I drove to the office and said my polite hellos before I got in my office. I sent Logan a text, telling him to meet me. I helped myself to some scotch from my bar, it would be one of those days.
Moments later he was in the office, brooding in his suit like he always is.
“Why do you always look so pissed off?” I asked him. He made a face and then sat on my couch. I went around my desk and sat on the edge, passing him a drink.
“Any change?” He pointed to the screen I had with Nasdaq on it.
“No. Nothing. What was it?” I asked him.
“Tech9. The new technology startup. They bought a ton of apps and then stacked the sales.”
“Fucking cunts, are you serious?” I downed my drink. I needed another one. Five more maybe.
“Yeah, man.” He gave me a look and we both knew what we had to talk about.
So I grabbed the whole bottle and sat down across from him.
“What’s going on with Madeline?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her in a week. She hasn’t called.”
“I don’t know.” He was lying, because he fidgeted with his fingers as he blinked at me.
“It doesn’t seem like her. She missed the meeting the other day. We don’t have any of her paperwork on file, she is still an intern here. Well, at least I thought she was.”
His eyes widened at that and he ticked his jaw as he shook his head. “I didn’t know that.” He graveled.
“Yeah. So what is the deal?”
“She called me last week. A couple times and I…I never responded because I had to see for myself.”
“See what?” Had he been alone with her? Was I jealous? I had no idea. I had trouble even thinking straight. But I knew he wouldn’t do that.
“I heard students talking about me at school.”
“They’re always talking about you. You’re their eye candy.” I shrugged. He shook his head.
“What? No, they were saying they heard I was seeing a student.”
“Oh fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair. Maybe it was serious.
“Yeah. So I had to keep my distance until I got to the bottom of it. But it was just talk, nothing more than a rumor started by an angry sorority girl. I think she came onto me and I rejected her.”
“You think?” I asked. He shrugged nonchalantly.
“I wouldn’t be able to tell. Some of the students have…different measures.”
“Yeah, right. Back to Madeline. Why didn’t you call her back? I didn’t want to call her myself because I thought it would complicate things. Maybe we…went too fast and she doesn’t know how to handle it.”
He shook his head as he stood, giving me an incredulous look.
“No, she’s fine. It’s good you didn’t call her but we should fix it now.”
I arched my brow. “How, a conference call?” I scoffed.
“No. Let’s go and pay her a visit.”
Thirteen: Madeline
I spent the whole day studying in my apartment, having completely lost track of the time. My muscles were stiff, and I felt tired, so when I heard someone at the door, I was reluctant to answer. It was dark outside, and all I wanted at the moment was to wrap up studying and get some rest. After a few moments of internal debating, I decided to chase away whoever was at the other side of the door and hit the sack.