Page 73 of I Love to Hate You
“Well, you brought it out of me,” he says, grinning.
“Yeah? Were you hate-fucking me?”
“What do you think?”
“It sure felt like hate-fucking me, and I loved it.”
“It was,” he says, staring up at the ceiling with a smirk on his lips. “What can I say? I love to hate you.”
I giggle. “Aww, that’s so sweet. Well, I love the way your hate feels, and I love to hate you, too.”
“I bet you do,” he replies.
He turns over onto his shoulder and kisses me on the forehead before rolling onto his back again. An army of butterflies take flight in my stomach as his eyes go back to the ceiling, but mine stay on him. My brain struggles to focus on anything other than his profile, and nothing else in the world matters right now. He just fucked all my senses away, and I don’t know if there has ever been a time where I was happier than I am right now. I just stare at him without saying anything, taking it all in, because there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be than right here next to him—the man I love to hate.
Forty-Three
~ MAYA~
“Denver, you’ve got to stop fidgeting, man. You’re making me nervous,” Kendrick says.
Denver sits across from us in a brown suit and black tie. His hair is put together better today and he certainly looks the part of the smart businessman who’s ready to take on the world, but the muscles in his face are tight with anxiety, and he continuously taps a pen against his desk as he reviews the presentation the three of us put together for today’s pitch. He’s clearly nervous, because even with Kendrick telling him about it, he’s still tapping.
“Denver,” I say, finally getting his attention. “Are you good? You’ve done pitches before, right?”
“For sure,” he replies. He nods his head a little too enthusiastically, giving it away that he’s trying to remind himself that he’s done this before.
“Okay, so why do you look like you’re about to pass out from the stress?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe it’s because I’m using a pitch that two brand new interns set up—a pitch that I didn’t know would happen just because I told a couple of managers how good it was. It’s all very sudden, and I was just trying to explain to them that we had interns who looked very promising. The next thing I know, we’re prepping to actually pitch it to the client. I just wasn’t expecting this.”
Kendrick nods his head as he leans forward and places his forearms on his knees. “I feel you. It was unexpected for us, too, but it’s here and we’ve prepared all we can. The presentation looks good, it’s concise, it’s straightforward, and it’s unique. It’s everything you would want a pitch to be, right? You just have to trust it. We have faith in you that you can kill it.”
“You do?” Denver asks.
I clear my throat. “Absolutely. It was definitely thrown at you last minute, but we know you’ve got this, Denver.”
It’s a bit of a stretch, because I don’t know if Denver has it or not, but we have no other choice but to put our faith in him, so we may as well hype him as much as we can. Kendrick and I sit back and watch as Denver nods to himself, gassing himself up for what’s to come before he gets to his feet.
“Okay, I’m ready,” he says. “You guys can wait in Conference Room B while we do the pitch, and I’ll come get you when it’s over.”
“Cool,” Kendrick says as we both stand. “Good luck, Denver.”
“Knock them dead,” I say.
We walk out the door and into the conference room where the other interns await. Denver strolls past the door we entered and meets up with his colleagues down the hall where they’ll head into Conference Room A to wait for Nasir Booker’s team to arrive.
Samantha, Derek, Erica, and Chad are all seated at the table like they’re awaiting orders when we walk in. They perk up at first, but then realize that we’re not Denver and slump back down. I can feel the leftover tension still lingering from how things went yesterday between Kendrick and Chad. They all look at us warily, and I wonder if Chad told them what Kendrick whispered in his ear. Either way, no one says anything when we walk in and sit down at the table.
“What’s up, guys?” I ask everyone just to break the ice.
Samantha, as usual, is the first to smile and speak up. “Nothing much. I guess Denver is too busy to assign us anything today.”
“I think he’s a little frazzled,” I try to explain. “This whole thing with our pitch seems to have thrown him for a loop. He was all fidgety this morning as we finalized the prep for the pitch. It’s a big day for him.”
“For you, too,” Derek adds in. “It’s incredible that your assignment pitch is being used for the real deal.”
“And on such a big potential client,” Erica says. “It’s really impressive, you guys.”
