“Hey, did you see him? Can you blame me? The man looks like he would win a fight against a stone wall. And that voice…”
“The man is a drug dealer, Miller,” Gunner insisted, rolling his eyes.
“Hey, we all have our flaws!” Miller said giving him a self-deprecating smile. “Speaking of flaws. Yours is you are too fucking nice, Kai. Jesus Christ. You had her in your house. You brought her tea to her bed every night. And I know what Jules wears to bed, Kai. Hell, I’d be half-tempted to do her, and I don’t swing that way. But no, you had to be the shoulder to lean on, the sexless best friend.”
“You’re acting like being nice is a bad thing.”
“It is when it makes you choke when you really want something,” Miller explained. “Look, Jules has been opening up since she came back. Hell, I even caught Gunner bullshitting with her about various self-defense options.”
“Self-defense?” I asked, straightening up.
“Yeah. I mean, of course. She had someone beat the shit out of her, Kai. I know you aren’t a woman, but it does something to you. The possibilities of what could have happened does something to you. It doesn’t matter that Jameson is dead. She wants to ensure that no one gets the better of her like that again. And, I mean, she’s living all alone. Working in a job where some of the scumbags hit on her, show too much interest in her. Of course she is looking into ways to defend herself.”
“I helped her fill out her gun permit,” Lincoln added.
Jesus.
So much was going on under my nose.
While I sat in my office, refusing to be part of that world, to help her pick what kind of self-defense to do, to help her with her gun permit.
“This is pointless,” Gunner said, moving to stand up again, shaking his head. “If he hasn’t been able to make a move in all these years, he never will. Who wants to go get a drink?” he asked. “Sloane is having dinner with her editor.”
“I’m always in,” Miller declared, jumping up to follow him out.
“I’ll be right there,” Lincoln called, slowly unfolding, putting his feet back on the floor, leaning forward toward me.”Learned a lot of shit in my life, Kai. But maybe the most important is this – taking chances and getting shot down sucks. But nothing is worse than never taking them at all. Don’t be leaving this Earth with ‘what-ifs’ on your mind.”
With that, he jumped up, walked out, went to join our friends.
Quin was still in the office with his drug-dealing client. But he would file out sooner rather than later, wanting to get home to his woman.
And that would leave us.
Me and Jules.
Like so many nights in the past.
I wouldn’t leave before her.
Because I always walked her to her car if no one else was left to do it.
I took a deep breath, wondering if I could find it.
The nerve to do something.
To take a chance.
A chance to ruin everything, sure, to kill the possibility of a future with her once and for all.
But a chance to get everything I ever wanted too.
I guess we would see.
–
Flashback – 36 months before –
She got the job.
She got the job, and she was going to be paid a borderline ridiculous sum of money to file, answer phones, and fetch coffee.
It was hard to wrap her head around it.
Because, sure, she had been looking for secretarial work after a string of hospitality jobs, had even been on a few interviews at doctors’ offices, lawyers’ offices, and even a tanning salon. But she had expected the usual.
A nine-to-five job making between ten and twelve dollars an hour.
Not great money, but decent. Enough. To hold her over until she could go through yet another round of college applications.
She’d learned her lesson, too.
Sure, she would re-apply to Yale, where she had envisioned herself since she was a little girl.
But she had smartened up; she would never again put all her eggs in one basket.
It had been incredibly short-sighted of her.
And as someone who had prided herself on being rational, it didn’t sit well to be so foolish.
So she would also re-apply to Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. But this time, her third time, she would also apply to Montana State, Oklahoma State, and Montana State – places with nearly one-hundred percent acceptance rates.
She was getting too old not to get accepted somewhere.
But a job between ten and twelve dollars an hour would give her more than enough to pay her few bills. And then she could save up a lot to use to buy books, or pay for food, transportation, whatever she might need while on campus.
It was temporary.
She didn’t need to make a fortune.
And because of that mindset, she had traipsed herself into the offices of Quinton Baird like she owned the place. Because, in her mind, it was a stepping stone. Not exactly beneath her, but certainly not a job that would require all of her potential.