“Casey!” Sasha says, her voice chipper and totally fake. “Did you know Dougie is the CEO of Little Cooper? What great exposure for you!”
Sasha is, unfortunately, the type of person who thinks about things like good exposure. I’m starting to think there’s more than one reason she invited me here tonight.
I smile anyway. “Hi, Mr. Dawson. I work in Little Cooper’s Finance department.”
Dougie appraises me and scoffs. “You can’t be older than twenty-five.” His voice is deep and grandfatherly. It feels like I’m getting scolded for inappropriate conduct at the youth group ice cream social.
“I’m twenty-four.”
“When I was your age,” he says as his flattened palm taps me lightly against my hip bone, “I had hair down to here—”
My brain short-circuits. Sasha and I lock eyes for a fraction of a second.
“And a mustache down to here.” His hand moves to my chest, where he taps my clavicle with the length of his pinkie, just above my breasts. “I was failing business school. A serious career was the last thing on my mind.”
Double or nothing, I suppose. If you’re going to touch a woman in the Me Too era, you might as well make it worth the headline?
The funny part is that my gut reaction is to come up with something to say next that won’t makehimuncomfortable. What would I do otherwise? Cause a scene? Claim harassment by a man who likely helped pay for the open bar I’m drinking at because he tapped my hip and clavicle? I hate myself a little for the passivity of it, but in professional situations like this, with myliteral livelihoodat stake, I revert to a scared little girl who has internalized that under no circumstances should she ruffle affluent society’s feathers.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
The irony isn’t lost on me. It’s not lost on BTH, either. Their slogan?Bite the hand, feed yourself.It’s just… harder than our feisty editorial team makes it look.
Beside me, Sasha swirls the melting ice in her glass and saves me from having to reply. “So, Dougie. You’re close with the Yankees marketing VP, right? Do you know if he’s considering new advertisers for next season? I have some suggestions—”
“They don’t need new advertisers, dear,” Dougie interrupts. “The old-school sponsorships are where the Yankees bankroll.”
Sasha nods silently and twists her cocktail glass between her fingertips, her lips pressed together, which is how I know she’s trying not to say something. Probably that she thinks the sports industry’s sponsorship structure is from the dinosaur age.
“Now.” Dougie turns back to me. “What exactly do you do for the Finance department?”
“She works with me.”
I whip around, hair tickling my bare shoulders as the voice that’s been haunting me forweeksenvelops all three of us like a cloak.
It’s him. Alex Harrison.
His eyes lock with mine. As usual, looking into the light brown color of his irises is like diving headfirst into a vat of quicksand that plans to choke me to death. Also as usual, I can’t read the expression on his face. He is frustratingly unreadable.
“Alex.” Dougie straightens, but his effort to gain height over Alex is fruitless. Dougie is only an inch taller than me, while Alex, by contrast, is about as tall as Sasha.
Alex clears his throat. “Dougie. It’s good to see you.” But the roll in his jaw, the pinch between his brows says otherwise.
“Since Choate graduation, right?”
“Right,” Alex confirms.
What the heck is Choate? Sounds like a fancy private school in, like, the middle of Connecticut.
Something unpleasant settles onto Dougie’s features. “Did I hear correctly? You’reworkingfor Little Cooper?”
“Yes. I’m the project manager forBite the Hand.”
Dougie’s expression sours even more. There’s an awkward, pregnant pause. I glance at Sasha; she’s picking up on it, too, her face openly enraptured.
“Your father didn’t mention you were back stateside,” Dougie says.
Back stateside?
