I glance back at him. Alex has his head dipped, his eyes roaming over the contents of the box, which is probably paints, brushes and charcoal pencils. He walks up casually, but as soon as he sees me in the closet he stops,bends down and puts the box on the ground and turns to leave.
“I thought you were going to help,” I tell him. “I could use those muscles of yours to move around some of these boxes to make room for the new one.”
“Sorry. Can’t,” he says gruffly. “Maybe Len or Selena can help you.”
I’m more than a little pissed off. “Len’s not here today and Selena just left because you said you would help.”
“I have to get going. I have a team thing,” he says and it’s clear he’s shitty at lying.
I frown and put my hands on my hips. “When you came in today you said it was a rest day. I know what ‘rest day’ means. It means no game. No practice.”
Everything about him shifts. He starts to look annoyed—really annoyed, like borderline angry. “Look, I came to give the talk not be a maintenance guy. I’m sorry I have somewhere to be.”
“Oh. Okay. I get it.” Clearly he’s a lot more like the baseball guy than I thought. He’s only interested in helping with things like talking to the kids who fawn all over him. Or being the hero finding me a yoga instructor. God forbid the guy built like a Greek god actually do five seconds of physical labor. I turn to the shelves piled with boxes and I pick up one. I assume he’s going to leave but when I glance back he’s standing there, just on the other side of the door.
“You get what?”
I readjust the box in my arms and fix him with a cold stare. “That you’ll volunteer as long as it means having the kids adore you but you don’t want to do anything that doesn’t involve instant gratification. It’s fine. Now I know and it’s not even shocking to be honest. I’ve had volunteers like you before and I’ve managed.”
I find an empty spot on the shelves that line the left side of the closet and slide the box onto it. I hear him whisper a French obscenity under his breath, but I ignore him and reach for one of the other boxes on the floor. Why won’t he just go?
I pick it up. The cardboard is old and it’s heavy. I think it’s some of the summer patio stuff I had Selena box up last week. I scan the shelves again, fully aware that he’s still standing there, staring at me.
“I thought you had somewhere to be,” I remind him tersely as I spot a place on the top shelf that looks big enough for the box.
“I’m not the jerk you think I am.” He says it low, and soft, and I can’t help but turn my head to look at him. He looks kind of wounded. And for a brief, intense moment his stormy blue eyes drop and his jaw softens in defeat and I have this wave of déjà vu. But it carries an ominous feeling with it and I suddenly feel as jumpy as he looked earlier.
“I’m not the spoiled rich kid you clearly think I am either,” I snap back but my words are wobbly, not firm. I turn away from his and start to lift the box, but the top shelf is high and the box is heavy and the higher I lift the more off balance I feel. I push myself up on my tiptoes and the corner of the box hits the edge of the shelf instead of sliding onto it and I realize in a panic-filled second that I’m going to drop it.
I let out a squeak and then suddenly there’s another set of arms in my face and the box is ripped from me. Everything happens so fast it’s a blur. He steps into the closet, saves the box from landing on my head and then the floor, and shoves it onto a shelf and then disappears—all in the time it took me to blink and steady myself.
I leave the closet and catch a blur of him as he storms out of the room. What the fuck is his issue? I follow him but he’s out the front door before I even get to the hallway. I reach out and catch the door seconds before it closes and call his name but he’s already halfway down the street.
“What the f—” I catch myself before the rest of that word comes out of my mouth because I will not swear at work in case a kid hears me. We’re always on them to clean up their language. Sighing, I let the door close and turn and head back into the closet.
Seriously, I do not get that guy.
An hour later, I’m explaining the whole thing to Victor as we share a cab to my place. Normally I take the subway home but when he meets me after work he never wants to take the subway. In the whole time we’ve been dating, we’ve never taken the subway. I sometimes wonder if he’s ever been on it. As a native New Yorker, I would guess yes but with Victor it’s highly possible he hasn’t.
“I told you before, he sounds like a self-absorbed athlete,” Victor surmises when I’m done explaining the closet incident. He already knows about the phone argument and the way he showed up late for the orientation. I haven’t, and I won’t, tell him about how he hit on me in Starbucks. “I don’t know why you let it get to you. These men are as superficial as they come. They get fawned all over for skating a straight line. He’s not volunteering to do good, he’s volunteering to look good.”
He shifts his dark brown eyes down to his phone in his hand and a wisp of his perfectly styled dark hair falls forward. He brushes it off his forehead, annoyed, which is too bad because he looks better when he’s mussed up.
“But then why won’t he let me use his name on the posters?” I question because I think Victor is probably right, but that one fact goes against our theory.
Victor pats my knee and I try not to bristle. He does that a lot. It feels condescending, like he’s placating me. I told him that once and he got completely offended and explained it’s a gesture of love and support so now I grin and bear it. “Brie, baby, he’s an adult playing a game for a living. He’s a man-child. Don’t take it personally. And besides you don’t need his name to sell tickets. Half my office is coming and your dad will corral all his rich friends. It’ll be fine.”
I sigh. “I need the interest in this place to grow. I don’t want it to always be your colleagues, my dad’s friends and my trust fund supporting this place. His name would bring in a different group of potential donors.”
His hand has left my knee and is now wrapped around his phone as he reads his emails. He’s not paying attention at all. I don’t even need the lackluster “uh-huh” he gives me as a sign.
I reach up and softly graze my fingers through the back of his hair. “You tuned me out again.”
He blinks his dark eyes and lifts them from his phone screen. “I’m sorry. It’s work.”
“It’s always work,” I whisper.
“So I should stop paying attention to my work so I can listen to you complain about yours?” he questions and his words are a little clipped but he smiles at me like he’s half kidding. I realize his point, even if I don’t agree with it. I don’t say a word when he refocuses on his phone screen. I turn and look out the window instead. The Upper East Side flies by through the rain splattered window.
