Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3) (8 page)

“The end,” Krista muttered into the emptiness
of the night.

Chapter Six

The phone started to ring. Sean put down his
pen and rubbed his eyes. His life was nothing but stress these
days. It had been three months since he said goodbye to Krista for
the second, and final, time. He’d told everyone around him that if
he heard her name, he would immediately walk out of the room. His
house was sold and in escrow without him having found another. He’d
given his notice to Dexico and was wrapping things up.

He had also turned Tory down. Repeatedly. He
didn’t want to work anywhere he might see Krista. Not even in the
same town, much less the same company. In another three weeks, he’d
have no job and no house. He didn’t have a clue what he would do,
and he didn’t really care. Start over, probably. Maybe move to
Hawaii. Take a year off, maybe. Hopefully meet someone new.
Probably not even bother.

Sean picked up the phone. “McAdams.”

“Sean.” It was Tory again. The man was the
most persistent person Sean had ever met.

“Hi Tory. It’s still a no.”

“I am not calling to offer you a job—though,
of course, the position is still open and I will gladly offer it
when you’ve come to your senses.”

Sean wasn’t in the mood to smile. “I don’t
really feel like spending eighteen holes repeating myself, Tory.
And I certainly don’t want to see Ben’s latest painting.”

“You do, actually; it is his best yet. I
bought it for my daughter. The young man is in love, I believe. His
piece shows it perfectly—very sweet. He was too embarrassed for his
girlfriend to see it. Although, she would have wanted to have it, I
am sure.”

“Uh huh.” Sean pinched the bridge of his
nose.

“Anyway, Emily has asked that I pass this on
to you. She seemed adamant about it. She was convinced you would
want to know.”

“Sure,” Sean said, looking out the window.
Arguing wouldn’t make Tory go away—not when Emily was behind
it.

“Well, Emily has heard from Ben, upon
procuring the painting, that Miss Marshall—excuse me, Miss
Fields—is single again.”

Time and space contorted around Sean’s
office. The phone became his lifeline to reality. He gripped the
hard plastic as if someone was trying to rip it away from his
head.

He shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t mean
anything. It had been three months since he’d said goodbye to
Krista for the second time. Three months meant her breakup had
nothing to do with him.

Tory continued into the silence. “Yes, it
seems she was a whirlwind of activity when she returned from San
Francisco. She moved her friends to L.A., got one of them a job
immediately—the other is now employed with me, too, I
believe—redecorated her house, and broke up with her boyfriend. I
believe breaking up with her boyfriend was first, however. Then
redecorating. Emily has the specifics.”

Sean felt stupid asking, but he couldn’t help
it. “Is she seeing anyone else?”

“My Emily is always right, it seems. Don’t
tell her I said that. As far as Emily knows, no, she is not dating
right now.”

Sean slowly blew out his breath. “Can I call
you back?”

“Certainly. You have the number.”

Sean hung up amid swirls of color. Before he
could get his bearings, he called the one person he knew would have
all the information.

“Well hello, stranger!” Marcus sang merrily
as he answered the phone.

“Marcus.” Sean calmed himself. “Hi. Listen,
uh…”

Sean continually felt stupid. He should have
approached this differently. He couldn’t just call up another dude
and ask straight-up girl gossip.

Luckily, Marcus read into the call. “Yes,
she’s single. I would have told you, but you have that ban and
all.”

Sean’s whole body was tingling. “Did you talk
to her about it?”

“Of course I did! Shall I just assume you
want to know the deets?”

“Uh…”

“I’ll take that as a straight-man’s yes. A
week after she got back from San Francisco she had dinner with him
and broke it off. As far as I know, he was the first to know. She
didn’t discuss it with anyone. Not that she had to. He was a bit
dopey
. Hot, yes, but you couldn’t listen to him. Double
dates were
painful!”

“And she’s not seeing anyone else?”

“Ban on dating. She’s been asked out
constantly, and I mean
constantly,
but so far she’s always
said no. Although, she hasn’t had sex in
forever.
She’ll
probably bend, soon. She’s getting bitchy.”

“A week after she got back?”

“Tit-for-tat. Did you two do the nasty while
she was there? Judy thinks you must have or else Krista wouldn’t
have broken it off right away. Ben says no way, though. Apparently
Krista doesn’t like cheaters—her giant ex-boyfriend is the reason
behind that, of course. Kate and Jasmine agree with Ben.”

“No, we didn’t. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t
see much of her for fear I
would
touch her.”

“Really? You still like her, then? Kate
thinks you don’t because of how you pushed her away. Also how you
acted in San Fran. Jasmine thinks you—“

“Yes, I still love her.”

Marcus took a noisy breath. “Well, then.
You’ve got quite a hole to dig yourself out of. It’s been a long
time.”

“Yeah, listen Marcus, I gotta go. Keep it
under wraps that I talked to you, will ya? I don’t want Krista
thinking I am gossiping about her.”

“Then how did you find out? Kate and Jasmine
decided to keep it from Cassie.”

That explained why Cassie wasn’t on his butt
about it, but he wasn’t sure it was good news. Krista took real
stock in what her friends thought. She listened to them. If they
were against Sean, he wouldn’t have a chance to get her back. And
he
had
to get her back. His life didn’t make sense without
her.

“Tory called. Listen, I have to go. I’ll talk
to you soon.”

Sean paced around his office for a minute and
thought. He took stock of his life, of his choices, and now of a
path reopened to him. He called Cassie next, needing to be
sure.

“Hey,” she said when she picked up.

“Krista is single. She broke up with her
boyfriend a week after getting back to L.A..”

The other end was silent. Sean looked at his
cell phone to make sure it was still on, then into the live call
said, “Hello?”

“You promised.”

Sean let out the breath he didn’t realize he
was holding and half laughed. “Yes.”

“So now what?”

“Want to move to L.A. with me?”

~*~*~*~

Six months had gone by since Krista’s San
Francisco visit. They hadn’t taken Sean’s account, and Krista
hadn’t seen him since that night on the beach. She heard he quit
Dexico, sold his house—apparently to Cassie--and moved away. No one
knew what company he moved to, or even what location. He was a
ghost.

Dexico was in the midst of crumbling from the
inside out. Apparently John was shocked Sean moved on; he hadn’t
seen it coming. In fact, no one had. When Sean gave his notice,
John did everything he could to entice Sean to stay. Marcus said
the salary and perks being thrown at him were staggering. Not only
that, but the President offered him a VP title. He would share the
role with John. Nothing would keep him, though. He worked hard for
his last month, gave his stuff to the other salesmen, and closed
another book in San Francisco. Ray had left shortly thereafter.

The good news was, Kate and Jasmine decided
to go to L.A. They said they had nothing better to do, and needed a
change of scenery. Judy had gotten another job, too. Everyone from
their old team evaporated. The company wasn’t nearly as loyal as
she first believed, and it showed in their turnover.

Even Cassie agreed to move, eventually.
Eventually
being the key word. She was with a great company
in a great job, so she had to transfer within the company, and
right now there weren’t any openings in L.A. in her field. But the
rain check was good enough for Krista and friends. She was a solid,
though distant, member of their group.

Although, Krista would be lying if she said
she was the one that kept her in the circle. Kate and Jasmine took
up that mantle. Cassie was Krista’s only link left to Sean, and his
rejection hurt so much, she couldn’t face Cassie without the pain
of it consuming her. And it seemed like Cassie knew it, too,
because they’d talked once on the phone—Cassie had called for a
friendly chat—and Krista broke down in tears ten minutes in. It was
slightly embarrassing. Especially since Cassie didn’t have any
excuses for her brother’s behavior.

Cassie had ended the call saying to call her
when Krista could stomach her humor. Krista laughed through her
pain, but hadn’t dialed her number since. If only her humor was the
problem.

Kate was hired on in Krista’s department. She
was better qualified, so Jasmine got to lounge around at Krista’s
house and look for work. That lasted a couple months until she
found employment in another part of Kate and Krista’s company. A
word from Krista, and a whirlwind of chat from Marcus, and she was
in before she even interviewed.

It helped that Tory heard the girls were the
back-up researchers when Krista was with Dexico. He’d asked how
well they worked together. Krista had answered that they were her
dream team before she’d even met Marcus and Ben. He nodded once and
then changed the subject, which meant he planned to think it
over.

Whichever it was, Tory, Marcus, or Krista—or
maybe all of the above—Jasmine got in with a good salary, and they
were all together again.

It was a perfect day of spring in Los Angeles
and Krista was trapped indoors looking at some specs. Marcus came
in. “Geegee.”

“Marcus,” she said as she leaned back.
“What’s today’s news?”

“No news. I came to walk to the meeting with
you. Ben said he’d meet us there. He was in the middle of some
nerdery or something.”

“Oh crap! Is that today?”

“Yes.” Marcus sighed, extremely put out.
“C’mon.”

“What would I do without you?” Krista got a
notepad and pen.

“Get fired because you failed to show up to
all the meetings.”

“Probably.”

They got to the large meeting hall. There was
a hum of conversation as they took their seats. The raised platform
in the front of the hall was empty. Krista checked her watch, which
was a nasty habit of late. It seemed she was always late for
something, or things always took longer than they were supposed to.
It was rude to do in presentations—she needed to stop. It was worse
than sighing all the time.

Speaking of, she had almost kicked that
habit. Jasmine started carrying around a squirt bottle—which Marcus
thought was hilarious—and squirted people when they sighed. The one
exception was her boss, but it was only a matter of time.

Finally, the speaker came to the podium. It
was Tory.

“Did you know about this?” Krista asked
Marcus.

Tory usually let Krista know when he would be
in the area. He always had things to teach her, or show her, or
work for her to do. She was a working intern, if it came right down
to it. But she benefited from it, and then so did he. Her
department was churning out work better than any other of their
counterparts, worldwide. To date, they had never failed to spot a
bad egg. Not once.

Another perk was that when he brought Emily
with him, Krista got to leave early. They shopped and gossiped and
had girl time. Work was not brought up, as a rule. Krista looked
forward to those visits. Even though she now had Kate and Jasmine,
there was something special about Emily. Somehow, despite their age
gap, Emily completely got her. She always picked up what Krista put
down, and then ran with it.

Marcus shook his head and looked around. “It
probably isn’t all that big. It’s about time for a company
update.”

“Good morning L.A. branch. Thank you all for
joining us,” Tory started.

“As if we had a choice,” Kate said from
behind Krista and Marcus.

Krista looked back to her with a warning.
Kate was being rude and it would look poorly on Krista. Kate’s
instructions were to save the rudeness for when Krista was not
around. And then only go so far that she didn’t get in trouble.

Ben and Jasmine were looking at the stage
with bored expressions. Kate noticed Krista looking and
grinned.

“Nice of you to show up, boss,” she said
snidely.

Krista took the matter firmly in hand by
sticking her tongue out.

Before she could turn back around, Jasmine
asked, “What are the plans for tonight? I need to get out, quick.
My boss is trying to make me stay late. On a
Friday
!”

It was then that the microphone blast out a
deep baritone with a gravel rumble, the words gliding across the
airwaves and splintering Krista’s brittle bones. She turned around
so quickly she gave herself whiplash.

Sean was standing on the stage, in the same
room with her, next to Tory, in an expensive suit and a very
handsome smile. He’d cut and styled his hair, was wearing one of
Marco’s suits, and had shiny black shoes. He looked like a million
bucks.

And he was here. With Tory. In Krista’s
company. In Krista’s town.

After rejecting her in San Francisco.

To describe what happened at that point would
be impossible. The CliffsNotes were: Krista’s world was tilted in
confusion, her stomach dropped ten feet and filled with a sudden
swarm of killer bees, her ass clenched, her breath whooshed out of
her body, her head went light, her vision went blurry, her body got
hot, but broke out in shivers. She couldn’t process. She didn’t
understand.

“How did I not know about this?” Marcus asked
beside her in exasperation. At least he wasn’t in on it. That was
comforting.