Page 4 of So Much More
“This,” she sweeps her hands up and down her body, “makes you not pay much attention to what I’m saying, doesn’t it? Please be honest with me.”
I snag her wrist and pull her farther away from the doorway. I wait for our co-worker Brian to pass by us on his way into the room before I say in a low voice, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have looked at you like that—not in the office. Well, not anywhere, actually, since we’re friends and all. It’s disrespectful.”
She briefly closes her eyes. “It’s fine. I know you respect me. It’s that I don’t want the other guys looking at me like that.”
“They’d better not be looking at you like that,” I growl out. But I wonder if she wantsmelooking at her like that.
Wendy huffs out a laugh. “As if you can stop them. You couldn’t even stop yourself. But anyway, now I know not to wear this dress to the office again.”
“It’s not the dress.” I cringe, wishing I can take the statement back as soon as I say it.
She tilts her head and gives me a curious look. “No? Then what is it?”
It’s her, no matter what she’s wearing. I want so badly to say it, but this is neither the time nor the place. In fact, I’m not sure there is a time or place for me to say that to her.
“Hey, you two,” Leslie says, her head peeking out the conference room door, “get in here. We need to get started.”
two
“What in the world is going on between you and Randall?” Leslie demands from across my office desk mere minutes after I return from the all-staff meeting.
I lean back in my cushy pink leather chair, look her in the eye, and lie through my teeth. “Absolutely nothing. And close the door if you’re going to talk about personal matters at the office.”
She spins around and swings the door shut before planting her hands on top of my desk and narrowing her eyes at me. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“That’s yet another thing I don’t know. If there’s something romantic happening between you and Randall, I’ll be ecstatic. I know you’ve had thing for him for as long as you’ve known him, and he’s a great guy. So for the life of me I can’t fathom why you’re not telling me.”
I force myself not to cross my arms over my chest as I ask, “Why do you think something’s going on between us?”
Leslie jabs her finger onto my desk. “Because before the all-staff meeting, you were holding hands. And then during the meeting, the two of you kept giving each other sly little smiles when you were talking about Pamela Sanders. What was that about?”
“We weren’t holding hands.” He was holding my wrist—those are two completely different things. “And those looks you think you saw? They were nothing.”
They weren’t nothing. They were Randall and me acknowledging he knows how much Sandra drives me batty. I usually don’t complain about my clients to anyone, or at least I didn’t until Randall. I feel like I can tell him anything. Well, anything other than I dream about him every night and am dying to know if he tastes as good as he smells. And oh, does he smell heavenly.
“They weren’t nothing,” Leslie says. “And I’m not the only one who noticed.”
My heart beats faster as I try not to panic. Since there’s nothing of substance happening between Randall and me, I’d rather not be the subject of office gossip.
“Who else noticed?” I ask.
“Aha!” She jabs a finger into the air. “So you admit there’s something to notice!”
I rest my forehead on my desk and lightly bang it a few times before looking back up at her. “We’ll talk about that in a minute. Who noticed?”
“Brian asked me about you two as soon as you left the conference room. I told him nothing’s happening, which I now know is wrong. Just admit you’re having a torrid affair with Randall Hamilton that for some inexplicable reason you don’t want your best friend to know about.”
“We’re not having an affair. Not that it would be an affair anyway, since we’re both single. We can do whatever we want.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Then what is it?”
I shrug and take the easy way out. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Wouldn’t tell me what?”
“Nope. You’re not getting me to trip up again.”
