CHAPTER 11
TAKE THIS QUIZ TO SEE
WHICH OFFICE CHARACTER
YOU ARE!
VANESSA
It was 2:30 on Monday. Harry Puppins was sleeping in his diaper on his doggy bed in my bathroom. I had Grace’s stroller and was just grabbing my keys to run to the store when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to Adrian standing there with a cocked eyebrow, leaning an arm on the door frame in his suit, his tie loosened. “Jesus’s Abs?” He grinned.
He was watching more of my videos.
I beamed at him and put my hands up in a shrug. “I’m a teller of truths.”
He laughed. He was thoroughly amused by this. Thank God.
Even though I hadn’t given revealing information about him, I didn’t know if being fodder for my channel might bother him. It clearly didn’t.
And it was a good thing that he wasn’t weirded out by me talking about him, because my viewers loved him.
Sight unseen and mentioned once, Adrian was, by far, the most requested topic I’d ever had, short of my brief romance with Drake Lawless. They were begging for updates.
I was going to have to do another vlog, and soon.
He peered past me at Grace in her car seat. “Were you leaving?”
I looked over my shoulder and came back to him. “Yeah. I was going to go get a Christmas tree.” I paused. “Well, sort of. I can’t lug a whole tree up here by myself so I was going to Whole Foods to see if they had a little one in a pot or something.” I tilted my head. “Why don’t you have a tree? It’s
December.”
“I don’t need a tree. It’s just me.”
I laughed. “So? It’s Christmas.” I tugged on the end of his tie. “Want to come with me?”
He glanced down the hallway and then came back with a smile that reached his eyes. “Well, I was going to go get an oil change for the windowless white van today, but I think I could fit this in.”
I snorted. “You’d better not let this thing go to your head. I have to talk about my life in my videos, and you’re ridiculously attractive. I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
He smiled and pushed off the doorway. “Give me five minutes to get changed.”
* * *
Adrian insisted that he drive again. His car was an itty-bitty slate-blue BMW coupe. We couldn’t fit the car seat in the back, let alone a Christmas tree. Not even one in a pot. So we took my GMC Acadia.
Despite his warnings that he drove too fast, he was being very careful and considerate with the baby in the car.
He smelled really good. His cologne or whatever he used was super fresh and it lingered in the car. I was breathing through my nose on purpose.
“Do you always get out of work this early?” I asked, as we idled at a red light. “You got out early last week too.”
“No,” he said, talking to the road. “I usually work late. I don’t get home until midnight sometimes. I’ll leave early if I need to take my grandma to the doctor, but that’s about it.”
“You go with your grandma to the doctor?”
“I used to. Up until October when she still lived here.”
Gah.
This man was amazing. Like, in every single way. Unless he had a micropenis he was self-conscious about, I couldn’t see why he wasn’t all over Tinder letting women climb him like a ladder. I’d climb this man no
matter what he had in his pants.
Maybe he did have a micropenis… Maybe that’s why he didn’t send dick pics… Maybe that’s what he meant by shock and awe… I gasped quietly and slid my eyes over to his lap.
“My assistant is obsessed with you,” he said, breaking into my thoughts.
I darted my gaze away from his crotch. “She’s not from Monett,
Missouri, is she?”
He laughed.
He was different this afternoon. Lighter somehow. More Mr. Bingley and less Mr. Darcy.
“You’re almost not brooding at all today,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
He smiled at the road. “I think it’s the sponge.”
I pulled my legs up and crossed them under me on the seat. “You know, I have a lot of good ideas.”
He turned into the Whole Foods parking lot. “Like what?”
“Like, I think you need some throw pillows, a fleece blanket, and a plant in your living room. Your apartment’s a little American Psycho. Every time I’m in there I feel like you’re going to start talking to me about Phil Collins.”
“‘Invisible Touch’ was the group’s undisputed masterpiece,” he said, giving me a line from the movie.
I laughed so hard I started choking on my spit.
He turned into a parking space with a grin. “I’m not letting you decorate my apartment.”
I wiped at my eyes. “I’m not trying to decorate your apartment,” I said, putting my fingers in quotes. “I’m trying to enhance your quality of life.
Your surroundings affect your mood.” I nodded through the windshield.
“There’s a Pottery Barn, right there. I say we go.”
He chuckled, putting the car in park. “Okay. I’ll make a deal with you. I will let you enhance my quality of life with homewares on the condition that you tell me what you used to do before you were a YouTuber.”
I pivoted in my seat to look at him full-on. “Four throw pillows, two throw blankets, a Christmas tree, and I get to pick a centerpiece for the dining room table.”
Something lawyerly flickered across his face. “Two throw pillows, one blanket, a poinsettia, and we agree on the centerpiece.”
I narrowed my eyes. “No. Not good enough.” I got unbuckled and got out of the car.
“That is an extremely generous offer my client is making you,” he said, as we both leaned into the back seat on our respective sides to grab Grace at the same time. I let him take her and I picked up the diaper bag instead.
We met around the back as I pulled the stroller from the trunk in the nippy winter air. “What I used to do for a living is epically ironic. You will love it. I’m not wasting it on some half-assed attempt at placating me.” I pulled out the stroller and he clipped the car seat onto it. I started pushing Grace toward the shops.
“Placating you?” he said, chirping on the car alarm and jogging next to me with a grin.
“Poinsettias are poisonous. You have a dog and a baby that comes over,”
I argued.
“I’ll get a fake one.”
I blanched and he laughed.
“A fake—that is so not even the point of this exercise. My God, you’re Scrooge,” I said, navigating the sidewalk. “I need you to smell pine when you come home. It’s part of the thing.”
He opened the door of Pottery Barn for me to a whoosh of warm cinnamon-scented air. I went in, then turned to face him in the entryway. “I can be agreeable to two throw pillows and one blanket,” I said. “But I pick the centerpiece, and you get a Christmas tree. A live one.”
He put a hand to his chin like he was thinking about it. He paused in his fake musing. “Are you having dinner with me at my place tonight? Because I’m not setting any of this up on my own. You come over and help or we don’t have a deal.”
I scoffed. “I mean, yeah, totally. Of course I’m coming over. What kind of question is that?” I didn’t let him see it, but I seriously liked that he’d asked it.
I was officially in crush territory. There was no more denying it. I liked
him. A lot.
I couldn’t do anything about it. My dating rules were my rules. Plus, my good days were likely numbered now—and the number was low—and it wasn’t like he was available anyway. He wasn’t dating, so it probably wouldn’t have made one difference even if I could have pursued him. But I
was crushing on him just the same.
He smiled. “Okay. We have a deal.”
I smirked, walking into the store.
“I’m waiting,” he said from behind me.
I stopped at a sleek leather recliner and picked up a pillow with Rudolph on the front that I knew he’d hate. He had a red bell for the nose. “I like this one,” I said, wiggling it so it jingled. “What do you think?”
He took it from my hand and set it back on the chair I got it from. “Your part of the bargain first.” He crossed his arms.
I twisted my lips and smiled. “I was a receptionist for a paper company.”
His arms dropped. “Oh, come on. Like Pam Beesly from The Office?
Here I was, ready to buy a damn Christmas tree—”
I looked him in the eye. “I am dead serious. I was.”
He walked away from me toward tablewares.
I followed him, pushing the stroller. “I’m not making this up,” I said to his back.
“Deal’s off,” he said over his shoulder.
“I have prooooof,” I sang.
He stopped at a table with a Christmas dinner setup and pretended to look at a napkin ring, but I could tell he was waiting for me. I punched into my phone and then waved it at him. He glanced up and arched a playful eyebrow at me.
“They used to call me Van Beesly,” I said.
He snorted. “Fine. I will momentarily entertain this farce.” He put his hand out.
I smacked my phone into his palm. “That’s me, three years ago.” I’d pulled up the album called Work Christmas Party. “It’s called Paper Waits Cards. We sold cards, invitations, envelopes, and craft paper. I worked at their home office in Edina.”
He flipped through the pictures of me dressed in office casual. Then raised his eyes to mine. “Van Beesly?”
“Yes. And you’d better not call me that if you want me to answer.”
He looked like he didn’t believe me.
“Okay, you need more proof. Fine.” I took my phone from him. “I will call an old coworker. I’m willing to make the ultimate sacrifice because I think you need a Christmas tree in your life and I’m a giver. I give. It’s what I do.” I scrolled through my contacts, found the number, hit Send, and put the call on speaker. I held the phone between us as it rang, staring at Adrian’s face. Someone picked up and a man’s voice came through the line.
“Van Beesly!”
I hung up. “There. Now do you believe me?”
Adrian nodded at the phone. “Who was that?”
“Not my Jim Halpert, I’ll tell you that.” The phone was already ringing in my hand as he called me back. “He was obsessed with me the whole time I worked there and he just stopped trying to slide into my DMs like six months ago. I just shook the hornet’s nest. For you. You see how committed I am to this project?”
He laughed. “Okay. Which pillows do you want?”
I smiled triumphantly.
I didn’t torture him too much. I chose two very tasteful, sophisticated Christmas pillows that said MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS on them and a red fleece throw blanket with a faux fur trim. We agreed on a pine- and-berry centerpiece. And, he let me pick a wreath for the inside of his door. But only because I was watching his dog for free, he said.
I think he secretly liked it.
We grabbed him some ornaments, a star, a few strands of lights, and a tree skirt.
We bought it all, put the third row down in the trunk of my car, and loaded it in, and then wandered over to Whole Foods for groceries.
“So what do you want for dinner?” he asked as we walked in through the automatic doors.
“Soup,” I said, pushing the stroller. “We can throw it all in a pot and simmer it while we set up your tree.”
“Soup it is,” he said, grabbing a cart. “What kind?”
“Um…chicken and wild rice? It’s filling enough for dinner.”
He smiled. “Agreed. We’ll get some bread bowls to put it in.”
I bounced. “Let’s get a gingerbread house for dessert! We can decorate it and then eat the roof.”
He grinned, walking into the produce section. “Does anyone ever tell
you no?”
I pretended to think about it. “Never.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he said, stopping by the oranges to pull a business card out of his jacket. “I thought you might be interested in this for your dad.” He handed it to me. “Her name is Sonja Duggar. She’s a sober
companion and life coach.”
“A what?” I asked, taking the paper.
“A sober companion and life coach. We use them to keep clients out of trouble while they’re on trial. She’s particularly good at cases where the client needs to look reformed in front of the judge at their next appearance.
She’s good. He’ll like her.”
I looked up at him. “What does she do exactly?”
“Whatever needs to be done. If alcohol or addiction is the issue, she’ll get the client clean and sober and keep them there. She drives them to AA meetings and therapy sessions and supervises visitation. Makes sure they’re not in any violations of their court order. Ensures that medications are taken, they hold down their job, and show up to court on time. She used to be a therapist. She’s retired now and she does this on the side.”
I scoffed. “A babysitter. And it’s sad because he actually needs one,” I mumbled.
We started walking toward the onions. “She’ll be expensive,” he said.
“Insurance won’t cover it. But it’ll free you up so you’re not worrying about him when you’re not there. She’ll get the house taken care of, and she’ll help him deal with the underlying reasons that got it there in the first place.”
Oh God, that would be incredible. There wasn’t enough of me to go around. I was spread too thin as it was.
I smiled over at him. “This is amazing. I didn’t even know this was a thing.”
“It’s a thing. It might be difficult to get him onboard. The stakes are higher for my clients, so it’s not that hard of a sell when I pitch it.”
I snorted. “Oh, the stakes are high here too. If he doesn’t get his shit together, I’m cutting him off.”
He smiled and grabbed a bag for the onions. “She’ll even live there if he
has a spare room and he doesn’t mind her cat—though it’ll cost more.”
I didn’t care about the cost. I needed results. And Dad was always so lonely he’d probably love someone staying with him who wasn’t as fucked
up as he was.
Speaking of Annabel… My sister hadn’t surfaced since the car accident. She was still posting her digital art pics on Instagram, so I knew she was alive. Probably crashing on someone’s sofa if I had to guess, completely oblivious to the chaos she’d caused, as usual. I was beyond pissed at her. Between destroying the car and finding out she was maybe using while she was pregnant, I was done.
I’d officially gone full tough love on her ass. I’d already cut off the money, and she wasn’t allowed back at Dad’s. But yesterday I’d had her cell phone shut off too. I wasn’t contributing one dime to enabling this bullshit. Let her hit rock bottom faster.
“I’ll call Sonja today,” I said. “Thank you for this.”
He smiled at me. “You got it.”
Picking out groceries with Adrian was one of the most fun things I’d done all year. He was exactly like me when it came to produce. He inspected everything, picked out all the best ingredients. He went with fresh herbs instead of dried stuff, organic heavy cream and chicken broth for the base, Plugrá butter for the roux.
Then we went crazy and bought like seventeen different cheeses. People were staring at us. We were dangerous together. I couldn’t even imagine us in France. We’d go broke on the wine alone.
Somewhere along the way, dinner for tomorrow came up and suddenly we were shopping for that too: chicken cordon bleu, with horseradish mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. But at my place this time instead.
When it came time to wander out to the tree tent in the parking lot, Adrian paused with the shopping cart at the sliding doors.
“What?” I asked.
He had a weird look on his face, like he wasn’t sure he should say what he was thinking. “What if we went and cut one down?”
My face lit up. “Like at a tree farm or something?” I started bouncing.
“Will you wear a flannel? Will you have an ax?”
He snorted. “I do not own a flannel. And if memory serves, they give you a handsaw.”
I bit my lip and squealed excitedly.
He smiled. “My dad used to take us to a tree farm every year. He’d cut one down. It was a tradition.”
Ahhh. Now I understood the hesitation. And the reason he never had a tree.
My face went soft and I peered up at him. “Was the last time you got a Christmas tree back when your dad was around?”
He paused a moment. “Yes.”
“So when your dad left, it was the end of your childhood,” I said.
He drew in a long breath. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
I smiled up at him. “But look! Now you’re the grown-up and you get to cut down a tree for Grace’s first Christmas and give that experience to her like someone gave it to you once.”
His eyes went soft and he looked at Grace in her stroller. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Though she’s probably too small to remember it.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what she’s going to remember. There are things that will happen to her while she’s a baby that will form who she is for the rest of her life. She might be a hundred years old and still feel a sense of calm when she smells someone who smells like you.”
He wrinkled his forehead at me. “What?”
“Yeah. You don’t notice it? How she calms down faster when you pick her up? She already associates you with feeling safe because you saved her that night. She’s imprinting, right now. Little synapses are connecting and telling her that you’re good. She might be drawn to bearded men with kind green eyes and marry one one day, just because she knew you once. And she’ll never even know why.”
He blinked at me and something I couldn’t read moved across his face.
“Anyway,” I said, pushing the stroller toward the exit, “I think we’ve made real progress here today. Even if there’s not going to be an ax and flannel.”
He smiled and pushed the cart, following me out into the parking lot.
* * *
Half an hour later, we pulled into the tree lot. A woman in a heavy winter coat and a Santa hat approached the car and gave us a site map and a saw.
The saw smelled like pine.
“You smell that?” I smiled. He rolled up the window as we crept down the snowy road toward the different plots.
He smiled back. “I do.”
I looked at the map. “So what kind of tree do you want?”
“Balsam fir,” he said without skipping a beat.
“Right answer.” I nodded to a lot on the left. “Those are balsams.”
He pulled into a parking space and we got out. I took Grace from her car seat and did a quick diaper change. Then I bundled her up, and we set out between the rows of pines.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny and around thirty degrees—a Minnesota heat wave for December. We crunched through the snow, looking at the selection.
“Isn’t this better than being at work?” I asked, closing my eyes and breathing in the crisp air.
“I have to admit this does beat depositions,” he said, holding the saw.
“So you’re a partner, right?” I asked, looking over at him. “What does
that mean exactly? You’re the boss?”
“I am one of the bosses, yes.”
“But not the big boss?”
“The big boss is Marcus. He’s the owner and founder of the firm.”
“And what’s he like?”
He bobbed his head. “Serious. Shrewd.”
“So how does that work exactly? He’s the owner and you’re what? Like if this was a retail setting, what position would you have?”
He stopped to look a tree up and down. “Well, I guess if this was retail, I’d be the store manager. Marcus and I agree on what cases we take and who we hire. I consult with him if I need to, but he defers to my judgment
for most things.”
“And how many lawyers are there?”
“We have nine right now. Plus three paralegals and a couple of administrative assistants.”
A soft wind blew and I tucked Grace’s blanket around her face, kissing her warm forehead. “So do you get all the best clients?”
We kept walking. “Technically clients belong to the firm. Any of us can show up to represent them. But I usually head up the bigger cases.”
“Ahhh. I see. And do you like Marcus?”
“I respect Marcus. Liking him isn’t really necessary.”
I stopped at a large tree. “What about this one?” I nodded to it.
Adrian examined it. “For me or you?”
“You. I’ll need something a little smaller. I don’t have as much room as
you do.”
He nodded. “This works for me.”
He got down in the snow and tucked under the boughs of the tree and started to saw.
“So what’s Annabel like?” he asked, the tree shaking back and forth.
“Angry.”
He stopped sawing and poked his head out to look at me. “Angry?”
“Angry. Like a pissed-off, grounded, petulant high schooler.”
“Why?” He went back under.
I scoffed. “Why not?”
Annabel was mad at the world. Mad that Mel died. Mad that her mom left. Mad that a condom broke and she got pregnant by some rando in Punta Cana on her grad trip—that I paid for, by the way. I thought gifting her with my love of travel would help her love her life a little more.
That backfired.
At least she’d never have to worry about dying of ALS. She and Brent had a different mom from Melanie and me—which meant Grace was safe too. That alone should be enough to be thankful for. But Annabel didn’t really do gratitude.
The tree shook one more time and fell sideways with a small crack.
Adrian got up and brushed snow off his jacket and I grinned at him.
“You did it. You’ve come full circle.”
He looked down at it with a smile. “Let’s go get yours.”
* * *
Three hours later we were back at his apartment. Both trees were erected in their respective living rooms. I’d decorate mine later. His was the one that was critical.
The fireplace was on, Christmas music was playing, his tree was decorated, and we were eating soup out of bread bowls on his sofa. He’d
made hot toddys, and I had his new throw blanket on my lap with Harry Puppins snuggled up next to me. He growled in his sleep.
I loved that insane little dog. He was like some curmudgeonly old man, chasing people off his lawn. When we got back with the tree, Harry attacked Adrian’s pant leg. Adrian was trying to put the tree into the stand so his hands were busy and he couldn’t get Harry off him. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even help. I almost peed my pants.
“Don’t you wish you’d gotten two blankets now?” I asked, nudging Adrian’s thigh with my knee. “I’m so comfortable and you’re over there all cold and sticking to the leather.”
He laughed, scraping his spoon down the side of his bread bowl. “I run hot.”
I smiled, gazing around his apartment. It was actually homey now. “Tell me you don’t feel better,” I said, looking back at him.
He smiled. “I do feel better. You were right.”
I put my mug on the floor. “You know, I think it was fate that you met me. You definitely needed me in your life.”
He slid his bread bowl onto the coffee table. “While I’m very glad that I met you, I don’t believe in fate.”
I shook my head at him. “How can you not believe in fate?”
“I don’t think things are preordained or written in the stars. I believe we make our own destiny.”
“Ah, spoken like a true control freak.” I put out my palm. “Give me your
hand.”
He eyed me suspiciously.
“Give it to me,” I said, waiting.
He smiled and put it out in front of him. The second I picked it up, warm electricity shot through me.
God, I bet this man knew what to do with his hands… Adrian didn’t really strike me as the kind of person to half-ass sex. He didn’t fail. At anything. I bet he could teach a master class in giving women orgasms.
I liked men with a little experience—since I didn’t have time for training.
I cleared my throat. “I’m going to read your palm,” I said, flipping his hand over.
He looked amused. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“A fortune teller in a little village in Spain.”
“No wonder Becky likes you.”
I ran a finger along his love line and smiled. “Why?”
“She’s into astrology,” he said, leaning into me to watch what I was doing. His face was a little close to mine. It made my heart flutter. “She’s always reading me my horoscope,” he said.
“And you don’t ever feel like there’s truth to it?” I asked, studying the
creases in his palm.
“Nope. So what’s my palm telling you?”
I smiled a little. “You see this?” I dragged a line at the base of his fingers. “This is your love line. You’ve got a break in your heart line, right here. That means something traumatic happened to you. That’s probably the thing with your dad leaving. But look. Look how long and steady it is after that. The whole rest of your life is one solid, happy line.”
I smiled at his palm. He had featherlike creases at the start of his line.
Passionate. And it stopped right before his index finger, which was good. It meant he could have a healthy love life.
I tipped his hand toward him. “You see how your heart line forks at the end? Turns down a little? That means you’re willing to sacrifice everything for love. You’re a romantic.”
When I looked up at him, he wasn’t looking at his hand. He was looking at me.
“And yours?” he asked, holding my eyes. He turned his hand over and flipped mine and held it between us. “What does yours say?”
The way we were leaning into each other, I could feel his breath just tickling my face. It was so close.
“Um…it’s a lot like yours, actually. Only my hand shape is a fire sign. I have a long palm and shorter fingers. It means—”
“Let me guess.” He gave me a small smile. “Energetic. Enthusiastic.
Outgoing.”
I was having a hard time breathing normally while he was touching me like this. “Pretty much,” I managed. “Yours is air. It means you’re an intellect and logical. A good communicator.”
He ran a thumb along my palm. “Fire and air.” He looked back up at me.
“And what about the rest of it? Will you have a long life?”
My smile fell and I pulled my hand away, pretending I needed to pick up my drink all of a sudden. I sat back into my corner of the sofa, putting the ocean back between us. “Lifelines show well-being,” I said. “Life changes.
They don’t actually tell you how long you’re going to live.”
It was the numbness in my fingers that usually did that.