Lucas kept his arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. “The memo was entitled Team Costume Party Plan, so you probably didn’t read it. Cassie, if you want Izzy to read something, you have to title it Alert: Work Breach or some shit.”
I rolled my eyes as everyone laughed. “I’m not that bad.”
“Really?” Penelope was the newest on the team, but we didn’t talk much. She seemed to be enjoying her nearly empty drink and had the confidence to speak up. “I never talk to you because you seem so driven to get things done.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Lucas beat me to it. “She’s a workaholic, but she’s never let us down. She’s always saving our asses when we can’t figure out something.”
Blushing, I looked down and let my pigtails fall in front of my face. “Everyone’s giving me a lot of credit, but we all kicked ass this year.”
“Oh my God, right?” Cassie’s drink sloshed as she shoved it into the middle of our bar table and held it high. “Cheers to our impenetrable data barrier.”
Everyone hooted and hollered, throwing their glasses in too.
Lucas eyed me as he slurped down his drink while our team dispersed to talk amongst themselves feverishly. “Not drinking?”
I shrugged, not sure I wanted to bring down the night by sharing where my head was at.
“Something wrong, Izzy?” Lucas had been on my team since the day I started at Stonewood Enterprises. He’d been in the advertising department but had found me in the work break room one day, scrolling the Narcotics Anonymous program on my phone.
The man asked me to be his sponsor right then and there. I hadn’t known if he didn’t have many friends or if he was hitting on me. Turned out he just needed a good friend. He worked a lot of hours and had moved from Georgia, fresh out of rehab, after being honorably discharged from active duty when his Humvee was attacked overseas. He’d come to work at Stonewood Enterprises after meeting one of the Stonewood brothers when they’d given a motivational speech at his rehab center.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I told him. “I just hate parties.”
Unlike Lucas, I was good at respecting people’s boundaries. He’d told me early on that he’d share his trauma when he was ready. It took him months to confide in me about his PTSD, how he got addicted to prescription meds, and how he fought every day to stay off them.
As for him asking me questions, he had no boundaries whatsoever. “Did your dick of a boyfriend do something?”
“Jesus, Lucas,” I groaned and waved my hand about. “Can we not talk about it at the party?”
“Why? You actually want to enjoy yourself tonight?” He took that moment to hold me out at arm’s length. “You upped the costume game with this fucking outfit. I always wanted to fuck the shit out of Harley Quinn.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“And I want to even more now that I’m staring at you.” He chuckled.
“You’re an idiot,” I told him. I knew that Lucas was gay, but no one else did. His parents were very strict with their beliefs, and it frustrated me every day that he didn’t tell them to shove it. Lucas was perfect in every way to me, his parents be damned. Hiding who you are took a toll, but it wasn’t about when I was ready. He had to be ready and accepting his process was most important to me.
“I’m just saying the female form is a beautiful thing... especially yours, okay?”
I took the compliment with a shrug. “If you say so.”
“Hey, a girl’s been eyeing me up from marketing all night. Just play along.” He winked at me as he said it quietly. I was practically the man’s beard half the time.
“I’m here to be whatever you need,” I whispered into his ear and laughed.
“You know how I know that’s true?” he asked as he took me by the waist and started walking me to the bar. “Gerald practically foamed at the mouth the last time he saw us together, and you didn’t falter once.”
“Yeah, well, Gerald and I are no more.” I looked toward the ceiling, trying not to make it a bigger deal than it was. Quite frankly, it was nothing compared to what had just happened to me in the elevator.
He glanced at me with his light-blue eyes and didn’t even bother hiding the delight in them. “Thank fuck.”
“Lucas!” I shoved his massive shoulder, but it didn’t move at all. “I’m sad.”
“What for?” He waved off the idea and then flashed me a look of concern, his brows furrowing. “Really? Because if you need to get out of here, we can go.” Lucas was as much my sponsor as I was his.
“No. No. I want you to enjoy yourself, and it's good for me to be out mingling and networking.”
“This isn’t a work event, Izzy.” He scoffed as we got to the bar and waved over the bartender to ask for a nonalcoholic cocktail for me.