“It’s seven twenty-eight.” That tiny smirking smile appeared, the one I thought of as the smile she reserved for me, and there was no stopping the flood of heat to my crotch. “Wouldn’t want you to be late.”
“You’re evil. You know that, right?” Groaning, I collected my laptop and coffee, and rounded my desk to stand behind Andy. I leaned over her shoulder, and, always keeping up appearances, I pointed to something on her screen as if we were discussing a project. “When I get you home tonight, I intend to take advantage of you. Multiple times. You might want to stretch.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” My lips passed over her jaw, and before I could change my mind, I sprinted upstairs to the attic.
“Hit any good keggers recently?” Shannon asked. “That’s why you look like death warmed over, right?”
Withholding information from my siblings turned the dial way up on my paranoia, and Shannon’s assessing gaze when I settled into my seat put me on alert. I shook my head and sipped my coffee, hoping the right explanation was mixed in with the milk and sugar. “Nah,” I replied. “Up late watching a few games, and Matt’s a demented bastard who thinks wind sprints are good fun on a Monday.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, her eyes narrowing over her iced latte. “Let’s get this show started.”
The business was in good shape. After all these years of busting our asses and hanging on by threads, our plan was working. Listening to my partners detail the progress on their projects only reaffirmed that for me. We accomplished everything we set out to, and we weren’t white-knuckling it anymore. For the first time in forever, there was space in my life for more than our business, and filling that space with Andy was the only thing I wanted.
“There are some other things on my list,” Shannon said after we walked through updates and strategy for new properties.
I shot her a surprised look; we usually worked through her list before discussing them with the group.
“I also have a few things, so get ready for me to drop some knowledge,” Riley added, and four pairs of confused eyes landed on him. “Don’t look at me that way, you assclowns. Stop being so superior.”
“Enlighten us,” Shannon said.
Riley produced several blueprints and unfurled them in the center of the table. “It took a few months, but I found two more offices. It means subdividing the biggest offices with some strange geometries. Matt’s office here,” he pointed to the document, “and Patrick’s office here, but that just cuts some of the space wasted on conference tables. And for real, people, we have three conference rooms we never use, so it’s no loss. The new offices are smaller, but at least Princess Jasmine and I won’t have to be squatting like bums on the street.”
“‘Princess Jasmine?’” Sam snickered. “Isn’t that a little…inappropriate or…insensitive, or infantilizing, or something?”
I thought about my dark-eyed girl and smiled, betting she’d start assembling the Halloween costume today so long as it was an ironic exploitation of her culture’s misappropriated icons, and not a benediction on cartoon princesses.
“Ask her. She’ll tell you what she thinks. I think she’d be down for a nickname.” I gave the plans a quick study and glanced to Matt. “You’ve looked at this?” He nodded, and I thought about a permanent office for Andy. An office right next to mine.
So fuckingright.
“Draft a budget,” I ordered, and Riley allowed himself a subtle fist pump. “Let me see it as soon as you have it.”
“What?” Shannon snapped. “We built existing offices around the original footprint when this was a house, and we didn’t want to fuck with that. And, shouldn’t we determine where Andy fits in after her apprenticeship before building office space?”
What the actual fuck? ‘Where Andy fits in?’ How was that even up for discussion?
Yelling at Shannon in Black Widow mode in the middle of a team meeting was a bad idea, and it always ended with a ball beating but I was ready to take those licks if she didn’t cut the shit. It seemed like she was intentionally goading me into a reaction.
“We need to keep Andy,” Matt said gravely. “Whatever it takes, she’s fucking gifted and GCs eat out of her palm. She can have my entire fucking office if she wants it.”
“Seconded,” Sam added. “The building integrity won’t suffer because we break up a few rooms.”
“No disagreement from me,” Shannon replied, holding up her hands in surrender. “I’ve always advocated for this. I was the one who insisted on hiring her, and I opened the door to keeping her on longer so Optimus could get some sleep at night. It’s obvious he isn’t, so that experiment failed.”
I stifled a laugh. If only she knew what was keeping me up these nights.
“I agree with all of you, but no one brought me in on any of this, so I apologize that I’m out of the loop.”
“I don’t think that’s accurate, Shannon,” Sam said, leaning back in his chair and circling his hand around the table. “I think we’ve discussed it in some fashion every week since January. Perhaps we haven’t articulated ‘Andy needs an office because we want her to be a permanent fixture’ but we’ve discussed her as a transformative member of our squad, and we’ve made it clear that if she can handle Optimus at his worst, she’s earned her stripes.”
Shannon clasped her hands in her lap and pursed her lips. I held my breath, waiting for the explosion. It was either an explosion or she stopped recognizing my existence.
“Okay, moving on. Cornell invited us to a special breakfast next week. Next Friday.” Shannon pulled up an email with the details. “The architecture school’s dean wants to personally thank us for Angus’s donation. I took the last meet and greet for Angus’s charitable giving at Brigham and Women’s. If I had to go to the vagina shop, someone else is doing this.”
“Well I’m out,” Riley said. “Last thing they need is RISD representing up in hill country.”
“I would have to believe they’d rather see Patrick,” Sam said, his attention fixed on straightening his cufflinks. “Fitting for the SMP, wouldn’t you say?”
