"Focus on your food," Matt said, gesturing to Riley's trousers.
It was a sore spot, that I knew, but a shamefully envious part of me roused to life at the thought of Patrick and Andy or Matt and Lauren having babies before me and Tiel. We'd been trying, and that no longer included the simple pleasure of lots of sex. Now it was tracking her vagina's moods—that was what she called it; she hated the term 'cervical fluid' and with good reason—and triangulating her most fertile days and abstaining on her less fertile days in order to jack my sperm into a frenzy.
I could abide any quantity of cervical fluid and peeing on ovulation monitoring tests, but I wasn't fond of the abstinence. I'd now taken to giving my sac pep talks when it was go-time, ordering my swimmers to do their fucking job.
"No." Patrick glanced at his phone again, swallowing. He cleared his throat. "Moving on. The only priority that we have this week is Turlan. It goes without saying" —he pinned me with a purposeful gaze— "that we are all hands on deck until the open house and media showcase on Saturday. Walk me through your issues and priorities, Riley."
Last night, Riley and I'd inventoried the Turlan jobsite and jotted down all the action items we needed to hit this week. I'd prepped him on how to present that property's status, but he was hesitant. There was something about discussing delays and problematic new developments that stung of failure and inferiority, and he was a pro at avoidance.
But this time, he paged through his notebook and launched into an accounting of every paint smudge and loose hinge on the site, all while devouring a burrito the size of my forearm. That boy knew how to eat.
Patrick blew through each of the issues, deftly delegating them around the table until the only remaining items involved the PR and event planning, and that was Shannon's ballgame.
"Here's the final attendee list for Saturday," she said, handing a folder to Riley. "Give it one more look. Make sure we're not missing any important vendors. I haven't been able to keep up with which ones you've fired. You're worse than Patrick with that itchy trigger finger of yours, RISD."
Patrick rolled his eyes at that, and launched into a status review our other properties, Riley paged through the list, and his expression shifted from indifferent to confused. Project talk quieted and all attention tracked toward Riley as his otherwise easygoing demeanor turnedfurious.
He tossed the folder to the center of the table and sat back in his chair, his arms folded over his broad chest. "Why the fuck is one of the lead designers on this project not on this list?"
Here we go.
Shannon grabbed the file and scanned the list. "I've been over this list forty-seven times. Who are you talking about?"
"Magnolia is the principal landscape architect, and she designed and installed the roof garden, but since we're a band of assholes who won't forgive mistakes, she's not coming." He pushed away from the table, his scowl deepening. "If assholes could fly, this place would be an airport."
"I'm not sure what you want me to say." Shannon stared at the file, frowning. "We haven't told her not to come."
Riley turned an irritable glare in her direction, his head shaking slowly. "Maybe not, but she slaved over the motherfucking roof garden and she obviously doesn't feel welcome at the fucking showcase because we're fucking dickholes, and that shit needs to stop."
I was the fucking dickhole. It was all me.
The problem was that I liked Magnolia. And yes, I cared about her in the most professional manner possible. She was talented and imaginative, and I admired her work. Our relationship was one of mentoring, and that was based on my desire to see her succeed. I didn't mind offering her constructive feedback on her designs, but I hated informing her that her advances toward me were unwanted and inappropriate, and we couldn't work together if she had romantic feelings for me. I didn't want to sit down over coffee and revisit her unrequited affections for me or how those affections led to me and Tiel hurling the most hurtful words at each other that we could find. I didn't want to put her in an embarrassing situation like that.
"That was an exceptional quantity of profanity," Matt said. "Impressive."
Riley responded with a fist bump across the table. "I'm serious," he said. "This needs to be solved, and it needs to be solved right fucking now. This thing that we're doing—where we're blowing Magnolia off because she had some weirdness with Sam—is bad business. To be honest with you cuntcakes, I thought we were better than this. I didn't think we operated this way. It's petty and immature, and this isn't the kind of business we do."
They weren't the cuntcakes. I was the cuntcake.
"Cuntcakes aside," Matt said, "maybe we should reevaluate. I'm not involved in the day-to-day with this project, but showcasing without the landscape architect doesn't sound right to me."
"Can I ask whether your concern for Roof Garden Girl is more than professional?" Patrick shrugged. "To be clear, I agree with Matt, but your pleas are quite impassioned."
Riley dropped his head to his hands, muttering something about being the only sane one in this family. He looked ready to chuck that bottle of hot sauce straight at Patrick's head.
"Do I understand this correctly—I'm only allowed to treat a partner with respect if I want to fuck her?" Riley asked. "And not that it matters, but Gigi has a boyfriend who is not me."
"That's not what I said," Patrick replied.
Riley shook his head, unconvinced. "It sure as shit sounded like what you said."
"All right," Shannon interrupted, her palms extended between Patrick and Riley, "I'll handle it."
He pointed at me but kept his gaze on Shannon. "Samshould handle it, but at least you're not going to pussyfoot around the situation until shit's gone sour."
Sam:How's your afternoon, Sunshine?
Tiel:Let's not talk about that. Tell me good things
