Back To You (9 page)

Chapter
Nine

Ellie

I hit save on the
document that I had just finished reviewing. It had been almost two months
since I started working at my dad’s law firm. I enjoyed my position assisting
the lawyers in the group a lot more than I thought I would. I checked the clock
on her monitor. It was almost time for me to leave for the day, but I had a few
things left on my to-do list. As I glanced over the items on the list, my cell
phone buzzed in the top drawer of my desk.

Olivia: Hey, do
you have plans for tonight?

I smiled at the
text. Spencer and Matt had been in combat training for a few weeks now, and I
was glad that Olivia and I had continued to hang out even with them gone. The
distance was hard for my newly engaged friend. I made it my mission to help out
by providing girl time whenever I could.

Me: No plans. What
do you have in mind?

I put the phone
back in the drawer while I awaited Olivia’s reply. I was trying to make a good
impression on the lawyers at the practice. The last thing I wanted was for them
to think that I was just a typical girl obsessed with her cell phone. Just as
the phone vibrated again, the front door opened. I looked up at the attractive
man who entered the office. He was probably only a few years older than me, but
wearing a perfectly tailored black suit, a red tie, and carried a briefcase.
His hair was short and black, styled in a way that added a boyish charm to his
professional demeanor. There was no denying it. The guy was
gorgeous
.

“Welcome to Burton
& Associates. How are you today?” I asked, smiling politely at the man.

“Doing well, thank
you. And yourself?” He approached my reception desk as he spoke, placing his
briefcase on the ledge that ran along the outside of my workspace.

“Fine, thank you.
What brings you in this afternoon?”

The man opened his
briefcase and pulled out a manila envelope. “I have some documents for Mr.
Burton. Please see that he gets them as soon as possible.”

I stood and took
the folder from his outstretched hand. “Yes, sir. Is he expecting them, or
would you like to add a note?”

“I would hope that
he’s expecting them, since I’m supposed to start work tomorrow and he requested
those papers before I start. I’m Eric Moore, by the way.”

I smoothed my
black pencil skirt and nodded in understanding. I had almost forgotten that my
father had hired a new addition to the team, but I hadn’t expected him to be so
young. I extended my hand for him to shake. “I’m Ellie Burton, it’s nice to
meet you.”

“Ah.” Eric nodded
with a quick grin, shaking my hand. “The boss’ daughter.”

“That’s me.”

“I was told your
name was Elizabeth. Why do you go by Ellie?” Eric asked, looking genuinely
curious.

I tilted my head
at his question. “I’ve always gone by Ellie.”

“Hmm. Well, it was
nice to meet you. Please tell your father to call me if he has any questions.
See you tomorrow,
Elizabeth
.”

I watched as Eric
sauntered out the door without even giving me a chance to reply. I stood
staring after him, wondering what the deal was with my name. Had he used my
full name because he thought it would annoy me? If so, he was wrong. It wasn’t
like I hated my full name or anything. Come to think of it, it was Spencer who
first started calling me Ellie in the first place.

My phone buzzed in
the drawer again, pulling my thoughts away from Eric and the name thing. I
retrieved the phone and saw that the second buzz was just my phone’s way of
reminding me that I had an unopened text message.

Olivia: I was
thinking dinner around 7 at that new sushi place in the
Gaslamp
.
It’s a weeknight so it shouldn’t be too busy.

I thought for a
moment. Parking in the popular downtown district of San Diego is expensive no
matter when you go. It would be best for us to carpool and split the price of
parking. I suggested this to Olivia, along with offering to pick her up after I
got off work.

“Ellie,” my father
admonished as he rounded the corner of the reception area. “Get off your
phone.”

“Sorry, dad. The
new guy brought these for you,” I said as I swapped the phone for the manila
envelope, handing it to my father.

Dad glanced over
the documents in the folder with a nod. “Thanks. What did you think of him?”

“He seems… nice.”

He nodded again.
“He is. Just graduated with honors from UCLA. I’m glad we got him; I know he
had a lot of offers. He’s not much older than you, you know.”

My brow furrowed.
“So?”

“So,” my father
started, resting his elbows on the ledge, “I’m merely pointing out that if you
had made plans to go to university right after you graduated high school you
could have been a lawyer as young as he is.”

“True, but since I
haven’t even decided if I want to be a lawyer it doesn’t matter, does it?” I asked
in a singsong voice. My father was constantly dropping very unsubtle hints
about me becoming a lawyer and it was starting to be somewhat amusing to me. I
was sure he didn’t like that.

Dad’s reply was
cut short by the sound of my cell phone signaling Olivia’s reply. I glanced
down at the phone and then back up at my father. “Be discreet,” he warned with
a wag of his finger, and walked back down the hall.

Seeing that Olivia
had agreed to my idea about carpooling, I hurried to organize my desk and get
through my to-do list as quickly as possible. A mid-week girl’s night out was
exactly what I needed.

***

At the restaurant,
we took our time choosing from the expansive sushi menu. We got a couple of
rolls to share, along with some
edamame
and miso
soup. After we placed our orders, Olivia got down to business.

“Okay, so, next
weekend is their last
libo
weekend before
graduation,” she announced, referring to Spencer and Matt. “I was thinking
maybe we could ride up there and stay at a hotel on base for a couple of
nights.”

I pursed my lips.
“Sorry, remind me, what’s a ‘
libo
weekend’ again?”

“Oh, ‘
libo
’ is short for ‘liberty.’ It basically means that
they’re free to do whatever they want but they still need to stay close in case
they get called back. I figured we can get a hotel room on base and split it,
and then we can hang out with them for the weekend.” Olivia was practically
bouncing out of her chair with excitement.

“It’s only about
an hour away, why do we need to get a hotel?” I asked.

Olivia just stared
in reply, waiting for me to get the picture.

“Oops, sorry.
Yeah, I’m down. I’m sure Spencer, Tim, and I can find something to entertain us
while you guys get some alone time.”

“Oh, is Tim going
to be down here?” Olivia asked.

I nodded. “He’ll
be here that weekend because it’s right after Thanksgiving, so hopefully he’ll
come with us.”

“So, how are you
and Tim doing with the distance? Sometimes I feel like I’m going out of my mind
missing Matt.”

Our server
appeared with our soup and
edamame
and I took the opportunity
to think about my answer. Tim had been away at school for a few months now, but
it really hadn’t been as hard as I thought it would be when he first left. We
talked on the phone pretty frequently, but usually we just kept in touch via
text. I certainly didn’t feel like I was going out of my mind. My relationship
with Tim was… just… fine. I wondered if I should be missing him more, since
Olivia was obviously missing Matt a lot. Was that how it was supposed to be? She
had just seen him a few weeks ago, no less. But her facial expressions when she
talked about him seemed like she was
aching
inside.

“It’s not too bad.
I mean… I miss him, of course. But we’re handling it.”

Olivia swallowed a
spoonful of soup and tilted her head speculatively. “Well, that’s good. I bet
it helps that you get to talk to him. That’s the thing I hate the most about
when Matt’s gone. I’m proud of him, though. I just miss being able to have the
‘how was your day’ talks with him.”

My phone vibrated
next to my bowl. I glanced at the display and saw that Tim was calling. “Speak
of the devil,” I said to Olivia. “Do you mind? I won’t be long.”

“Of course not!
Take your time.”

With a smile of
thanks, I excused myself from the table and took the call in the hallway
leading to the restroom. “Hello?”

“Hey, you,” Tim
greeted me.

“How were your
classes today?” I asked.

“Pretty boring.”

I paused, waiting
for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Well, hopefully they get better soon.”

“They probably
won’t,” Tim chuckled. “They’re all introductory classes. I won’t get to the
good stuff until next year I bet.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t
sure what to say to his bleak outlook. What was with him tonight?

“So, what are you
up to?” He asked.

“I’m at dinner
with Olivia. They opened a new sushi restaurant in the
Gaslamp
.
It’s pretty good.”

“Cool. Well, I
guess I’ll let you get back to that. Have fun.”

“Wait, I was
actually just talking to her about the three of us taking a trip to Camp
Pendleton the weekend after Thanksgiving. We’ll probably go down Friday and
stay until Sunday. What do you think?”

“Why Camp
Pendleton?” He asked, distracted.

I narrowed my
eyes, though I knew he couldn’t see me. “Um…
Olivia’s fiancé,
Matt.
And Spencer.”

“Right. How could
I forget? Yeah, that’s cool.”

“Okay.” I paused
to see if he was going to say anything more. Again, he didn’t. “Alright, well,
I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Maybe, I’m pretty
packed tomorrow. I’ll call you when I can.”

“Okay, sounds
good. Love you.”

“You too, babe.”

I disconnected the
call with a frown. Tim definitely sounded off. Maybe the distance was harder on
our relationship than I thought. I walked back to the table feeling a little
unsettled. I was sure it showed on my face, judging by the look of concern
Olivia was giving me.

“Everything okay?”
She asked.

“Yeah, I guess.
That was just kind of an awkward conversation.”

Olivia shrugged.
“Distance sucks.”

“Apparently,” I
stirred my soup and found that it didn’t look very appetizing anymore. “I
talked to him about the trip, though. He said it sounded cool.”
      

“Oh, good! Don’t
worry, I’ll make sure you guys get to have some alone time, too.” Olivia
punctuated her statement with an exaggerated wink that made me laugh.

“Gee, thanks.”

Olivia cleared her
throat then, looking slightly uneasy. “So, there’s something I’ve been meaning
to ask you about.”

I raised my brow
at her serious tone. “Shoot.”

“Well, that night
at the party, when John kissed you…”

She paused,
obviously gauging my reaction to the topic. I’d pretty much gotten over it, but
I was going to be a lot more careful at parties in the future. I waved my hand,
gesturing for her to continue. “What about it?”

“Spencer seemed
really pissed off when we dropped you guys off. Matt said that he’d never seen
him like that.”

I thought back to
the night of the party. I definitely wasn’t prepared for how angry Spencer was,
or for the fact that he blamed me for what happened. I’d stayed up for a while
after he went to bed, trying to figure out what his deal was. Maybe Olivia
would be able to shed some light on it. Getting to talk about stuff like this
was one of the perks of having a girlfriend.

“Yeah, he was
really pissed off.” I said, warily. “We sat out on the porch for a few minutes
and it got pretty heated. And we never fight, so it was weird.”

“Really?” Olivia’s
eyes widened.

“He blamed me for what
happened. Apparently it was my fault since I got drunk and danced with John in
the first place. He actually called it ‘dirty dancing,’ if you can believe
that.”

“Seriously? He
wasn’t even there. How would he know?”

I chuckled. “I know.
It was so strange. He said that he didn’t want to have to babysit me, but then
I yelled at him and told him that I could’ve handled it and didn’t need his
help. But that was the wrong thing to say, I guess, because he got even more
worked up after that.”

“Wow.”

“Mm-hmm.” I leaned
forward and lowered my voice. “He pushed me against the wall like John did so
he could prove to me that I would have been screwed if he hadn’t stepped in.”

Olivia gasped,
then laughed. She seemed to realize that it wasn’t supposed to be a joke, so
she covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry, but, that’s kind of hot.”

I glared at her.
“He was just trying to prove a point. It wasn’t like that.”

“Maybe for you it
wasn’t,” she countered, eyebrows almost reaching her hairline.

***

I walked through
my front door a few hours later in a much better mood. Talking about Olivia and
Matt’s wedding had been a good distraction from everything else on my mind. I
hoped that things would be better between Tim and me when we got to spend time
together over Thanksgiving. Maybe Olivia’s offer of securing alone time for us
would help us connect again. I hated to think that sex might have such a big
effect on our relationship, but Tim was a guy, after all.

“Ellie?” Mom asked
from the living room.

“Hey, Mom. Dad.” I
wandered into the living room and kissed both of my parents on the cheek. They
were in the middle of their evening routine. After dinner, my mother would curl
up with a book and a cup of tea, and my father would look over some business
papers with two fingers of Scotch. It was moments like this that reminded me
what kind of life I wanted to have. I loved the way my parents could spend time
together but still do their own thing.