The Design(60)

I’d done everything I could to assure him that I was fine on the phone, but he insisted on stopping by. Hannah still wasn’t home and I figured if we just stayed in my room and I put some music on, she’d be none the wiser.

I pulled open my apartment door to see Grayson standing on my doorstep in jeans and an old MIT t-shirt. I knew from stalking him that he’d gone there for his master’s degree before starting up his own architecture firm. His arms were piled high with various items. Just on the surface I could see two bottles of wine, a bag of Snickers, and a DVD case with Will Farrell’s face on it.

“I’ve come with reinforcements,” he said, stepping into my apartment as I pulled the door open wide for him.

“10-4. Quick, take it all back to my room. I’ll grab some spoons and wine glasses.”

Five minutes later, we were sitting on the floor of my room with a Pandora playlist turned up to max volume. Grayson was opening the wine and I was shoveling ice cream into my mouth like there was no tomorrow.

“So Brooklyn left today, huh?” he asked, peering up at me as he worked the cork out of the wine bottle.

I smiled, despite my shitty day. “Yes, Brooklyn left today and that’s why my eyes are puffy.”

He frowned.

“But I’m glad you’re here now,” I added, leaning up onto my knees to give him a kiss.

“You could have called me earlier y’know, when you were sad about her leaving.”

“Grayson Cole, therapist?” I joked, because I was awkward during sentimental moments like this.

He shrugged, a red tinge dotting his tanned cheeks for the first time that I could ever recall. Grayson was being earnest and I was falling deeper into something that I wouldn’t for the life of me call love.

“I have a plan,” I said, trying to shake myself back into safe, neutral territory. “Let’s get drunk on wine, eat this tub of ice cream, and then make prank phone calls.”

His brow dropped in confusion. “Prank calls?”

I grinned. “Yes. Like we did in high school.”

He shook his head. “I never did that in high school.”

I feigned shock just as his cell phone started ringing in his back pocket.

“Were you too busy going to dweeb conventions?” I asked with a wink.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot me a smile. “Actually, yes. I was in math club and part of a robotics team. We went to state my senior year.”

“Oh my gosh, you were a nerd!” I laughed, playfully nudging his arm.

“Hold on, I need to take this really quickly,” he said, swiping his finger across his phone to answer the call.

I reached over to turn down the music and then listened by the door to see if Hannah had come home. All was quiet still.

“Yeah, I’ll look at it right now—ok—yeah, I’ll email you back in a second.”

I turned back to see Grayson glancing around my room until his eyes landed on my desk—which happened to be newly cleaned. If he’d come over a day earlier, the desk would have been piled high with designs for a competition I was hiding from him. Luckily, all of the information was tucked away in a manila envelope, ready to ship to the design committee’s address first thing on Monday morning.

“Do you mind if I check a design on your computer really quick? Mitch said he just shot over an Adobe file and I can’t look at it on my phone.”

I shrugged. “Go right ahead, but if it’s cool, then I get to look at it too.”

He laughed as I booted up my computer for him. Maybe other people would have minded that their boyfriends were working on the weekends, but I understood his love for his job. He had a hundred people counting on him and if he needed to check an email for a second, I’d manage just fine with ice cream and wine.

“It’s for that residential project you helped me with. Do you remember that house a few weeks ago?” he asked.

“Yes! I loved that house.”

He logged onto his email, pulled up the design, and walked me through the changes Mitch had sent over.

Sitting on his lap as he worked at my computer ended up being the most fun date I’d had in a while. (I guess I couldn’t make fun of him for being a nerd. Talk about pot calling the kettle black.) When he was done sending Mitch a reply, I handed him his glass of wine and pulled out my cell phone.

“Now, it’s my turn to teach you something,” I said as he swiveled in my desk chair to face me.

He quirked a brow in interest and pulled me down to sit on his lap.

“What are you going to teach me?” he asked, kissing my shoulder.

“The art of a prank call.”





Chapter TwentyFive


On Monday morning I had two missions to complete:

1. Arrive early for a design meeting with Alan, Mark, and Peter to finalize our company’s design submission.

2. Arrive twenty minutes before that meeting so I could complete my own submission.




That morning, I’d put on a black silk blouse and black slacks in an attempt to look and feel like a badass ninja, but as I took the elevator up to the twentieth floor, my confidence began to wane.

Two weeks ago, one week ago, hell, even twenty-four hours ago, the idea of submitting my own design had seemed like a good idea. Then I’d learned of the last requirement I needed to include with my design proposal. It was a requirement I hadn’t prepared for, and one I couldn’t quite justify in my mind. Each submission had to be accompanied with a signed letter from the CEO of the company, confirming the design entry and validating the work. Since the CEO of my company was Grayson… that meant, I needed his signature. Or at least one that looked like his.