Grumpy Best Friend

I smiled back, stood, and let her lead me down a hall and into a cube farm. I didn’t know who he was, or what I was doing, but the place was nice enough anyway. A few men and several women sat behind desks, staring at their computers, hidden behind their beige cube calls. The receptionist took me to a large conference room toward the back, and I slowed when I looked through the glass at the long table with scattered phones on top and another view of the city.

Sitting at toward the far end of the table was Lady Fluke. She was an older woman in her fifties, long, salt-and-pepper hair worn in a tight bun. Her clothes were conservative, tasteful, and very expensive, in muted grays, beige, and cream. Her black bag was on the table in front of her, and her thin lips were pulled back into a look of utter dissatisfaction—which was standard. She had resting bored face at the best of times.

I had no clue she was in the States, since she hadn’t told me she was visiting. I didn’t know who booked her flights or took care of her travel, but apparently it was someone else. I was taken aback—that was more or less my whole job, and it suddenly made no sense that she kept me around. For one crazy moment, I wondered if she was about to fire my ass.

But no, that didn’t make sense either. She wouldn’t bring me into some strange conference room to kick me to the curb. She’d do it over the phone, with zero remorse or pity.

This was something different then. Two men sat at the opposite end of the table, both of them in crisp business suits. The first was older, with a slight double chin, and bright blue eyes. And the other was young, maybe a few years older than me—and very handsome. As I stepped into the room behind the receptionist, something about him nagged at me, something in his eyes, in the shape of his lips, how the right side was tugged up from a light white scar, and the dimple of his chin, and the curl of his dark, thick chestnut hair, and those piercing green eyes—

I stood gaping at Bret like I’d seen a ghost.

Because in a lot of ways, I had.

He smiled back at me, and seemed genuinely delighted.

Nobody moved, and I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t seen Bret in years, not since I was in braces. Back then I was going through a serious emo phase and wore almost exclusively black. Seeing him again pulled so many uncomfortable memories into my head that I thought my brain might explode.

The receptionist melted away and left me standing there like a total moron until Lady Fluke’s sharp tone yanked me abruptly back into my body.

“I called you thirty minutes ago,” Lady Fluke said. “It’s nice of you to join us then.”

“Sorry,” I said, stammering my reply. I kept glancing at Bret, and he definitely noticed—his smile got bigger, like he was happy to see me flustered. “I didn’t know you were in the States, Lady Fluke.”

“Yes, well.” She frowned at me, glanced at Bret, then gestured for me to join her. “Come sit down. We have some things to discuss.”

I hesitated, looked at Bret, and considered my options. I could run, and lose a lucrative and frankly pretty cushy job. That would be incredibly mortifying, and I might as well run right up to a window and jump on out. I could come up with some excuse—but nothing came to mind, at least not something I could bear to say out loud.

That left me with sitting down and pretending like I didn’t know Bret, even if we’d been best friends for the first sixteen years of my life, and he broke my heart into a thousand million pieces and left me a wreck of a human to try and finish high school all on my own.

Easier said than done, but I was game to try anything. I took the seat across from Lady Fluke and kept my eyes on her, ignoring the two men at the opposite end, mentally praying that I might wake up from this nightmare at any moment.

“I apologize for being late,” I said, since that was easier than trying to argue with her.

“You’re here now.” She glanced at Bret again then sat up straight—even though that seemed physically impossible. “Well then, shall we get started?”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Bret said, shattering the silent ice wall I’d been building my head between us. “I’m Bret Flowers, and this is my associate, Neal Bull.”

“Jude Pike,” I said. “Nice to meet you both.”

Neal smiled at me, a little uncertain, and glanced at Bret, who was staring at me with an open and naked smile. I knew that smile so well, it made me sick. He looked so much like he used to—except grown, with stubble on his cheeks and chin, and about twenty pounds of extra muscle. He looked good, frankly, and I hated him for making me think that.