“This is a ridiculous conversation.” I straightened my tie to get back to what needed to be said. “I think we need to have dinner together.”
Her mahogany eyes opened to the size of saucers. Then she backpedaled toward the door and shook her head. “Nope. No. No. No.”
She’d made it to the door, about to pull the handle open and walk out when I pressed the privacy button. “Why?”
She yanked the door, and it didn’t budge. She jiggled the handle. “Seriously?”
“Answer me.”
“No. Let me out.”
“Not happening, Pix.”
“After all this time? What happened to reality? Me in the clouds and you on the ground?”
“Figured we’ll meet in the middle.”
She huffed. “I had a plan, you know? I was going to date a nice, competent guy with a suitable job and get married. He would love me, and we would fit perfectly in a sweet little saltbox house.” She paced and rubbed her forehead. “It was a good plan. Solid. And Steven checked all the boxes. He’s sweet enough and nice enough and he obviously has a good job.”
“He’s an annoying shell of a man. You and I both know it. He bent over backwards and was willing to sleep around on you just to have a bro night with me.”
She rubbed her forehead and avoided meeting my gaze as she said, “Whatever. He was perfect for me.”
I leaned back on my desk. “What’s it you said to me earlier in our messages? Oh, right. ‘Get fucked’ because that’s a lie.”
“I was trying to get fucked by Steven,” she sputtered and threw up her hands.
Her words—or maybe the day, or maybe my whole thought process—finally caused my temper to erupt. “In that case, lift your skirt, woman,” I bellowed back. “I’m happy to show you that he will never be able to fuck you like I do.”
I saw the shiver run through her, and her nipples tightened under the thin material she claimed was a blouse. “We need this conversation to be over, and we probably need to stop what we’re doing.”
“You’re that scared?”
“I’m not exactly excited about falling for you and having my heart broken. I’ll fall too. Like an idiot seeing all the stop signs and still going full speed ahead.”
“You do have a tendency to do the opposite of what the signs say. Hawaii, for example …”
“This isn’t a joke, Jett.”
“For once, you don’t want to lighten up. Fine. Entertain my idea for a second. You can live on the edge a little, we can see where it goes. Don’t you want to see where this goes?”
“Can you honestly say you think it’ll go somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“And that’s the problem. I want someone to know. I could know with you. If you wanted it, I could know.”
“You’re trying to check off boxes, Vick. And that’s not the fairy tale you want. You could know with anyone because you just want the life you planned. That’s you shooting for the sky but you work for me. We go above and beyond the sky. Me and you, if we end up working, we’ll be beyond, Pix.”
Her eyes glistened at my words. She eyed the paperweights that had mocked me all day with their colors. “Who gave you those?”
“My dad.”
“You stare at them a lot.”
“They open my eyes to what people want and need.”
“What do I want and need? Can you tell just by me looking at them?”