Chapter 23
Annalise
The waiter finished refilling our wine glasses. “I’ll check on your dinners. Is there anything else I can bring you in the meantime?”
I looked to Madison and then the waiter. “I think we’re good. Thank you.”
He walked away, and Madison’s eyes followed him.
She lifted her glass to her lips. “You should sleep with him.”
“The waiter? He’s, like, twenty.”
“No. I should sleep with the waiter. You should sleep with the Beast.”
I’d just finished catching her up on the last week of office drama—from our visit with Star Studios and Bennett’s subsequent attitude, to the unexpected weekend, office pop-in and this week’s flirty banter. My relationship with Bennett changed as often as people changed their underwear.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Sleep with the guy who’s trying to steal my job.”
“Why not? You know that old saying…keep your friends close and fuck the shit out of your enemies.”
I laughed. “That’s not exactly the saying.”
She shrugged. “Let’s be pragmatic about this. You’ve already admitted you’re attracted to each other. It’s not like that’s going to go away. And you need to get back out there. He’s moving in a few months anyway, so he’s the perfect rebound guy.”
“I love that you’ve already decided he’s the one who’s moving and not me.”
“Of course. The fact that you’re going to win is a given. You can’t leave me.”
I sighed. “Bennett is not the kind of guy I would date.”
“Did I say anything about dating? I said you should sleep with him, not court him as prospective husband material. Fuck his brains out, not go shopping to pick out china patterns together.”
“That’s…” I trailed off. My gut reaction was to say crazy. But I had to admit…the thought was pretty damn appealing.
Madison grinned like a Cheshire cat. She knew me well.
“You’re thinking about fucking him, aren’t you?”
“No.” I felt my skin start to heat. “And before you say anything…it’s warm in here.”
“Uh-huh.” She grinned. “Sure it is.”
***
The next day, I was working on printing a logo using the 3D printer when the damn thing jammed up. I couldn’t seem to unclog the nozzle. Bennett walked over when he saw me taking it apart.
“Need some help?”
“It was in the middle of printing something, and then it started to make a clicking sound. I think the nozzle is jammed up with filament.”
“Is this the first thing you printed?”
“No. I did two other projects before this, and they printed fine.”
Bennett rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Sometimes a heat creep happens. The hot end needs to cool before it heats up each time, or the filament liquifies too much and causes a jam.”
I stared down at his forearms. They were corded and tanned, but that wasn’t what had my rapt attention—it was the ink peeking out where he’d folded his shirt up.
Bennett noticed where I was focused. “You have any ink?”
“No. Is that your only one?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “You’d have to do a full-body check to find that out.”
I rolled my eyes.
He turned some nobs on the printer, then pulled out a silver tray and reached one arm inside the machine. When his arm came back out, I could see a little more of his tattoo. It looked like Roman numerals with something wrapped around them.
“Is that a vine?”
He nodded. “It’s from a poem that’s special to me.”
Huh. Not what I expected.
Bennett opened and closed a few trays and then inserted the silver one he’d removed back into the printer.
“It’s what I thought. You’ve got a heat creep. The hot end probably didn’t have the proper time to cool down. I used it for a few hours this morning, too. Cancel the job and give it an hour. When the filament cools down, it will unclog on its own.”
“Oh. Okay, great. Thanks.”
“No problem.” He began to unfold his shirtsleeve. “If you need it faster, I have a small fan in the bottom drawer of my desk. If you set it up on top of the printer and angle the air blowing down, it will speed up the cool off.”
“It’s okay. I can wait.”
I felt a tad bit guilty that I was printing stuff to take with me to Star Studios in a couple of days, and here he was helping me.
“Did…Tobias ever call you back?” I asked.
The muscle in Bennett’s jaw flexed. “Nope. Left three messages.” Our eyes met briefly before he looked away. “Let me know if you have any other problems.”
I nodded, feeling guilty. He made it three steps away before I caved. “Bennett?”
He turned back. “The lunch is Thursday at one. Marina made my reservation. Come with me. We’re one company. We should go together.”
It was the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t the smartest thing.
Bennett squinted. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I plan to kick your ass based on my work, not because some client might be attracted to me so he isn’t calling you back.”
“So you’re finally admitting that jerk’s attracted to you?”
I took a play from Bennett’s book. “Isn’t everyone?”
***
I zipped the carry-on bag on the floor shut.
“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours?”
I looked up to find Bennett sporting a dirty grin.
“I meant the presentation you got in that bag. Get your mind out of the gutter, Texas.”
I smiled. “I was beginning to think you were standing me up. The flight just began to board.”
Bennett set a box down on the seat next to me in the waiting area and held up his hands. They were covered in black dirt and grease. “Got a flat. I had to change a tire on the way to the airport.”
“A tire? You drove and parked? Why didn’t you just grab an Uber?”
“I did. But we got a blowout halfway here. And the driver was, like, seventy with a bad back. He called AAA to change the tire for him, and they said it would be a forty-five-minute wait. With rush hour traffic, I didn’t have time for that. So I changed it myself.”
“Oh, wow. That’s dedication.”
“I would’ve run here, if push came to shove.” He looked over at the line for boarding. “Looks like we have a few minutes. I’m going find a bathroom and try to get my hands clean. Can I leave my presentation with you?”
“Sure. Of course.”
“Are you sure I can trust you not to peek and steal my ideas?”
I grinned. “Probably not. But go anyway.”
When he returned, the line was just about gone. I stood. “We should get going.”
Bennett lifted his own carry-on box and then grabbed mine.
“I can carry that.”
“It’s fine. I have an ulterior motive, though. I’m accidentally going to drop it and kick it around a few times—see how good your 3D model holds up.”
Such a wiseass.
When we arrived at the end of the gangway to step onto the plane, I asked, “What row are you in?”
“The same one as you. We’re both in aisle seats, across from each other. I told Marina to put us together so we could work if we wanted to.”
“Oh. Okay.” I was afraid of that.
Bennett stored our presentations in the overhead, and we took our seats in row eleven. After I buckled in, I decided to just come out and tell him my little problem.
“Umm… Just so you know, I’m a nervous flyer.”
His brows dipped. “What does that mean? You’re going to narrate the entire flight? Taxiing down the runway. Hitting a takeoff speed of a hundred-and-fifty miles per hour. Tucking my head through my legs to kiss my fine ass goodbye…”
I let out a nervous laugh. “No. I just get panicky on flights, so I use an app that helps keep me calm. It’s a combination of meditation, music, and guided breathing techniques. If we hit turbulence, I can push a button, and a therapist walks me through calming exercises.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not sure how much work we’ll actually get done on the flight.”
He grinned. “Screw work. This is way better. I can’t wait to watch you freak out.”
Great. Just great.
Five minutes after takeoff, I opened my eyes and found Bennett watching me with a grin.
I shook my head. “Am I amusing you?”
“You are. And the way you gripped that armrest during takeoff, I’m glad I’m sitting across from you so you don’t mistakenly grab for something else if we hit turbulence. You had that thing in a death grip.”
I laughed. “Takeoff is the worst part for me. Once we’re in the air, I’m not usually so bad, unless it gets bumpy.”
“So is it all modes of transportation you don’t like, or just cars and planes?”
“Very funny.”
“You said you had an accident that made you a nervous driver. Did something happen that made you nervous to fly? Like a bad flight or something?”
I put on my best solemn face. “My dad was a pilot and died in a plane crash.”
Bennett looked freaked out. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
I tried to keep a straight face, but the look on his was just too funny. My smile snuck out. “I’m just screwing with you. My dad sells insurance and lives in Temecula.”
He laughed. “Nice. You got me.”
After we leveled out, it was a short flight over to L.A., and once Bennett and I started joking around, the time flew by. All flights should be that easy on my nerves.
Once we landed, the captain came on the overhead and said we were a few minutes early, so we needed to wait to pull to our gate. I turned off my flying app and took my phone out of airplane mode. Emails began to fill my inbox. Noticing one from Tobias, I opened it.
Crap. I turned to Bennett. “I just got an email from Tobias. He said he had an urgent situation pop up that needs to be dealt with, and he had to push back our lunch meeting.”
“Until when?”
I frowned, knowing what he’d think. “He said he had a meeting that got rescheduled, and he can fit you in at five tonight.”
“Just me?”
I nodded. We’d blocked him for two hours, planning to each take an hour. “He’d like me to meet him for dinner tonight at eight.”
The muscle in Bennett’s jaw flexed.
“I know what you’re thinking. But even if it were true, I’m a big girl and can take care of myself. And the fact that you’re here with me right now should tell you that I want to win this account fair and square, based on my work.”
He nodded. We were both quiet as we disembarked the plane. Once we rented a car, I realized I needed to change my return plans. If dinner was at eight, there was no way I’d be catching even the last flight of the day back. I needed Marina to book me a hotel and push my return flight to tomorrow morning.
Bennett was busy navigating through the Hertz rental parking lot, so I broke the ice. “I’m going to have Marina change my travel plans. Do you want me to have her change yours?”
“No. It’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
He didn’t speak again until we merged onto the highway and started to head toward Star Studios. “We have a whole day to kill now. You want to hit a coffee shop and set up to work?”
Neither one of us had brought our laptops, since we had presentation materials to carry on. Although we did have our phones to at least answer emails and stuff. But that wouldn’t take up an entire day. Tobias’s email had left some lingering tension between the two of us, so I thought maybe a little relaxation might actually be in order.
“I have a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
I grinned. “Foot massages.”