Perfect Chaos

“What?” My world stops spinning, my heart slowing. I can’t move. “Lainey?” I push her name past my swelling tongue.

Sal sighs. “She just came at me, and before I knew it we were kissing.”

“Lainey?” It’s the only word I can form. Her name. The name of the woman I’ve fallen head over heels for. “Lainey?” Fuck, I need her name to magically morph into a different name and my world will stop crumbling around me. “Lainey?” My arse hits the chair on a thud.

Sal frowns across the desk at me. “Yes, Lainey. Who did you think it was?”

I stare at Sal. Just stare at him, searching for some sense in this craziness. “Lainey kissed you?” I jerk at the sound of my question, an unbearable shot of pain stabbing at my heart. “She kissed you?”

“Don’t sound so fucking surprised, Tyler. You think you’re the be all and end all for women across the land. Pissed off it wasn’t you she kissed?”

I bolt up from my chair, sending it flying back. She kissed Sal? This doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t my ego talking. I’m not wondering what the fuck she sees in my short, balding partner when she has me. It just . . . doesn’t make any sense. But then again, maybe it does. Her reluctance to tell Sal about us. Of course she wouldn’t want to tell him. Not just because he’s her direct boss, but because . . . well, she fucking kissed him. Why? Why would she do that?

“When?” I demand.

“The Thursday night we went over to the bar.” He sighs, and I cast my mind back, remembering the evening well. Sal stormed out. I assumed Moya had summoned him. “It happened and it shouldn’t have, and then I heard through the grapevine a rumor that she left her previous job under a cloud. Something about a sexual harassment claim. It scared the shit out of me, Ty. I couldn’t fire her. I’m sorry, man. I feel like such a fool,” Sal blabbers on. “I mean, look what just happened. She clearly preys on married men.” I can hardly hear him. All I can hear are Lainey’s words.

I love you.

All in.

It’s me who’s the fool. A first-class mug. I’m confused, angry . . . fucking confused.

I turn and storm out.

“Hey, Ty, where are you going?” Sal shouts. “Ty! I need your help, man.”

I can’t even feel my legs as I stalk away. I’m walking in a haze of fury, my destination set. I grab my car keys from my office and bypass the elevator, pushing my way through the door to the stairwell. The slam of the door into the bricks behind it doesn’t even penetrate my hearing or dent my purpose. I’m on autopilot, and God help anyone who gets in my way.

Throwing myself into the driver’s seat of my car, I slam it into first and screech out of the car park, skidding onto the road. I dial Lainey, and her voice when she answers twists the knife in my back. “You kissed Sal.” I state it as the fact it is and wait. And wait. And wait. “Lainey, fucking talk.”

She hangs up.

“Fuck.” I slam my fist on the steering wheel, so hard I’m sure I could have put a hole through the center. My head is swimming in questions, in images, and in words. “What the fuck is going on?” I yell, taking a corner fast.

It takes me an hour to make it across town, all the typical shortcuts failing me, the roads bumper-to-bumper with traffic. It’s a painful hour, with nothing to do but ignore endless missed calls from Gina, who’s undoubtedly wondering what’s going on. I can’t talk to Gina. Couldn’t possibly begin to explain, especially when I haven’t got a clue what’s going on myself. The only person I want to talk to right now is Lainey, even if I don’t want to hear what she says.

Screeching to a stop outside her building, I fly out of my car and half hobble half run up the steps to her apartment block, pressing and holding the button for apartment number eight so it buzzes continuously.

“All right.” Martha’s annoyed voice comes over the speaker.

I get up close to the microphone, resting my forearm on the wall beside it. “Where’s Lainey?”

“Tyler?”

“Yes, it’s me. Where is she?”

“At work, I expect. You should know, being her boss and all.”

I hit the wall with the side of my fist. “She left over an hour ago.” She should be here by now. It’s half hour tops on the Tube.

“Well, she isn’t,” she sings sarcastically. “What’s up? You sound stressed.”

“Just a fucking bit,” I mutter, looking across to my car.

“You two fallen out?”

“Yeah, that tends to happen when your girlfriend kisses your partner.” I couldn’t give a fuck that she technically wasn’t my girlfriend back then. She kissed Sal on the Thursday and the next night she was at my apartment door. So what? Sal didn’t put out so she tried her luck with me? Is she really all for suing our arses?