13
Enzo
“Earth to Enzo.”
We’re about to head into a meeting with our marketing team, but I can’t concentrate—something I’ve been struggling with all week.
“Yeah.” I grab my laptop and start to follow Hayden from my office. Normally he wouldn’t be at this meeting, but since we’re considering firing our marketing liaison, he’s graced us with his presence.
“Hold up,” he says at the last second, coming to a sudden stop.
I all but run into him.
“I need more than ‘It went well’ if you’re going to turn into a zombie on me. I can take the lead in there, but only if you give me more intel.”
I really picked a doozy of a business partner.
“Are you serious? Right now?”
“Deadly.”
I laugh at his sober expression. He really should have been an actor. Hayden doesn’t even crack a smile.
“We’re going to be late,” I remind him, looking at my watch.
“No.” He shoves me back into my office. “Because of your chronic insistence on being early for everything, we are not. Sit.”
He’s right—it’s early—but I still stare him down.
“I’m serious, Enz. You’re a space cadet. We have fifteen minutes. Sit, tell me about your girl. And then we’ll go in. Maybe you’ll be more focused if you get it off your chest.”
For about the millionth time, I find myself thinking there are pluses and minuses to working with someone who knows you so well. Only, maybe I’m more transparent than I thought. Gian called last night, and after five minutes, he asked me what was wrong.
“Fine.”
I sit, reluctantly. But only because he’s right. The last thing I’m thinking about at the moment is the botched social media campaign that led us to question the competence of our chief marketing officer.
“Talk to me.”
“Not much to tell.”
Hayden rolls his eyes.
“Seriously. I took her to dinner. Eight courses later, we went back to my apartment.”
“Eight courses? Where did you take her? Holy shit, did you eat in the Skybox?”
I nod.
Hayden whistles. “Trying to impress her?”
There’s no use denying it. “Maybe.”
“And then?”
“And then we had a pleasant evening. She went home after breakfast on Sunday. I had to get to the lab.”
“On a Sunday?”
I leave most of the chemistry to my team these days, but we have a new product in development, and I like overseeing that process myself. Our lab is in Jersey, so just an hour away without traffic, which is why I went on Sunday. I hate wasting time in traffic.
“Yes. On a Sunday.”
“I feel like you’re skipping a bunch. Did you have a good time?”
Of course, but it was so much more than that.
“Yeah,” I downplay it. “We were up until almost four o’clock.” Hayden’s already grinning, so I stop him right there. “Talking.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously.”
His eyes widen.
“I told you, she’s different.”
Hayden whistles. “Apparently.” He crosses his arms. “So no sex,” he surmises.
I think about our first kiss. And my hand, gliding up her thigh to find she wasn’t wearing any underwear. And how wet Chari was for me . . .
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry.”
“If you didn’t have sex,” he says with a snicker, as if he doesn’t quite believe me, “what exactly did you do until four in the morning?”
I look out at the skyline, so dreary today. Unlike Saturday, when it was filled with promise. I know what’s missing, and it doesn’t bode well after one damn date.
“I told you. We talked.”
And we never once ran out of things to say, even though we’d already spent hours catching up over dinner.
“Now what?”
I stand. “Now we go into that meeting and probably find a new marketing firm.”
Hayden shakes his head, though he stands too.
“No, dumbass. Now what with you and Chari?”
I actually like the way that sounds. Me and Chari. Us. But it still feels like a pipe dream, like something that can’t happen, or maybe something I can’t let happen.
“Good question,” I admit. “We have a virtual date Saturday night.”
“A what?” Hayden looks at me like I’m crazy.
“I can’t take a whole weekend off again. We’re too close to our launch in Europe.”
Something that’s been two years in the making. It hasn’t taken this long because of a lack of interest—rather, there’s plenty of red tape and regulations to consider. The antidote, or the “Angel pill” as it is commonly known, threw a huge monkey wrench into the equation. Despite the fact that it only works with our brand, and if taken alone, has no more effect than a placebo, a drug was a drug. We knew from the start it wouldn’t be easy. But Angel is finally ready for its European debut.
“So you’re having a virtual date? What does that even mean?”
“It means the fifteen minutes are up and we have to go. Ready to play good cop, bad cop?”
It’s a routine we do well by now. Me, always the bad cop. Hayden, the charmer, Mr. Nice Guy. I’m used to being underestimated. When I was younger, none of my teachers ever thought I would amount to much, but I’ve proven them wrong and then some. If the marketing firm thinks Hayden and I are a college frat boy duo who stumbled upon a cool discovery without two licks of sense, well, we’ll show them otherwise.
For the moment, I force Chari to the back of my mind. Time to do business. Angel, Inc. is just getting started.
I pick up my phone for the first time in hours.
She texted, just after four o’clock.
Still on for Saturday?
Screw Saturday. I had a shit day. No lunch, or dinner. Sitting in the back of my car, I watch as the buildings whiz by. It’s after seven, and I’m starving.
But there’s something I want even more than food. So I text back.
Plans in an hour? I had meetings all day. I’d like to see your face.
I wait, glad neither of us has the patience to pull the kind of juvenile back-and-forth I typically deal with. If she’s not busy, she’ll respond. It’s nice knowing that.
One hour. See you then.
You’d swear I’m a fifteen-year-old boy with his first real girlfriend. The thought of seeing Chari, actually talking to her after texting all week . . . I told her we should take it slow, but every part of me wants just the opposite.
I have no clue how I let her out of my apartment on Sunday without more than a few kisses. With the exception of what happened between us on the couch the night before. The fact that I nearly came just by touching her . . . that was my first clue. We’re too connected for something casual. By the time she walked out, her backside in a pair of jeans that made it look even sweeter than it had cradled in that little black dress, it took all of three minutes for me to have my hand wrapped around my cock. Even then, the speed of my release was slightly terrifying.