“Yes?”
“I need to work!”
“I know.”
“You’re distracting.”
His shit-eating grin widened. “It’s the face, isn’t it?”
I had opened my mouth to respond when my cell phone rang, and I checked the screen. “It’s Rip.” I picked it up.
“Speakerphone this shit. Or hell, ask if he can FaceTime!” Banks was suddenly right behind me, watching, listening, and damn he smelled good.
Focus, Colby.
“Hey, what’s up?” I tapped the speakerphone button and waited.
Viera was bawling in the background, and from the rattles and clanks, it sounded like he was at the store. Yay, we’d have groceries! I might be annoyed with him, but I was so thrilled he’d actually attempted the impossible I could kiss him.
“I can’t find the damn chickpeas. What the hell is a chickpea? The recipe said I needed two cans, and some organic coconut flour, and—Viera, hey, hey, hey, the big bird didn’t mean it, all right? Just calm down—”
“Never tell a woman to calm down,” Banks said under his breath. “That’s like Manhood 101.”
“Are you with a guy?” Rip asked.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call him a guy,” I joked, earning a glare from Banks, who decided to join in on the convo.
“Hey, man!” His smile was one of pure joy. “You, uh, you doing OK? Want some of that help I offered this morning?”
“I’m good. Everything’s fine! Viera, the bird was sad, OK? That’s why it flew down so close to you, and it didn’t follow us into the grocery store, OK?”
“But it be there when we go back outside!” she wailed.
Banks whistled. “Kid really doesn’t like birds, does she?”
“You have no idea.” I sighed as Rip made a strangled cough in the background, then the line went dead.
“I think he’s doing fantastic, you?” Banks’s smug grin actually had me smiling back at him. “Honest moment, you like that he’s struggling and so do I. He needs a bit of mess in his life.” He eyed me up and down like he was waiting for me to acknowledge that I was, in fact, the mess he was referring to.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not a mess.”
Wow, even I didn’t believe me. Great.
“Sure. OK.” He drummed his fingertips against Rip’s desk. How were even his hands attractive? “I never said being disorganized was a bad thing. I like messes. But more importantly, my point is you’d be good for him, and because we’re friends now—”
I tilted my head to the left and subjected him to an assessing stare. “Are we, though?”
“I’m going to help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Win him over. Get him to give you some slack.”
“Ha!” I crossed my arms. “It’s impossible. I’ve tried.”
So damn much it was almost embarrassing. I did everything in my power to make him see me as an equal and always came up short, which just irritated me more because I knew my worth—the problem was, he didn’t, and he never would. He wasn’t the type to see my accomplishments, only my failures, and it sucked because I truly did want his respect. I wanted so much more than that, truthfully, but I’d given up on that a long time ago.
“Guys like Rip need a different approach. If you turn into his perfect woman, you’re going to turn into him, and he’s going to be bored to tears. He just needs someone who can force him to acknowledge his attraction to you.”