“Yep,” Adele says. “Saw them last night. I stopped by on my way home from the market to drop off a blazer she left at my place, and thought I was in the twilight zone. She and I are there talking in the foyer and Dad comes in with … are you ready for this? Are you sitting down?
“Ready. Sitting down. Hit me…”
“A bouquet of flowers for her! Flowers, Aid!”
“What the fuck?” I’m in shock.
“I know! Shit, Lilly’s crying. I gotta dash.”
“Talk to you tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes.”
“No doubt,” Adele says, with humor. “Later.”
“Later.”
I end the call and text my brother.
“Lunch today?”
Austin: “Sure.”
And then I text my new girlfriend.
“Come to my office. Now.
After fucking Carly in my office, I get washed up and head to my father’s office. I poke
my head in and he smiles.
“Morning,” he says.
“Well, hello...” I greet. “How’d last night go? Adele told me you showed up with flowers. Did you sweep her off her feet?”
“Not great,” he says. “But, we’ve got a dinner date tomorrow night.” He laughs with vigor, slapping his leg and I laugh, too, sort of. Fuckin’ weird. Weird talking to him like this and even weirder is the shit coming out of his mouth.
“Alright. Well, just stoppin’ in to say dinner plans this Sunday, alright? At either Austin’s or Adele’s. One of us’ll let you know.”
“Can I bring a date?”
“If you mean my mother, I don’t know. I… guess…” I’m trying to keep straight-faced, but I just can’t. This is whacked.
“We’ll see how Saturday night goes,” he says, smiling.
“Alright.” I’m about to mouth off with safe sex advice, but it’s probably not a good thing to joke about with him for multiple reasons.
I stop at Carly’s desk on my way back. She’s eating a bagel with her left hand, her fingers flying across the keyboard with her right. She looks focused on her task. And fuckable. Did I really just fuck her twenty minutes ago? Feels longer than that.
“Hey.”
She looks at me and puts the bagel down and wipes her mouth with a napkin.
“I got lunch with my brother, but let’s take off around quarter to five. I got the bike today.”
She smiles. “I don’t get off until five.”
“You get off when I say so.” I wink.
She smirks.