Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (34 page)

“I’ve
accepted I lost Plus. That it was my own fault. People don’t change easily and
I’m useless because I keep making the same mistakes. I get so focused I lose
sight of the bigger picture. The only difference between the night of the
anniversary and now is that I know it. You won’t want me back and I can’t see
how I can help you.”

He
expected blank looks, or if this was some kind of weird-ass test, cheering. They
were both grinning at him like he’d personally proven Einstein’s theory about
gravitational waves.

“What?”

Owen
said, “He’ll do.”

“Peace
out. Whatever it is you’re thinking, I’m not your man. Owen, I’ll sit on your
family for you but you don’t want me back inside Plus. Dev will come up with a
way to get you out of the Ziggy hole. You can get—”

“Don’t
make me come over there and beat you,” Owen said.

Reid
thumped his head back on the wall behind him twice. “Not funny.”

“You,
we want you back and you don’t have a clue why and that’s the best part,” said
Sarina. “Also, we need you back. You’re probably the only one who understands
how Ziggy is supposed to work. Want. Need, it’s a pretty compelling argument,
don’t you think?”

He
shook his head. That latter part made sense, but the rest of what she said,
horror story from central casting and he didn’t want to be the first to die. Again.

“You
didn’t need to change. You needed to wise up. You needed to grow some emotional
intelligence and get a clue about how you impacted people. You needed to
understand you can lift the spirits of a whole room or make everyone in it want
to slash their wrists,” she said.

“Occasionally
at precisely the same time. I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“Shut
up and listen.”

He
threw his hands up. “See.”

She
laughed. “The cult of Reid McGrath is alive and well. That thing you wrote,
inadvisable in two hundred million different ways, but it worked. If you’d
looked at your messages you’d know how the press treated it as if you were some
New Age guru who’d seen the light.”

Reid
winced. Owen said, “I made that face too, every time I saw the media roundup.”

“You’re
way more likeable when you admit to flaws,” said Sarina.

“Wouldn’t
go as far as likeable,” said Owen. “I’d give him tolerable.”

Not so
long ago Reid would have insisted being likeable had nothing to do with
business, that it was irrelevant at best, a hindrance at worst. Likeable didn’t
get you up mountains or out of danger quickly. Being an asshole was better for
getting people to do things they never thought possible, but now he wasn’t so
sure. Perhaps less asshole and more coach was a better approach. Perhaps trying
to understand what each person needed most to do their best, like Zarley’s
Costin, was the secret.

“My
inner asshole still needs rehab.”

Owen
groaned and Sarina grinned at him. “Admitting it is a good first step. Tell me
you haven’t learned something from all this, from losing Plus and finding
Zarley.”

Giraffe
heart explosion. Blood and viscera all over the room. He’d learned two hundred
million different things from trying to escape into a bottle; from pole dancers
and fast women who tried to pick him up in bars, from the wisdom of multiple
stools, to joining the mile-high club and finding a comrade in the dark; from
disappointing the people he loved the most, and facing the fact he was a half-formed
man who had a long way to go to be whole, but had found the incredible woman
who would stand by him while he worked it all out.

But
getting Plus back, that was outside the realm of any magic Zarley had and any
expectation he’d factored for.

“I
can’t do it.”

“You
can. We’ll help,” said Sarina.

“I’m not
helping, not till I can piss standing up,” said Owen.

Could
he do this without fucking it up? Zarley had wanted rules and then only came up
with two, that he couldn’t buy her and she needed him to need her. “I need a
rule.”

“The no
asshole rule is still in effect,” said Sarina.

He
smiled for the first time since seeing Owen, pale and bruised and scarily
packed in his hospital bed as if he was never getting free of the drips and
wires and cages.

“It
needs a modifier.” It needed Zarley’s rule. “You can’t buy me.”

Sarina
clapped her hand on her knee. “Bargain. My best hire ever. You’re going to work
for free.”

He’d
consider it. Strike a deal where he only earned a payment if Ziggurat launched
on time with no major bugs or loss of customers. “You can’t buy my way out of
trouble. I need to be held fully accountable for any misery I make.” He pointed
at Sarina. “You can’t come along behind me and mop up the tears. Dev can’t
quietly talk folk I’m evil to off the ledge. I can’t learn to be less of an
asshole if you protect me from the damage I cause.”

Sarina
looked at Owen. “You sure you want him back?”

Owen
blinked with heavy lids, then pinned Reid’s eyes with his. “Pretty damn sure
I’m not going to remember any of this. Go back to work Reid, and don’t ever let
Zarley go.”

When he
left Owen’s room and met Zarley in the waiting room, Reid’s giraffe heart was
back inside his chest, and pounding an entirely different rhythm, to an old
favorite tune with a sultry pole-dance beat.

THIRTY

Zarley woke with a start and glanced at the clock. 4 a.m., was he
kidding?

Reid
slipped into the bed beside her. “Sorry, Flygirl, was trying not to wake you.”

His
voice was froggy with exhaustion and she was well and truly awake. “It’s almost
morning.”

“Hmm, need
a few hours.”

He’d called
at ten, told her not to wait up. It’d been this way since they got back, but
never this late. He worked and worked and rarely came home to do anything but
sit in his office and work or crash into bed, where they inevitably made each
other feel good before Reid slept like someone pulled the plug on him.

Cara
joked that if she didn’t see Reid in passing at Plus where she worked in the
customer team, Zarley could well have killed him and disposed of the body in an
acid bath. The occasional random men’s t-shirt left over a chair or an empty juice
carton on the kitchen counter were merely placed there strategically to cover
her tracks.

Cara’s main
concern about living with them hadn’t come to pass. Cara wasn’t the third
wheel, Reid was.

And
sometimes Zarley was.

“You
can’t keep working like this.”

Other
gymnasts had said, you can’t keep training this hard, but she had.

“Hmm.” He
was almost asleep, but roused himself enough to find her hand to hold.

It felt
mean to be angry with him, but she was. Not for waking her, and not for
anything he’d done or said. He’d made it easy for her and Cara to take over his
home, set it up the way they were most comfortable, stock his cupboards with
food and throw out the chipped plates and cracked cups for new ones. It was
almost as if this apartment was theirs and Reid was the other roommate.

And
that’s not how she’d thought it would go. Not that there’d been much time to
think, the accident had cut their stay in Paris short, and Reid had gone from
the airport to the hospital where he’d spent the next two days and then started
back at Plus in his old job as CEO.

She’d
expected him to work hard, but not like this. He worked like he was purpose-built
to handle complex problems at the speed of light. He worked like obsession was
for beginners and full-scale commitment was the new black. He didn’t seem to
tire abnormally or get overly grumpy, and he didn’t lose interest in her, he
simply transformed into a man whose most intense relationship was with his
work.

And she
pined for him.

He
worked like he was in love with the work and that was the most disturbing thing
of all. Because she should’ve known that. He’d hacked his life around work. And
he’d taken it to the extreme when he’d lost Plus. It’s what his drunken nights
at Lucky’s were about. It’s what the empty apartment and the fridge full of
pre-prepared food meant. It’s why he had cracked unmatched tableware, and homemade
vintage t-shirts alongside his fully equipped office and gym.

Everything
around him existed to facilitate the ease with which he worked. Anything that
didn’t was peripheral. Who needed nice dinnerware or a dining table when you
were never around to use them? Who needed a fancy car when you wanted the quickest
ride to work or a second stool when you barely used one?

All of
which left her scrambling, because maybe she was peripheral too.

Like
she’d once thought Reid would be for her.

And
that’s what made her angry. Maybe what they had together was the equivalent of
a holiday romance. Extraordinary but unreal, and hard to keep hold of when the day
to day took over.

Or
maybe it was because he was getting on with his life and hers had stalled.

Zarley
watched Reid dream, his eyeballs moving under his closed lids, and knew she was
done with sleep. In her dream she had a job and a lock on what she’d do with
her degree. She’d been unlucky so far looking for work. Lizabeth, who was
waitressing and hated it, tried to set up her up with a job but it fell
through. She’d applied at the other bars in town that had dancers, only to be
told there was a waiting list because no girl liked student debt. Her Madame Amour
experience had earned her nothing except curiosity.

That
was the difference between her and Reid now. When they’d met, he’d been waiting
to work out his next move, and now it was her turn. There was no reason to feel
panicky about that. The famous Madame Amour didn’t always know what she wanted
to do either.

But waiting
wasn’t something Zarley was good at. Waiting with no particular purpose set
against it was worse. It made her feel dependent on Reid in a way she knew
wasn’t healthy. He refused money for rent and used a fancy app to pay utilities
so she never saw a bill. Cara insisted on buying their food and Reid had always
had a cleaner. Zarley hadn’t felt so redundant since leaving gymnastics. And
that thought scared her. That’s when she’d filled her life with distractions to
avoid dealing with the future.

The upside
was it made school easy. Without work it was a breeze to get through her course
load.

In
another ten minutes the alarm would sound. Surely Reid could have a little
longer. She’d wake him at 6.30. She sat to reach across him to turn it off and
his eyes opened.

“Oh,
baby, go back to sleep.”

He
blinked and yawned. “Nah, whole team is coming back in early. Need to be there.
If I get moving now I have time for breakfast with you.” He yawned again. “Be
my date?”

She
wasn’t angry with Reid; she was annoyed with herself. “Love to have breakfast
with you. Is that when you’ll tell me you’re not killing yourself and it won’t
always be like this?”

He
yawned again. “Want me to lie?”

Her
face must’ve have shown no, not ever. He took her by the shoulders and pulled
her to his chest. “I’m not killing myself. We have another month or two of
deadline crunches to fix the problems and then it will ease off. But Owen is
going to be out for at least another few months.”

“You
don’t have to make excuses.”

“I’m
not. This is how it is, how it has to be, and how I like it.”

And
wasn’t that a pinprick to her balloon.

Being
right wasn’t as much fun as it was cracked up to be.

“This
time around I have a better handle on my temper. I haven’t called anyone an
idiot yet or implied they bought their quals from a Russian dating website. I’ve
only yelled once and I apologized straight off. Back in the day if I yelled at
someone, I’d sulk for a week afterward. Meant I was often sulking. Apologizing
is better, even if I was right about the work, it’s never okay to take it out
on the person.”

Yeah,
see previous thought.

“Are
you happy, Flygirl?”

The
question caught her off guard and her hesitation made him frown. The alarm went
off and he rolled to shut it off. She wasn’t living above a Korean restaurant. She
wasn’t shutting herself off from life outside college. She lived with a man she
loved and being jobless was a temporary thing and so was Reid’s current
fanaticism.

He’d
been terrified of going back to Plus, not because of the work he’d need to do,
or facing people he’d humiliated himself in front of, but because he didn’t
trust he wouldn’t make the same mistakes of judgment he’d always made. Knowing
he was doing better made her happy.

When he
turned back around she launched herself at him. “I’m happy. I’d be happier if I
knew what I was doing for work, if I didn’t feel like I was being kept by my
rich boyfriend.”

“But I
want to keep you. Forever and ever.”

Hard to
stay angry at anything.

“You’ll
find a job, but it wouldn’t be so bad if you focused on school and what you
want to do after.” After was a haze of impossible dreams, inspired by a French woman
who made success from wild creativity, business nous and surgical precision.

“I’ll
get fat and lazy.”

He
laughed and slapped her rump, then his thumb moved to its favorite resting
place in the dimple of her sacrum. “You know what I think about that.”

He
wouldn’t kiss her because he’d tumbled into bed without showering and needed a
shave and a toothbrush. But he wanted to. “Come get ready with me.”

By
which he meant, let’s waste a lot of water while we have some fun.

She
gave him a head start and when she went to him, he’d shaved. He stood under the
shower water, his arms braced on the tiles, head down so the spray pelted his
neck and broad shoulders.

The
first time they’d showered together she’d given herself a head start then
rocked his world. He’d been a workload of jitters and awkward expectations he’d
embarrass himself, and she’d been high on having him in her care. He still made
her feel high, but they were equals in the pleasure stakes, knowing exactly
what to do to please and surprise each other.

She
stepped into the water, wrapping herself around his back. “Maybe one day I
won’t adore seeing you like this.”

“Wet,
soapy and desperate?”

She
traced his spine with her index finger and he flexed under her hand. “The
desperate part is the best bit.” She enjoyed his body. She loved his uncensored
reactions. No one had taught him to be guarded physically, to try to be too
cool. He’d shown her what he felt from that first night and that hadn’t
changed.

Smoothing
her hand over his hip and across to an impressive start to the morning, she
said, “Did I dream you came home at 4 a.m.? Do I dare take advantage of your
weakened state on two hours sleep to do unspeakably depraved things to you? Will
you do ravishingly bad things to me?”

He
turned his head to look at her, narrowed eyes, wicked lips. “Yes, and yes
please.”

She put
her teeth to his shoulder blade and wrapped her hand around him, making him
groan, then scooted under his arm to face him. “I miss you.”

She
hadn’t meant to say that. She tried to cover it by pulling on his neck for a
kiss, which he gave in to. She was being silly, as if she was the one who’d not
had enough sleep.

“I’m
right here, Flygirl, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Except
to work where he’d spend the best of himself, leaving her with this. But this,
the sex, was good so she pushed the thought aside as she slid her body against
his.

They
wasted a lot of water and there was no time for breakfast.

It was
another week before they ate a meal together.

And a
month before Zarley got the news about Lou. She meant to tell Reid but as she’d
found work in a sports warehouse and was back to juggling college and her
retail shifts, and he was still working crazy hours, their time together was
precious. They didn’t often use it for talking. Not with words anyway.

She
kept meaning to tell him, but he had a string of presentations to give which
had him on the road traveling for weeks and even though she wanted his advice,
he was tense about facing stockholders for the first time since his flame-out
without Owen or Kuch at his side. She didn’t want to distract him. Besides she
had Cara.

Until
Cara decided to move out.

“It’s
not that I don’t love Reid’s place. It’s not that I don’t love he’s never there
and you are. But I’m living with a couple and you do a lot of coupling, and
that’s not my idea of a good time.” Cara said that as she inspected the oven in
their old, entirely renovated apartment above what was now a craft supply
store. No more Kimchi. The possibility of random glitter. “And with the rent
break I don’t even need to share.”

The
idea of Cara moving out shouldn’t have depressed Zarley but it did. Cara was
moving on with her life too.

“You should
do it, Zar.”

Cara
meant talk to Vi about her idea for Lucky’s. It made her gut churn. “It’s okay
telling you my bright ideas. Different talking to anyone else.” And Vi would be
better off selling her inheritance from Lou to a developer. That’s what the
financial advisor and the lawyer told her. And real estate developers had come
knocking, waving big fat promises. Who’d have guessed Lou owned not only the
property Lucky’s was in, but the two buildings beside it. Vi was now a wealthy
woman and Zarley had been happy to help her work through what that meant.

“How’s
it different? What did Reid say?”

“Do you
like the color they used on the walls?”

“You
didn’t tell him.”

“He’s
busy. You know that.”

“It’s
not like my little cubicle is anywhere near his.”

Still,
Cara saw more of Reid than Zarley did and when all three of them were home, it
was Cara and Reid who talked up a storm, arguing about people and events, laughing
at things Zarley had no part in. The company limbo contest, the double order
mix-up of pizza on Pizza Friday that got eaten to the last anchovy. The time
Reid told Doug, the head of sales, his waitress mother could do a better job of
creating a pricing strategy than Doug, and then had to apologize, even though
the whole sales team agreed, and someone asked when Mrs. McGrath might be
available.