Grumpy Best Friend

“I’d appreciate that,” I said.

“But no more talking about the good old days. I don’t want to do the whole nostalgia thing with you.” She pushed my shoulder gently, making more space between us. “Do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” I said. “Reminisce openly and as often as I want. Get as explicit as I can.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t piss me off and make me regret this already.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She sighed and gave me another look, but we didn’t argue on the ride back to her place, and she even let me drop her off in front of her door. I watched her go inside, eyes on her long legs, and I wondered how long this good will would last—days, maybe, probably not weeks.

5

Jude

For about an hour after watching Bret toss that drunk idiot on his ass and help that poor woman, I felt like maybe we could fix things.

That feeling slowly wore off, until the next morning I sat in my kitchen drinking coffee and staring at the wall and thinking about coming into the office every day only to see his smug face smiling at me. Every day, day after day, I’d have to deal with him in some capacity, whether I liked it or not.

I thought I might go crazy.

I knew it wouldn’t work. From the second we sat down to dinner, and he gave me that charming smile, I knew I couldn’t learn to run a company with that man breathing down my neck. As much as I thought he might’ve changed, I still couldn’t bring myself to accept that he was back in my life.

It wouldn’t work. Sooner or later, something would go wrong—and I didn’t want to be the one suffering when that happened.

There was only one solution. I checked the time in London, just to be sure, then called Lady Fluke.

She picked up on the third ring. I half expected to leave a message, but she sounded surprisingly chipper. “Hello, Jude,” she said. “How is my former assistant doing?”

“I’m doing good,” I said, and began to pace across my apartment. “I had a productive day with Bret yesterday.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, and I heard her moving around on her end of the phone, shuffling papers. “I was just looking at an email from him. You found office space, I hear?”

“Right,” I said, and stared up at the ceiling. Of course he was in touch with her. I didn’t know why I thought I’d be the only one with direct contact. “The office looks nice, and it’s within budget.”

“Wonderful,” she said, although I realized that we’d never actually hammered out a budget at all. “Tell me, how does the factory space look?”

“With some work, it’ll be nice,” I said, nodding to myself. “But I’m sorry, Lady, can we talk about Bret?”

A short silence. “What about him?”

“I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going to just come out and say it.” I sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I don’t think we can work together.”

A long, deadly silence on her end. I was so stupid. I didn’t know why I couldn’t just let this go and move on with my life. Bringing it up to Lady Fluke was the absolutely worst thing I could do. Now she’d be forced to choose between the two of us, and he was the one with money—I was disposable.

“I’m not happy to hear you say that,” she said slowly, using her clipped diction again, like a sword against my chest. “I’ll tell you something, Jude. During my conversation with him last night, he offered to double his investment, and I accepted it.”

I stared down at the floor and suddenly felt sick. I leaned up against the wall, dizzy and afraid I might fall.

He doubled his investment. I didn’t know how much that actually was—but I guessed a lot, considering how much access she was giving him, and how important he seemed. I couldn’t imagine her letting him in on this venture without some big show of good will, since he was a stranger, and she put a lot of stock on relationships.

Doubling that meant he wasn’t going anywhere.

“I guess you’re telling me that I’d better get over my issues,” I said, and almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

“I guess so,” she said, and let out a sigh. “Listen, Jude, I know this is a lot. I understand that I have given you a lot of responsibility, with very little preparation or training, and it’s very overwhelming. But I don’t know many people in America, and those that I do, well, we’ve had a bit of a falling out. I need someone I can trust, and I need someone with experience. You, I can trust. Bret, he has experience. I very much want you to work well together.”