“Yeah, and it showed. When I say she was unpleasant, I’m not kidding. We ended up fighting the entire time and, sure, I didn’t help matters. At the end of the night, we went our separate ways.”
“And how do you feel about that?” Breaker asks.
“Relieved,” I answer. “It was fucking exhausting having dinner with her. Sure, I like some quick-witted repartee here and there, but when I got home, I felt drained.”
Breaker is silent for a moment as he studies me. I’m sure he’s looking for some sort of tell that I’m lying. He’s wondering if Kelsey and I did hit it off and we’re secretly dating now.
Could not be further from the truth.
“Why don’t I believe you?” he asks.
Here we go.
“Dude, trust me when I say—” I stop speaking, my eyes falling on an email from Kelsey.
Subject line: I’m coming to your office.
I barely have time to open it before the door to my office flies open and Kelsey steps in. The expression on her face reads irritated, and the way her hands clench at her sides makes me feel anxious. The surprised look in her eyes when she spots Breaker completely changes her demeanor in seconds.
“Breaker, hi.” She smooths her hand over her hair. “I, uh, I didn’t see you there. Sorry about barging in.”
Breaker, of course, smiles, showing off his freshly whitened teeth. “Hey, Kelsey, heard you had quite the night last night.”
Kelsey’s murderous eyes flash to me. “You told him?”
“Well, he’s my brother, and he was the one who forced me to go on the date, so it’s only natural that he’d ask me how it went.”
Composing herself, Kelsey turns to Breaker and asks, “Would you give me a second with your brother?”
He smirks and stands. “Of course.”
Before he can walk away, Kelsey adds, “And I would appreciate your discretion in this matter.”
Breaker pats her on the shoulder and says, “I understand the need to not be attached by name to him. I wish I wasn’t either.”
Wow, what a brother.
He takes off and closes the door behind him. I turn my attention to Kelsey, who closes the distance between us and takes a seat in the chair Breaker just vacated.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask her.
“After last night, I figured we need to talk about how to handle this.”
“Handle what?” I pause and tilt my head to the side. “Oh, hell, did you fall in love with me last night and now you’re trying to figure out how to muddle through work while harboring these intense feelings about me?”
Her face falls flat only for her top lip to curl into a sneer. “If any revelation happened last night, it most certainly had nothing to do with love and everything to do with this extreme distaste I have for you.”
“Ooh, distaste. That’s a new one.” I lean my forearms on my desk. “Please do elaborate.”
“This isn’t funny, JP.”
“Didn’t know I was laughing.”
Her eyes narrow and she speaks through clenched teeth. “You don’t have to laugh in order to make a laughing matter out of something that’s incredibly serious.”
I pick up a pen off my very untidy desk, a desk that I know drives Kelsey nuts. The tension in her expression is from our conversation, but the death grip she has on the chair’s armrests is undoubtedly from the rumpled reports on my desk, the askew pen jar that’s tipped over, and the unconventional way I have my computer tilted.
“Okay, tell me why our situation is incredibly serious, because unless I missed something, nothing, and I mean nothing, happened between us last night. Well, nothing that requires this level of psychosis.”
