I look across the room at where Blair is going to be sitting in mere seconds and suddenly realize how incredibly nervous I feel.

I don’t think I was this nervous before with her. Maybe a little bit, just mild nerves tingling along my stomach, but nothing like this. I’m sweating and I keep looking at Remi. I smile at her, trying to exude a calm that I don’t feel, just to keep her confident.

She smiles back, and she’s so fucking beautiful I can barely breathe.

My secretary escorts Blair into the room. She sits in the only chair and raises a curious eyebrow.

We’re not in the conference room. Normally we’d pitch a big project like this in a huge room, impress the hell out of them, but not today.

“You’re probably wondering why we’re in here,” I say to her. She barely shrugs. “This is just a utility room, one little TV, one little table, that’s it. I don’t think we need to try and play games to impress you, Blair. We’re done with that, anyway.”

Remi nods and stands up, joining me up front. “We want the work to speak for itself.”

“You two have made up,” she says suddenly. It’s not a question.

I glance at Remi, and she just smiles. “Yeah, we did,” she says.

“We really did,” I echo. “And what you’re about to see is the best of what we can do working together. I hope you like it.”

She nods and gestures for me to continue.

I take a deep breath and dive into the presentation. It’s been two months since we left Hawaii, since everything changed. Remi has been coming to my apartment almost every night, and when we weren’t fucking our brains out, we were working on this project.

Every single night, night after night. We’d fuck and we’d work. It was perfection.

And now the time’s here to present, and I wish it weren’t. I’d rather be back in my apartment, commanding Remi to crawl on her hands and knees toward my cock so that I could watch her slowly suck it and swallow my cum before we get back to brainstorming tag lines. I’d rather tongue Remi’s perfect cunt, front to back, clit to ass, until she comes in body-shaking convulsions, her face pressed into the pillows. Instead, we’re here, finishing what we started together.

It feels like all the years since our fathers started this horrible feud have lead up to this moment.

Once the introduction is finished, I let Remi take over. She walks through the basics of the campaign, showing Blair how we want to mix fantasy and reality to underscore how her platform is actually used. We want people to see Spine as a company that can open a portal into a new world, allowing them to become new people.

It’s all about escape, play, teamwork. It’s about making new friends, meeting new people. Living in a brand new world where they can be better than they were, at least something different.

We switch on and off. Remi finishes, and I take over. I show her images, ideas, sketches. Some of them are half baked but we decided to give Blair everything, to show her the raw collaboration between Remi and I. We decided to highlight our imperfections in the same way that Spine would allow people to cover up their own.

Normally, I’d want to rehearse a presentation like this. We didn’t do that before, because she hated me, and we suffered for it. Now though, we both agreed to do the minimum of preparation and to wing the rest of it.

It’s raw and honest. I don’t think I’ve ever been this honest with a client before in my life. I tell her where we struggled and where we’ll keep struggling. Remi tells her what we think is genuinely good and notes that a few parts aren’t great, but can be fleshed out into greatness. When we’re done, I feel exposed, like I’ve just undressed in front of Blair and we’re waiting for her judgement.

I stand there, breathless. I look at Remi and back at Blair.

Last time, Blair just said one word. This time, she smiles.

“Okay,” she says, and stands up.

“Okay?” Remi sounds almost surprised. “You’re okay with all that? Even the parts that aren’t great?”

“I’m okay with you two,” she says. “All of that,” she gestures at the screen, “is unimportant to me. It will come.”

I stare at her and burst out laughing. It’s relief, pure and simple. “You just wanted us to make up and work together?”

She smiles bigger. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love the movie.” She turns and leaves the room without another word.

I’m left standing there with Remi in stunned silence.

“Wow,” Remi finally says. “She’s totally nuts.”

I laugh and grab her, pulling her into a hug. She returns it, holding tight against me.

“I can’t imagine doing this insanity with anyone else,” I say softly. She tilts her face up and I kiss her.

We break apart a moment later. “What now?” she asks.

“Now we go to work for real.”

She laughs softly. “What we were doing wasn’t work?”

“No, that was play.” My grin is devilish. “We’ll do the real work tonight.”

She blushes and looks excited at the same time, and I know we can’t go wrong.