Chapter 4
Allie
James Lipton was leaning on my desk, peering down at me with a smirk playing on his lips. I was more than aware of the fact that he had positioned himself to have the perfect view down the front of my blouse.
“Is there something you need, James?” I asked without looking up from my computer screen. I pretended to be busy typing an email.
“No, no, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, Allie. I’m just taking a well-deserved break from all the work I was doing this morning. And I must say, there’s no better place to take a breather than right here.”
I glanced up at him. “Right. Well, if there is anything, let me know.”
“I will, Allie cakes, I will.”
I resisted the overwhelming urge to gag. James had always been inappropriate with me at work, but I had convinced myself that his unprofessional behavior was outweighed by my more than decent salary. I still daydreamed every day of leaving and working somewhere else. I wondered what it would be like to work for a company that didn’t encourage harassment. I wondered what other bosses were like. Did they make their assistants do all the tedious things James did? Like confirming dentist appointments or negotiating whose turn it was to have the kids on the weekends? He treated me like a conflict resolutionist wherever his ex-wife was concerned. She didn’t seem to mind. I figured she preferred talking to me over him.
But it was awkward.
At noon, I slipped out of the office and made my way down the street to a small sandwich shop where I was meeting my sister, Melissa, for lunch. She was already there and had saved us a table on the heated patio. She spotted me and waved enthusiastically.
I joined her at the table and tucked my purse under my chair. “How are you?” I asked, clasping my hands together on top of the table.
“Great,” she said, crossing her legs and tossing her brown hair over her shoulder. “How about you? James still being a piece of shit at work?”
“You know it. He spent seven minutes standing above me looking down my shirt this morning.”
“Ew. What a perv.”
“I know,” I shrugged. “But, hey, it could be worse, right?”
“I guess so, but you should still say something to someone. Don’t you guys have an HR representative you can reach out to? He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this stuff. You realize he’s probably doing it to other women in the office, right? You guys could form an anti-James party.”
I chuckled and sipped on the lemon water she had ordered me. “An anti-James party does sound like a good time, but I don’t think I want to get tied up in that kind of drama.”
“Suit yourself,” Melissa said. “You’re the one who has to deal with him every day. What else is new?”
“Oh, not much. Steven and I went for dinner the other night. He’s doing well. He pitched that app idea of his that I told you about. It sounds like it went really well. I think this is going to work out for him.”
“Good God,” Melissa muttered. “He can’t get rich.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s not fair that a man can look like him and have money. Like, seriously. He’s toxic to women. I don’t know how you can stand being friends with him.”
I wanted to tell her I couldn’t stand it, but she already knew. She had known how I felt about Steven practically since the first day I met him during freshman year. She had tried to encourage me to tell him several times over the years, but I knew the feelings weren’t mutual. Not only that, but I didn’t want to ruin a friendship that had taken me so long to cultivate. I needed Steven. I wasn’t going to risk him because of a schoolgirl crush.
“How’s Mom?” I asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
“She’s good. She’s on this new minimalism kick, though. Every time she comes over she goes through my kitchen and tells me what I need to throw out. Be warned, she will do the same to you if you invite her over.”
“I’ll make sure to keep her at bay until the phase is over. Any ideas on what the next trend will be?”
Melissa shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, I suppose. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if she started leaning towards Feng Shui or handmade jewelry.”
“Both seem fitting.”
“Right?”
The two of us laughed throughout the rest of our visit. We talked about Melissa’s new job at a fashion boutique eight blocks away. We talked more about Steven. We talked about everything, as sisters do.
I begrudgingly returned to work one hour later. When I got to my desk, my cell phone was blinking with a notification. I picked it up and peered at the screen.
I had a text message from Steven. He wanted to get together again that night. I messaged him back and told him he was more than welcome.
Steven let himself into my apartment around eight. I had left the door closed for fear of being the target of his wrath again. I was sitting on the sofa when he came in, but the smell of Chinese food wafted down the hall shortly after he hollered hello.
I hopped up from the couch and hurried to the kitchen where he was unpacking boxes of rice, chowmein, chicken, and chopsuey.
“This smells so good,” I said, breathing in a deep breath of sweet-smelling steam.
“Figured I couldn’t go wrong with Chinese food. A little bit of everything, really,” he said as he opened my cupboards and grabbed us plates and cups. “Shall we sit in our usual spot? Throw on a movie or something?”
“Uh, sure,” I said, a little taken aback by how quickly he was moving. He had already set out the plates and begun tearing off the lids of the boxes of food. “You alright? You seem like you’re kind of in a rush.”
“What? Of course, I’m alright. Just hungry is all. Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry,” I said, watching the corner of his mouth turn up with a smile. I brushed away how odd he was acting when that usual burn of desire bloomed to life beneath my belly.
He grabbed spoons from the drawer and began filling both of our plates. This was something he had never done before. Usually, we filled our own plates. He handed me mine, which was piled high with food, and I stared at it skeptically. “When I said I was hungry, I wasn’t implying that I could eat the same size portions as you.”
“Ah, you’ll be fine,” he said. “You don’t have to eat it all.”
“Okay.”
We sat down in the living room, and I searched for a movie for us to watch while Steven dug into his meal. He was the kind of man who would sometimes go a whole day without eating. He was easily distracted and a bit of a workaholic, so sometimes his needs would take a back seat.
By the time I sat back on the couch with my towering plate balanced on a pillow on my lap. Steven was nearly done eating. Within another five minutes, his plate was empty, and he was leaning back on the couch and rubbing his stomach. He put his heels up on my coffee table and crossed his ankles. Then he placed his elbow on the armrest of the couch and leaned into it.
I was watching him rather than watching the movie. Despite having watched him just gorge himself on a massive amount of food, I still found him ridiculously hot. Melissa’s words from lunch fluttered in and out of my head. She was right. A man like Steven would become infinitely more dangerous if his wallet got fatter.
He leaned farther into the corner of the couch and turned his head slightly to the side.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously.
He sat suddenly upright, looked over at me with wide eyes, and shook his head. “Nothing. Why?”
“Never mind,” I said, returning my attention to my plate of food.
Steven remained straight in his seat now, and the two of us watched the movie together. It was one neither of us had seen before, and when a love scene consumed the screen, I felt my cheeks heat up and knew I was turning bright red.
I hoped he wouldn’t look over at me. I hoped he wouldn’t think I was thinking anything when I was really thinking about him. The naked bodies on the screen moved in perfect sync with one another. His hands held her waist and she gripped his muscle-bound forearms, pressing pale imprints into his flesh.
I wanted to leave marks like that on Steven. More than that, I wanted him to make those kinds of marks on me.
I stole another glance at him. He was watching the film. The reflection of the screen danced in his eyes. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, exposing bare forearms decorated in veins and muscle. What would it feel like to be held by those arms? To be caressed by those hands.
I wanted to know what it would taste like to kiss him.
I bit my lip and looked away.
I was teasing myself. I knew I couldn’t have what I wanted. I knew it was foolish to think such thoughts when they were nothing but senseless dreams. Steven didn’t fall for women. Steven fucked women and left them. Ever since his girlfriend in college, Kyla, he had been a no strings attached kind of guy. Since her, he had never even dated. She had done a number on him, and I had been the one to pick up all the shattered pieces of his soul and help him put them back where they belonged. That’s why we were so close, now. It was also probably why he could never see me as anything else besides his friend.
I hated Kyla then for what she had done to him, and I still hated her.
They had been together for two years. He had loved her with such a fierceness that at first, it frightened him. She had loved him back for only the first half of their relationship. Then she had loved another fifteen guys or so on campus, and Steven had been none the wiser. Some were guys he hung around with. Others were strangers. In the end, it hadn’t mattered who they were. He was devastated all the same.
And since then he hadn’t trusted another woman.
I didn’t blame him. The hurt he had felt was enough to break my heart. I never wanted to see him like that again. I wanted to see him happy, like he was now, sitting on my sofa with me full of contentment. If I couldn’t have him the way I wanted to have him, that was alright. At least he was happy.
I tried to convince myself that was what mattered.