Double or nothing, I suppose. If you’re going to touch a woman in the Me Too era, you might as well make it worth the headline?
The funny part is that my gut reaction is to come up with something to say next that won’t make him uncomfortable. What would I do otherwise? Cause a scene? Claim harassment by a man who likely helped pay for the open bar I’m drinking at because he tapped my hip and clavicle? I hate myself a little for the passivity of it, but in professional situations like this, with my literal livelihood at stake, I revert to a scared little girl who has internalized that under no circumstances should she ruffle affluent society’s feathers.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
The irony isn’t lost on me. It’s not lost on BTH, either. Their slogan? Bite the hand, feed yourself. It’s just … harder than our feisty editorial team makes it look.
Beside me, Sasha swirls the melting ice in her glass and saves me from having to reply. “So, Dougie. You’re close with the Yankees marketing VP, right? Do you know if he’s considering new advertisers for next season? I have some suggestions—”
“They don’t need new advertisers, dear,” Dougie interrupts. “The old-school sponsorships are where the Yankees bankroll.”
Sasha nods silently and twists her cocktail glass between her fingertips, her lips pressed together, which is how I know she’s trying not to say something. Probably that she thinks the sports industry’s sponsorship structure is from the dinosaur age.
“Now.” Dougie turns back to me. “What exactly do you do for the Finance department?”
“She works with me.”
I whip around, hair tickling my bare shoulders as the voice that’s been haunting me for weeks envelops all three of us like a cloak.
It’s him. Alex Harrison.
His eyes lock with mine. As usual, looking into the light brown color of his irises is like diving headfirst into a vat of quicksand that plans to choke me to death. Also as usual, I can’t read the expression on his face. He is frustratingly unreadable.
“Alex.” Dougie straightens, but his effort to gain height over Alex is fruitless. Dougie is only an inch taller than me, while Alex, by contrast, is about as tall as Sasha.
Alex clears his throat. “Dougie. It’s good to see you.” But the roll in his jaw, the pinch between his brows says otherwise.
“Since Choate graduation, right?”
“Right,” Alex confirms.
What the heck is Choate? Sounds like a fancy private school in, like, the middle of Connecticut.
Something unpleasant settles onto Dougie’s features. “Did I hear correctly? You’re working for Little Cooper?”
“Yes. I’m the project manager for Bite the Hand.”
Dougie’s expression sours even more. There’s an awkward, pregnant pause. I glance at Sasha; she’s picking up on it, too, her face openly enraptured.
“Your father didn’t mention you were back stateside,” Dougie says.
Back stateside?
“Just recently.” Alex’s face softens into an easy smile as he reaches to shake Sasha’s hand. “Hey. I’m Alex.”
“Sasha Nicholson,” she offers, shaking. “You work with Casey?”
“Yep.” When he looks at me, a smirk plays on his lips, half there and then gone. “She’s … a pleasure.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, silently challenging the weak attempt at a compliment. A pleasure? It’s been exactly a month since Alex started with Bite the Hand, and in that time, I’m pretty sure I’ve been nothing short of a headache for him to work with.
It’s not that I’ve ever deliberately sabotaged him. I cordially reply to all his emails, file every expense report he sends my way. But I’m not that helpful, either—not the way I’m helpful to everyone else on the team—and Alex and I both know it. Just this morning, we got into a disagreement over payroll projections. I may have used the word “egregious,” and he may have used the phrase “penny-pinching.”
But the worst part about the whole thing—the most abhorrent, disgusting aspect of it all—is that Alex Harrison is good at his job, and it feels like he’s doing that to me on purpose. Picking at my insecurities, drawing them to the surface of my skin with all his sparkly ideas and pitches, his easygoing conversations with everyone but me, his casual mentions of knowing a guy who can totally help with that roadblock we just hit.
I’ve never been the type of person to know a guy.
“Can I steal Casey?” Alex asks as the hand not holding his beer dips into the pocket of his slacks. “I’ve got an idea to run by her that we should get aligned on before a big meeting tomorrow.”
“What meeting?” I ask, and Alex lets me read him just long enough that I understand he’s telling me just go with me, for once.
Dougie still looks like he’s trying to swallow a bar of soap. He clearly doesn’t like Alex, and that’s got to be his only redeeming quality. There’s history between them.
If I figure it out, maybe I can use it against them both.
“As long as you’re making me money,” Dougie concedes.
Alex gives him a tight smile and jerks a nod. He faces me with his body, eyebrows raised in question, and gestures with his beer toward a balcony that overlooks the Hudson River. I walk past the Yankees agents, managers, and bankrollers toward the sunlight whispering along the water. The balcony is broad and gold rimmed, and the warmth of the September evening bathes me as the air-conditioning dissipates.
Resting my elbows on the balcony’s ledge, I squint at the horizon. “What do we need to get aligned on?”
“Nothing.”
I frown and turn back to look at him.
He’s golden and hazy right now, the sun clinging to his frame like he’s a magnet for it, with messy black hair after a long day tugging at it and dark circles under his eyes. He’s calm now that he’s outside of work—no filler conversation, no bright grin.
What I’ve realized over the past four weeks is that Alex Harrison’s personality is like a charge. He makes people happier. Makes them feel more at ease. I’ve noticed it happen, again and again and again. Alex has an ability to endear people to him on their very first impression.
I have never related to someone less.
But for the first time since our elevator exchange the day he started, his focus on me feels singular, undiluted. Like this man is taking the full measure of me and expending no energy on a single other thought. It’s making my head spin, making my body react in a way I don’t want to be held responsible for. In fact, the way I’m physically drawn in only makes me more frustrated at the royal flush poker hand the universe dealt him. He’s attractive and rich and charismatic and smart. With millions of adoring HR reps.
Where is the fatal flaw?
“If it wasn’t about work, what did you really want?” I ask.
“I saw Dougie…” Alex drifts off, looking at a spot above my head. He doesn’t say it—touch you—but I blush anyway, like I’m the one who did something wrong. “Thought you might need an out from that conversation.”
I think about saying, I didn’t, or I could have walked away on my own, or even thank you. What comes out instead is “Why don’t you like him?”