Since He Really Feels (He Feels) (28 page)

She took a sip of her coffee before answering. “Yes. It’s all I’ve thought about. Well, apart from all of the naked time.”

I laughed. She really did manage to break the tension I was feeling without even trying. “And?” I finally asked.

She shrugged. “And I don’t have any answers. I asked you if I could sleep on it thinking that I would have a clearer mind in the morning. No such luck. Instead I need ibuprofen to battle this
Appletini headache I’ve got going.”

I set my coffee on the patio table and disappeared inside, returning a moment later with four tablets for my fiancée.

She grinned up at me. “Always thinking,” she said, taking the pills and swallowing them down with a big gulp of orange juice.

“I didn’t know what condition I’d find you in at Mahogany.” I sat down and took another sip of my coffee.

She giggled. “My reputation precedes me.”

“Can we talk about it?” I asked.

“My reputation?”

I shot her a look.

“Sorry,” she said softly.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“Is Travis the only thing stopping you?” she asked.

I nodded, wincing at his name rolling off of her lips. I think I hid it well, though. “The thought of you and him working together is what’s stopping me. It’s hard to stomach.”

“You can’t let what happened rule our lives, Nick.”

I nodded. “I know. I’m trying not to.”

“I know you are. But you have to think about your long term goals.”

“My long term goals and my personal life have never intersected like this before.”

“So we deal with it. We’ll be okay, Nick. We’ve been through a lot, and we’ve made it this far.” Her eyes met mine, and her hand found my arm. Giving my arm a light squeeze, she said, “I wouldn’t have said yes to you if my heart was somewhere else.”

How was it possible that I was horny again after the night and subsequent morning we’d just had? I couldn’t be sure, but that squeeze on my arm combined with her words did the trick.

“I love you, Julianne.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “And I want you to be happy. I want you to be fulfilled and proud of your work and I want to be by your side, both at work and at home. No matter what, Nick. If BKG is going under, we have to make the smartest decision. And maybe that means striking out on our own and taking Jack up on his offer.”

I gazed at her for a long moment. She was absolutely right, and I knew it. I’d known it inside ever since the moment Jack Miller had propositioned me. I think all along I’d just needed the confirmation from Julianne that this was really going to work. I needed to hear from those gorgeous lips that we were going to be okay regardless of what decision I made. I didn’t like the fact that it involved Travis, but I had to put my personal feelings aside for the future of our careers.

And now that she’d given me the green light, the anxiety dissipated as I looked toward the future with renewed hope.

I stood and pulled her up with me. I rested my chin on the top of her head and stared out over the mountains in the distance, filled with satisfaction and feeling like everything was right in my world.

It was later that week when I met with Jack Miller to give him my final decision.

“Mr. Matthews, nice to see you again,” he greeted me, and then he motioned for me to sit in the same chair I had sat in the first time I’d been in his office.

He sat across from me, and he was as poised as the last time while I felt nervous as fuck. I wasn’t sure
why
I was nervous, exactly; I was, after all, here to tell Jack that I wanted to accept his deal. His offer was more than generous, and after Julianne and I had spoken, I’d finally taken the contract out of the manila folder he’d passed across the desk to me. I had been shocked at his bottom line offer, and I briefly wondered if my decision would’ve been easier had I read that contract first. But, honestly, I don’t think it would have mattered. Julianne’s approval and agreement to this new venture came first.

“Good to see you, too,” I said.

“So have you come to a decision?”

I nodded.
“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“And I wholeheartedly accept your offer.” I passed the envelope containing the signed contract across the desk. I took a deep breath as his hand grabbed one side and I let go.

His face broke out into a grin. “That’s spectacular news,” he said.

“Thank you. I’m eager to begin this next phase in my career and I am confident about the direction I plan to take Miller Designs.”

“I have every confidence in you as well.”

“Thank you. That means a lot from a respected professional like you.”

“Do you have a vision yet for the facelift?”

“I have several ideas,” I said, and I pulled out my portfolio with rough sketches for the rebranding of Miller Designs.

We worked out a rough schedule, and he was enthusiastic about all of my ideas. He wanted Travis to make the final decision, though, and he informed me that he’d be traveling to San Diego to meet with him, to discuss the future of Miller Designs, and to present the ideas of the rebranding. And at some point, he’d tell him about my new role with Miller Designs as well as how Julianne figured into all of it.

Our meeting lasted about an hour, and then I had to head back to BKG, where I was scheduled to have a meeting with my boss. I could only imagine what the meeting was regarding, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good news. I no longer cared, though. My future was laid out before me. The perfect woman was going to marry me, I was going to start my own company, and I had everything ahead of me. I couldn’t be more excited about it.

The only potential obstacle in my way was my eventual new colleague, Travis Miller.

CHAPTER 29

TRAVIS MILLER

I wiped my hands nervously on my jeans, not sure why I was so panicked. I had planned every last detail, and I knew I had a homerun. I knew she was going to say “Yes.” We’d talked about our future. I loved her, and she loved me.

But it was still some scary shit to ask the girl you loved to move from everything she knew in order to start a life in a different state.

She’d grown up in California. She had friends and family there. She had set down roots. She had the beach and the bars and her job. She’d be moving to the desert for one thing: Me.

And I hoped to God that I was enough for her.

We’d spent the last month together. Things may have started out with a little jealousy and a lot of drama, but we immediately found our place together, and our life was better than ever.

I knew that Lindsay was my forever.

And it really wasn’t just the blow jobs or the spectacular sex. I could talk to her about anything. I cared what she did at work each day. The way her gorgeous brown eyes met mine across the dinner table, and the way her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and the way she held my hand in her smaller one. These were all things I loved about her, but in growing together, I’d grown to love her heart and her soul. We had more in common than I’d first realized, and I knew that her dream was to marry me and have three children. It was a dream we shared, and she’d already picked out a boy name and a girl name.

It was fast, for sure.

But it was right.

And our shared birthday – March 12 – seemed like the best day that I could think of to ask her to move with me.

To be honest, I’d started planning the proposal the moment I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. It was the moment I told her that I loved her. Her eyes met mine in that way only she
had, the lust evident as she stared at me. I told her that I more than loved her, and she responded in the same way. And as I held her against my body, I knew that she was the last woman I’d ever say those words to. I’d found the woman I was meant to spend my life with after I’d pined away for another woman for the better part of my life, and everything had fallen into place exactly where it was supposed to.

I was a grand gestures kind of guy, and so I wanted the proposal to be perfect. And I couldn’t think of a more perfect time to ask her than when we moved to Arizona together. I imagined it a thousand times: We’d buy a house, and when we closed on it, we’d stand in our kitchen later that night, and I’d get down on my knee. We’d obviously fuck on the counter after that, and then we would smile every day, each time we passed the place where I’d gotten down on my knee to ask for her hand in marriage and she said, “Yes.”

And I’d secretly smile at the thought of the sex we had afterward.

And hopefully the blow job.

So I was waiting on my girl at Skips, my favorite bar down the street from the apartment I shared with Dan. Tracy, a girl I had briefly hooked up with and then who had become one of my best friends, was working, but it was a busy Thursday night. I held a table while I waited on Lindsay, scrolling through my Facebook feed to make it appear like I wasn’t a total loser sitting at a table alone. I’d just come across a picture of Julianne Becker and Nick Matthews when Lindsay walked up to the table.

“Hey, birthday boy,” she said, kissing my cheek before sitting across from me. I quickly turned off my phone and directed my full attention on the beauty across the table.

“Hi, birthday girl.
How was your day?” I asked as she picked up the Miller Light I’d ordered for her and held it in the air. I picked up my own beer and touched it to her glass.

“Shitty.”

“Why?” I asked.

She took a long drink and then wiped some foam off her upper lip, sucking briefly on her fingertips. I fucking loved it when she did shit like that, those little times when she was totally sexy without even trying. I shifted in my seat at my sudden erection.

“Fucking Darlene,” she said, naming one of the owners of JDH Events and her direct boss.

“What did Darlene do now?” I asked, genuinely interested. I thought back to the women I had dated in the past. It always felt like they droned on about meaningless shit and I tuned out about thirty seconds into their whining.

She rolled her eyes, and I took it as a good sign that she was pissed at her boss. That would give me the edge when I asked her to move with me to a new state. On her birthday.

Fuck.

What the fuck was I thinking?

“Just making me the office bitch again.”

“So are you ready to quit yet?” I asked nervously.

“
Trav, what am I going to do? Just quit and not have a job? I can’t do that, not while I’m still taking classes.”

“I have a question for you,” I said just as Tracy walked up to our table. Lindsay glanced at me with curiosity, and then she turned her attention to Tracy.

“Any specials tonight?” Lindsay asked.

“Fish and chips,” Tracy said.

Lindsay scrunched her face in disgust. “I’ll take the usual.”

Tracy looked at me with an eyebrow raised, and I nodded. She winked and walked away. Placing my order was that easy at Skips, and I was going to miss that place almost as much as I was going to miss Tracy.

“Your question?” Lindsay asked.

I fidgeted nervously, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans again. “So I got some news today,” I said. I paused.

“Trav, spit it out. You’re making me nervous.”

“My dad is retiring at the end of the year. He wants me to take over Miller Designs.”

“Oh my God! What a great birthday present!”

I smiled. Just one look at the delight emanating from her gorgeous eyes helped me to feel better.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is. But there’s more.”

She looked at me expectantly.

“He wants me to run it from the Phoenix headquarters.”

The light in her eyes disappeared as some other emotion replaced it.

Fear, maybe.

“So you’re moving to Phoenix?” she asked.

“No, Gorgeous.
We
are moving to Phoenix.”

She shook her head. “No. No, Travis. I can’t just pick up my life and move to Phoenix. My job, school, my family… it’s all here.”

“I realize that, Lindsay. And I’ve got answers for all of that.”

“You’ve got
answers
?” she asked, her voice taking on a snide edge.

“Well, I just mean that I’ve thought it all through. I’ve got solutions for everything.”

She rolled her eyes.

What the fuck? She wasn’t even giving me a chance, and this was going much worse than I feared it might.

Not only that, but I hadn’t even told her how Julianne figured into all of it yet.

Deep down I had been more concerned about how she was going to react to that news than I had been about the idea of moving with me.

“Don’t roll your eyes. You haven’t even heard me out yet.”

“
Trav, I don’t need to. We are not moving to Arizona.”