Winter’s worst cold front rushes through my stomach. I don’t remember what I had for lunch, but it’s about to meet Dana’s prized desk. “What the hell are you doing at this desk anyway?”
“Dana has the week off. Rebekah trusts me. She appointed me front desk duty. It’s really one of the best tasks any of the interns could be assigned,” he points out, puffing up his chest. “I get to speak directly with clients, forward calls, set up appointments …”
“Congratulations,” I state flatly. “I’m sure your beautiful hair comes in handy when you’re answering calls.”
“It’ll certainly come in handy when I’m the first one to meet and greet the Jersey boy tomorrow.” Brady grins so big, he shows teeth. “Have a most excellent evening, Trevor. Don’t get too much more sun on your way home; you really don’t want to look like a tangerine tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes and turn toward the door again, clutching my stomach. It slams with a rattle behind me.
I can’t get home fast enough. The second I’m through the door and discover that I’m alone, I collapse against the kitchen counter and bury my face in my folded arms, rested on a smelly folded newspaper and a gaming magazine.
And then I start to cry.
I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I have decided to throw myself a pity party for one, and if you’re not planning on feeling terribly sorry for me and all my grievous woes that I am suffering, then you are not invited.
Comically, my phone vibrates with a call just as I have that thought. I look up to see who my first invitee is.
My only invitee.
I answer the call, pressing the phone to my ear and quickly suppressing my annoying sobs. “B-Ben?”
“Hey, babe.”
I try to mask the obvious quivering of my voice as I struggle to regain my composure. “What the hell happened?”
He sighs into the phone before answering. “Some dick with a camera caught us, in short. There’s nothing much else beyond that. But if it’s any consolation—”
“It won’t be.”
“The story is already burying itself. It hardly broke ten thou on the big blog. Five thousand or so hits, collectively, on all the subsidiary sites. It didn’t even trend on Twitter or Facebook.”
I take a deep breath, wipe my eyes, then nod. “That’s a really good thing.”
“Yes, it is,” Ben agrees. A short moment passes. Then he adds, “I miss you, Trevor. I could barely sleep last night without having you by my side.”
I clench shut my eyes. I had a very similar experience, finding my pillows terribly inadequate to the big muscular one I got to press against me Friday and Saturday nights. “That makes two of us. Benjamin …”
“Yes?”
This isn’t going to be easy to say. “I … I think my roommate knows.”
He is silent for a while. I drop my forehead to the counter, curling up in this barstool as I stare down at my lap with the phone at my ear turning sweaty.
“Ben?”
“I’m here,” he finally says. “Why do you think he knows?”
“He broke my alibi I had for this weekend. Called my parents. Realized I wasn’t there. He saw the photo and … gave me a look in the office. He could pick me out of a crowd of ten thousand, Ben.”
“But did you confirm that it was you?”
“No. Of course not. I … I told him I was involved with someone in the office. But I didn’t say it was you.”
“But he still suspects it’s me?”
“I think so.” More like I’m three hundred percent certain.
“Alright.” He takes a quick breath. “Well, we need to let the card of plausible deniability play out. Divert him. You and I will be cool and collected in the office, alright? No one else will suspect—”
“Ben. I’m not another one of your clients.” I’m starting to get short with him. “Unless you really think what’s going on between us is nothing more than a scandal that needs minimizing.”
“Trevor, we can’t let this get out. You agreed. I agreed.”
“I know. And I don’t want it to get out either. But it may very well out itself whether we want it to or not. Even that fucking Brady is on to me. He kept noting how much sun I’ve gotten. And between him and Elijah—”
“Again, plausible deniability,” Ben insists, stubborn as ever. “I have handled hundreds—thousands—of situations like this, and even worse. Trust me when I say this will blow over, and things will be right back to how they—”
“Maybe I don’t want things to just go back to how they were!” I snap, rising up from my barstool as my heated words shoot into the phone. “Maybe I liked Mexico and what it did for us! Maybe I liked how I got to see into you for the first time! Maybe I liked how we grew so close that I felt like I’d known you for years!”