“Okay,” Paul said, even though I could tell that he wasn't fully convinced. But he let me continue on my way back to my office, where I stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at my desk. This place had always seemed like a second home before, but now it seemed almost forbidding. Despite my near-constant worry in Hawaii that the guys weren't going to want me to come back to the business, I found myself questioning again whether I wanted to be back here.
But that was silly; what else was I going to do? Like I had told Gretchen, it wasn't like I was good at not doin
g anything, at not working. I shook my head and seated myself behind my desk, opening up my email and beginning to weed through the thousands of messages that I had received during my absence.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Gretchen
For once, I was running a bit late getting to work on Monday, not that I was late to meet a client, because I always planned to get to the massage parlor half an hour early. But normally, I was closer to an hour early.
Mina was waiting for me when I got there, and she peered concernedly at me as I walked up the front steps. “Hey,” she said, her voice gentle. “Did you have a rough night?”
I grimaced, hating that she could probably see the dark circles under my eyes and the frizz in my hair, which I hadn't quite managed to tame that morning. “It was fine,” I lied, unlocking the front door.
“Sure,” Mina said, sounding like she didn't believe me. “You know that it's okay to admit that you're still upset about the whole thing with Christian, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “I appreciate that,” I said. “But I'm not still upset about him. We were just fucking anyway; we both knew that it wasn't going anywhere. The longer it's been since I’ve seen him, the less I care.”
“It's only been a week,” Mina said.
I didn't want to get mad at her, but I didn't understand how she couldn't see that even talking about Christian hurt. I just wanted to shove away all my thoughts of him and get on with my life.
For how much Mina and I were such great friends, it was in part because we were so very different. We handled things in different ways. Where Mina, when she was upset, wanted to talk about the issue and eat her weight in ice cream, I just wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong and go about my life as though everything was normal.
“Anyway,” Mina said slowly when I didn't respond. “I was doing some thinking.”
“Oh?” I said, raising an eyebrow at her.
Mina rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Remember when I was helping you give that massage to that older couple? It was so much fun working together, right? And we both know that my pineapple shop wouldn't be half as successful as it has been without you sending massage customers over to me for a post-massage shake. So, what if we merged our businesses together?”
“What?” I asked, shocked by the proposal.
“Think about it,” Mina said. “You'd get a little extra help around the massage parlor, and there'd be someone there to help walk-ins or to answer the phone while you were busy with customers. Plus, if Sandy was working for both of us, he could man things out front here, and I could help you out with massage clients, letting you take on even more business. It's a win-win situation, right?”
I frowned over at her. “Aren't people going to think it's a little weird, having a massage-slash-pineapple shop?”
“Maybe,” Mina said, shrugging. “But only because they don't know all the health benefits that come with eating pineapple! I mean, just look at my skin.” She winked at me, and I had to laugh.
“That's not because of the pineapple,” I said. “That's because of the spa visits and-”
“Okay, okay,” Mina said, holding up a hand to stall my arguments. “But seriously, don't you think it could be perfect? There's no one else doing anything like it, and we'd get to be coworkers. For real. We'd get to see each other more, and we'd both be drumming up more business for one another, and…”
I sighed and ran a hand back through my hair, a gesture that I had subconsciously picked up from Christian. “Yeah, I don't know,” I said, shaking my head. “I'd have to think about it.” The thing was, as much as I loved Mina, I wasn't so sure. And wasn't there some saying about how you weren't supposed to do business with your friends? We'd have to figure out all the messy details like how we got paid, based on our personal clients, or based on the combined shop's income? And things like that. Neither of us were very business-minded to begin with, and it seemed like more of a headache than anything else.
But Mina seemed so excited about the prospect that it wasn't as though I could just tell her no outright.
My first customer came in, effectively closing the conversation for now anyway, and Mina smiled and said goodbye, heading back over to her own shop.
I smiled at the older woman who waited patiently for me to turn my attention to her. “Good morning, and welcome to Paradise Massage, Mrs. Talbot. Here's a massage outfit for you to put on, if you just want to step right into the massage room here. I'll give you a few minutes to get comfortable, and then I'll be in to help you.”
The words were so routine and familiar by this point that I could probably recite them in my sleep.
Which was why dating Christian, and everything that was so not routine about that, had been so much fun. I sighed and shook my head. It wouldn't do to be distracted by thoughts of Christian when I was meant to be giving a massage.
I moved into the room with Jane and got to work. “Just visiting Hawaii for a quick trip over the holidays?” I asked her quietly.
“Well, sort of,” Jane said, laughing a little. “I'm on a rather extended trip, but I arrived in Hawaii the day before New Year's, and I'll be here for about a week. Then, I'll be headed off to the Philippines, and then who knows!”