box just before exiting the elevator. She was everything I imagined one of Joel’s girlfriends to look like. Manicured—in a way that I could never, nor would ever want to be.
The marble floors echoed her arrival, and it could have been a figment of my imagination, but it felt unusually quiet the moment the elevator dinged her arrival. There was no flurry of activity, no papers rustling or keyboards being pounded by acrylic nails. The room was perfectly vacant. The quiet was confining, stifling, distracting. It drew more attention to her presence than I cared for. I wanted to be lost in my work so much so that I didn’t notice her arrival or departure. There was no apparent reason for my discomfort, but her being there brought out the guilt like a sinner at church. Would she be able to see what I’d done? Would she know I was with Joel? She could get me fired. Blackballed from practicing law not only in Vegas but maybe all of Nevada. I’d have to take the Bar wherever I ended up because I’d be forced to move. Lara may not have known my secret, but my precarious future was in her hands.
With my nerves on high-alert, feeling like they’d combust from the tension, I got back to work—the work that I was actually being paid to do, not the work that I’d been obsessing over ever since Henderson & Fitz took Lara on as a client.
Twenty minutes later, I was just settling into a groove of fact-checking when my desk phone rang.
“Don’t hang up.”
It was the voice I’d been missing for days, and the one I least expected to hear on the other end of my work phone.
“Are you crazy? Are you trying to get me fired?” My eyes swung around the room as if anyone walking by would know who I was speaking to just by how panicked my voice sounded. But I have to admit, it is nice to hear from him, especially after that impersonal card he left. I banished those thoughts as Joel stammered on with words that flitted through my ears like bees whipping through a garden. I should have hung up. I shouldn’t have cared why he was calling or what he had to say. They could be tracing this call. At the time, I didn’t really know who they were, but it was enough to snap my mind into thinking straight—something that was obviously hard to do when it came to Joel. It seemed I only needed to hear his voice for my brain to check out, flipping the closed sign to alert all other thoughts that my brain would no longer be servicing them for the time being.
“I’ll call you back. Let me call you right back.” My words rushed out over his. I hung up, ignoring the frantic sound of his voice and his desperation to keep me on the phone. His words were gibberish in my tunnel vision to hang up. I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to actually cut ties with him, and also because I hadn’t been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
I stared at the phone log on my receiver for minutes while I thought about calling him back. If I didn’t call him back, I was sure he’d just hit redial. Whatever he had to say, I was going to hear it, one way or another. So I figured I’d get it over with and call him; at least there was a fail-safe in place. If I didn’t like where the conversation was going, I could just say I had to go for some work emergency or another, and he would be none-the-wiser.
My feet danced against the marble floor beneath my chair, releasing the nervous energy like raindrops beating against metal roofs. The phone only rang once before he answered.
“What do you want, Joel?” I whispered his name before continuing at my normal level, “I thought I was pretty clear that we had nothing left to say.”
“I don’t want to get you in any trouble, but I wanted to hear your voice. You don’t miss me?” The desperate plea I’d heard only moments before had been replaced with a voice I was used to, familiar with. One that whispered words between my thighs late at night. Just thinking about that voice stirred up a different kind of desperation.
An exhausted breath left my lips, but I didn’t get a chance to respond before he was cutting me off again.
“You don’t really need to answer that. I know the truth. Did you get my flowers?”
“Yes, I got your flowers. Thank you.”
“Did you see the card?”
“You mean your business card? Yes, Joel, I got the card. What do you want? Some of us actually have work to do. Not everyone can skip work to hide away in their mansions.”
“I thought you liked your job. Would you rather be hiding in my mansion with me? I can make arrangements.” He chuckled as if he hadn’t a care in the world, as if his ex weren’t in our offices right now going over a plan to destroy him—or at the very least, leave him destitute—as if he hadn’t just buried the last member of his immediate family only three weeks ago. I couldn’t decide whether he was delusional or just genuinely that lighthearted. Whatever it was, I could use some of that, especially if anyone were to catch me on the phone with him.
“Joel…”
“OK, OK. I want to see you.”
“We’ve already been over this.”
“No. You talked, I listened, and now it’s my turn to talk and you to listen. In person.”
“We’re on the phone now. Can’t you say whatever it is you need to say now?”
“I know, but phone calls are so impersonal these days, aren’t they?”
“No, text messages and social media posts are impersonal. Phone calls are ideal, especially where we’re concerned.”
“I like when you say that, ‘we.’”
Who else but Lara would come click-clacking down the hall at that exact moment.
She moved at a fast-paced clip, her heels tapping out, marching sounds on a snare drum against the marble floor. Fear sprouted up from my belly like ivy, leaving me constrained in my chair. My pulse thumped wildly, and my blood rushed fast against my ears, creating a wind-tunnel effect.
“I g-gotta go…”
“Blaire, Blaire wa—”
I hung up the phone, the clatter of the phone sliding into the receiver loud enough to compete with those heels echoing through the halls and reverberating through my mind like an ominous pendulum ticking down the remaining minutes of my career.
“Hi. Blaire, is it?” she questioned the name she read on the front of my desk. It wasn’t meant to sound condescending, but even in her faux bubbly voice, it came across that way. Perhaps she knew a Blaire, and maybe I didn’t live up to what she imagined a Blaire to look like? It wasn’t the first time I’d had snooty bitches utter my name with a look like they’d just got done licking pennies and couldn’t quite get that metallic tang off their tongues. Though, most of those women were comfortable in their status of looking down on the help, and Lara was still considered lower than me on the socio-economical ladder. Hence, my confusion over the slight.
“Yes?”
She stood directly in front of my desk, looking at the scattered papers.
“I was just looking for the restroom. Could you show me where the restroom is?”
“Sure,” I said through clenched teeth, biting back my annoyance.
With every step toward the restroom, I felt her eyes on me, assessing me. I tried convincing myself I was just imagining things. I was nervous, overly cautious, and to be completely honest, I was a little intimidated. Not by her looks, which is what most would assume when they looked at the two of us side by side, but I was intimidated by the fact that she had a part of Joel I’d only caught a glimmer of. Was the Joel who stayed at my house the same one she spent dating for a year? I couldn’t imagine that. He was too…goofy. She seemed…insufferable was the word that came to mind when I looked at her. I turned around to take another glance at the woman who followed behind me. Her smug smile seemed to mock me, and I swore I could see her black eyes looking me up and down as if somehow I didn’t measure up. I stopped at the end of the hall and pointed to the sign advertising restrooms. “Here you are.”
“Thank you,” she said as she continued walking past me. It was one of the least heartfelt thanks I’d ever received, but I was still surprised that she had some modicum of manners left—however insincere they might have been.
When I got back to my desk, I wasn’t seated for more than a few minutes before my phone was ringing again. I growled to myself, thinking it better not be Joel trying to pick up from where he left off. Instead, it was Kerri.
“Hey,” I answered the phone.
“So…did you see her?” Kerri asked like the gossip-mongrel she was. Every bit of news was salacious to her.
“How could I not? She practically had me holding her hand to the restrooms.”
“Get out! Do you think she knows something?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Sarah said she has an attitude every time she calls for Henderson, as if it’s a waste of her time to talk to his E.A.”
“I think ‘bitch’ comes naturally to her. If I weren’t trying to become Junior Partner, I would totally let this case circle the drain. Not that I condone domestic violence or anything.”
“No of course not, but you have to admit, she does deserve a good smacking.”
“Perhaaaaps. Oh, you’ll never believe who called me.”
“Joel.”
“No fair. I made that easy for you.”
“I told you he wasn’t done. What did he say?”
“He wants to meet.”
“I’ll bet. This is probably the longest his push-pop has gone without any action.”
“Push-pop? Really, Kerri?” I said, amazed at how Kerri could make even a children’s ice cream sound perverted. It was surely a gift of hers. I’d never met someone as horny and sex-fueled, especially for someone who hadn’t gotten any in months. It was a regular gripe of hers—told to anyone within earshot, almost on a daily basis. It could probably be considered sexual harassment, except it wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.
“Yeah, don’t act like you weren’t blowing that man like he was the last Popsicle of summer.”
“I’m not going anywhere near that statement. I don’t want to encourage you. You know you’re as bad as he is.”
“So, that’s why you like him? Is it because I have a vagina?”
“Hanging up now.”
“Wait! Don’t. Did you tell him you’d meet him?”
“What do you think?” I said rolling my eyes. Even though she couldn’t see, I knew she could hear the sarcasm squeezed out of every word.
“I think if he were anyone else but our client’s ex you wouldn’t have waited to call him. In fact, I think he’d still be at your house right now waiting for you to come home.”
“But you just said it; he is our client’s ex, and that’s not going to change.”
“Man, for someone who never dates, your love life sure has turned into a Shakespearean play. Or is it a Greek tragedy?”
“Well considering that he’s not my brother or father, I would say it’s not quite a Greek tragedy…unless it turns out I’m adopted, then all bets are off.”
“Well you’ll have to tell me how the story ends. This just looks like the end of Act I.”
“I hope not.”
We hung up the phone, and while I should have hopped back into my work, seeing as how I had gotten so little of it done with the constant interruptions, I couldn’t quite take my mind off of my conversation with Kerri. She would be on my side no matter if I continued to see Joel or not, but I could tell that she didn’t agree with my cutting ties with him. Maybe it was her attempt at living vicariously through me. “At least one of us was getting laid” would most likely be her typical response.
I let my mind drift to thoughts of Joel. What would it be like to go to lunch with him, to be seen on his arm? What did he have to say to me that he couldn’t say over the phone, or was this just a ploy to get me in bed? That seemed more likely. And shouldn’t he be more concerned about his legal problems? Kerri said that his lawyer was playing hardball and chances were they wouldn’t agree to the settlement, which would result in Lara suing him in civil court. He sure didn’t act like a man who was about to be sued by an ex for an amount of money that most Americans wouldn’t see in their lifetimes. He acted like someone who wasn’t used to hearing no, which probably only encouraged him to try harder. I just needed to do the right thing for the both of us and ignore his calls. It shouldn’t be that hard, right?
Chapter Four
It was official. I was losing my mind. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I had overslept, shooting out of bed fifteen minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off. I didn’t remember hitting the snooze button, but it had to have happened twice for me to oversleep that much. I went into hyper-panic mode when I realized I had a half hour to get ready and be at work just to make it on time. With super-sonic speed, I showered, changed, and threw my hair into a bun before hightailing it to the garage so I could get my ass to work.
Careful not to hit my side-view mirrors, I looked out my window, measuring the narrow distance between my car and the wall. I backed out into my driveway, checking my rearview mirrors once more before closing the garage door. It was in those few seconds, with my hand still lingering in the air, when something to my left caught my attention.
My neighbors, Joan and Roger, were an elderly couple who hardly ever drove and almost never had visitors. So you can understand why a pearly white Mercedes S class would give me reason to pause. No one on the block owned a luxury vehicle, and what use would a car such as that have to my little old neighbors?
The car wasn’t ostentatious in any way. The color was simple, without an obnoxious license plate—commonplace for owners of nice cars in Vegas. The tint of the car windows was dark, but upon second glance, it looked like someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.
The car door opened and Joel rose out of the vehicle all cool, calm, and casual, as if he had every right to be in this neighborhood, on this street, in front of my neighbor’s home. I slammed on my brakes, practically giving myself whiplash in the process. Joel closed the door and stood next to the car, watching me. I didn’t know whether to roll down the window, get out of my car, or simply continue staring at the man who looked as stunning at 8 a.m. as he did at 11 p.m. He was simply beautiful. Beneath a beige blazer, he wore a light green collared shirt that made his eyes somehow lighter. Or maybe that was the way they always looked because I’d never seen this beautiful man out in daylight before. His jeans and loafers made him appear more casual, but they didn’t take away from his overall polished appearance.
Joel was striking. Drop dead gorgeous. A kind of take-your-breath-away stunning I’d never witnessed before in a man, possibly ever.
For those few minutes as we both stared at each other—with me hiding behind the safety of my vehicle—I forgot all of the reasons why he couldn’t be at my house and why I couldn’t be seen talking with him. As far as I was concerned, Joel was the enemy and we were in the middle of a war. There were no time-outs, no cease-fires, no talks of peace. To be seen speaking with him was damn near treasonous.
But when I looked at him, I didn’t see an enemy of war.
I saw Joel. My Joel. Or as much of him that could be considered mine after only spending a week together.
My hands felt shaky—an effect of my lack of coffee, I told myself with my mind racing, pulse hammering, and heart beating frantically. I was a mess of nerves. I got out of my car, barely shutting the door before walking down the driveway to meet him at the edge of my yard. As if just remembering what I looked like, I started straightening my skirt and patting my hair to make sure that I looked like a woman in control of herself, despite every synapse of my brain protesting the thought.
“Don’t you clean up nice?”
“What are you doing here, Joel?”
“What? I came to see you off to work.”
He moved in closer. So close, I could feel the heat of his breath break across my face like tides crashing against a rocky shore. The heat was strong enough to knock me flat on my back, a surge of feelings that rushed up pulling me under that looming gaze of his. That was what Joel did. That was what he was good at. Making women feel weak and off-kilter. I felt like my thoughts weren’t my own. Actually, I knew my thoughts weren’t my own because when he leaned in—our bodies so close our shadows were already merged there on the sidewalk—I leaned in, too. I closed my eyes and let him wrap those large arms around me, my body becoming sludge in his firm hold, while his mouth descended over mine. His lips felt sun-warmed and soft, capturing my bottom lip between his. He sucked and licked, awakening my whole body with the way his tongue enveloped mine. It was instinctual, my tongue reached out to touch his—to feel, to taste, to remember.
I forgot all about being late, and not talking to Joel, and everything else outside of our lips merging. His face was freshly shaved, and I rubbed my palms there beneath the curve of his cheeks. Fingers wound in his hair, relishing the softness. Joel was soft everywhere. Soft lips, soft skin, soft hair. I opened my eyes and watched those long, brown eyelashes sweep against the dip above his full cheekbones. He looked sweet from this angle. Every bit of the playboy I’d seen that night and discovered over a week ago was gone. Before me stood a boy that kissed like it was his first time. When kissing still felt like the gateway to another’s soul and all you had to do was reach for it.
His eyebrows quivered and the few groans that escaped his mouth were swallowed by my lips, but we continued kissing as if it were the last thing our lips would touch. We kissed like we were searching for answers. I didn’t know if I had the answer for Joel, but I liked to think that if I did, he found it in that kiss.
Joel’s hands trailed down my back until his hands found my waist. He wrapped them around me, holding me in place as his lips finally broke away from mine. His forehead rested against mine as we both came down from the high we were just on. I stared into his eyes as if looking at them for the first time. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. He simply stared back, holding me there in my driveway. The whole world could have passed down my street in those few minutes and I wouldn’t have noticed. More importantly, I wouldn’t have cared.
His hands fell from my waist and whatever spell his touch had tied me up in was broken. I took a step back and continued putting distance between us, each step marking the return of my sanity.
“What are you doing here, Joel? And don’t say it was to send me off to work. I get to work just fine. In fact, I’d be there already if it weren’t for you.”
“Blaire. Don’t be this way. I want to see you. Will you just meet for lunch? Please?”
“I can’t. And you shouldn’t be here. Please leave, Joel.”
“You don’t want that,” he said taking a step closer. I threw my hands up, forbidding him to come closer. “That’s not what that kiss said, Blaire. Do you know what I heard? Lick me, taste me, fuck me. Does that sound familiar? It should. It was the same thing you said the first night.”
“I don’t remember. Please, Joel.”
“You said that a lot, too,” he laughed. His smile was bright and his eyes sparkled, and I knew he was working his charm on me. Oh, how I wanted to remember the things that he could recall so easily. I wished I could remember those things so I’d have more memories to recycle. The ones I had were becoming too predictable.
“I have to go, Joel. Please don’t come here again.”
“Blaire. Blaire, please,” he pleaded, reaching for me.
I didn’t turn my back on him as I returned to my car, and he didn’t chase after me. We watched each other as the distance between us grew. We watched each other until my car turned right and escaped his view.
