Bill sits there, staring at me for a long time. He’s a man of few words, but when he speaks it always counts.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” His question catches me off guard.
He doesn’t respond, just stares.
I finally shrug. “I don’t know. Lot of shit going on, I guess. About to make some major business moves. It’s the right thing to do and I’ve run the numbers a thousand different ways, had experts look at it. All the right people. It just, still makes me nervous I guess.”
“Anything worth doing will make you nervous, kid.”
“That’s the truth.” I sigh. “I guess I’m in that pre-fight mode right now. The waiting and anticipation is the worst part. Once you get in the octagon, everything disappears, you get laser-focused or the other guy might kill you. It’s just the waiting that fucking—”
He cuts me off. “This is all about business?”
Talking to him is like being on the mat and fighting someone. Even when he talks, he tries to catch you off guard. I think for a second and shrug. “Yeah, I think so.”
He nods and makes some kind of grunt that almost sounds like he laughs but keeps it in his chest.
“What?” I ask.
He leans back and smiles. “What do you mean what?”
“I know that look, the way you’re… Whatever.” I hold a hand out at him. “Just say what you have to say.”
He shakes his head. “Nothing, you just look like you’re having female problems.”
I shake my head and snicker. “It’s not that.” Harlow Collins flashes front and center in my mind and takes over my entire brain, just when I’d almost forgotten about her.
He leans back even farther in the chair and folds his hands together. “Sure.”
“I’m not lying, you old asshole.” I grin, stand up, and walk out of the office about the time Pedro comes around the corner.
Bill gets up and walks over to him.
“I’m going home, fuckers. It’s been a long day. You better be getting ready because a call is coming for another fight, Mandez.”
Pedro says, “Let us know how everything works out.”
I freeze in my tracks and spin around. They’re both standing there, laughing their asses off. It might be at my expense, but seeing them like this takes me back to when I was Pedro’s age, training with Bill in this same gym.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You call her for a date yet, Mr. I Don’t Do Romance?”
They both start laughing again, like they know Harlow Collins is consuming me from the inside out.
Fortunately, I have no need for a woman in my life right now, and maybe ever. “Call who?”
“Oh please, I saw you staring at her the whole reception. You turn into a different person when she’s around.”
Bill grins his ass off.
I try to think up some witty retort but all I can come up with is, “I… do not!” It may have been the lamest fucking thing I’ve ever said in my life. What is this woman doing to me?
“You kinda do. Just call her. Stop being a pussy.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you two. Get to work.”
Just as I turn around, Bill says, dry as all hell out of nowhere, “Let me know if you need some pointers.”
“Oh what the hell do you know about women, you old bastard?”
“Nothing, but we can go out on the mat and Pedro can teach you how to salsa.”
Pedro looks like he might piss himself, then he does a little dance back and forth.
He’s about to die while he does it, probably because Bill rarely cracks a joke and when he does it brings the house down.
I stand there, doing my best not to laugh, trying to hold it in, but it’s not working. Finally, I just flip them both the bird and head toward the door. Just then my phone goes off and I look down at it.
Well, I’ll be fucked sideways.
It’s Harlow Collins calling.
Because I just have to win, no matter what, I hold up my phone at them. “That’s actually her calling right now. I don’t chase pussy. It chases me.”
Pedro waves a hand out at me. “Pinche mentiroso.”
I shake my head. “Come look at the phone and tell me I’m lying.” I hold it out for a second, then take off walking because there’s no way in fuck I’m letting them hear this conversation.
Mainly because I know exactly what she’s calling for. She found the meeting and wants to cancel.
Not gonna happen, Harlow. Not on my watch.
Chapter Six
Harlow Collins
Who the fuck lets a phone ring eight times before they answer it?
“Hello.”
“Don’t hello me.” I glare and bark the words into my phone.
“Well, I believe that’s the universal greeting, at least in English-speaking countries, so are you suggesting we change an entire culture?”
Ugh, he’s so damn smug and condescending. I could tear his head off. “You know what I meant, asshole. You got into my phone.”
He gasps, audibly. “I most certainly did not.”
My free hand balls into a fist, and my nails dig into my palm. I have to force myself not to grind my teeth. Why is he being a fucking dickhead? Is it impossible for him and my brothers to act like adults once in a while?
Fucking men.
“You put a meeting in my calendar. You took my shit off the nightstand, something that did not belong to you, then rifled through it. I’m pretty sure it was against the law.”
“Gonna press charges on me?”
“I fucking might.”
“Bring the handcuffs, we’ll have some fun.”
I can practically feel this asshole smirking at the phone, like this is all a game to him. It makes me want to kick him right in the nuts. I stand up and pace around my office. I finished my work fifteen minutes ago, but I make myself stay until seven every night and I still have about three minutes to go. If I walk out before then I’ll feel guilty.
“You need to quit that shit.”
“Quit what shit?”
“The flirting, the innuendos. We fucked. It was moderately decent. End of story. Go on our separate ways.”
He scoffs. “Moderately decent.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Know what else you said?”
“What?” I should not have answered that. Goddamn it.
“My name, as you came on my dick. Sounded a lot better than moderately decent.”
I palm my forehead and my cheeks heat up. Damn it, why did he have to remember that part? I stand in front of the door, tapping my foot and checking my phone for it to be seven.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t save any of those naked pictures I saw. I wanted to, trust me. But it felt like a violation of privacy.”
I’ll kill him. No, that’s what he wants, to get a rise out of me. I take a deep breath and attempt to calm myself. “Why are you doing this? Why’d you put that meeting in my phone?”
“Because I want to meet, like those words I typed on your phone say. That’s how that works. There’s no secret message. It means what it means.”