James huffed. “I mean, I’d have taken over the meetings for you. Not gone to dinner with her.” He rolled his eyes. “Now you’re being a pain in the ass.”
“Fuck, James, can you blame me?” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair. “I need to go. I have too much shit to be doing than to be worrying about this.” He shot James a look. “We good?”
“Always.”
Aidan nodded, walked around Orion’s hood, then held out his fist. They bumped knuckles, nodded at one another, then Aidan headed back toward the offices, leaving James to stare at Orion and the light-flooded track that was their personal playground.
Well, not officially.
But hell, there had to be some perks to being the boss.
With a grunt, he turned his back on Orion and the garage that was a dead zone at that moment in time. Everyone had signed off work hours ago, and though there were people working night shifts in other parts of the building, unless there was an emergency or they were buried in a project, they let the technicians work through the day.
Considering Orion was the result of their most recent project, and the only thing wrong with her thanks to his foray up the mountain was a slashed tire which had required minimal effort to replace, all was right with the world.
Well, not for him.
He had to break tomorrow’s date with Hailey, and damn, if that wasn’t the worst news he’d had all year.
6
When the doorbell rang, Hailey felt nothing but relief.
Her parents were staring at her like she was insane, and maybe she was. Maybe that was her current problem. Insanity.
Was there a simple cure for it? She didn’t know. If she could go to the pharmacy and ask for a remedy, she knew she’d have taken it, because she was sick and tired of all the upheaval. She was reaching the end of her tether, and had no idea how to grasp a hold of control.
These weird feelings had been growing and stirring inside her for what felt like months. Had it been longer? Or had kissing James been the catalyst?
She didn’t know, didn’t want to know if she was being honest.
With a sigh, she trudged down the long hall and headed for the door. When the buzzer sounded again, she grumbled under her breath but didn’t call out. If she did, her mom would only have a go at her later. Call her out for being unladylike or some shit like that.
When she opened the door, and saw James standing there, shoulders hunched against the bitter wind that had stirred up over the past hour or so, she cocked a brow at him then leaned against the door.
He frowned at her. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Depends, why you here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
Hailey tilted her head to the side, then smirked. “Aidan found out.”
James’ frown deepened. “Do we have to discuss this on the doorstep?”
“Am I going to like what you have to say any better here than in the lounge?”
“Probably not,” he admitted with a sigh.
She pursed her lips. “That’s a shame.”
When his eyes widened, it almost amused her to see him surprised. For a man as cocksure as James Arias, he certainly displayed interesting traits around her. A part of her wondered if anyone else was capable of p
ulling the rug out from under him, but there was little point in wondering for long.
Not if he was there to brush her off before there was anything really good enough to brush away.
“I don’t know why I said yes anyway,” she told him easily, then watched his eyes widen with irritation. Before he could say anything, or Hailey could for that matter, her mother popped up.