Fucking hell, I’d be hearing it from Ezzie later.
An older woman that I didn’t recognize walked in behind Ezzie. “I tried calling you several times, as did Maddi,” she said to Gavin. “I thought you’d forgotten.”
Gavin turned and smiled at her. “Never,” he replied.
I turned away from him and gestured to the room. “I have all the materials set up,” I said as Jasmine came running in with refreshments.
“Great,” Lindsay, my lead presenter, said. She would be pitching the preliminary ideas from our company to Arrow, not me. I was a shit public speaker, but Lindsay had an ability like no other. I swore she could take your own shit out of the toilet, bag it up, and somehow sell it back to you, and that was why I kept her on the payroll even after she ran away with her ex-boyfriend for a month without telling anyone.
A man came blundering into the room then, long coat swaying behind him.
“Shit,” Gavin said under his breath.
The stranger looked so familiar, a handsome, tall man with tan skin and bright brown eyes. Scruff lined his jaw, dark and thick curly hair atop his head only down the middle as the sides were trimmed. A grin split the man’s wide mouth as he hugged Avril and made his way around the room, giving everyone hugs and hello’s whether he knew them or not.
Gavin turned to me. “I apologize now for anything my friend might say.”
I frowned. “Why? Who is—“
But I had been spotted. The man’s entire face lit up, beaming my way. He threw his hands up wide in the air. “There she is! The woman of the hour! Give me some—“ His long arms swept around me, and this stranger picked me up off of the floor.
“Um… can you put me down?” I asked, giving Gavin a bewildered glance over this man’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Gavin mouthed to me, an embarrassed smile on his lips.
My feet hit the ground, and the man jumped and clapped his hands together excitedly.
“Oh. Right. I forget we haven’t been introduced. I didn’t meet you last time, but I heard a lot—and I mean,a lot—about you.” He winked at me twice and nudged my side. “I’m Zayn,” he said as he pushed his hand out toward me.
“Hi…” I said, hesitantly taking his hand.
Gavin was wiping his face nervously behind him, clearly borderline mortified by his friend’s behavior.
“Zayn is CFO of Arrow—“
“And his best friend.” Zayn turned to Gavin. “I’m hurt you didn’t lead with that, mate.”
“I was getting to it,” Gavin said.
“I think you’ve scared her enough, Zayn,” the older woman said from the other side of the room. “Do you think you can settle down enough for this presentation?”
Shit. I didn’t have enough stacks for him, too. I didn’t know he was coming.
Gavin gently pinched my elbow and said, “He can share my folder,” as if he knew what I was thinking.
A slow breath left me, and I smiled softly. “Thank you.”
“If we’re all ready—“ Lindsay said, clearing her throat at the front of the room. “Let’s get started.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN - CHLOE
FOR TWO WEEKS, I hardly saw Gavin.
I was buried in work on his project, barely letting the rest of my team contribute, as I had set such high expectations of the design that I was coddling it like it was my own child.
Each time he came by, I spent more time bouncing ideas off of him than I should have. Ideas that weren’t even in my wheelhouse—schemes for dating app events for Halloween, the fall, Christmas, New Year’s. To where the day before, I’d told him I needed him to credit me if he ended up using any of them—which he agreed to wholeheartedly.
It was entirely too easy to get caught up in him, entirely too easy to talk to him about whatever popped into my head, and entirely too easy to…
