Trevor
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t focus on a damn thing all day.
Even after a vigorous lunchtime run, I still couldn’t get my mind past the morning’s events.
By three, I knew I had to get out of there.
I reached the elevator and groaned slightly, opting for the stairs and then realizing that was an even worse mistake.
I sprinted down eighteen flights.
Pulling up to my parents’ home later that evening, I felt some of my tension slip away.
As I walked into the kitchen, I was immediately engulfed by the familiar smell of Mom’s cooking, and my parents’ happy chatter coming from the dining room.
“Trevor,” my mom sang as I stepped into the room.
I bent down and kissed her cheek, allowing her a brief moment to try and fix my unruly hair.
Finally swatting her hands away, I grabbed a large bowl from her and placed it on the table, snatching a carrot as commission.
“Where’s Scott?” I asked, looking out toward the living room.
“They’re not here yet,” answered my dad as he walked in.
Scott was bad enough, but throw in his wife and daughter and they were lucky to even make it out of the house at all.
I walked to the bar outside to make my mother a dry martini.
Twenty minutes later, the sounds of chaos came from the foyer, and I stepped in to meet them.
A small, unstable body with a toothy grin hurled itself at my knees.
“Trev!” the little girl squealed.
I snatched Sofia up and smothered her cheeks with kisses.
“God, you’re pathetic,” Scott groaned as he walked past me.
“As if you’re any better.”
“You should both shut up, if anyone wants my opinion,” Mina added, following her husband into the dining room.
Sofia was the first grandchild and the princess of the family.
As usual, she preferred to sit on my lap during dinner and I tried to eat around her, doing my best to avoid her “help.” She definitely had me completely wrapped around her finger.
“Trevor, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” my mother began, handing me the bottle of wine.
“Would you invite Mia to dinner next week, and do your best to convince her to actually come?”
I groaned in response and received a quick kick in the shin from my father.
“Christ. Why is everyone so insistent on getting her over here?” I asked.
Mom straightened, wearing her best Firm Mother face.
“She’s in a strange city all alone, and—”
“Mom,” I interrupted, “she’s lived here since college. She’s twenty-six. It’s not a strange city to her anymore.”
“Actually, Trevor, you’re right,” she answered with a rare edge in her voice.
“She came here for college, graduated summa cum laude, worked with your father for a few years before moving to your department and being the best employee you’ve ever had—all while she attends night school to get her degree. I think Mia is pretty amazing, so I have someone I’d like her to meet.” You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.
My fork froze in midair as those words sank in.
Mom wanted to set her up with someone?
I tried to mentally file through all of the single men we knew and had to discount each of them immediately.
Brad: too short.
Damian: fucks anything that moves.
Kyle: gay.
Scott: dumb.
Well, this was odd.
I felt something constrict in my chest, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
If I had to put a name on it, I’d call it .
.
. anger?
Why would I be angry that my mom wanted to set her up?
Probably because you’re sleeping with her, dumb ass.
Well, not really sleeping with her so much as fucking her.
Okay, fucked her .
.
. twice.
“Fucking her” would imply an intent to continue.
Oh, also, I felt her up her in an elevator and was hoarding her shredded panties in my desk drawer.
Creeper.
I pressed my hands to my face.
“Fine. I’ll talk to her. But don’t get your hopes up. She’s about as charm-free as they come, so that’s a hard deal to close.”
“You know, Trevor,” my brother chimed in, “I think everyone here would agree that you are literally the only one who has a hard time getting along with her.”
I looked around the table, frowning at the heads bobbing up and down, agreeing with my idiot brother.
The rest of the night consisted of more talk about how I needed to try and be nicer to Miss Dawson, and about how great they all thought she was, and about how much she would like my mom’s best friend’s son, Joel.
I had completely forgotten about Joel.
He was nice enough, I guess.
Except he’d played Barbies with his little sister until he was fourteen and cried like a baby when he took a baseball to the shin in tenth grade.
Dawson would eat him alive.
I laughed to myself at the thought.
We also talked about the meetings we had lined up for this week.
A big one was planned for Thursday afternoon, and I would be accompanying my father and brother. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
I knew that Miss Dawson already had everything all planned and ready to go.
Much as I hated to admit it, she was always two steps ahead and anticipated everything I needed.
I left with the promise that I would do my best to convince her to come, although to be honest I didn’t even know when I would see her in the next few days.
I had meetings and appointments all over the city, and I doubted that in those brief moments I was actually in the office I would have much good to say.
Glaring out the window as we crawled down South MichiganAvenue the next afternoon, I wondered if my day would ever improve.
I hated sitting in traffic.
The office was only a few blocks away, and I was seriously considering just having the driver take the car back and getting out and walking.
It was already after four, and we’d managed to travel only three blocks in twenty minutes.
Perfect.
Closing my eyes, I rested my head on the seat and recalled the meeting I had just left.
Nothing in particular had gone wrong; in fact, quite the opposite.
The clients had been thrilled with our proposals, and everything had gone off without a hitch.
I just couldn’t shake my horrible mood.
Scott had made a point of telling me every fifteen minutes of the last three hours that I was behaving like a moody teenager, and by the time the contracts were signed, I wanted to beat the shit out of him.
Every chance he got he asked what the hell my problem was, and frankly, I couldn’t say I blamed him.
Even I had to admit I’d been a prick the last couple of days.
And for me, that was saying something.
Of course Scott declared as he left to head home that my problem was I needed to get laid.
If he only knew.
It had been one day.
Just one day since the event in the elevator left me rock hard and with an itching desire to touch every inch of her skin.
The way I was acting you’d think I hadn’t had sex in six months.
But no, nearly two days of not touching her and I felt like a lunatic.
The car stopped again and I thought I would scream.
My driver lowered the separator between the front and back seats, tossing me an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Mr. Montgomery. I’m sure you’re going crazy back there. We’re only four blocks away; would you rather walk?” Glancing out the tinted windows, I noticed we’d stopped right across the street from La Perla.
“I can pull over just—”
I was out of the car before he had a chance to finish his sentence.
Standing on the curb waiting to cross, it occurred to me that I didn’t have a clue what point there would be to going inside.
What was I planning on doing?
Was I buying something or just torturing myself?