Asking For A Friend Read online

  “Thanks.” I gratefully accepted the coffee, holding it in both hands as I took a sip of the scolding hot liquid. It was rich and bitter, just the way I liked it. “You ready to get started?”

  He nodded, jerking his head in the direction of the street behind us. Car horns honked and I heard the beeping of a truck. “My guys are out there now bringing in the first loads of equipment. What are you doing here so early?”

  “Pacing out the site.” I told him. “I was counting the steps before you got here.”

  Craig smirked. “Again? Really? How many are you up to so far?”

  “Three hundred and eighty four,” I shrugged, stretching my arm out in front of me. “But I’ve only just started. I still have all that left to count.”

  Shaking his head, Craig chuckled. He knew of my compulsions, even if he didn’t understand them. He did what he could to make things easier for me, though. Such as to let me just do it instead of yammering on about it.

  When I was finally done, my coffee cup was cold and empty. I tossed it in the trash, making my way back across the lot to rejoin Craig. There were a few guys with him, all gathered around a wooden table they were using to lay out the plans for their set up.

  I listened to Craig handing out instructions and was reminded of how lucky I was my best friend was in construction and actually good at his job. Having worked with other contractors, I knew there were plenty of incompetent companies out there.

  Craig wasn’t one of those. His men respected him, nodding as he told them what they each had to do, then each hurried off to find their own teams and start doing it. He grinned when he saw me listening, waving me over.

  “You should have come to join our meeting,” he said. “You might have learned a thing or two about the actual work that goes into making your dreams a reality.”

  “They’re not my dreams,” I replied. “In this case, it was the dream of the Society for the Modern Arts.”

  “Still, you listen and then draw your pretty pictures. I make them real.” Craig grinned. This was a game he loved playing, riling me up in defense of my chosen profession. Only knowing that he wasn’t serious about it kept me cool.

  I retorted. “Yeah, you pile bricks on top of each other and slap a coat of paint on. Any jackass with a tape measure could do it, my designs are flawless. All you have to do is follow them.”

  “This particular pile of bricks is going to be quite something though, from the looks of it. The city doesn’t really need a new Museum of Modern Art, but at least they pay well,” he said. “It’s going to be an interesting project, that’s for sure.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really understand the art world. Personally, I think their money would probably have been better spent acquiring more pieces of art to hang in the existing Museums for Modern or any other kind of art,” I shrugged. “But like you said, at least they pay well.”

  Craig scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe their other museums are full. I wouldn’t know, I never go to those things.”

  His eyes lit up with a memory he clearly found amusing. “I did take a girl on a date to an art gallery once. It was a disaster. She stared at blobs of paint on a canvas for an hour, and actually expected an honest answer when she asked me how the piece made me feel.”

  My lips curved into a grin. “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Like I should’ve become a fucking artist.” He laughed, a deep rumble straight from his belly. “You should have seen the price tag on this thing, it was over three grand. For a couple of blobs of paint on a white canvas. Insanity.”

  “I’m assuming there wasn’t a second date.” I sure as hell wouldn’t have asked the woman out again.

  Craig, apparently, agreed with me. He shook his head, light brown curls bouncing where they stuck out from underneath his woolen beanie. “Hell no. She thought I was a—and I quote—buffoon who couldn’t appreciate the finer things in life.”

  “I’d be a buffoon any day over a pretentious snob who feels something about a blob of paint.” I really didn’t understand the art community and I didn’t want to. “I’ve never understood the appeal of staring at shit hanging on the walls and trying to interpret what the artist was trying to say when he flung his paintbrush at it. Dude was probably high as fuck and lost control over the thing. He wasn’t trying to say shit.”

  “Amen to that, brother.” Craig nodded.

  I looked around the empty space, envisioning the building that would be occupying it soon. “All I know is that they want a new building and we’ve got to put it up.”

  “And that we will,” he said, motioning towards the teams of men who were gathering at the entrance. Some were heaving equipment off trucks, while others were shouting out instructions to a driver trying to back a cement truck onto the lot. “It’s going to be a piece of work once it’s done. We’ll see to it.”

  “I trust you,” I told him honestly. Working with Craig was a breeze, because I knew I could count on him. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, silencing the call from my office. “I’d better be getting back to the office. That’s the fourth call I’ve missed from there already this morning.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Go dream up some more buildings for us, man. Christmas is coming and my mother expects a decent gift this year.”

  “It’s January,” I reminded him. “You’ve got plenty of time, but yeah. I’ll make sure Mama Hammel can get something besides scented soap this year.”

  Craig laughed again. “It was lavender. She loves lavender.”

  “Let’s see if we can get her at least a full lavender bath set this year then,” I joked. “If you work hard enough, you might even be able to throw in some of those fizz ball things.”

  He nodded solemnly, then winked. “I will make it my personal mission to be able to afford fizz ball things by December. Speaking of being able to afford things, have you thanked that Marissa chick for all the money she saved you on this project?”

  “Ah, yes. Marissa.” The thorn in my side, at this point. The hot blonde who made my body betray my mind. My brain knew she didn’t belong at the company. I was still irritated that my father forced her on me, yet my cock took over my logic where she was concerned.

  The damn thing wanted into her. Badly.

  As much as my brain tried to protest that she didn’t belong, it had joined forces with my cock soon enough and conjured up images of what she might look like without those brightly printed dresses on. Unfortunately, my cock liked those images way too much.

  It didn’t help that it turned out she was smart, too. Intelligence was a turn on for me. The lesser gifted in the brain category of beautiful girls just didn’t do it for me the way the smart ones did. Even if all my relationships were of the ‘for-one-night-and-one-night-only’ variety, I needed something more than a warm pussy to stick my dick into.

  Marissa had it all, the beauty and the brains. Somehow, that made me even more annoyed by her. She even smelled fucking good. I got caught in the elevator with her once and her clean, flowery smell made me wonder about her taste.

  If she hadn’t been forced on me—if I wasn’t legally obliged to keep her in my company after I signed those damn papers, I would’ve been on her in a heartbeat. Like I was a bloodhound and she was in heat.

  But she had been forced on me and I was legally obliged to keep her on my staff, which made the war between my body and my brain so much more complicated than it should have been. I wanted her, but I also wanted to hate her. Funny how that worked.

  It wasn’t even really her that I hated, it was the idea that she was there for the reason she was. Way too fucking complicated.

  Craig cocked his head, crossing his burly arms. “Ah yes. Marissa? Did you thank her or not?”

  “She was only doing her job,” I told him, still annoyed that she was as good at it as she was. “She doesn’t require a thank you. Her paycheck is her thank you.”

  I sounded like an asshole, even to my own ears, but I couldn’t
help it. Everything about her annoyed me, but nothing more so than how much I wanted her. Physically, I was too attracted to her. One of these days, I was going to bend her over my desk and live out one of those fantasies my brain kept throwing at me when she was around.

  And if I did give in, the consequences could be—dire, to say the least. I wondered if the risk was worth it.

  Craig pulled me out of my musings by giving me a couple of hard slaps on the back. “Get back to the office, boss man. Your mind is already there.”

  If only he knew where my mind really was—but he didn’t. He did, however, insist that I should thank Marissa. “She did a great job. You might sign her paycheck and that may be a thanks, but you’re better than that. I know it. She deserves to know she did well, especially because she’s still new in this game.”

  I sighed. The guy had a point. He gave me a look that made me roll my eyes, then I said my goodbyes and took off back to the office.

  There wasn’t much traffic between the site and my office at this time of the morning. I made the trip too quickly, not yet knowing what I was going to say to Marissa when I got upstairs.

  We didn’t have a dynamic yet. Some of my people I could barely nod to, and they knew they did a good job. Others needed an actual pat on the back and encouraging words. I wondered what Marissa needed.

  I decided to take the stairs up instead of the elevator, buying myself some more time to think. I hadn’t even been in her office before. All I knew was to expect brightness and fluff.

  When I got to the smallish, glass fronted cubicle that was her office, I hesitated. One look inside and I didn’t know if I wanted to go in.

  It looked like a bomb had gone off in the space. There was stuff everywhere. A row of small, sticky based cartoon characters lined her computer screen. There were a couple of toys on her desk and a big, stuffed pink teddy bear in the corner. What the hell?

  A jar of fluffy tipped pens sat on her desk, along with a variety of other odds and ends. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  She had a filing cabinet, but I wasn’t sure if she knew what it was for or how to use it, since every bit of paper she must have generated since she started working here was covering one surface or another. It was an absolute mess.

  Do I really want to go in there?

  Chapter 10

  Marissa

  Layton B, the D, was pacing around outside my office. I saw him emerging from the side stairwell and it looked like he was headed to me until he stopped dead in his tracks. Why, I didn’t know.

  I had been quite sure he was looking for me, since he’d been walking purposefully in my direction, but now I wasn’t so sure. These were his offices, though. Surely he knew how to get to wherever he wanted to go, even if he did seem more than a little lost right now.

  Green eyes flickered across my work space. I could’ve sworn he stopped breathing when they did. Slowly, he seemed to be taking note of everything I had in here. Even from the distance I was at, I could practically see the tension rolling off him.

  Crap. Had I done something wrong?

  I couldn’t think of a single thing. I hadn’t had any interaction with him since I brought him the file with my plans and reports on the new project on Friday. Though he hadn’t wanted to discuss them with me, I knew they were solid.

  If I had done something wrong, it couldn’t have been that. Denise’s words suddenly jumped into my mind. I needed this job so I could take care of Annie. If I had done something wrong, if it were serious—

  My throat went completely dry and scratchy. If I had done something wrong and it was serious, I could be in real trouble.

  Mini freak out threatening, I decided to push back the fear. If I had done something wrong, I would simply fix it. Or maybe I was simply reading too much into his standing outside my office.

  He’d never been in here before and it was quite different than the others’ offices. Maybe he’d simply been struck by how much more personality my office had.

  I had a teddy bear from Annie, several toys she’d given me over the years, and a multitude of eye-catching trinkets I’d picked up here and there. Maybe he’d just been walking past and noticed my things.

  Or maybe his pausing and lingering outside my office didn’t even have anything to do with me. It was possible he’d forgotten something in his car and was trying to decide whether to head back down to the parking garage or whether to go to his office without it.

  Stressing and jumping to conclusions wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to find out for sure, and then deal with whatever his answer was when I got it. It wouldn’t do to fret about it until or even if he came in and told me what was on his mind.

  Standing up, I crossed the laminated floor of my office and went to stand in the open door. “Did you have something you wanted to discuss with me?”

  His gaze snapped to mine, as if he hadn’t realized I’d come closer even as he watched me do it. “Yes. I did, actually.”

  “Come on in, then,” I smiled, waving him inside.

  It wasn’t like he really needed the invitation. I might be occupying the space, but the office itself was his. As though he’d been waiting to be invited in, he stepped into my office when I walked back to my desk.

  After closing the door behind him, he only took a couple more steps inside before he stopped again. His eyes roamed over every nook and cranny of my office, seemingly lingering on every one of the slightly unconventional things I kept.

  The thing was, I preferred my office this way. My stuff helped me concentrate. It was all special to me in one way or the other. Whether it was a gift from Annie or Denise, or something I’d found at a yard sale, it all inspired me.

  There was something about every single thing in my office that helped me. It was probably a weird concept to a neat freak like Layton who, if his office was anything to go by, was an absolute minimalist.

  His eyes strayed to the piles of paper on my visitor’s chairs, and all the loose sheets of paper littered around my desk. It was the complete opposite of his office, where I hadn’t seen so much as one sheet of paper.

  Oh, wait. No. There was that one big page on his drawing board thingy, I remembered. That was it, though. On my desk, on the other hand, were all the papers I needed and everything I’d had to go over to prepare those reports for him.

  Layton’s nostrils flared as he looked my office over. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was not impressed. Immediately on the defense of my work space, I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster. “It might look like a mess, but it’s an organized mess.”

  His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before they were back to normal. Lifting an eyebrow, his expression became amused. “Organized chaos, I would say. This is not just a mess, it looks like chaos.”

  Despite myself, I let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. It’s exactly the way my brain works. Nothing looks like it’s in a place, but everything is in its place. It’s the only way I can really focus.”

  I almost added that I would go totally and completely bonkers if I had to try work in a space as cold and impersonal as his office, but I didn’t want to push my luck. In my limited experience of the guy, his sense of humor wasn’t awfully well developed.

  Looking around again, he shook his head. “This is what it looks like if everything is in its place?”

  He sounded dubious, like there was no way I could’ve been telling the truth. I nodded, because to me, everything was exactly where it should be.

  If he were to ask me to locate absolutely anything he could name that I had in here, I would’ve been able to find it in less than thirty seconds. I would’ve bet on it.

  He didn’t ask me for anything, though. He merely leaned with his hip against the wall, looking like he genuinely believed something might slither out and bite him.

  Layton crossed his arms. If I had to guess, I would say he was supremely uncomfortable. For some reason, that thought kind of thrilled me a litt
le bit. To have any kind of effect on a man as put together as him was a win in my book.

  “You said you had something to discuss with me?” I asked, drawing his gaze to mine and away from my stuff. “Are you sure you won’t have a seat?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Sure,” I took my seat, crossing my legs primly and straightening my spine. I had no idea why I did it, only that it made me feel a little bit more comfortable and powerful in his intimidating presence.

  My office was the size of a matchbox. It was not made to contain a man like Layton. For all his good looks and his admittedly dickish qualities, the man sure had a presence.

  His father had been the same way. That and the eyes were really the only similarities they had, as far as I could see anyway.

  Their presence though, that was what set them apart from ordinary men. From mere mortals like me who could never dream of achieving what they both had or making the billions they did.

  It was a heady, intoxicating mix of control, power, determination and confidence. They knew exactly who they were and where they fit in in the world. There was no self-doubt, no confusion, no fear.

  I often wondered what it was like to be like that. For a pretty confident woman, I still couldn’t quite understand how one got to that place in your life where Layton so clearly was. The only presence I had was size wise, though at least that had to count for something.

  Layton seemed too big for this office, too there. Meeting my eyes once he had thoroughly examined the teddy bear Annie got me, he finally spoke. “I just came from the construction site of the new project. I wanted to thank you for the work you did on the numbers for it.”

  What? I nearly toppled off my chair. The last thing I’d been expecting from him was a thank you. It felt good though, really good. “It was my pleasure. I enjoyed it, really. You work in a fascinating industry, Mr. Br—I mean, Layton. It was challenging to start with, but I like a challenge.”