Work was such a good distraction. The last time I’d thrown myself into my work with this much conviction was when I’d just moved to LA and I’d had a high school sweetheart’s broken heart on my conscience.
Krista came to my desk with a file.
“You blew me off last night,” she said. She worked in the sound department; our work friendship had kicked into a new gear when we’d started jogging together in the mornings.
“I know. I’m really sorry.”
She sat down on the empty chair next to me and crossed her legs, hands folded into her lap.
“So, was he hot, then?” she asked. Her black hair was cut into an asymmetric pixie that suited her sharp features and her LA slim body perfectly. She was the epitome of style and efficiency.
“What makes you think it was about a man?”
She smiled, her mouth corners curling up in a knowing way that annoyed me. I was trying very hard to keep a straight face, but my gut felt like stone and on the inside I was writhing.
“You’re throwing yourself into your work like your salary is hour based. And you have that after-sex glow that women only get when the man was incredible. Or the woman. Holy shit, was it a woman?”
“Stop it,” I said. My cheeks flushed, my ears were hot and I dipped my head so that my hair fell into my face. Krista saw it and hooted.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry, do you need to come out to me right now? You’re from nowheresville, right, this could be big for you.” She fluffed herself carefully, then neatly refolded her hands and made her eyes big and innocent. “Jayna, tell me more about the person you spent your evening with.”
I flicked a paperclip at her; she dodged it neatly, because of course she did. “Shut up. It was a guy.”
“Okay,” Krista said, nodding. “It would have been totally fine for you to hook up with a girl, FYI. I would not have been shitty about it, or weird and assumed you were checking out my ass when jogging.”
“I didn’t think – what?”
“So was he hot?”
I dropped my head on the wrist brace for my keyboard. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.”
“I knew it.”
“It was nothing.” Total lie; it didn’t feel like nothing. It hadn’t felt like nothing last night when he’d pounded me until it felt like he’d rewritten my DNA. It didn’t feel like nothing now, when my thighs and shoulders still ached from bracing while he’d fucked me hard from behind, while my heart ached from rejection.
“So, tell me about Mr. Nothing.” Krista reached past me and grabbed a Skittle out of the bowl on my desk, deftly avoiding my slapping hand.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.” I turned to her, crossed my arms over chest. I was aware it looked defense but the truth was, I was defensive. “He was hot as hell, mysterious and dark, and he fucked my brains out. Then he threw me away like I was only a paragraph in this one chapter of his life and I was left to let myself out.”
Krista rounded her mouth in an ‘O’ of surprise.
“Not exactly your happily ever after, but a lot closer to reality, at least.” I touched my hair, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Krista said. “He sounds like an absolute asshole.”
I leaned back in my chair and nodded. “He really is. But oh my god, what a ride. He really was fantastic. And there was something about him that made me want that. You know me, I don’t usually do this kind of thing. But he was so… different. Like there was so much underneath the crust but he had this don’t-fuck-with-me face on.”
Krista picked up a pen from my desk and turned it around and around in her hands, staring at it like it was an object of fascination. At least she was leaving my Skittles alone.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said, after a minute. “I have a whole speech when a girlfriend gets dumped by a serious boyfriend, plus a different speech when someone gets their freak on and then feels guilty about it, but you’re falling somewhere in the middle, and I don’t know which script I need.” She studied the pen a little more, then gave a decisive nod.
What was that they said about hair of the dog? “Let’s go out this weekend. Friday. Girls’ night. You can help me get wasted to forget about it and hold back my hair when I’m throwing up in the bar restroom.”
She clapped like a little kid. “Yes! This is fantastic. Yes. We are going to have the best time.” Krista smiled, her eyes shimmering as she stood up. “Before I forget, the reason I came here was because Dave wants you to start on the Glory piece ASAP.”
“That’s not due until next month.”
Krista shrugged. “Someone – his wife, probably – pissed in his cup again. You know how he gets.”
I nodded. Dave was my boss and a bit of a tool on a good day. When he had issues at home – which seemed to happen more and more lately – his mood just got worse and worse and there weren’t a lot of ways we could get around it. We had to take the heat because he didn’t have the courage to take it out on his wife at home.
‘I’ll get on it,” I said. I closed the file I’d been working on and looked for the scene I was supposed to edit for a movie called Scores of Glory. I didn’t know if it was going to hit it big, but it was a good project, and I was excited about it.
I was about an hour in when someone moved between the cubicles, disturbing the general ebb and flow of work that happened around here. I didn’t notice him right away. I was too focused on my work. Everyone fell quiet. My head ached dully with the intense concentration of the last hour, and my eyes felt like they’d been under strain. I narrowed them, then closed them. I cupped my hands over my eyes to block out the light. The relief was almost instant and I leaned back in my chair.
Someone cleared a throat.
When I lowered my hands. Dax stood in front of me. He had a lopsided grin on his face and he was looking at me. God, how long had he been standing there?
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“The secretary downstairs said that I would find you here.”
I looked him up and down. He looked mean. His clothes, camo and black, looked like they’d come off one of those war movie sets. His eyes were still icy, but more blue than yesterday. His hair looked like it had yesterday and I wondered if he’d bothered showering. If he hadn’t, then my juices were still all over him.
I pushed the thought away. I wasn’t going to think about sex with him.
“And you’re here because?”
He spread his legs shoulder width and crossed his arms over his chest. His whole attitude looked dangerous. And really hot.
“You knocked over my bike,” he said. Oh God. He knew it was me. I could either apologize or pretend that he deserved it. Which, by the way, he did.
“And?” I asked and to my relief my voice sounded as cocky as his did.
“It’s rude.
“It’s rude to kick someone out of your house after sex.”
I wanted to look around if anyone heard me. I felt like I was the center of attention. But I wasn’t going to break eye contact first. This was some sort of game and I’d already lost round one. I wasn’t planning on a repeat fail.
Krista came around the corner and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him. I saw her from the corner of my eye. I was going to hold onto this damn eye contact if it killed me.
“You owe me,” he said. “I’ll send you the bill.”
“If you insist I pay you for your services, then you can pay me for mine.”
I cringed on the inside. Did I just say he could pay me for the sex? The words were out, though, and I was going to woman up and mean them. No way to take them back now. A ghost of a smile flickered across Dax’s face.
“You’re a handful, you know that?”
“You would know.”
This time a proper smile broke across his face and it transformed him. Where he’d looked like a badass, before he looked incredibly handsome now. Somewhere deep inside this rough, hard man was a soft, kind, caring guy, who’d been through hell. If it wasn’t for the clothes still labeling him, I would have melted right there. But look at what happened the last time I’d melted for him? No way that was happening again.
“What do you want?” I asked. I was getting irritated. His smile made it hard to keep up my angry routine and I didn’t want to give into him.
“I was just kidding about the bike, you know,” he said. Something inside of me relaxed. “I just wanted a ride to see Joker.”
I pulled a face. “The vet is next door. If you came this far you can make it one more building.”
He shook his head, still smiling, like there was some joke only he was privy too. Whatever. I didn’t care.
“I’ll be back,” he said. He turned his back on me and walked away. The tense atmosphere, the silence, the danger, followed him out. When he was gone I breathed out a breath I hadn’t known it’d been holding and sagged in my chair.
“What the hell was that?” Krista asked, coming to my table. “Was that him?”
“Did he seem like an absolute asshole to you?”
“Oh my God. The worst. But shit, he’s good looking.”
I smiled and nodded. He really was hot as hell. I remembered last night as if it was a dream, but his face a stark reality in front of me reminded me that it had all been real.
“Where did he go?”
I shrugged. “Who the hell knows? He’s so unpredictable it’s unnerving. I’m sure he’s mentally unstable, too.” And hot, and gorgeous, and freaking amazing with his hands.
“You scratched his bike?”
“It wasn’t on purpose! But don’t tell him that. I was angry and I kicked the wheel and the whole shiny thing toppled over.”
Krista laughed. “That sounds like you.”
“Tell me about it.” Even when I wanted revenge I could only do it by accident. I turned my attention back to my work and Krista disappeared. Half an hour flew by without any disturbance and I finally relaxed. He’d come here and it hadn’t been all bad. Sure, he got me all tied up – emotionally, though the physical possibilities worth considering, if I’d been considering such things, which I wasn’t – but considering that he could have tried to sue me for property damage or something, it had gone really well. I was just getting into my work again when he appeared at the door that led to the elevators. This time I saw him coming. I groaned and made no point of hiding it.
“You’re back,” I said when he stood in front of my desk again.
“I said I would be.”
I nodded. He had said that. I’d kind of interpreted it as a metaphor or something. I hadn’t expected it to be within the next hour.
“And?”
He smiled. God, he had to stop doing that around me when I was trying to dislike him. His eyes were amazing when he smiled.
“I want to take you out to lunch,” he said. “Joker’s going to be fine and that’s mostly because of you.”
“What?” He was asking me out to lunch? I was struggling to bring this man and the one from last night together. The unpredictability thing was really getting to me. The one moment he was scary as hell and the next he was all smiles and the kind of person I wanted to be around. That had happened yesterday as well. Maybe I had to tell him to go away. He could only be bad news.
“I have a lot of work to do.”
“Don’t you eat?”
“Often in front of my computer.” That part wasn’t a lie. When it was close to deadline all of us ate in front of our computers. Where there were dozens of film school graduates willing to do your job for less, your work ethic had to be completely ridiculous if you wanted to get anywhere.
“Okay, I’ll sit here, then,” Dax said and sat down. God, no. Imagine Dave came to check on me and he found this tattooed wonder keeping me company? That was going to be a problem.
“You know what? I guess I can take an hour.”
I got up. Dax chuckled and got up too. “Ashamed of me?”
“You’re not exactly the type we see around the workplace.”
His face fell just a little, like what I’d said was offensive. I felt bad. But then I shook it off. He’d been a lot ruder, and he was going to keep paying until I felt it was fair. Maybe that would never happen. I marched toward the elevator and Dax followed me. What would Krista say if she saw me now, leaving with this man?
I could tell her all about it on Friday when we went out. Seeing that I was going to lunch with Dax there would probably be a lot more drama to add to my gossip.