The Hating Game (15 page)

“What happens now?”

He slants me a look. The next word out of his mouth is like the lash of a whip. “Strip.”

I flinch and he laughs to himself and turns the TV off. “I'm kidding. Come on, I'll walk you down to your car.”

I am getting dangerously high off his smiles. This is my third one now? I'm stuffing them in my pockets. I'm cramming them into my mouth.

“But . . .” My voice is plaintive. “I thought . . .”

His eyebrows pinch together in a fake display of incomprehension.

“You know . . .”

“It's rather hurtful to only be wanted for my body. I didn't even get the date beforehand.” He looks down at our hands again.

“From what I can see, you've got a fabulous set of bones. What else should I want you for?” I start holding and squeezing some of
his arm joints. It's the worst seduction routine imaginable, but he doesn't seem to mind. His elbow is too big to fit in my hand. My dress helpfully slips down a little when I reach for him, and his eyes trail down to the revealed cleavage.

When we make eye contact again, I realize that I've said the wrong thing.

He swiftly conceals it by frowning. “We're not doing this tonight.”

I nearly snap back but as I watch his eyelids close and he takes a deep breath, I realize how badly I don't want this evening to end. “If I ask you a question about yourself, will you answer?”

“Will you do the same?” He's regaining composure, like I am.

“Sure.” Everything we do is tit for tat.

“Okay.” He opens his eyes and for a moment I can't think of anything to ask that won't be revealing too much of myself in the process.

What do you really think of me? Is this all some elaborate plan to mess me up? How badly hurt will I be?

I try to sound light. “Let's make it a game, like everything else we do. It's easier. Truth or Dare.”

“Truth. Because you're dying for me to say dare.”

“What are the pencil codes in your planner? Is it for HR?”

He scowls. “What's the dare?”

His scent is fogging spicily around me. The plush, warm couch conspires to tip me closer to his lap.

“You even need to ask?”

He stands up, and stands me up too. My hands curl into the waistband of his jeans and I feel nothing but firm male against the backs of my knuckles. My mouth is nearly watering.

“We can't start this tonight.” He takes my fingers out of his jeans.

“Why not?” I think I'm begging.

“I'm going to need a little more time.”

“It's only ten thirty.” I follow him to the front door.

“You've told me we'll only do this once. I'm going to need a long time.” I feel a fluttery pinch between my legs.

“How long?”

“A
long
time. Days. Probably longer.”

My knees knock together. His eyes crinkle.

“Let's call in sick tomorrow.” I am infatigable in my quest to get his clothes off. He looks at the ceiling and swallows hard.

“Like I'm going to waste my one big chance on a generic Monday night.”

“It won't be a waste.”

“How can I explain it? When we were kids, Patrick would always eat his Easter egg straightaway. I could make mine last until my birthday.”

“When's your birthday?”

“June twentieth.”

“What star sign are you? Cancer?”

“Gemini.”

“And why wouldn't you eat it straightaway, exactly?” Wow, I sure know how to make things sound filthy.

He strokes my hair away from my shoulder. “It made Patrick sweat. He'd go into my room and obsess over it. He'd ask me every day if I'd eaten it. It drove him insane. It drove my parents goddamn insane. Even they'd beg me to eat it. When I finally did, it tasted better, knowing how bad someone else wanted it.”

He slides the shoulder of my red dress a half inch to the right and looks down at the skin, before leaning down and breathing me in. I feel the tickling suck of his inhale and feel a deep stab of empathy for the heavenly torture his Easter eggs suffered.

“It's perverted to be turned on by a childhood story about two brothers, isn't it?”

He presses his mouth to my shoulder and laughs. It vibrates through my entire body. I look over at his beautiful bedroom, all lit up with the light still burning. Blue and white, like a gorgeous Tiffany box. A gift with a ribbon. A room I want to spend days in. A room I'll probably never want to come out of.

“Did you eat it a bite at a time, or did you snap one day and gorge on it?”

“I guess you'll find out. Eventually.”

He picks up his keys and stands jingling them while I put my coat on. We don't touch in the elevator. He walks me outside in silence, over to my car.

“Bye. Thanks for the tea.” Embarrassment has caught up with me. I've acted like a total nut tonight. Why is it I can act like a normal human with a guy like Danny, but with Josh I end up dorking out? Something is sharp in my hand and I look down. Oh shit, I'm still holding the matchbox car.

“I'm a freak.” I put my face in my hands and tiny wheels roll across my cheek.

“Yes.” He is gently amused.

“Sorry.”

“Keep it, it's a present.”

The first thing he's ever given me aside from the roses. I'm honored beyond words and study it afresh. It has the initials JT scratched onto the bottom.

“Is it a childhood treasure? It looks old.” I don't think I'd give it back, even if he changed his mind.

“Maybe it's the start of your new collection. I think we've done something kind of monumental for us. We had a ceasefire. For the full length of a TV episode.”

“You sure are good at holding hands.”

“I'm probably not good at a lot of things, but I will try to be,” he tells me. It's the strangest thing to say and I feel another crack forming in the wall between us.

“Well, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“No you won't. I've got a day off.” He never, ever takes a day off.

“Doing anything special?” I look up at the apartments above and a wave of loneliness hits me.

“I have an appointment.”

Just when I think I've got a handle on this kaleidoscope of weird feelings, it twists and something new surprises me. I feel like I've been told Christmas is canceled. No Josh, sitting across from me like always? I have to bite my lip to silence myself.

Please,
I beg myself.
Please hate Josh again. This is too hard.

“You're not going to miss me, are you? You can manage one little Tuesday on your own.” He touches the little toy car in my hand and spins the wheels a little.

I try to be nonchalant, but he probably sees through it.

“Miss you? I'll miss looking at your pretty face, but that's about it.”

I hope it landed somewhere in the vicinity of faint sarcasm. I haul my quivering body into my car. He taps the window to make me lock the door. It takes me several attempts to get the key into the ignition.

Josh stands motionless in my rearview mirror until he's a speck, one person among billions, but I cannot tear my eyes away until he disappears altogether.

When I get home, I still have the Matchbox car in my hand.

I
'm sitting at my desk, eyelids dry and tight, and I'm staring at Josh's empty seat. The office is cold. Quiet. A professional haven. Any of the cubicle inmates downstairs would kill for this kind of silence.

Josh is supposed to be sitting across from me in an off-white striped shirt. He should be holding a calculator, tapping, frowning, tapping again.

If he were here, he'd look at me, and when our eyes connected a flashbulb of energy would pop inside me. I'd label it annoyance, or dislike. I'd take the little flash and call it something I don't think it is.

I look at the clock. I wait for a small eternity, and a minute ticks by. To amuse myself, I roll my new Matchbox car back and forth across my mouse pad, then take out the florist card from underneath.

You're always beautiful.

I look at my reflection in the ridiculous prism of glass surrounding me. I look at the wall, the ceiling, analyzing my appearance from different angles. Those three words now aren't enough to sate me. He's created a monster.

I turn the florist's card over and notice the address. I have the
best idea and cackle out loud. Grabbing my purse, I walk down to the corner to the exact same florist. Before I lose my nerve, I arrange to have a bunch of off-white roses sent to him with a card. I barely know what I'm going to write, until my hand writes out the following for me:

I want you for more than your body. I want you for your Matchbox cars. —Shortcake

Instantly I have a wave of self-doubt, but the florist has already taken the card and carried the bouquet out to their back room.

It's a joke, that's all, these flowers. He did it for me and we hate being uneven. I slide my credit card back into my purse and imagine him opening his door, and the look on his face. I'm basically cannonballing into something I shouldn't.

On the walk back I buy takeout coffee and knock gently on Helene's door.

“Hi. Am I interrupting?”

“Yes, thank God,” she exclaims, throwing her glasses down so vigorously they bounce onto the floor. “Coffee. You're a saint. Saint Lucy of Caffeine.”

“And that's not all.” I take out a flat box of fancy macarons from under my arm, labeled
Made in France
. I've had them in my drawer for a while for an emergency. I'm such a kiss-ass.

“Did I say saint? I meant goddess.” She reaches into the cabinet behind her and finds a plate; it is delicate, painted with flowers and edged in gold. Of course.

“It's so quiet out there today. I can hear a pin drop. It feels strange to not be glared at.”

“Get used to it. He does stare a lot at you, doesn't he, darling? I've noticed in the last few all-staff meetings. Those dark blue eyes of his are actually rather lovely. How's the interview preparation coming along?”

She opens the box of macarons with her silver letter-opener and I'm grateful she's momentarily distracted. She shakes the box gently onto the plate and we each choose. I pick an off-white vanilla one, like today's missing shirt, because I am tragic.

“I'm as ready as I'll ever be.”

“I'm not on the interview panel so it wouldn't be a conflict of interest if we did some practice together. How's your presentation coming along?”

“I'd love to show you what I've got.”

“Bexley has been making all sorts of comments. I don't know what I'll do, Lucy, if for some reason you don't get the job . . .” She looks out the window, expression darkening. She passes a hand through her hair and it settles back into a perfect shining cap. I wish my hair was so obedient.

“He could easily get the job over me. Josh has a money brain. I'm more of a book brain.”

“Hmm. I don't necessarily agree. But if you want, we could breed you together and create the next-generation ultimate B and G employee. I've never heard you call him ‘Josh' before.”

I pretend my mouth is incredibly full. I chew and point to my mouth and shake my head and buy myself twenty seconds of time. I hope the phone rings.

“Oh, well, you know. That's . . . his name I guess. Joshua. Er, Josh Templeman. Joshua T.”

She munches, staring with avid interest at my face.

“You've got a rather eerie glow about you today, darling.”

“No I don't.” She's on to me. My messing around with Josh is catching up to me.

“You're all confused and bunny-in-the-headlights. It's these dates.”

“It's all a bit confusing. Danny is nice. He really is.”

“All my favorite boyfriends when I was young weren't particularly nice.”

There's a bang on the door adjoining Mr. Bexley's office to Helene's. I'm deeply grateful to Fat Little Dick for this interruption.

“Enter,” she barks. He bursts in and stops dead when he sees me and the box of macarons on the desk.

“What do you want?”

“Never mind.” He lingers, eyes on the desk, until she heaves a sigh and holds the plate in his direction. He takes two, fingers hesitating on a third. I swear I see the faintest hint of amusement in her eyes when he walks back out and shuts the door without a word.

“Lord, could that man
smell
the sugar? I gave him some to encourage the diabetes, darling, no other reason.”

“What did he want?”

“He's lonely without Josh. He's going to have to get used to it.”

“When should we do a practice presentation?”

“No time like the present. Wow me, darling.”

After delivering my introduction, I can see I have her attention. “My presentation is to propose a new Backlist Digitalization project. I've taken a sample of the combined top one hundred books published by Gamin and also by Bexley in 1995, just as an example. Only about fifty-five percent are available in digital format.”

“iPads are a fad,” Mr. Bexley interjects from the open adjoining door, chewing. “Who would want to read off a sheet of glass?”

“The fact is, the largest growing market for e-readers are those over thirty,” I explain, trying to keep my cool. How long has he been standing there? How did he open the door so silently? I focus on Helene and try to ignore him.

“This is a huge opportunity, for all of us. It's a chance to renew contracts with authors that have gone out of print. It's growth within the company for people who have the skills to pull the content into ebook, the cover designers, and to get older B and G releases back onto best-seller lists. Publishing is constantly evolving, and we need to keep up.”

“Please leave,” Helene says over her shoulder to Mr. Bexley. The door closes, but I swear I can still see two shadows of his feet under the door.

The rising panic is now fully fledged. If he reveals my strategy to Josh, he could screw me. I click to my last slide.

“If I'm successful in winning this position, I would seek to create a formal project to get the deep backlist into ebook. I have created an initial budget, which I'll get to in a few slides time. These ebooks will all need to be repackaged with new, updated covers. There will be costs involved with three new cover designers over the course of the two-year project.”

I click through my project proposal. Helene questions me on several points, and I can answer her questions and justify my requirements easily. Eventually, I'm at my last slide. Helene stares at the screen for so long I check to see if she's blinking.

“Darling. Very, very good.”

I drop to kneel beside her chair. Tears are forming in her eyes and she takes the tissues from my hand, sighing like she feels silly.

“I've been selfish in keeping you out there,” she says quietly. “I just . . . I can't do without you. But I see now how wrong I've been. I should have done more to get you into editorial after the merger. You were so upset too, about losing your friend.”

I can't say anything. I don't know what to say.

“But every time I started to think about recruiting for your
job, I'd think about how good you are at it, how you basically keep this office running and keeping me sane. Then I'd say, maybe another month won't hurt.”

“I only do my job,” I say, but she shakes her head.

“Another month. And another month. And it did hurt you, Lucy. You've had ambitions, and things you've wanted, and ideas, but I couldn't bear to let you go.”

“So the presentation was okay?”

She laughs and wipes her eyes. “It is going to get you this promotion. And we are going to get B and G back into the game with this. Together. I want to be right beside you, working as colleagues. Mentoring you might be one of the best things I ever achieve in my career.”

She looks at the last presentation slide and pauses.

“I have to know, though. If there were no interviews, no new job, would this idea have stayed locked up inside you forever? Why keep this to yourself?”

I sit back on my heels and look at my hands. “Good question.”

How many other things has this promotion unlocked inside me?

“I thought you knew your ideas were important.” She's starting to fret.

“I think maybe I was waiting for the timing to be right. Or I didn't have confidence. Now I'm being forced to go with it. It's a good thing, I think. Even if I don't get the job, this whole thing has . . . woken me up.”

I think of last night, kissing Josh under a streetlight, and then remember.

“What if Mr. Bexley tells Josh about my presentation?”

“Let me deal with him. If he turns up dead in the river you'll know to keep your mouth shut and provide me an alibi. Focus on next week. I do have a suggestion.”

“Great.” I take the USB and sit opposite her again. “Hit me.”

“It's a little light in some places. Why not have an ebook ready for the presentation? Get something from the deep backlist catalog into e-format, and have a breakdown of how many man-hours it took, salary costs. The actual cost of creating it. It will prove your budget is right.”

“Yes, good idea.” I gulp my lukewarm coffee.

“You think numbers are Josh's strength, yes? Here's your chance to prove you're every bit as capable of creating a baseline budget for this new project.”

I'm nodding and scribbling notes, my mind racing ahead.

“But to keep things fair, you can't use company resources on this. Get creative. Use your contacts. Maybe someone who can freelance.” There's no mistaking that she means Danny.

I jot down a few notes for myself as she turns off the projector.

“I'm going to get this,” I tell her with a new certainty.

“No doubt about it, darling.” Helene looks to the adjoining door, and I see her mouth start to quirk with mischief.

“Did you give some more thought to your recent battles with Josh? I have an interesting theory.” A little cackle escapes her.

“I'm not sure I'm ready to hear this.” I lean on her desk.

“It's inappropriate but here goes. Josh thought you were lying about your date because he can't imagine you with anyone but himself.”

“Oh. Um. Ah.” I try all vowel combinations. Heat is sweeping up my chest, up my throat, face, into the roots of my hair, until I am completely red.

“Think on
that,
” she says and pops another entire macaron in her mouth.

I open my mouth, hesitate, close it, then do it a few more times. She stands up and dusts off crumbs, looking at me shrewdly.

“I've got to run, I have the hot-water man coming at three. Why do they always come at the most inconvenient times? Go home too, darling. You look a bit like a fish.”

I sit at my desk after she leaves. The pathway is as clear as day. I should be on the phone to Danny to talk about him freelancing on my ebook, but every time I pick up the phone I put it down again. To keep things professional I dig out his business card and email him a meeting request for tomorrow. I have no idea what he charges but it's all or nothing at this point.

I have a text. My stomach freefalls. My heart soars.

Joshua Templeman:
Glad to hear it.

He got the roses then. I hug the phone to my chest.

This interview is the worst kind of limbo. So many people have wished me good luck in the hallways. Imagining their sympathetic awkwardness if I fail is unbearable.

If Josh gets this job, I have to walk away.

I look at the cross in my planner that symbolizes next week's interview. As much as my mock presentation boosted my confidence, I also need to plan out the worst-case scenario. It's good business planning to have an exit strategy. I've got some money saved in a sacred account that I never touch. I'd wanted to take a vacation this year, but I guess it's going to be my safety net. Maybe I'd have to go and sit under the umbrella at the front gates of Sky Diamond Strawberries. My parents would probably hug and jump and scream in delight. They wouldn't even have the decency to be disappointed in me.

If Josh gets this job, and I resign, will my bitterness outweigh those little flickers inside my chest when he looks at me? Could
our weird, fragile little game survive outside these walls? My friendship with Val didn't survive.

Could we see each other while I hear about his successes at B&G and I'm in the job queue? On the other hand, would he be happy for my success while he's papering this city with his CV? His pride is something I can't imagine he'd lay down lightly.

I'm not completely out of options. I've got some contacts at some smaller boutique publishers that I could possibly approach, but I'd feel disloyal to Helene. I could ask Helene for a transfer into another B&G team. Maybe it is time to start at the bottom of the editorial team. But if I remain at B&G, that would almost certainly mean that Josh was the new COO.

Needless to say, any chance of ever sitting on his couch again would be completely gone.

Life would be easier if I could just hate Joshua Templeman. I look at his empty chair, and then close my eyes, the blue of his bedroom washing through me.