“No, you’re good. Stay.” I’d be happy for her to bother me all day. I get an illogical feeling of security when she’s next to me.
“Are you drinking coffee?” she asks with surprise.
“Yes.”
“It’s almost eight p.m.” Her leg brushes against mine when she leans across me to take my drink. She doesn’t ask, but she doesn’t need to. “Fuck. I forget how good Vietnamese coffee is.”
“My grandmother would insist it is thebestcoffee.” I may only be one-quarter Viet, but her strong coffee gene made it through. Bri takes another swig and hands it back. I have to calm my smile to take a drink of my own. “How did today go?”
“Good. The new dog does well with the first, and I got some college-aged roommates with a ton of cheap furniture to assemble. I might be sore tomorrow, but it made me two hundred, and they tipped me a green smoothie.”
“That’s badass.”
“They were really nice. How was your day?”
I let out a sigh. “I did this.” I gesture to my laptop screen split between Excel files. “My life is thrilling.”
“I don’t even know what you do. Tech shit, obviously, but what’s your job?”
If she didn’t think I was a nerd before, she definitely will now. “I’m a sustainable cloud solutions architect.”
“The fuck is that? Building in the sky?”
“No,” I answer with a laugh, feeling happy she isn’t seeing it as a brag. “I basically assess a business’s needs and execute a plan for the most environmentally conscious solution for digital storage and information systems.”
“Eco-friendly sky engineer. Got it.”That’s . . . not completely wrong?
Her attention goes back to her sandwich, unbothered, seeming to appreciate being in my proximity as much as I enjoy being in hers, downloading about our days like it’s our normal routine. There’s nothing I can’t say to her. Or ask her. I think.
“Are you feeling okay? You seemed off this morning.”
She stops mid-chew. Her eyes linger on mine with suspicion. “I’m fine,” she says with a full mouth. I’m not sure I believe her. After finishing her bite, she says, “I’m going to call it an early night.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Today wore me out.”
“Okay. Get some rest.”
She cleans up our mess, even bringing me a napkin for the condensation on my drink, then goes off to her room. If I know anything from growing up in the house I did, it’s that women communicate on multiple channels, and men often only understand one. Her body is telling me something she doesn’t want to discuss, and therefore, it’s none of my business. I need to focus on making this client happy so I can have more time to spend with her.
~
Tell me why my client is Bri’s fucking ex.
Sitting in the lobby of the Wall Street high-rise, waiting to be called back for my meeting, my eyes stick to him like glue.
It can’t be him. Can it?
He has the face of a movie star, looking like the tall, light-skinned, well-dressed, good-job-having love interest in any clichéd rom-com. The same face that peeked over his shoulder in that restaurant and smiled in the picture with his pregnant side piece—the two reasons Bri’s heart is broken. Both images are seared into my brain.
He stands behind the glass walls of a meeting room, chatting up some associates or clients, smiling as if he’s not evil incarnate.
I ask the desk attendant to point me in the direction of the bathrooms to go collect myself for a moment, but it’s too late. The demon approaches.
“You must be the tech guy,” he says. His smooth voice isn’t what I expected. I assumed a piece of shit would sound more akin to an asshole, though he did just diminish my job title to “tech guy.”
“Yes. I’m Liem. N—” The word doesn’t want to come out of my mouth. “Niceto meet you.”
