Page 4 of Because of You
“Looks great, Mol,” I tell her with a smile. “This whole place looks great too. I can’t believe that it’s finally yours.” They just closed on the property yesterday. They were adamant that they build their firm outside of the downtown Pittsburgh business district. They wanted an office that would be the opposite of the slick, cold spaces where they all spent the first years of their careers. Looking out the window at the quiet, tree lined street, and around at what will soon be Hallie’s office, with its original crown moldings, soft yellow walls, and massive fireplace with a walnut mantle and surround, I know they succeeded.
“Thanks, Ben,” Emma pipes up with a quiet smile, uttering her first words since I handed her the flowers when I first walked in. She is the quietest of the four but is the protector of the group.
“It may be ours now, but we have a shit ton of work to do before we’re in business,” Julie declares, glancing down at her ever-present spreadsheet with a satisfied nod. My sister is never happier than when she is telling everyone else what to do, usually with something color-coded in hand.
“God, Jules, enjoy this moment for, like, ten more seconds.” Molly pours the last of the champagne into her cup.
“Molly Rae Jenkins, I will kill you if you are too tipsy to help us set up the office when the trucks get here,” Jules says while fixing Molly with a death glare.
They continue to bicker while out of the corner of my eye I see Emma slide Molly’s neon green champagne flute out of eyesight. I grab it and down what’s left, winking at Emma and tossing the flute out into the hallway where it clatters onto the hardwood floor.
Emma grins at me and then I turn to Hallie, who watched the whole thing go down and is turning red while trying not to laugh. She finally can’t hold it in anymore and lets it fly, leaning into me while she cackles.There she is. Her losing it sets me off and I snort out a laugh, which startles Jules and Molly out of their squabble.
“Hey, where’s my champagne?” Molly’s question makes Emma start laughing, which sets Hallie and me off all over again, and Jules just looks at us like we’re all insane.
I look down at Hallie. She is shaking with laughter, and her body is still pressed right up against me. I put an arm around her shoulders and tuck her into me. Half a foot shorter than my six-two frame, she fits perfectly under my arm, and the warmth at her proximity fills me right up.
And it hits me for the millionth time how much I wish that she were mine.
Chapter Three
Hallie
“Don’t you dare, Hal.”
I whip around from my desk where I’m reaching for my ever-present e-reader. Ben is standing in my office doorway holding a giant box. He is scowling at me and looks as sweaty and disheveled as I feel after spending the better part of the last five hours lugging boxes from the foyer to the upstairs offices and directing the movers who were unloading furniture.
“There are at least five more boxes with your name on them downstairs, and I need to run home to shower and change before I go to the bar. If you don’t want to carry five hundred pounds of legal books on your own, save the smut for later.”
He jokes, but Ben is one of the only people who seems to understand and appreciate my love of reading romance.
“Just one chapter. Ten minutes. Twenty tops. I need a break. Too much heavy lifting. Too much peopling,” I groan. “Besides, I fell asleep reading at ninety-four percent last night and you know how much I hate that.” Actually, I fell asleep reading not last night, but at 4:36 this morning after spending the entire night caught between ruminating and broken sleep laced with sweaty anxiety dreams. I stayed asleep for approximately forty-five minutes before I jerked awake again and started my day, too wound up to go back to sleep.
Ben gives me an amused smile. “And let me guess—you’ve thought about that last six percent every five minutes since you woke up this morning?”
“Obviously. Now get out of here. Go get another box. Go make sure Molly isn’t nagging the furniture delivery people or that Julie hasn’t passed out on top of her spreadsheets. I need twenty minutes of quiet time.” The truth is I need some time to get my shit together. My stomach has been a fist of anxiety all day long. I thought it would go away as we put the house together. Instead, with every box I lift and every piece of furniture someone puts in my office, it gets worse. I am like twenty minutes away from losing it and breaking down completely unless I have some quiet time. I can break down later at home and consider the “what the fuck do I do” of it all. But in this office, full of all the people I love most in the world who I do not want to let down, I need to hold my scattered pieces together with a death grip.
“Give her the twenty minutes, Ben,” I hear Emma yell from down the hall. “You know how crabby she gets when she leaves a book unfinished.”God bless Emma. She always knows when I need to introvert out for a minute.
“You’re lucky I like you,” he grumbles, turning to leave.
“You more than like me, Benji. You loooooooove me,” I call as he walks out the door.
He turns back around and looks at me, something intense passing over his face so quickly that I think maybe I imagined it. Then he shoots back, “You know it, Hallie girl,” and heads downstairs. I smile when I hear him call out, “Mol, quit making the poor guy rearrange the furniture in reception for the fourth time. It looks fine how it is.”
I settle back in my desk chair and flip open my e-reader. Before I even finish the first page I hear, “just drink the water, Jules.” It comes from down the hall where Julie has been holed up in her office all day, no doubt mainlining caffeine and adding to her spreadsheets. Julie is one of the very best people I know, but she is an insane workaholic who generally forgets basic things like eating and drinking when she really gets into it. Emma is the only one of us brave enough to confront her when she is in this kind of mood.
“Well, if the printer had gotten back to me with the proof for our letterhead and our accountant would actually call me back, maybe I would have had a second to hydrate,” Julie gripes back.
I kick back in my chair with my feet up on my desk and my e-reader in my lap. After all the literal and figurative heavy lifting of the day, and the anxiety and doubt that swirl in my stomach, having everyone be so completely themselves—Molly being indecisive and creative, Julie stressing over the details, Emma taking care of us all, and Ben pitching in where he can—is a weird sort of comfort. I lean back and close my eyes and let my friends’ voices wash over me. I can’t help but wonder whether I am being completely myself, and what the hell I am going to do about it if I’m not.
Chapter Four
Ben
Ispend more time than I mean to at the girls’ office. I should have anticipated it. Whenever I’m around Hallie, I have a hard time pulling myself away. Being near her makes me feel like we’re magnets being drawn to each other. The obvious problem being she doesn’t know she’s a magnet, and I am far too aware that I am. She spent all day with “best friend Ben,” and I spent all day with “desperately wish she was mine Hallie.”
I don’t know how much longer I can live like this. Being around her without revealing my feelings has gotten harder as we have gotten older. And now, it’s nearly unbearable. But the idea of telling her and her not feeling the same is even more unbearable than keeping it to myself. I’m a fucking disaster.
