Just Three Words (Soho Loft Romances) (25 page)

Samantha sighed, hating the fruit/water analogy and wishing she wasn’t having this conversation. She closed her eyes and forced herself to answer. “Have you talked to her about it?”

“No. I’m terrified of what she’ll say. What if I’m right and she thinks we’re a mistake? What if it’s really you who she wants?” Okay, that was interesting information. Was it possible Libby saw things differently now? Samantha wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she filed it away for examination later.

“As much as you may not want to, Tanya, I think communication is the way to go on this one. Avoiding the topic doesn’t make it any less real. And you might be surprised. This whole thing could potentially be all in your head.”

Tanya seemed to like this and sat a little taller in her chair as the salads (dressing on the side) were delivered. “You really are smart, Sam. I’m glad I called you. I’ll talk to her tonight.”

“That’s me,” Samantha said, turning to her salad. “Good old dependable Sam.”

“Should I talk to her before sex or after?”

Ahhhhh!
“I’ll let you decide.”

Tanya leaned forward, full of new scary energy. “And now that I have you here, let’s talk about chasing down that glow. I have a lot of ideas.”

“Fabulous,” she enthused dryly, understanding now that the budget had nothing whatsoever to do with the meeting. Samantha checked her watch and did a mad salad-to-exit calculation. It was time to get the hell back to Soho, because life was simply too short to spend on salad-time-with-Tanya.

But an hour later, as she stood on the crowded F train on the way back to work, her mind was still very much on the lunch from hell. What if what Tanya said was true? What if Libby did miss her? She might have a second shot. She hesitated at the prospect. There was a lot of water under that bridge. But then again, this was Libby she was talking about. Libby, who ticked all the boxes.

As she walked the short distance from the train to the loft, there was an extra spring in her step and a slight smile on her face. Life was full of endless possibilities.

*

Hunter stared at the blond woman wrapped in a towel, her head tossed back in surrender as she enjoyed a luxurious mineral bath. Damn, she was tired of looking at this woman, and she ran her mouse across the model’s face several times in angry protest.

She’d been working on the print ad for Serenity for hours but kept hitting the proverbial creative wall at every step. The image of the woman Serenity had supplied them with mocked her with all the relaxation and beauty and stupid luxurious blond hair piled on top of her head. Unable to stand the frustration a minute more, she shut her laptop with a noticeable thud.

Across the Savvy loft, Samantha jumped at the sound, turned, and regarded her calmly. “Problem, Hunter?”

They were alone in the office. And, outside of the occasional polite work exchange or apartment pleasantry, they hadn’t fully engaged in any meaningful conversation since the war that was Friday night. To say things felt awkward was an understatement.

But with Brooklyn and Mallory out on a client meeting, she and Sam were left to hold down the fort. It wasn’t all that unusual, as both of their jobs were mainly office based, though they were on their own more often now with the loss of the Foster account. Hunter pushed up from her desk and moved to the really uncomfortable couch that Mallory insisted looked awesome in the space. Hunter had a love-hate with this couch. It did look great. That part was true. It also was hella-hard to sit on. “The Serenity ad. I can’t get it right and I’m sick of the stupid model mocking me.”

Samantha took off the serious numbers glasses and rubbed her temple. “I’m sorry. The ad mocks you?”

“The woman in it does, yeah. She knows I’m struggling to get the opacity on the top layer perfect, and when I can’t, she just looks all peaceful to contrast how angry I feel. It’s her game. She’s mocking me and I’m breaking up with her.”

“Hmm. I had no idea stills of models could be so judgmental. Can I see?”

“The ad?” Hunter sighed, trudged over to her laptop, and joined Samantha at her desk. “Take a look. It’s my best work ever in life,” she said blandly, resting her chin in her hand in defeat.

Samantha studied the layout briefly before taking in air. “No way.”

“You’re that impressed?”

Samantha pointed at the screen and stared at Hunter, eyes wide. “She’s everywhere. It’s Tanya.”

“Tanya. And that would be?”

“Love of Libby’s life. Ruiner of happiness. Crazy representative of water and all things from the Earth.” Sam sighed and sat back in her chair. “No wonder she was mocking you. You’re lucky she doesn’t reach through that screen and devastate everything that makes you happy, because that would be a typical Tanya move.” And then she threw her head into her hands and downshifted. “That was mean. Tanya’s never been anything but nice to me. Creepy spa nice and annoying as hell, but still nice. I’m a mean person.” She lifted her head. “I didn’t used to be, but I am now. I don’t know why you talk to me.” She dropped her head on the desk with a bang.

Hunter took in the dramatic display with a quiet smile and placed a hand on Sam’s back. “Hey, accountant person. You’re not mean. You’re one of the nicest people I know. There is actually no better person than you. So knock it off.”

“Really?” Sam squeaked from the doldrums of the desk. She lifted her head again and the bright green eyes sparkled at Hunter. “Because you didn’t think so on Friday night. And we haven’t really spoken more than a handful of words since.”

Hunter shrugged a shoulder. “I know. I was in a bad place on Friday and acted like an asshole. The thing that I said, I didn’t mean, and you should know that if I could take back that whole interaction, I would.”

“Me, too. That was a horrible fight, and I take a lot of responsibility.”

Hunter appreciated that. “But I took it where it didn’t need to go. And I would like to apologize.”

“No, I’m sorry. I was so out of line it was crazy. I don’t want to fight with you. I happen to like you. A lot.”

Hunter reclined in her chair and grinned. “Oh yeah? What about me?”

Samantha blew out a breath. But she was smiling, and that was everything, because Hunter had missed that smile. It had a way of turning around her entire day. “We’re really doing this?”

“Oh, I think we have to.”

But then Sam did something Hunter wasn’t expecting. She took her hand, prompting the smile to fall from Hunter’s face as the moment shifted into something new, uncharted.

“You, Hunter Blair, are valuable to me. You are talented and beautiful, but more than that, you’re thoughtful. You look out for me. And when I’m around you, I feel challenged in the most unexpected of ways.”

They hit her hard, those words. Coming from Samantha, they carried a lot of weight. She and Samantha were staring at each other now and Samantha’s gaze dropped to her mouth. And God, that move affected Hunter. She had never wanted to kiss someone so badly in her life, and the knowledge that Sam was struggling too only doubled her desire. The air was thick around them and the sound seemed to fade from the room. Whatever was bubbling between them seemed to gain momentum by the hour. And the fight only seemed to have tossed gasoline on the fire. There was now a hunger in Sam’s eyes that had Hunter captivated and aching to touch her. Intimately. She reached out and cradled Samantha’s cheek, her skin soft and warm to the touch. At the contact, Samantha took a quick breath and hesitated a beat before backing out of the touch altogether.

“We should probably eat something,” she said quietly, but her eyes hadn’t once departed from Hunter’s lips. “I’ll pick us up something from, um, Lulu’s.” She blinked purposefully, grabbed some cash from her purse, and was gone, just like that.

Alone in the office, Hunter knew they were in sync. Maybe more than they had ever been. The question was whether to do anything further about it. She stared in frustration at the ceiling, wondering what she’d done to deserve this level of temptation surrounding the one girl she couldn’t have. Damn the universe and all of its complexities. She opened the laptop and stared at the model. “What?” she asked the screen, and shook her head. Spa bitches.

*

Twenty-five minutes later, Samantha made her way up the sidewalk, carrying a bag with their usual lunch fare: a turkey club for her and pastrami on rye for Hunter, homemade chips and two pickles on the side.

Luckily, her heart rate seemed to have returned to normal from the unexpected exchange at the office. She wasn’t sure how they’d gotten to snap-crackle-pop status so quickly, but they had. One minute they’d been talking about Tanya, and two seconds later, the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees and Samantha was having all sorts of…intense cravings.

She stole a chip from the bag as she turned the corner into the lobby of their building. There was purpose to her stride, as the world that had felt so wildly backward since her fight with Hunter was on its way to righting itself. Sure, there were still problems—she was already contemplating strategies to best keep herself from imagining Hunter naked for the rest of the afternoon. But anything was better than the not talking, even—Good God, what was
that
? Something small and furry interrupted her train of thought and darted across the lobby, prompting Samantha to freeze and crush the bag of food against her chest in defense. Moving like an NFL ball carrier in overtime, she hightailed it back to the street to spare her life and assess the situation.

Tiny rodent monster in the lobby.

Tiny rodent monster in the lobby.

It was the only sentence that would come. She didn’t do rodents. Ever. In fact, they were high on the list of greatest fears. And this one had a long tail, which made her cringe all over at just the idea.

After several cleansing breaths, Sam gathered enough courage to peer into the small lobby through the glass for any sign of Sly, their doorman. Sly would know what to do about the tiny rodent monster. He knew what to do about everything. But damn it all, there was no sign of Sly anywhere. Probably on his lunch break, which didn’t seem fair. Doormen didn’t need lunch when there were battles to fight. She took another look through the glass to pinpoint the TRM’s location. Gasp. But in even more frightening news, it was missing.

“It could be anywhere!” she shouted to the street, prompting a glance or two from passing pedestrians. “Okay. So what am I supposed to do here?” She studied the elevator. Probably ten steps away once she entered the building. But there was always the risk that the elevator wouldn’t arrive right off and she’d be stuck with the tiny rodent monster in a small space. What if it got near her? What
then
?

But she didn’t have a lot of choice. There was lunch and work and life to attend to. And she couldn’t let a little rodent monster crisis get in the way of that.

She rolled her shoulders.

She could be a badass against a little mouse. Hell, she rode the subway! She sagged in defeat at a new realization. This was New York City. Who was she kidding? TRM was likely a rat, and that meant she would die if there were contact. Not of disease, but of abject horror, and that was all people would talk about.

Samantha Ennis died via rat horror.

She shook herself out of the ever-spiraling
what-if
scenario. Any more thought on the topic would be detrimental to the goal. So she cleared her mind, threw open the door, and scurried the ten paces to the elevator bay. Mashing the Up button eighteen thousand times in succession didn’t seem to produce the elevator nearly as fast as she’d hoped. This was bad.
Come on. Come on. Come on
. And right on cue, there was the theme music from
Halloween
playing in her head. Excellent. Through it all, her eyes flew from one corner of the lobby to the other for any sort of furry movement. When she saw none, she shifted her focus briefly to the number readout above the bay and watched as the elevator descended from eight, seven, six, five, but then out of the corner of her eye was the slightest bit of rodent monster movement and oh, Warren Buffet, it was against the wall and sniffing its way in her direction! Was it a mouse or a rat? She didn’t know, but it had tiny little claws that made very faint clicking noises on the tile. A sound that would surely haunt her dreams for life.

She tried to move, but her body was in charge and clearly on some sort of lunch break, probably with Sly. With every ounce of strength she had, she managed to run. It’s possible she also screamed and tossed lunch in the air over her shoulder. She only knew that part in retrospect, ascertained from the safety of the sidewalk.

Finally, in desperation and fear for her life, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and called Hunter upstairs.

She answered on the second ring. “Did you get lost?”

“Something horrible has happened.”

Hunter’s voice switched quickly to concern. “Okay. What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Outside the building. There’s a giant rat. A rodent monster in the lobby. I’m not making this up. It won’t let me get to the elevator. It hates me. I hate it back.”

A pause. “A rodent monster?”

“I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here.”

“What do you mean it ‘won’t let you’?”

Sam paused and leveled with Hunter. “I can’t walk past it, Hunter. I just can’t. Do you think you could—?”

“On my way.”

She’d meant it, too, as three short minutes later, the elevator doors opened and Hunter strode into the lobby, cool as a cucumber, wearing her baby blue camo pants and her black V-neck. Hunter excelled at filling out that neckline. She tossed a glance at the monster, which appeared very interested in their discarded lunch, smiled to herself, and made her way outside.

“That’s your rodent monster?”

Samantha balked. “Um, yeah. Did you see that thing?”

“It’s a medium-sized mouse at best. And it’s probably just as terrified of you.”

“It’s a rat. And it’s evil.”

“It’s a mouse, and it probably wandered in when someone held the door open for too long. It happens. Not a big deal. Shall I walk you in?”