“You can have more fish tomorrow,” I told him.
Mr. Mittens gave me a look of disgust and walked away. I guess he wasn’t hungry enough for cat food yet, I thought in amusement.
Without my cat distracting me, my mind turned back to what happened with Nicole earlier. Even with a couple of hours of distance, I still couldn’t figure out how it happened.
Our meeting had been mostly cordial, if not overly friendly. We’d grudgingly agreed that our parents were right in their assumption that a collaborative proposal would be more attractive to city officials. On our own, the decision makers would assume we were too small of a company to make it work but with the power of both firms behind us – as well as the ability to bring in AGM for the commercial properties – we would be competitive with the big national firms. Well, more competitive anyway.
But the time commitment of this size of a project was daunting. It would be a full time job for both of us, and most of our teams. But I’d promised Nicole that I’d give it more thought over the weekend, and I knew she would too. Nicole was definitely more in favor of the partnership, but then again she didn’t have another company to run like I did. Lowenthal Properties was her only job.
I changed into my sleep clothes and pulled my long hair up into a messy bun, then slid into bed intending to read for a while. Instead I found myself replaying every minute with Nicole.
She was a cute little thing. I was tall for a woman -- taller still thanks to my penchant for wearing three inch heels -- and the top of Nicole’s head barely came up to my chin. Even though she was petite, she was curvy, with large breasts, a tiny waist, wide hips, and a nicely rounded ass.
She had the perfect hourglass figure, mostly unchanged since we were younger. A little fuller maybe. We’d both gained a few pounds since we were teens.
I wondered if she still hated her body the way she had in school. I’d overheard her once in the locker room complaining to a friend about how her being short made her look ‘fat and dumpy’. Even though I’d always looked for an opening to tease Nicole, I’d never once insulted her body. It was perfect then, and perfect now.
Nicole had dark straight hair, almost black, that she usually pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck, and thick red lips that were the tiniest bit too wide for her face. Her olive skin was smooth and clear and her large brown eyes were expressive, showing her every emotion. If I didn’t know her and happened to run into her at a bar, I’d think Nicole was hot.
But if I was honest with myself – and I tried to always be honest with myself – I had to admit that I’d always been attracted to Nicole. I’d never admitted it to myself until now, but in retrospect I could see that it was always there, even when I thought I hated her.
We’d been competitive throughout school, always vying for the top spots in any class or activity we participated in, and prone to playing elaborate pranks on each other. Sometimes we each dragged our friends into the fray, but for the most part our battles had been personal. It all seemed ridiculous now.
I sighed and slid farther down in the bed, my e-reader forgotten as I stared into space and stewed about Nicole.
Kissing her had been… well, how could I describe it? Fantastic? Mind shattering? Hot as fuck? But if we were going to worktogether, we couldn’t be making out on conference room tables. What we’d done was incredibly unprofessional.
That couldn’t happen again, not if we were going to partner with each other. And part of me really wanted to partner on this project.
I loved the idea of a team led by two women beating out all the men who’d be bidding on this project. The truth was that real estate development was still very much a boy’s club. There were more women in the industry than there were even ten years ago, but we were still in the minority. And Chicago city government was predominantly male too. If we could impress them enough to get the project it would be a huge coup, not just for me and Nicole, but for all women professionals in this industry.
I spent most of the weekend dithering about the partnership proposal. It wasn’t like me to dither, I was usually a very decisive person. But this felt different, bigger. Both because of the implications of the project itself and the strong feeling I had that working with Nicole would either be the best decision I ever made or my worst mistake.
We should go for it, I finally decided. It would take us about three months to work on the proposal, I could readjust my work schedule for that amount of time. If we won the project, I’d have to decide whether to step back from AGM or bring in additional principal staff for the Grant Park College project. Otherwise I’d be working eighty hours a week. Mr. Mittens would never stand for that.
Sunday night I texted Nicole to suggest that we meet for coffee in the morning. She responded right away, agreeing to meet me before she went into the office. We selected a coffee shop midway between our two buildings.
It was a muggy summer morning, the kind of morning that foretold a miserable day of high humidity and even higher temperatures. By the time I walked the eight blocks from AGM Tower to the coffee shop my sleeveless blouse was plastered to my back and my linen skirt felt damp from the humidity. I didn’t need to catch my reflection in the window to know that my usually curly hair was getting poofy already. I sighed. I’d have to put it up in a bun when I got to the office, otherwise I’d go through the day looking like a blonde version of that girl inThe Princess Diariesbefore she got a makeover from the queen.
I stopped to hand a twenty dollar bill to a homeless guy sitting against the building, and when I looked up I saw Nicole walking towards me wearing a cute little sundress that skimmed the top of her knees. It was red with tiny white polka dots and a fitted bodice that accentuated her generous breasts.
As we met in front of the café my eyes dropped to her breasts for a beat longer than was socially acceptable. I’d always been a breast woman.
When I looked back at her face, Nicole seemed to think that I was judging her outfit.
“I have a jacket to wear over this dress in the office but it’s too fucking hot to wear it outside. Let’s get inside where it’s cooler.I’m dying out here. It’s already eighty-five degrees for fuck’s sake.”
I stared at her in surprise. I’d never seen this foul mouthed side of Nicole. Was it the heat or the lack of coffee? She gave me a little frown and marched over to open the door of the coffee shop.
“You look fine,” I said to her back.
Following her, I breathed a sigh of relief as the air conditioning hit me. It was like a meat locker in here. Perfect.
We both ordered iced coffee, then we snagged an empty table in the corner. We were both quiet for a few minutes while we let the AC and iced coffee cool us off. When we finally spoke, it was in unison.
“I’ve been thinking about…,” I started.
“I feel like I should apologize…,” Nicole said.
