Definitely not. I shook my head.
“You’re missing out, K. I’ve got some really fantastic new material I tried out on Gwendolyn last night.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tilted it toward the ceiling.
Please, God, give me patience right now.
“All right, all right,” Thatch conceded. “Not in the mood for Gwendolyn either. I get it.”
I sighed.
“I mean, I have a hard time actually getting it, you know? I’m pretty much always in the mood for Gwendolyn. Or Amber. Or Yvette.”
“Thatch.”
“Definitely, Yvette. She does the best work with her tongue.”
I had never been less in the mood for his teasing than I was right now. I wasn’t sleeping, barely eating. I missed my fucking Benny. I didn’t want to hear about any-fucking-body and I didn’t want to listen to jokes.
Nonexistent patience tapped out, I scrubbed through the mess on my desk and shoved the bulleted proposal at him. I’d done my best to outline everything I was looking for it to say, but I was no goddamn lawyer. Neither was he, but he’d know what to do.
Wrinkles formed between his eyes as he concentrated and read.
“Are you serious right now?” Thatch asked, shaking the paper in front of him and looking deep into my eyes. He’d never looked at me that seriously. I was obviously scaring him.
“As a fucking heart attack,” I confirmed.
“K—”
“Just do it!” I snapped, rolling my neck from side to side and blowing out a deep breath to calm down.
Fuck, I was tense. More so than I’d ever been in my entire goddamn life, and my nerves were shot. If people didn’t start doing what I said, right when I said it, I was liable to lose my fucking mind.
He shook his head disdainfully, but either my totally fucked up head was playing tricks on me or the curve of his smile was growing with each pass.
“You are one crazy motherfucker, you know that?” he asked, his lips turned up in a full-on smile. I knew I wasn’t making it up now.
I nodded a few times before the intensity of his happiness had me shaking my head. “Why are you smiling like a goddamn lunatic?”
“Because,” he said in another uncharacteristic display of seriousness. “I’m fucking thrilled to see you this happy.”
Happy? Was he high? I’d never been this fucking heartbroken.
“Dude, I’ve never been this miserable.”
He nearly choked on a laugh. “Yeah, but see, that’s the flip side. Crazy in love can only mean one of two things.” He ticked each option off on his fingers. “Maniacally happy or butt-fuck desolate. It’s one or the other, and it all hangs on the notion of said person loving you back.”
He shook the paper in his hands. “I admire you. Fucking up but fucking doing something about it. This is what makes a man. Buried to shit in the weeds so he takes out a machete.”
I cracked a smile for the first time in two days.
“Just make sure it doesn’t take me four fucking years to cut my way out, okay?”
“I’ll have the contract ready by Friday at the latest. There’s some red tape, but you can thank me again for stopping you from caving to a structure with a board of directors. If you had, you’d have been fucked.”
I shook my head.
He turned an ear toward me, cocked a brow, and waved a hand in invitation.
I rolled my eyes but played along. “Thank you, Thatch, for having the foresight to make it possible to make a last-ditch grand gesture in the name of love without being completely fucked.”
He bowed slightly, tucking one hand to his stomach and the other to his back. “You’re welcome.”
My office phone ringing had me rounding the desk and meeting his eyes in question. He waved his permission.
“Brooks,” I answered shortly.
“Kline, Kline, Kline.” Wes tsked in my ear.
Jesus. I didn’t know if I had the energy for both of them.
“This really isn’t a good time, Wes.”
“It never is—”
True enough.
“But I think you’ll want to hear this,” he taunted.
Like a starving fish, I took the bait on the line without question.
“What?”
“We just interviewed a new employee—”
Goddamn, everyone was making it their fucking mission to annoy me today. New conquests from one and new hires from the next, I had no desire to hear any of it.
“Wes—”
“Pretty little thing. Can’t be more than five one, five two, but by God, she’s got a body on her.”
My stomach jumped with excitement and roiled with sick all at once. He sat silent on the line, just waiting.
“You saw her?”
“Nope, not me. She’s in with the GM now. He wanted me to call and look into her references while she’s in there, though, seeing as he liked the girl so much and didn’t want to waste time getting an offer together.”
The words burned my throat as I said them. “You’re a fucking moron if you don’t hire her.”
“No kidding.”
I’d never wanted to slit the throat of a friend before, but I guessed there was a time and circumstance for everything.