Me: It’s a go for Thursday, good for you?
Mitch: Yeah, is Evie hot
I wasn’t sure if them hooking up was the best thing, but I wasn’t in control of that either.
Me: Yeah
Mitch:
The challenge would be to focus on work for the next few days. Work I had no interest in doing. At all. She was the only benefit of coming to the office for me.
Fuck it. Work would wait. I needed to figure out the songs for karaoke. That took precedent. Out came the headphones, my phone, and my guitar.
This was gonna suck once my brother was down the hall.
CHAPTER 17
Maryellen
Gage was quite distracted once he returned to work from his weekend. It was understandable. He surprised Harper not only with a proposal over the weekend but a beach house on the Jersey shore he bought for them as well. I’d been working behind the scenes for the past few months to secure the property. Once it was purchased, I worked with a designer to help decorate it.
I was immersed in the lives of some very wealthy people. The price tags of what they purchased, the bottom line of what they spent, were numbers I crunched every day. It was astounding how the Parkers lived. I knew the topic of money and lifestyle came up once or twice between Gage and Harper during the early stages of their relationship. She came from a similar background as me financially, although she still had a good relationship with her mother.
Harper had been able to come to terms with the Parker lifestyle, so I had witnessed it was possible. Whether I ever could was another question.
“Maryellen,” Gage said as he popped his head out of his office. “Can you come in my office? I want to discuss the options you and Chase narrowed down for his assistant.”
Jumping up, I grabbed my tablet and my phone.
“Oh, and call Chase in on this one, too,” he said.
My mouth went dry.
This was Gage’s second day back. And we’d made it to early afternoon, so a day and a half, without the three of us being in the same room together.
“Sure.” I shot Chase a text and went to find my traditional spot in Gage’s office.
Though he wasn’t sitting at his desk like he normally would be. Instead, he was in the sitting area, in the chair to be specific. That left the couch for Chase and me.
“Knock, knock,” Chase said as he entered.
“Hey, Brother,” Gage said, standing up.
“Hey, man, congratulations. How did it go this weekend?” Chase asked.
I was unaware they hadn’t seen each other since his return. The two talked for a few minutes while I stayed in my seat. I tried to do a few things on my tablet, but my hands shook too much to get anything done. Instead, I looked around the office and waited for them to join me, with the hope that Gage would sit with me.
No such luck. Chase even let Gage sit first, and he still chose the chair. Mind you, I call it a sofa, but it’s more like a love seat. It’s built for barely two and a half people. And Chase is not a small person. He’s at least six foot three inches and takes up a lot of space. He sat against the one corner, his arm along the back, and crossed one leg over his other knee. When he did that, our legs touched. I slid my leg ever so slightly, but he slid his closer, so we remained touching.
My pulse sped up. I kept my eyes trained on my boss, trying to determine if he noticed. Yet, he seemed oblivious as he moved on with the topic of the meeting.
“So, we seem to have some remarkable candidates for your assistant, Chase,” Gage said. He gestured to the resumes on the table of the three contenders Chase and I had narrowed it down to. “Let’s discuss what we’ll ask during the interviews.”
Chase leaned forward, his leg dropping to the floor. In its place, his hand moved to the cushion between us, his small finger lingering against my thigh. I felt as though I might hyperventilate and couldn’t concentrate on a single thing either Parker boy was saying. Chase must have realized the effect he was having on me. He shifted his body slightly, enough that we weren’t touching. While Gage was reading one of the resumes, Chase stole a sideways glance my way. His tight-lipped smile was a silent apology.
He was trying. He was failing as he tried, but he was trying. Thankfully, his brother was none the wiser.
We carried on with the meeting, the three of us talking as if there was nothing different between us. The two brothers still argued about the same things they always did by the end of our time. Chase apparently hadn’t completed a task he promised Gage he would. So, then Gage accused him of not caring enough about the company. They both moved away from the sitting area to Gage’s desk to finish their discussion.
