chapter thirteen

 

I slam the pantry door shut a little harder than I mean to, and Ashton yelps from her spot in her high chair at the kitchen table. Reese glares at me as she proceeds to mop up the runny rice cereal she spilled in transit from the bowl to Ashton’s mouth.

“Can you stop?” she requests.

“Sorry,” I mutter, but I’m pissed.

“Take it out on me, not on the pantry door,” Mark says as he saunters past me on his way toward the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of beer and holds it up in an offer to me. I grab it from him and twist the cap off then proceed to down half the bottle in a few gulps.

“Dude, it’s not a race.”

I roll my eyes and drain more from the bottle and then I hold it up in the air as I swallow. “One bottle of beer won’t make up for what you did.”

“Ooh, what’d he do?” Reese asks.

“Will staying rent-free at my house for half a year do?” Mark asks me. He looks over at his wife. “I hired Vivian Davenport to be Brian’s temp.”

Reese’s eyes light up. “Just like we talked about.”

“It was a great idea, babe.” Mark grins and Reese preens from her spot at the table. The kitchen timer dings to let us know the pizza in the oven is done. Mark heads to the drawer with the hot pads.

“So this is your doing?” I ask Reese with a glare.

She cowers a little. “It was his doing,” she says, jabbing a thumb in her husband’s direction. “I just offered up the idea when we were chatting about how you’ve got too much work on your plate.”

“Well thanks,” I mutter.

“You’re welcome,” she says with saccharine sweetness.

“Are you trying to completely fuck my life up?” I ask the two of them as Reese feeds the baby and Mark pulls the pizza out of the oven. My stomach growls when the smell of fresh cooked pepperoni pizza wafts to my nostrils. “Is this payback for what I did to the two of you?”

“Watch your language in front of the baby,” Mark says.

“God, you sound just like Mom.” I roll my eyes petulantly.

“And no, this isn’t payback,” he continues as he grabs the pizza cutter from a drawer. “This isn’t anything other than a professional situation. Vivian was clearly the best candidate for the job. She already has knowledge of what you do. She has some idea of how you work.”

“And if you two happen to get back together and ride off into the sunset, well, that’s just a happy byproduct of the whole situation.” Reese grins at me, and I glare back.

“That’s not how this is going to go down. For one thing, she was acting angry at me. How’s that for something? I’m not the one who lied and cheated.”

“Not this time, at least,” Mark mutters.

I grab the car keys on the kitchen counter. “You know what? Screw you.”

I don’t know where I’m going and I’m hungry as fuck for the hot, fresh pizza that’s currently being sliced and served, but I’m in a foul mood after today and I don’t want to hang around with the people who put me in that mood.

I can’t stop thinking about her. I haven’t stopped for five months, but seeing her today, feeling all those feelings as they rushed back over me...it’s overwhelming. It’s as if my love for her deepened in the time we were apart. Isn’t it supposed to happen the other way around? Shouldn’t feelings fade over time, especially when two people are apart?

I drive along the coast. I pull into a parking lot and take off my shoes then get out and walk on the sand. It’s the same sand behind Mark’s place, just a few blocks away, but I needed to get away from them. They’re conspiring to get Viv and me together when after today I’m more sure than ever it’s not something that can ever happen. We’re barely going to be able to work together; never mind something more than that.

I walk all the way to the water and let the waves gently roll over my feet. There’s so much I wish could be different, but I just don’t know how.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but the sun slips down into the water and my stomach reminds me loudly that it’s now well past dinnertime. I get in the car and drive for a while, and I find myself following the road toward Tarzana. I don’t even realize a half hour has passed when I breach the town limits. I drive down Ventura Avenue as I wonder if these are the same streets she drives all the time. I pass a bank and some strip malls, an Office Depot and a McDonalds. I pull into a parking lot and decide on some local coffee joint for dinner. The selection on the menu is mostly pastries, but it’ll be fine to take the edge of hunger off.

I sit at a table by the window and look out over Ventura Avenue. Does she still live in this town...with her husband? I suppose I could ask her, but finding out those types of things about her will only push me back into the past.

My phone starts ringing, and my first thought is that it’s Mark finding out where I went when I stormed out. It’s not him. It’s a number I recognize, one I memorized four or five years ago, but one that’s no longer programmed into my phone.

Kendra.

I don’t answer.

My number hasn’t changed since we were dating, but I’m kind of surprised she held onto it all this time. I deleted her from my phone, but that number I memorized is still ingrained in my memory, immune to removal.

My phone signals that she left me a voicemail, but I can’t be bothered to check it as I stare out the window at the traffic rushing past on Ventura.

I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m still just getting by, still trudging through to get to the end of each day. I’m not advancing, not looking for some bigger goal. I lost my ambition with the loss of Vivian, FDB, and my best friends all in the span of a few days, and I don’t know how to make things right again in any aspect of my life.

I appreciate Mark looking out for me and giving me a job. I have the tour to look forward to.

But the tour is temporary.

Six weeks.

And then what? After the tour, I go back to Ashmark and work for someone else when I should be working for myself?

I long for the past, for that singular moment in time when everything was perfect, when I had hope on the horizon that my friends were going to forgive me and be thankful for my honesty, that FDB would stay in the black with Vivian’s helpful expertise. When I thought I found something special with a person who felt the same thing for me. It was so fleeting, no more than a few heartbeats in this precious lifetime, and then it was all ripped away.

I can’t sit here and sulk forever.

I need to come up with a plan. I need something to do after the tour wraps. I like working for Mark, and it’s fine, I suppose. I’m banking money and enjoying what I do enough. But I’m not fulfilled. I don’t want to live with my brother forever. I don’t want to slam pantry doors and upset babies that aren’t mine.

I don’t want to live in gray anymore.

I want vivid colors, the kind of colors I had when a rose-scented, lemon-faced, straight-laced woman stole my heart.

 

* * *

 

When Viv walks into my office the next morning, I’m just taking a sip from my first cup of coffee. I told her to be here at eight so I can prep her before our IT meeting at nine. I’ve been dragging all morning, and I should’ve opted for a run rather than sleeping in, but just the sight of her gives me some of my missing energy back.

I realize it with a sigh.

“Good morning, Vivian,” I say, stressing her name as I try to inject some cheeriness into my voice I don’t really feel.

“Morning,” she says. She sets her purse and coffee down on the opposite side of my desk. “Where would you like me to work?”

Beneath my desk with my zipper down. I refrain from actually voicing my first thought. “We could have Mark bring in a desk for you, but you’ll need to share my screen with me while I train you. We could set up a second monitor but that will take time we don’t have. Unless you’ve got another idea, as uncomfortable as it is, the best place is right here next to me.”

I pat the chair beside me, and she lets out a soft sigh.

“Look, I don’t like it either.” I’m not sure if it’s the truth or a lie. “Let’s just get through it and be professional, as Mark told us yesterday.”

She nods and presses her lips together in a thin line. “You’re right. And I apologize for slapping you yesterday.”

“I apologize for saying something that prompted you to slap me.”

Her mouth tips up in a partial smile before she masks it.

“Have a seat,” I say, and I start clicking through the report and narrating as I go.

“So this page tells us the referrers?” Vivian asks, pointing to the screen.

I nod.

I glance over at her and see her eyes as they analyze the data. “It looks like Rock Star Junkies drove a ton of traffic over last week. Who’s that?”

I click a few buttons and we stumble across a blog with the same name that featured several artists on the Ashmark label as up and coming.

“Good find,” I say. The blog looks promising. “I’ll definitely get this information to marketing so they can get in touch. Might be some additional networking available.”

“I’ve worked with companies who actually employ bloggers in their marketing department. It makes users feel like it’s not a constant sales pitch and it personalizes the experience.”

I nod thoughtfully and make a note of her suggestion. I tap the end of my pen on the paper in front of me as I wish she wasn’t so goddamn smart and good at what she does. It would make her much less attractive to me if she was some dumb troll instead of an intelligent, capable businesswoman.

We head to the IT meeting, where I introduce her and watch as she doesn’t just sit back, but dives in and takes part in the conversation. I take her back to my office where I show her how to pull the analytics and what to look for. We continue working over lunch, and then we head to the marketing meeting. I tell them Vivian had a great idea, which she shares with the team, and everyone nods their approval. Dean, the head of marketing, seems particularly impressed.

My hackles rise as I recognize the salacious look in his eyes. He’s not known for his discretion when it comes to women.

I don’t like it.

When the meeting’s over and everyone leaves, I hang back. “Go ahead back to my office,” I tell Vivian. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

She nods and I shut the door behind her.

“Get it out of your head right now,” I say. My voice is a sharp warning.

“What?” he asks, raising both hands up in innocent surrender.

I know better.

“Don’t even look at her, Dean. She’s off limits.”

“Why? You want her?”

I shake my head. “She’s married.”

His brow furrows. “She wasn’t wearing a ring.”

“I know.” She wasn’t the entire time she was working with me at FDB, either. “Just trust me on this.”

He blows out a breath. It’s not just my idle threats on the line—he knows my brother owns this place, which in his eyes gives me power I don’t really have. I don’t care, though. If it’ll keep his paws off Vivian, I’ll use it. “Fine,” he finally says. “That blogger thing was genius.”

“I know,” I say, pride puffing my chest a little at the mention of her great idea. Ashmark and its analytics will be just fine while I’m out on tour with Vail.

I just hope the same can be said for Vivian as all the single men in this office leave a wake of drool in her stead.

Her guard is firmly in place today as I continue training her on my day-to-day operations. It is the next day, too, and the next. A week passes, and we’ve managed to keep things one hundred percent professional. She cracked just once on that first day and not even a moment since. We work through lunch, and she leaves at exactly five o’clock every day. There’s no mention of our history. Of our feelings.

Of her husband.

It’s partially frustrating, but the other part of me fully appreciates we’re able to work so easily together despite our history. It simply comes down to keeping our personal life completely out of the game. We each come in at eight and leave at five, and we focus solely on the tasks of our day. We eat lunch separately if we’re not working through it. While I fucking hate every second of acting like I’m not fully and completely in love with her, I force myself to look at her as nothing more than a colleague. I just feel like if she wasn’t still married and she wanted to be with me, she’d have said something by now, and I’m too much of a damn coward to ask.

As we get closer to the tour, I don’t have enough hours in the day to get it all done, and Viv has jumped into completing tasks I haven’t even asked her to do. By her second week there, she’s doing most of the work while I’m continuing the advancing process and meeting with Keith for a few hours every day. It’s a welcome relief to have some time away from her, but it helps knowing where she is.

We’re ten days out from leaving for the tour when the Vail boys finally get the finalized rider to Keith, who passes it along to me. It’s my job to call every venue again and ensure all the demands are met—all the same calls I made a week or two ago to confirm every single detail of every tour stop.

I flip through the paperwork, and it’s pretty standard as far as riders go. Specifics about the sound system and sound board, lighting and the number of spots needed. Ten additional local crew members at each venue. And then there’s the hospitality items. A bottle of Jägermeister, a case of Guinness, diet Coke in cans, whiskey, cases of water, towels, food, tea and honey. I get to the bottom of the page and find the one request that’s completely out of the ordinary.

Souvenirs from each city you feel best represents the feel of your city, quantity four.

I roll my eyes at that one. I know I’m going to be the one who has to explain it to the venue, but as Keith told me, this is common practice. At least they’re not asking for bottles of vodka to be used only for cleaning the dressing room, as one artist supposedly did, or for bouquets of very specific flowers with absolutely no carnations, as another allegedly requested.

I start making the calls from an empty conference room while Vivian works in my office. It takes me a few days to get through every venue as I’m constantly interrupted with meetings and questions for both the analytics portion of my job and the band management portion. It’s a flurry of activity that only seems to get worse with each passing day.

By the time we’re three days out from tour launch, Vivian has completely taken over and I haven’t even gone into the office since I’ve been shadowing Keith everywhere. We’ve printed twenty copies of the finalized tour book, one for each band member, one each for Keith and me, one for band assistant Vick, one for band publicist Penny, and the rest to be split among the crew buses.

Since I’ll be on a crew bus, I’m limited to half a wardrobe cart due to spacing constraints. It’s not a huge issue since I’m not an over-packer, but it still takes some time to determine exactly what I’ll need for six weeks as I attempt to fit it all in.

Focusing on the tour has been my saving grace in terms of keeping my mind off Vivian. It certainly hasn’t been easy, especially not being forced to work side by side with her every single day as I breathe in her scent and feel her warmth beside me, but I haven’t had time to mourn the past—or the future that was never ours.

The night before we leave, everything is set into place. Ashton is sleeping, Reese and Mark are packing, and I’m done. I collapse on the couch to relax for three minutes when my phone pings with a new text.

Vivian almost always texts me at this time of day to let me know how the day went and to ask any questions she has, and as I pick up my phone, I can’t help but hope it’s her. I don’t care if it’s professional and work-related. A text from her means she’s thinking about me. It means my name is in her mind, which seems only fair since hers is in mine.

Vivian: Today’s numbers are in your inbox. IT is installing new security measures in the next few days that might interfere with reporting.

I sigh. There’s not much I can do remotely. I should have some downtime when we’re traveling between shows, particularly in the first part of the tour when Keith is still around.

Me: I’ll do what I can from the road.

I see the bubbles appear that tell me she’s typing, and then they suddenly stop. No message comes through. They pop up again and stop again.

It reminds me of a text in Miami she never sent. She portrays such confidence to the world, yet when it comes to communicating via text message, she seems to fight with herself to find the exact right words.

I’m so exhausted and overworked at this point that I almost want to tell her to just say it. I don’t, though. I force patience I don’t feel, and I’m rewarded a few minutes later when it finally comes through.

Vivian: I like working with you again.

I stare at her words, trying to figure out how the hell to interpret what she’s saying. For someone who deals with analytics for a living, I sure suck at decoding women.

Her bubbles pop up again, and then they disappear. Maybe she regrets what she said, but it’s too late. The words are out.

If she was still a happily married woman, she wouldn’t be telling me she likes working with me again.

Would she?

We’ve managed to go nearly four weeks without her husband coming up, but the same can be said about our first round of working together. We made a pact that we’d keep things professional, and we have. But she’s opening a door here I wasn’t expecting her to open.

I finally respond, though I have no idea how she’ll take it.

Me: I do, too. I sort of wish I wasn’t leaving for six weeks.

Her reply comes faster this time.

Vivian: I do, too.

She wishes I wasn’t leaving...and she waited until the night before I was leaving to tell me this?

What game is she playing and how the hell am I supposed to handle this one?

She adds one more line before I get a chance to figure out the answer to that.

Vivian: I’ll be here when you get back.

I have about a million and one questions about that. Are you telling me that since you ran out on the job last time? Will you still be here because of the job or because of me? Can we actually try to do this again?

I gather every piece of strength inside as I type the question that has torn me up all day every day for the past few weeks.

Me: Are you still married?

Her reply takes some time, and anxiety fills my chest while I wait.

Vivian: We’ll talk when you get back.

That isn’t a yes.