Back for More, page 14
He glances up at me and shuts his briefcase. “Morning,” he says. “I’m off to Seattle for a conference.”
“Yeah, I heard…I mean—I saw it on your online calendar.”
“Good.” He studies my face. “You seem happy.” It almost sounds like an accusation. I think. I’ve never been able to tell if he’s inscrutable or if I’m just tone-deaf when it comes to him.
“What? Me? No! I mean, I just had a normal fun night with my friends—friend. It’s good to be back in touch with Alecia.”
“Good. She’s well?”
“Very well. She’s happily married, with two adorable little kids.”
He nods.
We both turn our attention outside when we hear the sound of a table saw. Toby and Wes must have started working on the gazebo. I look away from the window immediately and stare down at my toes, rubbing my lips together. I don’t want to risk letting my dad see my eyes pop out if I catch sight of shirtless Wes again.
My dad, however, is still staring out the window. “It’s a nice idea,” he says quietly. “The gazebo.”
“I’m glad you’re okay with it.”
“I wish I’d thought of it, actually. I haven’t been going out there much.”
I take a few steps closer to the island and rest my hands against the cool edge of the counter. “Maybe you can have your morning coffee out there when it’s done.” Maybe we can is what I want to say.
He blinks once and then clears his throat. “I’ll be gone for a week. Do you have everything you need?”
I could use a little more love and respect from you, but other than that…
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Is there anything you wanted to ask me, before I go?”
Are you ever going to respect me?
Do you even like me?
How did you and mom meet?
What were you like before I was born?
Are you trying to push Wes and me to get together, or are you trying to push one of us to blow our chances with each other?
Who are you besides the CEO of the Barnes Group and Calla Barnes’s widower?
“Do you enjoy it?”
His eyebrows knit together. “Enjoy what?”
“Your job. Running the company.”
He looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. “Yes. Are you doing all right? Money-wise?”
“I won’t be needing another envelope of cash, if that’s what you mean.” The rims of my eyes are starting to burn.
“Okay, then,” he says, picking up his briefcase, jacket, and suitcase.
“Are you driving yourself to the airport?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want me to drop you off?”
“No. Thank you.” He walks past me, heading for the front door. “If you need anything—if there’s an emergency, Tina can contact me.”
“You mean if there’s a commercial real estate investment emergency, then I can contact Tina so Wes can get in touch with you?”
“Yes.”
“Got it.”
“Vicky left a roast chicken in the fridge.”
“Great.” I follow him out into the foyer, mostly because I know he doesn’t want me to. “And if there’s a commercial real estate investment emergency, and you need to get hold of Wes, you know where to reach me.” I flash him a totally fake smile.
“Have a good week, Lily,” he mutters as he steps out the front door.
“Hakuna matata, baby!” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
He looks at me with his usual expression when it comes to his daughter—confusion, discomfort, and mild exasperation.
“You too,” he says, shaking his head.
I’ve been stretched out on the sofa in the formal living room for an hour because the window faces the front and I am trying to stay away from the back. Because I’m trying to stay away from the sweaty, shirtless, magical creature who’s doing manly things out back. Because I’m reading about real estate valuation and property management and trying to replace thoughts of Wes Carver’s naked body with facts and figures about Southern Oregon’s towns and neighborhoods. Because I have to concentrate on learning the ins and outs of commercial real estate investing and not the way that Wes Carver’s fingers and tongue moved in and out of my lady garden.
But I seriously feel the need to do something to remind myself and my boss that I am not merely a twenty-three-year-old woman who cries and vomits and has emotional smeltdowns. I am also a twenty-three-year-old woman who is completely capable of also becoming a vice president at the Barnes Group one day, who also happens to look good in a tank top and cut-offs.
Just as I’m about to put down the book I’m reading and go to the kitchen to pour glasses of iced tea to take out to the Carver men, my phone dings with a text alert.
I have a message from Wes Carver’s personal phone.
Wes (Personal): Hey. This isn’t your boss. This is the other Wes.
Oh thank God.
This is my chance to bring sexy back without being face-to-face with him and accidentally putting my vulva on his mouth.
Me: The one who made me come harder than I’ve ever come in my life this morning? That Wes?
Wes: I fucking better be.
Me: You fucking are, I’m telling you.
Wes: Good. Remember that.
Me: My labia won’t let me forget it.
Wes: You alone in the house?
Oooh. A daytime booty text. Maybe Alecia was right. Maybe he does want to get back up in there.
Me: I am surrounded by books about Real Estate Investment Trusts and the structure of leases. So yeah. I’m alone.
Wes: You looking to stay that way? Or would you like some company?
Me: Two questions. First: are you asking as my boss who’s offering to mentor me, or are you asking as the other Wes, with the magical mouth and hands and penis?
My thumb hovers over the backspace key because maybe it’s not a good idea to text the word “penis” to him, even on his personal phone.
Fuck it—it’s the weekend.
I send the message.
Seconds later, I have his reply: To be clear, your boss also possesses a magical mouth and hands and penis. He just won’t be placing them on or in you during work hours. But yeah. Asking as the other Wes.
I feel like these are pretty clear and simple boundaries that even he and I can maintain. Could it really be as simple as us needing to keep things a secret from my dad and our coworkers?
Wes: What’s the second question?
Me: Actually, I have three questions. Question number two is a two-parter: Are you currently in my backyard and are you wearing a shirt?
Wes: Yes, but I can fix that last part in less than one second. Are you wearing a shirt?
Me: Yes. But you could fix that in less than one second. However…
Wes: Christ, Lily. You’re killing me. Third question?
Me: Are you asking if I want to stay alone this afternoon or for like ever? Because I think I need to be alone today…but I do want some company, in general.
I am about to hit Send, when it occurs to me that I could add one more thing.
And so I do: Your company. Specifically.
I hold my breath as I send my reply and wait for his response.
Wes: Good to know. Glad to hear it.
I wait for him to send another text. One that says something along the lines of, “I feel the same way,” or “I also want your specific company because you’re the most beautiful wonderful girl I’ve ever known, and I just can’t seem to get enough of you.”
But that reassuring text doesn’t come. Neither does a flirty text. Or a clever text. There are no animated dots telling me that he’s typing out a response. There’s just a terrible nervous feeling in my stomach telling me that I should have quit while I was ahead. I should have stayed an ice queen in my kingdom of isolation and waited for him to bend me over a desk.
I toss my phone onto the rug.
If this is what falling in love feels like, then I think I’ve had enough, thank you very much.
I get up to run upstairs and fling myself onto my bed like a teenage drama queen, but I hear the patio door in the kitchen slide open.
“Lily?” Wes’s voice is deep and hushed.
I stand still and stare at the doorway between the living room and the dining room, through to the kitchen. “Yes?”
He steps into the kitchen doorframe. He’s wearing an old gray sweat-darkened T-shirt and jeans. He’s taken off his shoes. His skin is sun-kissed and damp, and his eyes slowly drink me in, from my bare feet to my bare legs and up past my rapidly stiffening nipples under this white tank top. “You still alone in here?” he asks quietly.
I barely nod my head before he’s coming at me so fast, and his hands are on my face and in my hair and his lips are on mine. “I’m not staying,” he says between kisses, his voice so deep and low that I feel it in that place in my stomach that felt so terrible and nervous just seconds ago, and if this is what falling in love feels like, then I guess I can take a little more of it, sure why not. “I just had to see you.”
“Good.”
“I’m gonna give you all the company you can handle when you’re ready for it,” he whispers into my ear and then kisses my neck, and I am done for and so ready for absolutely anything he is willing to give me.
I don’t realize I’m clinging to his shirt until he suddenly pulls away from me.
“I better go.”
“Uh-huh.” I nod, backing away from him and squeezing my thighs together. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge,” I say as I back into the wall and then lean against it, pretending I meant to do that. “See you tomorrow.”
“Eventually.” He grins.
I clear my throat and try to catch my breath. “Was it something I said?”
“Usually,” he says. “But I have to go to the resort tomorrow morning.”
“Right. Ashland. I knew that.”
He stares at my mouth from five feet away. I lick my lips, and I can see his Adam’s apple bob up and down and the muscles tensing as he restrains himself from charging at me. He nods his head and looks away.
“Get back to work, the help.” I smirk.
“Get back to your books, assistant,” he grumbles.
I wait until I hear the patio door slide open and shut again before jumping up and down and running around in circles while quietly squealing.
If this is what falling in love feels like, then I want all of it.
* * *
The next morning, I pack up my oversize business lady shoulder bag with the essentials: personal and company phones, company iPad, laptop, pens and notepad, two handbooks on commercial real estate investment, breath mints, cosmetics bag, tasteful lingerie, two changes of panties, one nearly-expired strip of condoms, and an envelope that I’ve been keeping in a sealed zip-loc bag for about five years.
It’s just lady business as usual around here…
When I get to the office, I go out of my way to walk past my father’s office so I can wave at his assistant Tina while pretending to have a serious conversation with someone on my company cell phone. In case my father ever asks her if she’s seen me around. I do the same thing, strolling past every single office door except Dan’s at the end of the hall. Then I go into Wes’s empty office, close the door, inhale the waterproof jacket he keeps on a coat rack, and touch every surface so I can get his sexy dead skin cell dust all over me. Then I settle in at my desk by eight thirty and review my To-Do list for the day.
At about ten thirty, after corresponding with Wes via email a few times, I get a call on my office line, from his company cell phone.
“This is Lily,” I say into the phone, solemnly, while gently stroking the phone cord with my fingers.
“Hi,” he says in an impatient, hushed voice. “I need you to drive down to the resort as soon as you can.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My husband and wife clients from San Francisco are having a disagreement now about the property. I strongly believe that this is the best investment opportunity for them in the area, but the wife is worried it isn’t glamorous enough.” He sounds mildly exasperated. “It’s Southern Oregon. Nothing is glamorous here. This place is beautiful, and it’s exactly what they need to balance out their portfolio, and they’d be crazy not to buy it now. I need you to pique her interest. Just say you’re bringing paperwork you need me to sign right away. Talk the place up. But don’t be obvious about it.”
“Uh, you’re talking to a professional actress who has been paid to sell car insurance and cell phones to a nation of horny young men. I got this.”
“Yeah well, Patty Triplett is not a horny young man. Do some research on the location before you come down.”
“Already have. What’s she like?”
“She’s a very conservative high-net-worth investor. She wants to invest in Oregon because it’s cheaper than California, but I think she’s hoping for more of a Marin County vibe.”
“I mean what’s she like as a person?”
“I don’t know. Nice enough. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, I need some background information. Where are they from? Do they have kids? What’s she wearing? What’s her hair like? Is she wearing lipstick and heels? How does she talk? Does she swear? Does she have a sense of humor? I need an angle to work with.”
He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “What are you? A grifter?”
I roll my eyes. “I am a student of humanity. Describe her to me, as best you can. Start with her hair.”
After about three minutes of me grilling him, I say, “Got it. Be there within half an hour.”
I am busy adding a file folder to my shoulder bag and rearranging things so it will all fit. I’m holding two pairs of panties when I hear a man clear his throat and look up to see Dan from the Brokerage Department in the doorway.
“Oh hello,” I say.
“Well, hello,” he says as he saunters in.
I shove the underwear to the bottom of the bag and hoist the bag up over my shoulder.
“I was just checking to see if you wanted to have lunch with me today.”
“Oh, thanks,” I say, “but I’m actually just heading out of the office for a while. I have to get down to Ashland to meet up with Wes and some clients.”
He furrows his brow. “Really? He needs you there?”
“Yeah, I just have to get him these papers to sign.” I walk past him. “Is there anything else you need? Because they’re expecting me.”
He walks out of the office with me and down the hall. “I thought I saw you Saturday night.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. “Cool. I’ll see you later.”
“Let me know if you’re back by lunch!” he calls out after me.
I pretend to answer a call on my phone so he’ll think I didn’t hear him.
I don’t hear him. All I hear is Wes saying, “I’m gonna give you all the company you can handle when you’re ready for it.”
I’m ready for it, Wes. Heaven help you, I just hope you can handle me.
15
Wes
*This is Gonna Hurt*
I’ve always thought it was so cheesy when hot women walk through doors in slow-motion in commercials and movies or whatever, all backlit with a halo of sunlight, because that’s not a thing that happens in real life. Not in Belford, Oregon, anyway. Until now. There’s no music playing here in the spacious lobby of Calloway’s Mountain Lodge, but if there were, there would be a record scratch, followed by stunned silence. Heads turn. A soft breeze blows from inside, somehow, and Lily Barnes’s shiny blonde hair flutters gracefully around her face. I swear, her bleached-white teeth sparkle as she smiles at me, and I can’t look away, even when she looks up and around at the high cedar post and beam ceiling. Even as she stops to admire the huge stone wood-burning fireplace, like it’s the exact perfect thing she needs in her life right now.
Her blouse is buttoned all the way up, just as I’d told her Patty Triplett is wearing her blouse today. But everything else about Lily looks like the Hollywood version of what Patty Triplett is trying to be. She looks glamorous—although Lily Barnes looks glamorous when she’s wearing an oversize gray T-shirt with an angry duck on it—but she also looks approachable. And she strides over to me, holding a file folder that she hands to me, along with a pen.
“Hi,” she says. “I need you to sign these.” Then she turns to Patty and Roger Triplett and their broker, smiling and offering her hand to shake. “Hello. I’m so sorry to interrupt. I’m Lily, Wes’s assistant.” Interesting that she doesn’t offer her last name. “I had to get him to sign some papers, and I was just dying to come visit this place again.”
“Again?” I blurt out at the same time Patty asks, “You’re his assistant?” As if it’s so impossible that Lily could be anyone’s assistant and not an executive or an airline stewardess from the 1960s.
“Lucky me, right?” she says to Patty. To me, she replies, “I came here once with my mother, when I was a kid. Not too long after it opened, I think, in the winter.” She looks around. “It’s just as beautiful as I remember. I always meant to come back here. I have wonderful memories.”
“That does sound nice,” Patty says. “Do you live around here?” she asks, disbelieving.
“I do now,” Lily responds, all chipper. “Grew up here, lived in New York and LA for a few years.” She slips her arm through Patty’s. “I’m dying to see the view from the deck,” she says. “So gorgeous. Have you been out there yet?”
“Yes, but let’s go have another look.” Patty glances back at her husband as Lily leads her to the back deck. “See you in a bit.” I hear her ask Lily if she thinks the floors need to be refinished.
Thirty seconds after meeting her, she’s asking Lily for her opinion.
