The Girl He Needs (25 page)

“A surprise?” I ask in my most sultry tone.

“Yeah, a surprise. You know, like the surprise of finding out that your mom went to Vassar. Where did you go to school?”

“Let’s talk about you for a second.”

“I really don’t want to—”

“I really don’t want to talk about me or my mother.” I can’t help my clipped tone. Talking about my mother does that to me.

“OK. We’ll start with me. What do you mean you agree that I’m wasted on flight training?” He lightly traces his hand up my spine where the design covers my skin.

“I meant that you do a wonderful job there, but it will go nowhere other than being an instructor and owner. You can open more schools but where will that take you? You’re bigger than that. The idea about the startup is crazy good.”

He nods slowly. “I’ve wanted to buy into Mark’s business since I was sixteen years old. It’s been my sole plan. This idea, this timeshare thing is nuts. It’s unheard of. Besides the crazy,
crazy
capital it would be really hard work—”

“Because you’re no good at hard work.”

“I don’t know. It’s just an idea.”

I wrap my arms around his neck. “It’s a fabulous idea. You’re fabulous and...” I exhale slowly before I add, “I went to Yale.”

“Yale?”

“It was close to my house.”

“You don’t say. What did you study at this little hometown college?”

I press my lips together, dreading this moment. For two years, I’ve never shared this with anyone other than Jayne. Will it change the way he sees me? And if it does, how will I feel about that?

“Law.”

“You’re a lawyer?” He steps back. Though I’m still between him and the wall, he blocks me from running by boxing me in by bracing his arms against the wall. “That makes complete sense.”

“I’m not sure how to take that. I’d like to mention that Mark knew this about me and didn’t tell you.” It a juvenile effort to deflect the attention from me.

“That you’re a lawyer?”

“That I went to Yale.” I search his face and watch as he fights back the doubt.

He shakes his head. “He just forgot to tell me. He’s been busy.”

I cup his cheek. “Brinn, babe. You’re trying to buy into his business and he doesn’t disclose everything about a new employee. Temporary or not.” It breaks my heart watching him struggle to hold fast to his teenage dream. But if there were ever a time to consider all the options, now would be it.

The struggle of emotions is still clearly expressed on his face. It’s a lot of new information to hit a guy with.

He squints at me. “How is it even possible you’re old enough to be a lawyer? I thought you were twenty-four?”

I shrug again and skim my finger down the edge of his lapel. “I skipped a grade and took college courses my last two years of high school. I mentioned that, right?”

“Yeah, that part you did.” He looks over his shoulder, his eyes darting around the crowd before turning back to me. “You belong in this world. Don’t you?”

“Maybe once. Even then I’m not so sure because I was pretty lonely in that world.” I bite my lip.

His eyes wander over my face and stall at my piercing.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?” I venture.

“A lawyer? I’m wondering why I didn’t see it.”

“If it makes a difference, I’ve never sat the bar so technically I have a law degree but can’t practice.”

He nods slowly.

“Please don’t be mad.” I try not to beg but there’s a hitch in my voice that gives me away.

He takes my face between his hands. “Babe, I’m not mad. Surprised. But not mad. I’m just seeing things differently and—”

“Nothing has changed. We’re the same two people who met here tonight. Let’s not complicate this.” I step up on my toes and deliver a gentle kiss that ends with a little sucking of his bottom lip. “We still have this. And speaking of surprises...”

His laugh is soft and deep. “The surprise is that I got us a room here.”

“Ooh, that’s a good one.” I lift up again and whisper naughty suggestions in his ear.

“I’ve lost the ability to think,” he says before kissing me longer and harder than the one we started with.

“Let’s just hold on to this,” I whisper and make it a fervent wish.

Jayne snaps a pencil in two then flings the pieces on the ground. She jumps off her bar chair and stomps on the pieces, muttering words I’m sure would send the queen into an apoplectic fit. After she’s spewed her anger, she slides back onto the chair, pats down her hair, then stares up at the ceiling.

“Please distract me with something. Anything. I know you said the ball was uneventful but you have to tell me something. Make it up.” She looks at me and picks up a new pencil. “I beg you.”

Jayne’s working her books again as she does every two weeks. Forced torture, she calls it. When I asked her why she does it twice a month she said if she spread it out any further she’d never do it and that’s simply irresponsible.

“You should hire someone. I’ve done what I can for you, but if you can’t keep your shit organized, you’re a lost cause.”

I spent an entire Saturday setting Jayne up. Trying to make her life easier and streamlining her bookkeeping. It lasted an entire two weeks before it looked like a tree exploded in her home and store office. I take her books from her, close them up, and tuck them in her oversized bag she calls a briefcase—because it’s more fashionable then a square attaché case, her words. Papers are crammed at the bottom of the bag, all wrinkled and twisted.

“I said distract me, not belittle me.” She gives me the British two-finger version of up yours.

I laugh and give her a side hug. “OK, there was this one thing...”

“I knew you were holding out on me.” She gestures for me to continue.

I fill a couple of drink orders before I lean across the bar and say, “Remember when I told you we got a room afterward?”

She nods.

“Turns out Brinn rented a donkey and a trapeze so we could—”

Jayne chucks her pencil at me and covers her ears. “Shut up. Shut up. I don’t want to hear your lies or crazy sex-capades.”

“You said make something up.” I laugh then sip at my iced water.

“Honestly, that’s it? You two are disgusting. You’re so smitten.” Her expression is hopeful and playful.

“I’m having a good time,” I say and pour a Riesling for Samantha, a customer who comes in on Wednesdays looking as if she’s taken on the world and the world kicked her ass. Twice. Her standard is to imbibe two glasses of Riesling, briefly participate in the conversation, maybe laugh, and then leave looking a little less worked over. Lately, she’s been staying after the vapors from her second drink have long left the glass.

“Both of you need a good time. Especially Samantha here, who continues to torture herself every Wednesday,” I say.

I’ve learned over the course of the last few weeks that Samantha is a lawyer and Wednesdays are her pro bono days. The stories she hears shatter her and, maybe it’s because she seems so adrift that I confided in her that I, too, have a law degree. Since then she’s been trying to coax me into coming to work for her and eventually sitting the bar and mentoring under her.

“I have a good time waiting for me at home. I should get there sooner rather than later.” She places a few bills on the bar. “If you come work for me I wouldn’t have to come in and drink on Wednesdays.”

“If I came and worked for you,
I’d
need the drinks. Thanks, Samantha but no thanks.”

“If something changes, the cruise line doesn’t work out, you know where to find me.” She waves on her way out and I clear her space, readying it for the next person.

“You just like what you can do at your job. With your boss,” says Jayne.

“When you say it like that it sounds so dirty.” I wag a brow at her.

We laugh as Pippa joins us. She moves Samantha’s seat aside and lifts her leg, placing it on the bar, stretching it.

“Bloody hell, Pips. This is a bar not a yoga studio. Put your leg down.” Jayne turns to me, rolls her eyes, then shrugs. “It’s her mating call.”

“You two will miss me when I’ve gone,” she says and moves into tree pose.

“Shall I take you to the airport now?” Jayne teases.

“I might actually miss you, Pippa.” There is some truth to my words.

Both friends look at me, surprised.

“You’re like a conversation piece. A coffee table book. Look at what my friend Pippa can do. You’re a tool to help us pick up guys. They see how limber you are and they’re all in.” I lean across the bar to briefly squeeze her hand. It baffles me the speed in which these two have become important to me, having never experienced my own girlfriend clique before.

“As if you have ever picked up any guy when we’ve gone out,” Jayne says.

“We do make a lovely trio,” Pippa says and moves into the splits, balancing between two stools. “If you are ever in India, Josie, look me up.”

I smile and nod my head toward incoming. Two guys, both college-aged, come to stand beside Pippa and strike up a conversation. Pippa waves at us and we laugh.

“She’s brilliant,” Jayne says and I agree. Pippa knows how to work a room.

“Meet my cousin,” Pippa says and introduces Jayne to the friend that was working as the first guy’s wingman. Unfortunately, he’s not very tall and when Jayne stands, she towers over him. He backs away and stands behind his friend.

“He’s wearing pleated pants,” I whisper to her. “As if you could really be interested in a guy with pleated pants.”

“This is true. He’s more your size anyway,” she says.

I shake my head. “I already have my good time.”

We watch Pippa ease herself from the stools and walk to a table full of other guys, apparently the friends of the two that approached her.

“She’s such an attention whore,” I say.

“Well, here comes Mr. Good Time now.” Jayne arches her brows and I look toward the door.

Brinn comes across the room and slides onto a stool. His smile gives me a warm fuzzy, essentially making my day.

“What’ll it be, handsome?” I lean on the bar and present my best smile.

“How about a kiss?”

“Mmm. See, I’m at work and that’s probably not going to fly since the bosses’ daughter is right there.” I jerk my head in Jayne’s direction. “How about I get you a drink?” I tease though I’d like nothing more than to lean across the wood counter and plant my lips on his. “I can meet you by the restroom at my break and maybe our lips can accidentally collide.”

“I can’t wait. Until then I’ll take a Guinness. What’re you doing later?”

“This tall guy. Short hair. Has a thing for flying. I’m going to so totally do him. Really work him over.” I pour his draft and place the dark stout in front of him.

“Lucky bastard,” he says with a wink.

“Josie?” I hear my name from behind Brinn and look over his shoulder to find the source.

I can’t believe my eyes.

“Max? What are you doing here?” Maxwell Gardner, my ex-fiancé, is staring at me. He looks the same, maybe a tad tanner, which shows off his dark hair and eyes. His suit is not the Brooks Brother’s type he used to favor but looks like Armani. I move from behind the bar but freeze midstride when I spot my mother walking toward me, tucking her phone into her purse.

“Hello, Josephine.” She hasn’t aged as well as I’d expected. Though her mouth has always been a thin line expressing her perpetual irritation, it now has a slight downward curve. She looks tired. There are more lines around her eyes and a pallor that she’s never had before.

“Mother?”

“Is she wearing Chanel?” Jayne asks in a hushed voice.

I nod. “Mother,” I say again in a flatter, here-it-comes voice, which is hard to emulate as I am ticked off six ways to Sunday.

I glance at Max, who’s giving me an apologetic shrug. Mother steps closer and scans me up and down, at least the parts of me she can see, and her lips disappear altogether. She lets out a sigh though her nose as she looks heavenward.

She steadies her stare on me. “Josephine. Might I have a word with you?” She tucks her bag under her arm and narrows her eyes at my piercing.

“All right.” I wave for her to continue.

“Privately. Might I have a word with you privately?” She gestures away from the bar. Her bobbed dark hair still falls to her shoulders; nothing about her has changed. Her limited wheelhouse of emotions are the same. Disappointment, frustration, and impatience have left their mark, creasing her face. I used to look so much like my mother, before I left but I hope, now that I’ve changed my path, that laugh lines are what will age my face. I don’t know what she could possibly say to me, but I’ve no interest in hearing it considering what she kept from me about Will.

“I’m working, Mother. I can’t just walk away.”

“Oh, I see you finally learned something.” She arches a brow.

“I walked right into that one,” I say to Brinn.

He’s looking from Max, to my mother, and to me, his beer forgotten.

“Mother. Max. Would you care to have a seat? I have a break coming up. We could talk then.” I turn to fill a few orders and then turn back to Max. “Why are you here?”

“It was either me or Stuart,” he says.

I shudder. My kid brother Stuart is my parent’s sycophant, who went from sticking toads in my bed to hacking into my computer to steal my term papers in the course of one summer.

“Ah, I see. Thanks then, I suppose. What can I get you to drink? Mother, a vodka tonic?” I pull a tumbler from the shelf and make her drink. All my life all she’s ever drank was vodka tonics or wine. The conversation is lacking as everyone is looking from one another and my mother is laser focused on me.

“Mother. Max, I want you to meet my friends Jayne and this is...this is Brinn.” I gesture to them and give Brinn a smile.

Max gives Jayne a quick handshake but when he and Brinn clasp hands it appears to be a pissing contest of sorts determined by whose grip is stronger. Brinn wins.

“I’m assuming you found me through your old school chum Suzanna Henderson.” I give Brinn an I-told-you-so look.

“Actually, we already knew where you were.” Cassandra Woodmere sips her drink as if the glass might not be clean enough for her.