Alex laughs gently, and I do, too.
“I judged you before I knew you, and I’m just really, really sorry.” I hope he can hear the sincerity in my tone. For once, I hope that emotion is on my sleeve. “You’re hardworking, and thoughtful, and good at your job. Great. You’re great at your job. Please don’t put in your notice. We would definitely be worse off without you.”
The whites of his eyes are visible now, and they’re shining with something that looks a lot like triumph. “I had a feeling you were worth waiting for. And anyway, I could have been more forthcoming. Cleared up your misconception much earlier.”
“I wouldn’t have, if I had been in your position,” I whisper. “It takes me a while to open up to people. I should have known to be more patient with you because I need other people to be patient with me.”
He nods. “Okay. Noted. I can be patient with you, Casey. Very, very patient.”
I feel the ghost of his breath on my face. Moonlight is shining through the window, illuminating the hairs on his arm, standing on end. The blanket he’s using doesn’t even cover his feet. “You’re cold,” I say.
“I’m fine,” he whispers.
I lift the edge of his comforter, creating a cavernous shadow of warmth between his body and mine. Wordlessly, Alex slides closer to me in the dark. My heart stumbles over itself as I let the comforter fall back on top of us both.
“Comfortable?” his voice rumbles. My eyes peek open to find his closed.
“Mm-hmm,” I acknowledge.
“Night, Casey.”
I yawn. “Good night, Alex.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Someone is pounding on the door.
At first, it’s in my dream. Heavy footsteps on stairs. They beat like a drum, a prelude to foggy Shakira lyrics, and then, the pounding is here—on the other side of my skull—and I’m awake.
The crown of my head catches sharply on Alex’s chin. “Oomph,” I grunt. My hands fumble for purchase against his chest and I push, sliding sideways off him.
His arms pull my body back against his as he shifts onto his side. “They’ll go away.” His voice scrapes along my ear, blowing hair around my temples. “Promise.”
This is … the coziest. Ultimate. Unbeatable. I feel practically drugged.
“Who is it?” I croak.
“Someone who’s got the wrong apartment,” he grumbles.
Surprisingly, there’s no awkward morning talk, no weird adjustment between halfway-drunk-bed-buddies and mostly-sober-morning-after. I got up too many times in the middle of the night for that. Every time I woke up to pee, Alex would shift and wake up in the process, releasing me from his arms—which I’d rolled right into somewhere during the stage of falling asleep. After the third time I came back from the bathroom, and he wrapped me up again like a koala against a tree, he simply murmured against my neck, “You need a catheter.”
Curse my kitten bladder.
There is a kind of suspension of disbelief hanging between us. I don’t—can’t—think about our physical positioning too hard right now. But also to note: why didn’t my other two one-night stands want to cuddle for warmth?
Can I even classify what’s happening here as a one-night stand?
Knock, knock, knock!
Alex groans. Or maybe growls. The sound vibrates through his body and into mine. And then, that voice—the same one from two days ago, outside the elevator in our building lobby—booms. “Alex, it’s your father!”
His body stiffens around me.
We both shoot out of bed like guilty, horny teenagers. I scramble back on my knees, lose my balance, fall backward. My head hits the carpeted ground with an unforgiving thunk. The comforter is tangled around my legs. I squirm like a fish on the floor, trying to unwrap my blanket burrito, spitting out my hair and also eating it.
Like I’m no heavier than a tissue or a leaf, Alex easily lifts me onto my feet. I stand still as he unwraps me, silent as the grave. When his eyes catch mine, he points toward a murdery-looking door beside the hot plate.
“Is that where you stash your dead bodies?” I hiss.
Alex puts a finger to my lips, his eyes blown wide. “No, just my home-brewery kit.”
“Alex!” his father shouts, pounding on the door.
He points again toward the closet, more insistently this time.
A flash of anger burns through me at being treated like his dirty little secret. “Are you embarrassed of me?”
He stares, expression flat. “Do you really want the chairman of the board of the company at which you are employed to find you hungover in my apartment?”
Okay, fine, he’s got a point. “Right.” I nod. “Right, I’ll just get in the … in the home brewery.”
I pad across the apartment in my bare feet and twist the doorknob as quietly as possible. Inside, the pantry has been converted into a beer fanatic’s starter kit. A stainless steel brew pot, thermometers, and two plastic tubes feeding into white buckets sit between a few glass jars fermenting amber liquid. I shoot one last look of incredulousness at Alex before I climb between the assemblage and pull the door closed behind me. My gaze focuses on the space underneath the door—my only source of light in this black hole of fermenting yeast.
Alex opens his front door, and footsteps barrel into the room. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” Robert huffs angrily.
“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday,” Alex retorts. “And do you really want to talk about ignoring phone calls? How did you find out where I live? How did you even get in the front door?”
There is a moment’s pause, and then—“I got someone in HR to look up your employee profile.” My jaw drops, but Robert’s casual tone conveys he does cute, illegal little things like this all the time. “And then I … followed someone inside.”
After a beat of silent disbelief, Alex says, “I’m pretty sure that’s a violation of company policy, and also probably the law.”
His dad sighs. “I’m heading out of town. I had to see you in person.”
Alex shifts on his feet. “What is it?”
There are more footsteps. It sounds like pacing. “Monday morning, news is going to break that I’m stepping down from the board of LC.”
Holy crap.
This is … kind of a big deal. Is Robert leaving because of Dougie? Can he really not stand to be associated with him to the point that he’s resigning from the board entirely? Of a company he’s worked for his entire adult life?
My thoughts jump to Tracy. She had to have known this was happening when we talked in the break room. She’s the CFO, for crying out loud! If Tracy knew Robert was stepping down, why did she even bother tasking me with researching his feud?
And then it clicks: Even with Robert gone, she thinks Dougie still won’t be a good enough CEO. She’s trying to build a case against him.
“Are you doing this because of me?” Alex asks. “I’ll just quit. If I’d known you would’ve had to—”