Once And Forever: Virtually Impossible Part 11

13.

Hayden I read her comment again. I didn't expect it to have changed-I was just hoping I'd read it wrong.

'I'm going to be handing some of your work over to a colleague, Hayden.'

Nope. Still pretty much the same. 'Some?'

'All.'

Great. The first time I get fired, and it's by my a.s.sistant. I felt a dull pain in my head-probably the bruise to my ego. Too bad my a.s.sistant couldn't get me an aspirin. Too bad I no longer had an a.s.sistant. Because she'd just fired me.

No, hurt psyche or not, I had no intention of being fired, especially without a logical reason. Granted, logic and reason didn't seem to be coming as naturally as they once did.

d.a.m.n it, I needed something a lot stronger than aspirin.

I considered asking her why but knew she'd have an excuse ready, one that had nothing to do with the truth. So why bother demanding she lie?

'Whatever I've done or said to made you uncomfortable was wrong. If you tell me what it was, I won't do it again.' There. To the point. Open-ended. And much harder to lie about.

'Nothing.'

'But...?' "Don't leave it like that, Sira. Come on." 'If I'm being fired, at least tell me why.'

'You're married.' Well, she definitely hadn't lied. She must just think I'm a dirty old man or something. I wasn't sure how many bruises my ego could take in one day from this particular woman.

'You can't fire someone for being married. It's illegal.'

'Don't make me say it.'

Say it? We weren't saying anything. We were tap-dancing with words. 'Can we please discuss this on the telephone?'

'Definitely no.'

I hated this. Hated having to be careful with my word choice, of not only trying to translate what I was feeling-something I was already confused about-into words on a screen. With no inflection, no emotion, they were just letters strung together that were too easily misunderstood.

'I'll make sure you get the best a.s.sistant we have. The second best, anyway. :)'

No. That was unacceptable. I wanted the best. I wanted her. 'We don't have a traditional marriage.' s.h.i.+t. Why did I write that? What was I suggesting?

'Are you swingers? Like, an open marriage?'

I blew out a breath. I'd never had to explain it. Never discussed it with anyone, including Clare until very recently. So what could I say to make Sira understand? Clare and I had more of a one-way door marriage. And until now, I'd been fine with it. I had a job that kept me overly occupied and a nice home. And when that wasn't enough, I had my right hand and lots of long showers. Not exactly what dreams were made of, but no one could say every aspect of their life was perfect. Cosmically speaking, I was still way ahead. I had more success than I had a right to.

On second thought, it was probably better that we not meet in person. If we did and it wasn't absolutely horrible, the world would probably collapse or start turning in the other direction.

'Our marriage is complicated.' In many ways. 'But I won't betray my vows.' I'd signed a contract that I would never break, regardless of what, or whom, Clare did. 'That's not what I'm asking you for. This has absolutely nothing to do with my marriage.' Although it wasn't totally off in left field, if I were honest with myself. Which I used to believe I always was.

'I'm SO embarra.s.sed right now. I didn't mean to suggest that you would or that you were even thinking of me in that way.'

'There's no need to feel embarra.s.sed.' Because I was thinking of her in that way. Knowing it was wrong for everyone and doing it anyway. 'My fault for not expressing myself clearly. Which is why I wanted to speak on the phone.'

'I hate talking on the phone.'

I ran my hands over my face. This was useless.

A few seconds later, my cell phone rang. d.a.m.n it. I answered without looking, still staring at the screen, wondering if there was another way to convince her.

"Bennett," I grumbled.

"It's...Sira."

"Oh!" I looked up, obviously forgetting how the telephone worked, as well. I'd turned back into a teenage boy-complete brain malfunction as soon as a pretty girl started speaking to me. "I... How..." Could I have forgotten how to talk on the telephone?

"Should I call you back on your office line?"

"It's fine. I'm..." Christ. Really? When was the last time I'd felt this inept? This ridiculous? I'd asked if we could speak on the phone, and now I was proving myself incapable of doing it. I cleared my throat. "Wow. Please forgive me if I've ever said anything that made you feel as awkward as I do right now."

"You're feeling awkward?" Thankfully, her laugh was light and not anything more humiliating.

"I'm glad someone's enjoying it."

"You're a lot different than you seem on your LinkedIn profile. You might consider updating it."

"To say what?"

"That you're human. Not always sure of yourself."

"I usually am. Luckily, you're the only one who brings this out of me."

Her laugh stopped. "About that...Hayden, look."

I've seen enough movies to know the next thing she said wouldn't be good.

"I think it'd be better if we stop working together. I was joking about that 'second best' thing. I can find you someone else, someone just as good as me."

"I don't want anyone else. I want you." I'd like to think my comment only created the silence it did because she misunderstood it, because she'd thought I was referring to something other than just the way she worked. I'd like to think that. But I couldn't. Because it wasn't true.

"I can't...I can't do this, Hayden," she said finally. "It's not even about your marriage. It's more that......I'm incredibly tempted to do something I shouldn't."

"If you understood my situation-"

"Your situation doesn't matter. It's our situation that's the problem. For me. And the best way to deal with that is to remove myself from it."

"I don't want you to."

"Good thing I do, then."

I paused, wanting to tell her about Clare, to explain why I needed to keep feeling this way about someone. That it had never happened to me before, and I was terrified it would never happen again. That I'd go back to sleep and forget how to be alive. But I didn't know what words to use without betraying someone I respected and cared about. So I didn't say anything.

"The office will let you know as soon as they've found my replacement. Take care, Hayden. I...enjoyed getting to know you."

"Sira, don't!" But I was yelling at an empty line.

14.

Andi "Which level of h.e.l.l is this?" I asked Emilia on our way into the country club. She didn't answer.

Today's torture was 'spinning.' Seriously, who comes up with this s.h.i.+t? Twenty-five sweaty women who pay good money to ride fake bikes while horrible music blares and a man in tight spandex shorts yells at us for being lazy. And we do this by choice? Even worse, we actually had to sign up in advance for this c.r.a.p, just to get a spot.

"Do you want to press charges?" Emilia asked about a mile in. At least, I'm a.s.suming we'd gone a mile. I wouldn't be sweating this much otherwise, right?

"What are you talking about?" I yelled back. Thankfully-and I use the word in the most ironic way-we'd gotten to the cla.s.s early enough to snag two bikes next to each other. But even so, screaming was necessary.

"Hayden Bennett."

"Hayden?" My guess was that she'd waited until now so that I'd have no more oxygen flow to my brain and wouldn't be able to understand what she was talking about. Well, boy was she wrong-I wouldn't have known what she was talking about five minutes ago. Did that mean we could stop now?

"I'm not sure how we'll do it without your name coming up, Andi. But if you want to press changes, I'll support you."

"You have no idea how confused I am right now." And I couldn't blame a runner's high because we were biking to nowhere. Plus, I didn't actually know what a runner's high felt like. It was supposed to make this easier, wasn't it? And not so excruciating? "Why would I press charges against anyone, let alone Hayden?"

"s.e.xual hara.s.sment doesn't have to be physical, Andi. It can be verbal, too."

I stopped spinning and waited for her to follow. Because, obviously, I wasn't the one with impeded oxygen flow. "He didn't s.e.xually hara.s.s me physically or verbally, Emilia. Why would you think that?"

The instructor yelled at me, his voice the only sound that was more piercing than the music. "Don't stop now! We got a long way to go!"

He was kidding, right? We weren't going anywhere. But, as evidenced by the number of glares I saw in the room, everyone else seemed to think I was holding back our journey or something, so I started pedaling again.

Emilia wiped her hair from her face. "First, you tell me to rea.s.sign him because you think you might have crossed a line-I totally didn't believe that, by the way-which is why I tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to talk you out of it." She puffed out a few breaths as if she were in labor. No irony there. "But if my advice pushed you into something hara.s.sment-ish, I'll never forgive myself."

"There's only one thing you should never forgive yourself for, and that's making me do this cla.s.s. But you didn't miss anything where Hayden is concerned. Or was concerned. Promise." I crossed my heart, holding it an extra moment to make sure it wouldn't explode. I swear someone told me exercise was supposed to be healthy. Liars.

"I figured, but I had to ask." Her non-pause made me wonder about the honesty of our relations.h.i.+p. Before I could call her on it, she started talking again. Well, huffing and puffing and talking again. "Especially after he called and practically begged me to convince you to work for him again. For more money, too."

"He begged you? Are you sure you're not getting him mixed up with one of the other men who can't live without me?" At least, that's what I tried to say-my wheezing probably made some of the words incomprehensible. "I don't think Hayden has needed to beg for anything in his entire life."

"Okay, 'beg' is too strong a word, but he did say that he'd never had anyone better, and he doesn't want anyone else."

"Maybe he should talk to his wife about that," I mumbled.

"So did he do something obnoxious or what?"

"No. Not in the tiniest bit. He never did or said anything close to hara.s.sment. He's a nice guy, and I would never complain about him. If anything, I should complain about myself."

"You do complain about yourself. All the time." She smiled, even after I reached out to smack her on the shoulder.

"Come on, ladies!" the torturer yelled. "We're halfway there!"

In desperation, I glanced at Emilia, who had obviously lost her mind-she was laughing. "I just can't work with him anymore. I'm uncomfortable, he's uncomfortable, and it's a total mess."

"Has he actually said he wants a physical relations.h.i.+p with you?"

"Not in those words."

"Well, are you absolutely sure the words he is using mean what you think they do? I know he's hot, and he has every reason on earth to fall for you because you're amazing, but could it be that you're putting more into what he's saying than is actually there?"

"Yes!" I hadn't meant to scream it, but luckily the torturer and his happy torturees thought I'd meant it in a cultish kind of way, so they all echoed my call.

"Yes," I said to Emilia quietly. "It totally could be that! In fact, I'm ninety-nine percent sure it is that! But I can't stop thinking about it, reading into things, hoping he's hinting at something he probably isn't hinting at. It's me. It's totally me. And I don't know what to do to stop myself from doing it. So the best thing for me to do is run away."

"You never run away."

"I always run away." I sat back so I could throw up my hands. "You just happen to only see it on Mondays and Thursdays."

"Speaking of, can you run away tomorrow instead of Thursday? I have an appointment that afternoon."

"Ladies," the instructor yelled, "if you can talk, you're not working hard enough."

I hated that man. And his tight little a.s.s, too.

"This was a mistake-the cla.s.s, I mean." I slowed down, crossed my arms, and glared at the torturer, daring him to say something.

I stayed in that position for the rest of the cla.s.s, ignoring his not-at-all-subtle attempts to encourage me. He might be able to control the twenty-four other women, but no man in tights was ever going to intimidate me into exercise or anything else. Eventually, he gave up and, probably to prove his virility, started making comments like, "Looking good, ladies!" and winking at everyone but me. His insincerity was incredible, as was the way the exhausted women bought into it and lapped it up.

Seriously, no one looks good with b.o.o.b-sweat rings and s.h.i.+ny, red faces. No one.

As soon as cla.s.s was over, we all dismounted our bikes and walked bow-legged into the locker room. Emilia opened her a.s.signed members-only locker and stood back as I grabbed the c.r.a.p I'd stuffed into it.

"Spinning is awful, isn't it?" she said. "Running is terrible too, but not as terrible."

"Why don't we call it a tie?" I rubbed a hand over my a.s.s gently. "I think they deliberately make those bike seats as painful as possible."

"If you'd been following the instructor, you wouldn't have been sitting long enough to worry about it."

"Wrong. If I'd been following the instructor, I wouldn't have been alive long enough to worry about it."

We put on our flip-flops-foot fungus was all about equality and didn't care how much money someone had-and headed for the showers. I'd gotten over my fear of naked people when I'd seen the club's shower set-up. If not for the pain one had to go through to need the shower, I'd be here every day. Each stall was as big as my entire bathroom, and the shampoo and conditioner they provided could actually tame my hair. Plus, their towels were incredibly poufy. It was like drying yourself with a stuffed teddy bear. Eww-disturbing image. I take it back.