Listen to Me (Fusion 1)

“Are you okay?” Jake asks and I whirl around, glaring at him.

“I’d like to see you in my office, please.” I’m proud of how even I’m able to keep my voice when I want to rage. My hands are shaking, my heart pounding.

“What did I do?” he asks, hands out at his sides, but I ignore him and stomp to the office. Thankfully, Riley isn’t in here, and I shut the door behind us, then whirl on him again.

“I didn’t need your help back there, Jake. I had it handled just fine.”

“Look, he hurt you before, Addie. Do you think that if I see a man threatening my girl I’m not going to make it known that I’ll do whatever it is I need to to defend her?”

“Why do men have to have pissing contests over every damn thing?” I ask the room at large and pace back and forth. “I’m not a damsel in distress, Jake. I did just fine before you, and I’ll do fine after you.”

“After me?” he asks with a raised brow.

“After you,” I repeat, glaring at him. My heart is pounding and my hands are shaking and I want to smack him and kiss him all at the same time. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Addie,” Riley says, coming into the office without knocking. “Daisy is here and says she’s clean and wants to talk to you about putting her back on the schedule.”

“Clean?” Jake asks.

“Daisy’s the one that Addie found snorting coke in the bathroom,” Riley says, making me cringe. Jake pins me in a glare.

“Tell Daisy I’ll call her later,” I say to Riley, who simply nods and backs out of the office.

“You have drug addicts working for you?”

“You don’t know anything about it,” I reply.

“You’re right. Because you didn’t tell me.”

“This is my job, Jake. My business. I don’t have to tell you every little thing that happens here. Just like, apparently, you don’t have to tell me about the women you hook up with when you’re working.”

His eyes narrow and nostrils flare as he clenches his jaw.

“I’m going to start with the first comment, and then we’ll deal with the other. Finding someone snorting coke in your bathroom isn’t a little thing.”

“Are you going to try to protect me from that too?” I ask with exasperation.

“I’d really like to know why you’re putting her back on the schedule,” he says, hands on his hips. “This place is too classy to employ junkies.”

That does it. “Why are you here, Jake?”

“I thought I’d surprise you and take you out for lunch or something.”

“Well, I don’t have time,” I reply, wanting this whole episode over. “I have an appointment this afternoon, and I have to work tonight.” I grab my handbag and turn back to him, but my bag snags on the corner of the desk, spilling its contents on the ground.

Before I can reach for anything, Jake bends over and picks up Daisy’s vial of coke.

“Tell me this isn’t yours.”

“What if it is?”

“What the fuck, Addison?” Now his eyes just look hurt, and he doesn’t have any right to be hurt with me.

Not one.

“It was Daisy’s, Jake. I took it away from her when I caught her with it in the bathroom and forgot to flush it. I told you before, I don’t do that shit. I don’t lie. Unlike you.”

“Okay, point number two. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You, hooking up with Karina at the awards show last night.”

He scowls. “I presented an award with her.”

“Right.” I blindly grab handfuls of purse stuff and shove them back in. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you were doing on the red carpet when your lips were all over her.”

“I kissed her cheek, and that was it, Addie.”

“Okay.” I need to get the hell out of here. “I don’t want you here when I get back.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then we’re going to talk about this until you do. I’m not lying to you. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Well, I’ll just fight with you, then,” I reply and slam the door behind me as I stalk out of the office.

“I WAS THINKING about trying a new color on you today,” Cici says as she removes my old polish off my toes. “What do you think?”

“Do whatever you want,” I reply with a frown.

“Well, aren’t we just two scoops of bitchy in a bowl full of grouchy this afternoon?” Cici says. “What crawled up your ass?”

“Men suck.”

“Well, that’s true,” she says. I come in every other week for a mani-pedi and for some girl talk with Cici. If it hadn’t been last minute, I would have canceled today though. I just don’t want to talk about it. “What did he do?”

“He tried to come to my rescue when I didn’t need it.”

“Hmm.”

“And I have photographic proof that he had his hands and lips on another woman last night.”

Cici stops cold and stares at me with her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“He says that nothing happened and that it was a photo for the press, but I don’t give a shit. He shouldn’t have kissed her.”

“Was it the kind of kiss where it looked like he was about to eat her face, or was it a peck?”

“He was kissing her cheek.”