I shook the thought from my head. I knew Brett better than that. He’d never do that to me. I mean, he had mentioned work in the email.
“Olivia?”
Brett’s voice ripped me from my mind as I stood in the doorway of his office.
“Hey there, Brett. Do you have a second?” I asked.
“Of course I do. Come in. Close the door behind you,” he said.
I walked into his office and shut the door behind me. I turned around and saw him walking around his desk, his hip rising to sit on the edge of it. He slipped his hands out from his pockets and settled them into his lap. He clasped them in front of his body as his brow furrowed while looking at me.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.
Help.
I’d never get used to that word rolling off his lips.
“I’m sorry about Friday,” I said.
I watched him nod slowly.
“I really wasn’t sure why you were inviting me to dinner in the first place. And I kind of panicked,” I said.
“You got scared,” Brett said.
“If you want to use that word, sure. Yes, I got scared.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Asking you to my place for dinner was a sort of spur-of-the-moment thing. Made me a bit nervous as well.”
My eyebrows hiked up. “It made you nervous.”
“I’m not built out of cement and rebar, Olivia. Yes, the great Brett Greyson gets nervous sometimes.”
“I’ve never known you to be a nervous person.”
He shrugged. “Some things change.”
“Yeah. Apparently they do,” I said.
I took another step into his office, slowly closing the distance between us. The man in front of me kind of looked like Brett. He definitely sounded like Brett. He held himself with poise like Brett. But he didn’t quite speak like Brett. There was something different about him. Something foreign to my understanding of him.
Something that made me wish I had taken him up on his offer for dinner.
“Well, I’m sorry for not showing up,” I said as I stopped in front of him.
“You can make it up to me, if you’d like,” he said.
“And there’s the Brett Greyson I know.”
“Just an offer. I think that’s guilt I see behind your eyes. And I wouldn’t want you to feel guilty now, would I?”
I giggled. “Always an ulterior motive with you, isn’t there?”
“Not at all, with this one.”
“Okay. If you want to play this game for old time’s sake, I will. How would I make this up to you?”
“You could be my date to the Halloween party next Friday.”
I sighed. “Your date.”
Brett nodded. “Mhm. I’d pick you up, we’d go have fun, I’d drop you off. You know, like a date is supposed to be.”
“I suppose I’d be a nice change from the dates I experienced back in college.”
“Oh, I’m wounded, Olivia.”
“You didn’t have a car back then,” I said.
“Maybe I enjoyed holding your hand and walking around campus with you underneath the light of the moon.”
I felt my stomach flutter with a thousand tiny butterflies.
“Do you remember that first Halloween party we met at?” I asked.
“You mean the first night we ever met? How could I forget it?” Brett asked.
I giggled. “I suppose it was a dumb question.”
“A little bit. I’ll never forget the way you tripped through that door in your heels and lost your bunny ears to the floor.”
“You’re an ass, you know that?” I asked, smiling.
“Nice to see you learned how to walk in them, though. They look good on you,” he said, grinning.
I blushed at his words. “You know what I remember?”
“What do you remember, Olivia?”
“The first time you looked over at me.”
“Oh, really? And why is that?” he asked.
“Because you looked like someone crop-dusted you in your general vicinity.”
Brett chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe someone did.”
“You had to learn it from somewhere.”
“Let’s face it, you’re very cute when you’re angry.”
“There were other ways to make me angry other than walking by me and passing that rancid gas of yours,” I said.
“But there was no quicker way to do it,” he said, smiling. It sparkled his gray eyes, and I couldn’t take my stare off them.
“Come with me to the Halloween party,” Brett said.
My heart slammed against my chest. “To make up for dinner, right?”
“No.”
“No?” I asked.
“There’s nothing to make up. You were scared. I get it. So, I’ll try again. This time, face-to-face. The way I should have done it Friday. Come to the party with me, Olivia. As my date.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why did you choose to throw a last-minute Halloween party?”
“It’s not last-minute. I’ve had a couple of weeks to prepare.”
“Yes, but why a Halloween party?”
“I’ve been known to throw parties for my company on the spur of the moment. You know, toss them together in forty-eight hours,” he said.
“Why did you choose a Halloween party, Brett?”
His eyes connected his mine as he slowly stood from the edge of his desk. He towered over me. My head barely came up to his damn chest. Had he grown since college?