“You want to go back to the others?” I offer.
“No,” he answers.
I’m pleasantly surprised when he closes the little distance I kept between us, and somewhat awkwardly, rests his chin on my shoulder.
Grinning, we adjust until our position is more natural and comfortable. For a long time, despite the rhythm of the music playing, we dance in the garden surrounded by flowers and the heat of the sun.
Once, he tenses, and I can feel him almost pull away. It passes after a minute, and he relaxes into me again. I nearly ask what happened, but I don’t want to push. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me what’s on his mind.
For now, I need to practice patience.
4
BREK
Her voice isone of those tones that makes me cringe. I can’t hold the phone to my ear, or it’ll be too loud, and I’ll sit here looking like I’m trying to curl in on myself. That’s not a professional look at work.
As it is, holding the phone away from my ear and struggling to keep the scowl from my face is far more challenging than it should be. I can’t remember what she’s on about. Who assigned me this sale? I won’t forgive them. They’re going to become the focus of my ire.
Fortunately for me, she doesn’t need input. She simply wants to hear her own voice. How can she stand it? Ugh.
There’s a knock on my open door, and I glance up. My mentor, Zaiden, is standing there. I’d worked with him when we lived at Rolling Green Estates and was first starting out. Maybe I spoke highly of him. He was here within six months of our moving to the Van Doren Estate and my working at the Van Doren Real Estate Agency. He said they’d reached out to him and made him an offer he’d have felt stupid not to accept.
So here he is. I’m thankful he’s here. It’s not that the other people in the office aren’t great, but I feel like they think of me as if I’m a Van Doren. I get it. The plaque on my office door reads Van Doren. Interestingly enough, I’m not even sure which Van Doren holds their real estate license. Probably not one I know at all.
Zaiden treats me like a person. Not a Van Doren or maybe Van Doren adjacent. Besides that, he’s a great mentor.
“Mrs. Golderman,” I interrupt. “I’m sorry, but I need to let you go. My next appointment just arrived.”
“Okay, darling. Give me a call when the papers are ready,” she says.
“I will, Mrs. Golderman. Have a great day.” I hang up before she can respond. Now that she can’t see me through the phone, I glare. My scowl doesn’t stay inside, either.
Zaiden laughs. “She’s that awful, is she?” He crosses the room to sit in the chair in front of my desk.
“No, she’s very pleasant and kind. But she speaks in a register that makes my jaw hurt.”
He laughs again. “Wow.”
“Right?” I rub the bridge of my nose and sigh. “What’s up?”
“El and I are taking off for the mountains in a couple hours. You’re taking the weekend off, right?”
“Why are you going to the mountains? Which one of you wants to bury the other?”
He grins. “We’ve been enjoying the hiking scene. There’s a cabin close to half a dozen trails, so we’re making a weekend of it.”
“I suppose who’s burying who isn’t the question I should have asked, huh? How many trails are you going to mark?”
This time, his smirk is all kinds of mischievous.
“You can’t tell me you’re not into public fun. Didn’t you tell me you guys did the deed in a church closet?” I ask, raising a brow.
Zaiden’s smile remains firmly on his face as he gets to his feet. “Go home, Brek. No work this weekend, huh?”
“My weekend won’t be as fun as yours, but yeah, fine.”
“Leave your work phone here,” Zaiden says.
