Seven

Patrick

“Are you going to explain this?” Austin asked, breezing into my office and slamming down a piece of paper onto my desk.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“You’re quitting?”

“I did plan to tell you.”

“When, dipshit? You told my girlfriend first.”

I grinned up at my best friend. “To be fair, your girlfriend is the head of HR.”

“And?”

“Legally, she has to know that I’m quitting. She’s kind of in charge of that.”

“She’s going to lord this over me forever now. You do know that, right?”

I smirked. “I might have guessed.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Learned from the best.”

“Fuck you,” Austin said. Then, he sank into the chair in front of my desk. “So…tell me what’s going on.”

“I got offered a cushy job at Tech.”

“Nice!” Austin fist-bumped me. “But I meant…what’s going on? I didn’t see you all weekend. You were totally weird at church. Now, you’re quitting without even a heads-up. New girl?”

“No, I think you’re imagining things.”

Of course, there was no new girl. There was just Morgan. Not new to my life, but certainly new to the way I was thinking about her. And I had been reevaluating every interaction I’d had with her in the last decade. Not that I could say that to Austin. He’d likely beat the shit out of me for even thinking about his sister this way. It wouldn’t matter that nothing had happened. He wouldn’t believe that from me even if I did tell him.

I wasn’t known for my patience or discretion. I definitely wasn’t known for missed opportunities. Austin knew enough of my exploits to find this thing with Morgan unsatisfactory, to say the least.

Even if I was never going to make that move.

“I’m not imagining things. I’ve known you long enough. I know when there’s a new girl. You always disappear like this.”

“I didn’t disappear. Steph was in town. She got engaged this weekend. I was home.”

“Whoa, baby sister engaged. How does it feel?”

“Weird,” I admitted. “I like Thomas, but still…it’s my little sister. How did you feel when Sutton…”

The words hung between us. Sutton’s wedding had been a big event. It was still hard to believe that her husband had died less than two years later.

“I thought she was an idiot, but Maverick turned out to be a good guy. And, now, I feel sick to my stomach when I think about what happened to her.”

“I know.”

It was this cloud over the entire Wright family. It was inescapable. Sutton wasn’t even around that much anymore, but her presence was felt everywhere.

“Fine,” Austin said after a minute. “Don’t tell me who she is. But if I find out it’s butcher-knife-wielding Mindi again—”

“It’s not.”

“So, there is someone.”

I blew out an exasperated breath. “No.”

Austin laughed as he stood and headed for the door. “You’re acting really weird, dude. It’s not like you’re trying to date my sister or something.”

I choked on the next inhalation and tried to cover it up with a cough that turned into some stupid laugh.

Fuck, just give yourself away.

“Right,” I managed to get out.

With relief, I watched him walk out. I needed to get my shit together. Mostly, I needed to stop thinking about Morgan Wright. I had one week left at Wright Construction, a week of paid leave, and then I was out of here. I needed to keep my head down and focus on work.

I spent the next two days doing exactly that. By the time Wednesday rolled around, I was feeling slightly less shitty about what had happened this weekend. It helped that I’d been actively avoiding Morgan, so I hadn’t seen or heard from her since we talked at church.

I still didn’t know what to make of that conversation. She’d left because she thought I expected that. She’d seemed ashamed to have even stayed the night. Part of me hated that, and part of me was pissed that she’d even insinuated that I’d have made her get a cab home. We’d been friends long enough for her to know better.

Or, at least, I thought we had. Then, she’d gone and ignored all my text messages about the situation and blown up on me when I confronted her.

Fuck.

Okay, so I was still thinking about it. After today, I’d only have to come into work two more days. I needed to stop jumping every time I left the office, like I was about to run into her. Morgan was a professional anyway. She wouldn’t do anything if I did see her. Not that I’d likely see her. She lived in her office on a regular week. Considering she was the CEO and taking over the Tech negotiations on top of that, it seemed unlikely that she’d surface.

We didn’t even work on the same floor. She worked up with Austin and the new CFO David Calloway. There would be no reason for me to be up there either. Except to see Austin.

I shook my head. Bad idea.

I needed to avoid her. To keep avoiding her.

Nothing good could come from this. From whatever this was.

The smart thing to do would be to find someone else. Call up one of my flings, like Mindi. Austin thought it was ridiculous that we were on again, off again, depending on my mood, because one of those times, she’d chased me out of her apartment with a butcher knife. She was nuts, but she kept my mind off things. There was nothing serious about a girl like Mindi.

I had a penchant for slightly dumb, super hot, and extremely crazy women. They found me. It happened without fail.

No one like Morgan had ever been interested in me. And I’d never been interested in anyone like her. Not on purpose or anything. It just happened that a guy who didn’t want a relationship didn’t end up dating girls who were relationship material.

“Ugh!” I said, pushing back from my computer.

My mind was on anything but the document I was filling out. In two days, it wouldn’t even matter. They’d put someone else in my job and that person would handle my issues. I’d be free, working at Tech and working on a university schedule, which was probably the most advantageous part of the job.

With a frustrated sigh, I left my office and took the elevator up to the top floor. I knew that I shouldn’t be doing this. It was stupid. I probably wouldn’t even see her.

Fuck, do I want to see her?

What the hell is happening to me?

This was not me. Since when did I even think about a girl, let alone obsess over whether or not I was going to see her? I’d known Morgan my whole life. Things would be back to normal. There’d be no tension. There’d be no interest. We’d just be friends again.

“Knock, knock,” I said into Austin’s open office.

“What’s up, dude?” he asked.

“Bored out of my mind, and ready to get out of here.”

Austin rolled his eyes at me. “You’re the dick who’s leaving.”

“I’m basically moving across the street.”

Austin shrugged. “Right now, you work two floors down.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“Probably.” Austin glanced back up. “Hey, dude, while you’re here, what are you doing this weekend?”

“Nothing.”

“Tech is away. I thought we could grab lunch and watch the game.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good. Anyone else coming?”

Austin frowned. I’d come to realize what that look meant. He was worried that, if we invited other guys out, they’d be drinking around him. I didn’t do it anymore. I’d seen the consequences of that at my own birthday party earlier this year. I wouldn’t put that temptation in his path.

“If you want,” he said, as if he wasn’t worried.

“Nah. Just you and me.”

He smiled up at me and then groaned. “Oh God, please tell me that you’re not bringing me more work.”

I whipped around and found Morgan standing in the doorway. She arched an eyebrow at me before directing her attention back to Austin.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“It’s just Patrick,” Austin said with a dismissive wave.

“Right,” she said. Her eyes slid to mine and then back to Austin. It was a dismissal. “I want you and David in on the next conference call I have.”

Austin slammed his hands onto his desk. “Another conference call?”

“Don’t act like you hate it.”

“I love the job. I hate conference calls. Everyone hates conference calls.”

Morgan gave him the stink eye. “I don’t hate conference calls.”

“Well, you’re superhuman.”

“Obviously.” She grinned. “Ten minutes, Austin.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I guess that’s my cue,” I said to Austin.

He gave me a two-finger salute, and I followed Morgan out of the office. She glanced back at me. Any hope that things would be normal was dashed in that look. The tension between us felt like a living thing. Like a real barrier separated us. I wasn’t her brother’s best friend right now. I wasn’t the guy she always joked with. I certainly wasn’t the guy that she’d hung out with so casually for so many years.

I was the guy who had rejected her.

As much as that wasn’t the case, she clearly saw it that way. It was written in her dark brown eyes.

I hadn’t wanted to take advantage of her, and in the process, I’d ruined our friendship. On her end and mine. Because I couldn’t help noticing how good she’d looked in her blue dress and jacket. The way her brown hair rippled past her shoulders like a waterfall. The hint of lipstick on her lips. The added couple of inches in her high heels.

Fuck, I needed to stop.

“Did you need something, Patrick?”

“I…no. I was just leaving.”

She sighed. “All right.”

“Did you need something?”

“Me? You’re the one on my floor.”

“Oh, right.” I took a step back. “Right.”

“Patrick, what’s going on?”

Man, I was right. I should have stayed away. I shouldn’t have come up here and talked to Austin. I had known I would run into Morgan. And that was a mistake.

“Nothing. Just came to talk to Austin. Forgot you were even up here,” I lied.

She pursed her lips. “Uh-huh. Maybe you should get back to work.”

“Probably so.”

She took a step forward, like she was going to stop me or say something but then she didn’t. I didn’t know what was going through her head. She probably thought I was out of it.

And I was. Even though I knew I should stay away from Morgan for her own good, I couldn’t seem to do it. I’d wanted her Friday night, and I wanted her now. But it hadn’t been fair to her then, and I knew she wasn’t really interested in me now. I just needed to get through the rest of the week, and then it’d be better. Everything would go back to normal.