“About?”
I’d had enough back and forth from her. She’d done an admirable job of keeping me on my toes, but I needed both feet on the ground where she was concerned. Maybe it was the beer or the fact that we were far from the office, but I sensed she’d open up now if I pushed her. “How come you were quiet and shy at the café before our collision? And why was it so hard to speak up for yourself just now? And why is it okay for anyone to call you a bitch?”
She sighed. “You know what they say. Men love bitches.”
“Who says that?”
She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “Listen to this,” she said. “On the way here, a man offered me half an avocado. On the subway.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did he at least give you something to eat it with?”
“No,” she said and smiled in a cute way that made me forget what we were supposed to be talking about. Which I supposed was her plan.
“How’d you respond?” I asked.
“I told him no thanks—I only eat the bad kind of fat.”
I laughed. “Why is this relevant? Did he call you a bitch?”
“No. I just wanted to see if you thought it was strange.”
“Definitely strange.”
She relaxed, setting her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “How come you always call me Georgina?”
“What should I call you?”
“George, same as everyone else.”
“Not everyone uses George,” I pointed out.
“Everyone does sometimes. Georgina is exhausting.”
I would’ve steered the conversation back to the issue at hand, but I had a feeling we were somehow circling the heart of it. In her eyes, was there some differentiation between George and Georgina? I stayed standing, looking down at her as I chose my words carefully so she wouldn’t get defensive. “You think Georgina is burdensome to others?”
She blew out a breath, meeting my gaze. “It’s a mouthful.”
“If you think that, why not call me Seb? Or ‘hey you,’ which has less syllables than Sebastian. My name is longer than yours.” She furrowed her brow as if tallying the letters, so I saved her the mental strain. “Yours has eight, mine has nine.”
“Okay, I’ll call you Seb, Seb.”
“I still won’t call you George.”
“Because George feels like your equal,” she reasoned, “whereas Georgina is easier to see as an inferior.”
“Jesus, no.” I pulled back. That had nothing to do with it. Her name could be fucking Fido but while we were both humans, I’d see her as an equal. An equal who potentially held my fate in her hands. The only way to dig my way out of this was the truth. “When I met you—let’s just say, I had impure thoughts.”
With the way her eyes widened, I couldn’t keep the hint of triumph off my face. It was fun to surprise her. “About me?”
“About you. And since then, I refuse to picture you as George.”
“Well . . . that makes things difficult,” she said.
“Only if you yourself favor George over Georgina.”
She opened and closed her mouth. “I—I don’t know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.”
With a quick glance around me, as if searching for an exit, she stood. “I should get back to—”
I put my hand on the table to block her with my arm. “You’re like one of those complex, jumbo puzzles with hundreds of pieces. Even when I manage to put a corner together, I can’t help feeling further from completing the picture.”
“You’re wrong.” She moved around me, but I caged her against the table.
“Am I?” I couldn’t ignore the way her cheeks flushed as her breathing sped. She didn’t look happy to be cornered in more than one way, but I wanted answers. Not just the job kind anymore, like if Vance had said anything to her about my work, or whether my fate rested on her shoulders—now, I was curious about other things too. Like exactly which nerve I’d hit in the café to make her blow up at me. And why she allowed François and the loudmouth Yankee to treat her one way, but she never let me get away with shit. “I’m not even sure I’m playing the right game.”
“Try checking the box,” she said. “If it says ‘ages three and up,’ you probably are.”
We narrowed our eyes at each other without so much as a blink between us.
“Do you see Georgina as inferior?” I asked, my eyes on her full, pink mouth, just inches from mine.
She dropped her gaze to the zipper of my hoodie. After a couple seconds, she said, “Not inferior, just . . .”
“What the hell is taking so long?” Justin appeared out of nowhere, causing each of us to flinch. “And where’s my dr—oh. Shit. Am I interrupting?”
I straightened up, and Georgina stepped out from under me. “No,” she said, relief passing over her face.
I watched her closely. She really didn’t like me poking around her head. That only made me want to do it more, especially now that I was getting somewhere. But I owed Justin a beer, and he wasn’t going to let me off the hook until he got it. I took my wallet from my jeans. “What d’you want?”
“Whatever you’re having,” he said.
I walked away. If I had been hitting on Georgina, this would be the perfect opportunity for Justin to fuck with me. So, it shouldn’t have surprised me to overhear him say to her, “Well, well. It’s a fine line, isn’t it?”
* * *
If Justin wasn’t careful, I was going to knock the smug right off his face and onto the baseball diamond. It was the second time since we’d returned to our seats that he’d caught me watching Georgina and François instead of the game.
Justin’s face split with a grin. “Enjoying the view?”
“Of course not. I’m at a Yanks game.”
“That’s a pretty big sacrifice you’ve made for Georgina. You told me we were coming here to judge her dating skills.”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
Justin folded his hands in his lap and shrugged. “I think you’re trying to figure out how you feel about her. And seeing her with another dude is making it pretty clear.”
I looked back at François’s arm around her, tempted to go down there and interrupt one more time. The last time. “I’m just going above and beyond for my job,” I said. Justin might’ve been right, but he already had all the ammunition he needed. “Making sure Georgina is up for the position she took on.”
Justin adjusted his sunglasses. “You’re telling me you betrayed your precious Red Sox and gave the people in these seats a two-hundred-dollar gift card to Peter Luger just to make sure Georgina sucks at her job?”
“To make sure she sucks at my job,” I pointed out. “You forget my ass is on the line here. Vance warned me I was on thin ice, meanwhile he can’t stop fawning over Georgina.”
Justin glanced over at me. “You think she’s gunning for the creative director position?”
She wouldn’t be the first to try, but judging by Vance’s reaction to her, she could be the first to succeed. She’d never mentioned wanting to stay on full-time, and she didn’t run the office as if she planned to stay, but it’d be a lie to say it hadn’t crossed my mind. Tussling with Georgina could be many things, including fun, but I’d given everything I’d had to this job, including my reputation. I’d never give it up without a down-and-dirty fight. “Maybe.”
“Don’t get paranoid,” Justin said. “I happen to like her. She’s smart, funny, and looks cute in your baseball hat, don’t you think?”
She looked adorable in the hat. I grunted my assent.
“What do you think she’s like in the bedroom?” Justin asked. “All business, or you think she’d let you take the lead?”
Unprepared for the vivid image of sheet-wrestling with a bossy Georgina, my throat locked up—and then my balls. Georgina and I might’ve been on a level field in the office, but our entire relationship had been a power play. I wanted to be on top. So did she. I imagined that would carry over into the bedroom as well, but taking it to the sheets sounded way more fun.