Chapter 79
The man’s lips felt surprisingly amazing on mine. What was his name again? Joey? Jacob? Ah, who cared. I threw my arms around him and pulled him closer to me. I heard cheers when I did, presumably from his group of friends.
Maria started laughing and clapping.
The kiss ended as suddenly as it had begun. “Wow,” Joey/Jacob said. “You better call me after that.”
I laughed. “Maybe I will.”
I saw someone approaching fast out of the corner of my eye.
“Logan!” I jumped off my stool, like I had just been caught by a parent doing something I shouldn’t.
Joey/Jacob took one look at Logan and Dylan and backed himself away from us.
“That was uh…my cousin,” I said, immediately regretting my choice of lie.
Maria made a disgusted face at me. Logan and Dylan exchanged confused looks.
“What are you guys doing here?” I said quickly.
“Oh. Um…I saw you take your shoes off, I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Logan said.
I gave him a slow nod. His lies were much faster and better than mine, I thought to myself.
“I’m fine, thanks. I’ll see you on Monday,” I sat back on the stool and turned to face the bar. I took a sip of the drink Joey/Jacob had brought me.
I saw Maria out of the corner of my eye. She had averted her eyes from Dylan and Logan and was looking down at the ground. Without a word, Logan and Dylan slipped back out of the bar. I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt they were gone. Maria and I looked at each other.
“See?” I said. “That man needs boundaries.”
“Or to just give into his feelings and do you already,” she winked at me.
I pondered that a moment. Then for another moment. I shook the thought from my mind before I delved too deep into that fantasy. I looked around the bar.
“Where’d Joey/Jacob go?”
By the time 5pm Tuesday rolled around, my annoyance with Logan was at an all time high. I should have been getting ready to have a fun night painting with my friends, but instead, I was re-settling in at my desk to work God knew how much longer.
I looked towards Maria’s desk. She grabbed her purse and looked over at me. I gave her a sad little wave and she came over.
“Next time they have a paint and sip I’ll take you, I promise,” she said once she reached my desk.
“Don’t let Logan or Dylan know if you do,” I said bitterly.
“No, I won’t make that mistake again,” Maria scrunched up her nose. She leaned down and gave me a side hug. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” I said, leaning into the hug.
As she left I stood to go to the pantry to look for a snack. Logan’s office door opened at the same time.
“Can we talk through what needs done tonight?” He asked.
I stopped and turned. Ever since the bar I had to really fight through my irritation with him to act like a professional at work. Which just made me all the more irritated. “Yes,” I said turning back and plopping back down in my seat.
“Um…can we talk in my office?” He asked.
Without a word I grabbed a notepad and pen and stood. I looked at the ground as I walked into his office and sat in a chair in front of his desk. I opened the notebook to a blank page and readied my pen.
“Where’s your laptop? You’ll need it for what we’re doing,” he said.
“I was going to take notes and work at my desktop computer. At my desk,” I said coolly.
“Oh, I just thought…since we always do overtime stuff in here…,” he paused.
“I prefer to work at my desk today,” I said.
He looked down at the ground for a moment, then looked back up at me. “Okay,” he said. He paused again and said, “if this is about the bar the other day…”
“Can you tell me what you need me to do tonight so I can get it done and salvage what little will be left of my evening?” I said, cutting him off. Of course it was about the bar. And Chianti. And the dinner party. Was he really that unaware?
He gave me a list of tasks. I wrote them down and left the office without another word to him. I decided to forgo the snack. The sooner I got these stupid tasks done, the sooner I could GTFO.
Logan snuck a peek through his window at Hazel, who was working diligently on the tasks he’d given her. He felt a pang of guilt watching her. His demanding her to work overtime was a knee-jerk reaction to Dylan’s invitation to join their girl’s night.
But he was just trying to protect both Hazel and Dylan. He knew that would only end badly for the newly-married Hazel, and for his best friend.
Or so he tried to convince himself. The jealousy he still felt surrounding Hazel ran deep and strong, as much as he tried to ignore or deny it.
He pulled out his phone to text Dylan. “Want to get food later?” He asked.
“I can’t man, I have plans,” Dylan wrote back.
“Plans?” Logan replied. Dylan usually included Logan in his plans, unless he was on a date or something. Logan perked up at that thought. Maybe he was on a date and would leave Hazel alone now.
“That paint thing Maria invited me to,” Dylan wrote back. “I’ll text you later, it’s about to start.”
Logan stared at the text, stunned. He was surprised Dylan still went, even though Hazel wasn’t there. He wondered what Dylan was playing at by going.
The next morning, Maria walked up to my desk with an iced coffee and a canvas.
“What’s this?” I asked her.
“A certain Dylan wanted you to have this,” she winked at me. “The coffee’s from me, though.”
She handed me the canvas. I held it in front of me. It was beautiful, a painting of a vase of wildflowers against a purple and green swirled background.
“That wasn’t the prompt, by the way. The rest of us painted a cow with earrings. He asked me what your favorite flowers were and painted this for you,” Maria said.
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t even know what to say to that. I’d never had a man do anything even close to this as a romantic gesture before.
“You better snatch that man up or I’m making a move,” Maria said. “This is movie-level romance.”
I studied the picture and shook my head. “I…I have no words for this.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Logan approaching. I opened one of my desk drawers and carefully placed the canvas inside. The last thing I wanted was Logan asking 20 questions about it.
“Do you want to go out tonight?” I asked Maria, changing the subject as Logan got within earshot of us.
“Yeah, what did you have in mind?” She asked.
“I liked that bar we went to over the weekend, want to check it out again?”
Maria gave me a half grin. “Hoping your ‘cousin’ will be there again?”
I blushed. Logan froze behind Maria, clearly having heard what she said too.
“Uh, Hazel, we have a lot more we need to get caught up on. I’ll need you to stay late the rest of the week,” he said. Without waiting for my reply, he went straight into his office and shut the door.
Maria turned to me and raised her eyebrows. I shook my head, angry.
What. The. Fuck.
