Thank You for Sharing, page 3
Liyah
Ugh love you miss you!!
Neen
love you miss you too xo
Liyah all but sprints to her office and swings open the door. “I’m taking you to lunch!”
Siobhan startles, her fair, freckled skin turning beet red as she pulls out one earbud. “Jesus, Liyah. Scared me half to death.”
“Jeff liked it! He’s gonna let us know if it’s a go by Friday.”
“No shit, huh? Congrats, love.”
“Your graphics took it to the next level. I couldn’t have done it without you. Hence, lunch.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. Also I will physically fight you if you try to buy me food again.” She holds up a finger. “And if you start on about wage theft, I won’t even go to lunch with you. Doing favors for friends is not the leading cause of underpaid workers.”
Liyah shoots a playful glare over her shoulder as she sits. “Alright, noted. But I told Jeff that you should do the graphics.”
“If it gets me off this stupid newsletter revamp, I might have to buy you lunch.” Siobhan sighs. “Speaking of, can you proofread this?”
Liyah, too drained from the meeting to stand up, scoots her chair across the small room until she can read Siobhan’s screen. As much as she hates doing the work, she does a good job of it. The design would inspire at least a quick read-through instead of an instant delete. “There’s no u in favorite,” she says, pointing.
Siobhan groans. “It’s murder keeping up with American spellings. You know, the English started this damn language, shouldn’t we defer to their rules?”
Liyah places her hand over her heart. “Not Siobhan Gallagher saying something positive about the English. Must be below zero Celsius in hell.”
“Don’t go getting used to it. And get back to work.” She punctuates this with a kick to the base of Liyah’s chair. It rolls halfway back across the room, and Liyah finishes the journey, Siobhan’s laughter tangling with the stuttered sound of Liyah’s awkward scooting.
As she clicks through her in-box, archiving, deleting, and replying as needed, the details for tomorrow’s meeting appear in a message from Jeff. She’ll be having coffee with Brett (ew) at a little place in the Loop on Wednesday, nine sharp. Annoyance nips at her.
“Siobhan, what’re the odds of me getting through a ninety- minute meeting with a marketing specialist named Brett without rolling my eyes?”
“Nil,” she replies. Liyah snort-laughs.
Aliyah Cohen-Jackson, Curator. Fine, she can tolerate a few meetings with a corporate hack. Maybe he’ll be dumb enough to fall for feigned feminine incompetence and do all the work.
* * *
“HOW’S THE PHARMA account going?” A new route was put up at their bouldering gym, and Jordan spots Daniel from ten feet below.
Jordan was the one who discovered Chicago Rocks two years prior. Before that, they had worked at the same marketing firm for a year and a half without ever interacting. They were aware of each other, especially as the rest of their company is nothing if not incredibly white, but they were hired at different times and had never been on the same project.
One day, Jordan showed up at his office at 5:05 p.m., leaned on the doorframe with the kind of twinkling smile that Daniel previously thought only existed on film, and asked Daniel how he felt about rocks. They’ve been climbing together three days a week since. Daniel is eternally grateful that Jordan chose him to ask that day, and not only because it gave him a good reason to cancel his overpriced gym membership.
Daniel reaches for the next hold. His hand is too sweaty for a solid grip, so he dips it in the bag of chalk hanging from his hip. Much better. “I might be transitioning away from it, finally.” He hoists himself up another several inches, his feet finding security on new holds. “If we get CTA, I’m pulling out all the stops to be lead. Brett also emailed me about an account I might want, but he did it after five, so I refused to open it on principle.”
Jordan’s laugh echoes up at him. “If anybody at Kinley would be more excited to post about trains than cutting-edge medicine, then I guess it would be you.”
“Hey, the L has never failed me.”
Jordan snorts. “I can probably name five times off the top of my head that you’ve been late this month specifically because of the Chicago Transit Authority.”
“We have a complex relationship.” Also, he hates big pharma. When he was assigned the account, there were many envious eyes on him. He pretended to be excited; it was a big account for someone so junior at the firm, but he’s wanted off since the beginning. As anybody with a basic—let alone intimate—knowledge of the industry’s standard practices would. Daniel reaches the top of the wall, so he releases his legs and does a few pull-ups on the last two climbing holds.
“Cough, show-off, cough,” Jordan calls.
“Did you inhale some chalk there?” Daniel asks, and he doesn’t need to look down to know that Jordan is giving him the finger. He starts his descent, the path down easier than the path up now that he’s built some muscle memory. When his feet land softly on solid ground, he grabs his towel to wipe the sweat from his brow and sees that Jordan has already gathered his things. “Wanna grab a drink?”
Jordan shakes his head. “I would, man, but I told Nisha that I’d watch some crime documentary with her. I don’t know why women love that shit. It’s nightmare fuel.”
“Aite, another time,” Daniel replies, following Jordan outside. The air is warm but breezy, a perfect August night.
“Whatever happened to that woman from the airplane?”
Daniel regretted telling him about Liyah approximately three seconds after he let it slip. He should’ve known that Jordan, a true romantic, would never let him hear the end of it. The inquiries came every day at first, only recently decreasing to about once per week. He shakes his head. “Why won’t you let this go? It’s been over a month.”
“Because you haven’t mentioned a girl—woman—to me since, well, before, you know…” Jordan trails off. Daniel could throw him a rope, but he doesn’t. Let Jordan dig himself out of his own hole. “You haven’t mentioned a woman to me in over a year.”
“Jordan, I mentioned that I ran into someone I used to know and that she absolutely hated me. Somehow, you’ve forgotten the second part.”
“You also said she was hot.” Daniel gives him a flat look, and Jordan holds up his hands. “Okay, I’ll let it go. I just wanna see you happy. It’s been a minute.”
“I live with Alex; I’ve already got enough unsolicited dating advice.” Daniel’s roommate frequently reminds him that he has a standing offer to woo a lady with never-ending free drinks. Alex’s words, not Daniel’s. His six-month dry spell maybe hasn’t been ideal, but it’s not that bad. Between Jordan’s serial monogamy and Alex’s serial ghosting, neither of Daniel’s closest friends in the city have ever learned how to spend two weekends in a row with an empty bed.
“Whatever you say, man. I’ll see you at the gala on Friday.”
Daniel groans. “Don’t remind me.” He can think of near infinite ways he’d rather spend his Friday night than at a museum celebrating his firm’s twentieth birthday. Clipping Sweet Potato’s front claws, say, even at the risk of another scar between his forefinger and thumb. His only solace is the possibility of an open bar. He extends his hand and they part ways with a sweaty dap and twin see ya laters.
On the L, he swipes through his phone until he reaches the app store. Six months isn’t that bad, but it’s starting to get to him. His thumb is hovering over the little cloud-shaped redownload button next to the Tinder icon when he thinks better of it. The situation is not so dire that he’s willing to subject himself to overly forward questions about which side of his family he got his dick size from—gross—or white women who are creepily obsessed with Korean popular culture—somehow grosser. For now, his hand works perfectly fine.
When he finally gets to his apartment door, he finds it already unlocked. Alex must be off tonight. Sweet Potato saunters over to him and weaves between his ankles: her customary welcome home the greatest consistency in his life. He bends down and scoops her up. Despite her impatient meows, she doesn’t squirm, and instead softly pats his jaw with a front paw. It took her weeks to warm up to him after he’d adopted her, and he still savors every bit of her affections. Just then, a thud comes from Alex’s room, and Sweet Potato thrashes to jump out of Daniel’s arms.
The thud is followed by a low-pitched moan, and Daniel surmises that the lack of light coming from Alex’s door is not because he’s napping. They live in a building with decently thick walls, but their bedroom doors are perpetually propped open so that Sweet Potato can roam freely without ever losing access to her litter box. It’s great to have a roommate who loves his cat, but not if it means that Daniel is the audience to this particular concert of groans.
He thinks about shutting the door, but he doesn’t want to make their houseguest feel awkward, and he certainly doesn’t want an accidental view of Alex’s bare ass mid-thrust. Instead, he empties his gym bag and tosses his work clothes into the laundry hamper. The groans and thumping continue until the rush of water from Daniel’s showerhead drowns out the noise.
He slips into the shower, letting the hot water soothe the muscles in his shoulders. They always ache by nighttime, the cycle of underuse at his desk and overuse on a rock wall catching up to him. As he lathers, he hears a door slam shut. At least he won’t have an unfortunate soundtrack to his dinner. It’s like the world is conspiring to make him keenly aware of exactly how long it’s been since someone else touched him. Maybe he’ll take Alex up on a complimentary bar tab this Friday; the guy must be doing something right if he’s managed a one-night stand on a Monday.
Shit, the company party. Daniel groans, turning off the shower. Endless drinks and wooing will have to wait until next week.
CHAPTER 3
LIYAH pushes open the door to the coffee shop five minutes prior to her meeting, surveying the crowd with a deep frown. She may not value the work she’s here to do, but she does value Jeff’s opinion of her, and she doesn’t want Brett to complain that she’s made him wait her usual seven-to-twelve-minute delay.
Punctuality does not come naturally to Liyah, and her timeliness cost her her morning coffee. Which means her caffeine headache is minutes away, and Brett had to pick the coffee shop with the longest line in the known universe. She’s faced with equally unappealing choices: take the required fifteen minutes to order and receive her drink (and risk upsetting Brett by being late) or figure out which suit-clad guy buried in his phone is hers for the next hour and a half (and risk upsetting Brett by being herself, sans coffee).
After a moment of indecision, she goes with the latter.
It’s damn near impossible. Every guy here looks exactly like his name is Brett. There should be a law against this many MacBook Pros and navy suits in one room.
Liyah makes a sharp turn, bypassing the pastry case, and there: the guy in the back corner has two coffees in front of his MacBook and an empty chair across from him. If it’s him, she’ll have to buy a lottery ticket on her way home. She waves, but his head is down, so she crosses her fingers and makes her approach.
Back Corner is distinctly different from the rest of the navy suit species because his blazer is removed, sleeves rolled to his elbows. At least she can confirm that he’s warm-blooded. He lifts his arm to brush his fingers through his hair, displaying tendrils of black ink peeking out from his rolled shirtsleeve. She freezes.
What are the fucking chances?
Liyah steps back gingerly, as though moving too suddenly will destroy the fabric of whatever alternate universe she’s stumbled into. Even frazzled, she’s sufficiently quiet, but the navy suit at the table to her left knocks over his cup, cursing loudly as he tries desperately to save his MacBook from death by drowning.
That’s when Daniel Rosenberg looks up.
His face travels from blank to surprised to something like smug. Which is when she realizes that from his perspective, she’s just been standing there, staring at him. She sails past frazzled, docking at horrified. “Hey, Liyah,” he says tentatively, as though he’s not sure whether he’s supposed to acknowledge her. Maybe smug is the wrong word, but whatever his expression, she doesn’t like it.
“God, why are you even here?” she asks, not really meaning to say it aloud.
His smile falls away. “I’m meeting someone for work,” he replies, gaze traveling down Liyah’s arm to where she white-knuckles the handles of her tote bag. She forces her fingers to relax, and his eyes snap back to hers.
“I’m meeting someone for work,” Liyah parrots.
Daniel holds her gaze, nodding slowly. “Both can be true. I, um, wanted to—”
“I haven’t had coffee today and I’m about to be late for my meeting,” Liyah interrupts. “I really can’t do this right now.”
He gestures at the untouched mug across from him. “If you want this, it’s yours. My guy hasn’t showed yet.”
Liyah frowns. “Is this your atonement for what you said on the flight?”
He lets out a short laugh through his nose. “I was just trying to be friendly, and you had to go and bite my head off. That was atonement enough.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “That is a gross exaggeration.”
“You sure?” He tilts his chin up, revealing his neck. “There might still be teeth marks.”
“Alright, well. This has been exactly as nice as I would’ve expected it to be. Positively lovely.” She drawls the word, making sure Daniel knows she means anything but, and turns, ready to begin her search for Brett once more.
“You sure you don’t want the coffee?” he says, looking at her expectantly.
Liyah hesitates. She would very much like to stalk off without another word. But now she’s genuinely late, and talking to Brett in this state could very well lead to a complaint in Jeff’s in-box. “Your fellow…” She looks him up and down, grimacing. Even seated, it’s obvious that unlike Liyah, Daniel has a tailor. An expert one. Slacks can’t possibly fit like that off the rack. She hates how they emphasize the long line of his leg, hates even more that she notices. “Foreign acquisitions manager, I’m guessing, won’t mind?”
“Digital marketing strategist.”
Liyah gasps, hand on cheek. “I can’t believe I assumed you had a boring, corporate job. That sounds riveting.”
Daniel brings his right hand to his heart. Liyah looks at the edges of his tattoo, reminded of the photo Neen sent her, chlorinated water-slicked skin glistening in the sun. “You wound me,” he says. His voice is pained, but the look of amusement he wears, while subtle, reaches his eyes. Like he thinks she’s making fun of him, rather than saying fuck off forever, please and thank you. “It’s fine, I promise.”
“Okay, well,” she says, picking up the mug, pleasantly surprised to find it still warm to the touch. “I’m going to go find Brett. There’s gotta be one—or five—in here,” she mumbles.
He laughs, and there’s a pang of familiarity in her gut. It’s a little throatier, sure, but that sound hasn’t changed much in fourteen years. Liyah presses her lips together. “Looks like the coffee was yours all along. I’m guessing the name Jeff means something to you?”
There’s a blinking moment before an intense surge of nausea. Oh. Brett pawned this meeting off on his underling like Jeff did to her, which means …
“Absolutely not.”
Daniel furrows his brow. “You don’t know a Jeff?”
“Oh, I do. One who failed to give me some very important information when I agreed to do this.” Liyah thinks back to her morning commute. Does she remember getting on the L? Is there any chance that she fell to her death on the tracks and this is her personal hell?
Daniel frowns. “Look, I didn’t know it was you, either. I see that you’re unhappy with this development—” Liyah cough-laughs. Daniel’s frown deepens. “But can you sit down and play nice for a little bit? I need this account to go well.”
“You need this to go well? I need to play nice?” Liyah sputters.
“Liyah, come on.” He sighs. “Have some coffee, and we’ll get to work.” And then the left corner of his mouth tugs upward.
God, she could combust on the spot. She could yell, stomp, storm out, tell Jeff she’s sorry, but she cannot do this, her promotion be damned. But that would mean letting Daniel Rosenberg ruin this, too.
So, Liyah inhales deeply, pulls out the chair, takes her seat, and brings the mug to her lips. The first sip of coffee is nothing short of divine on her tongue, but it lands like pure acid in her stomach. “I assume you’ve read Jeff’s email?” He nods. “I’m going to level with you, I don’t really see the use of my being here instead of working on my exhibition. I was hoping I could show up and give Brett a doe-eyed damsel in distress look until he did everything for me, but I’m guessing that won’t work on you.”
Daniel shakes his head. “It would not. I have a sister.”
Liyah nods, making eye contact with her coffee mug. Kayla, if she remembers correctly. A few years older, loud, beautiful. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish I were sitting with a Brett right now.” He brings his fist over his mouth as he laughs, like she’s shocked it out of him. “I’m not joking,” she says.
“I know,” he replies. “Still funny.”
Play nice, she tells herself, and takes another sip of coffee. “I know nothing about marketing, but I have basically an encyclopedic knowledge of the Field, so that’s what I’ll contribute.”
“Encyclopedic, huh?” he challenges. Liyah nods. “How big is the building?”
She smirks, folding her arms across her chest. “There’s over 480,000 square feet of exhibition space on the original three floors, with an additional 186,000 added in 2005 on the two underground levels. In case you’re behind on your arithmetic, that adds up to 666,000, which is probably why the team who did the website decided to report it as two separate numbers. Ask me something difficult, Rosenberg.”
