The Design(2)
I’d managed to forget about my impending interview for all of five minutes, but now it was right back to the forefront of my mind.
“Yes, I’ve practiced, but I doubt Grayson will even bother asking me questions. He’ll just stare at me from across his desk hoping that I’ll spontaneously combust… or start crying.”
Brooklyn rolled her eyes and twisted the lid back onto the red nail polish. She liked to play devil’s advocate when it came to Grayson, but I knew better. He actually was the devil, with no advocate to say otherwise. He might have been her friend for the last ten years, but he was not a nice guy. He’d proven that to me on multiple occasions, and I was content with where our relationship was. I.e. non-existent.
“Give him a chance. He’s under a ton of stress. Don’t take his curtness personally.”
I grunted. Curt was putting it lightly.
“All right. No more Grayson talk. I need food,” I said, patting my stomach like a jolly Santa Claus. “When is that man slave of yours getting back with the fajitas?”
“Jason is my boyfriend, not my sex slave,” she corrected with a threatening stare.
“Whoa Ms. Freud, you dropped your slip,” I said, reaching for my phone so I could check my email for the one-thousandth time that day. There was probably nothing new, but I didn’t want to miss any last minute changes concerning my interview in the morning. For the last week I’d kept my phone attached to my hip as if it would alert me about the apocalypse at any minute. Seriously, I’d been in the shower earlier, trying to talk myself into actually shaving my legs, when my phone vibrated on the bathroom sink. I scrambled for it, slipped, and ended up inches away from hitting my head on the bathroom tile. (Thank goodness I missed, because the paramedics would have had to use the Jaws of Life to hack through my leg hair to save me.)
To say that I was nervous about my interview with Grayson Cole was an understatement. Homeboy held the keys to my future. Landing a job at his firm would be the crucial first step in my plan to move to Paris. See detailed outline below:
1. Land a job.
2. Work until I have a nice little nest egg.
3. Ignore the fact that Grayson Cole is the sexiest architect in all the land. He’s my boss, he’s my boss—I’d have to just keep repeating that mantra until it stuck.
4. Buy my ticket to Paris and fly far, far away - thus proving that I can go through life on my own, without living in Brooklyn’s shadow.
5. Gloat with sexy Frenchmen.
6. Eat lots of French bread.
…
Later that night, I laid out an outfit for my morning interview. I had more than enough clothes to choose from since Brooklyn had taken it upon herself to surprise me with a work wardrobe earlier in the week. She was annoyingly confident that I would land the job. I, on the other hand, was happy to have the new designer duds. If nothing else, I’d look killer as security hauled me out of the building for karate chopping Grayson in the face.
I slid my hand over the fabric of a dark red wrap dress. I’d already tried it on earlier, loving the fit. It fell a few inches above my knees and the soft belt knotted to the side of my stomach, just above my hip. The sexy color would afford me at least half the confidence I’d need to step into Grayson’s office. The other half would come from my sky-high nude heels.
After checking that my four cell phone and two clock alarms were turned on and set to the exact pitch of a wailing newborn, I crawled into bed, willing sleep to take me fast.
Shocker: it didn’t.
Instead, I laid on top of my sheets, tossing and turning for hours, replaying every encounter I’d had with Grayson from the very beginning. My goal was to pinpoint the exact moment when he’d started to despise me.
The first time I’d ever laid eyes on Grayson, I was a senior in high school—a baby in his eyes considering he was already two years out from completing his master’s degree at MIT. Brooklyn had dragged me to a dinner with some of her friends. He’d been there, at the opposite end of the table, his brown hair long on top with a bit of wave he didn’t bother trying to tame. His dark eyes were focused on the girl beside him, but I didn’t mind. I had a perfect vantage point to take him in. His wardrobe was far more relaxed in those days. Even still, he somehow made dark jeans and a gray t-shirt look edible.
There were plenty of other people to focus on, but my gaze kept landing on Grayson. I’d catch a hint of his smile or hear the tale end of his laugh and lose myself in imagining what it would be like to date a guy like him.
We didn’t speak once at that dinner, yet over the following two months, he morphed into the perfect hero in my mind. He was the Mr. Darcy to my Elizabeth Bennet, the Prince Charming to my Cinderella, and most importantly, the Ron Weasley to my Hermione Granger. I’d find myself thinking of him, recreating his appearance from that dinner, pretending I was the dark-haired girl sitting beside him. My fantasies were more than enough to tide me over until one day when Brooklyn brought him over to our condo and I didn’t have to imagine him anymore.
The front door of the condo opened and Brooklyn breezed inside with Grayson on her heels. He looked effortlessly cool with two-day stubble, a flannel shirt, jeans, and worn brown boots. I was in my pajamas, stuffing popcorn into my gullet when he glanced through the doorway and saw me. I wanted to melt into the couch from embarrassment. Brooklyn, of course, hadn’t warned me about his arrival. With an eight-year age difference, we shouldn’t have even been on each other’s radar, but he was the only person on mine.