Dougie’s expression sours even more. There’s an awkward, pregnant pause. I glance at Sasha; she’s picking up on it, too, her face openly enraptured.
“Your father didn’t mention you were back stateside,” Dougie says.
Back stateside?
“Just recently.” Alex’s face softens into an easy smile as he reaches to shake Sasha’s hand. “Hey. I’m Alex.”
“Sasha Nicholson,” she offers, shaking. “You work with Casey?”
“Yep.” When he looks at me, a smirk plays on his lips, half there and then gone. “She’s … a pleasure.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, silently challenging the weak attempt at a compliment. A pleasure? It’s been exactly a month since Alex started with Bite the Hand, and in that time, I’m pretty sure I’ve been nothing short of a headache for him to work with.
It’s not that I’ve ever deliberately sabotaged him. I cordially reply to all his emails, file every expense report he sends my way. But I’m not that helpful, either—not the way I’m helpful to everyone else on the team—and Alex and I both know it. Just this morning, we got into a disagreement over payroll projections. I may have used the word “egregious,” and he may have used the phrase “penny-pinching.”
But the worst part about the whole thing—the most abhorrent, disgusting aspect of it all—is that Alex Harrison is good at his job, and it feels like he’s doing that to me on purpose. Picking at my insecurities, drawing them to the surface of my skin with all his sparkly ideas and pitches, his easygoing conversations with everyone but me, his casual mentions of knowing a guy who can totally help with that roadblock we just hit.
I’ve never been the type of person to know a guy.
“Can I steal Casey?” Alex asks as the hand not holding his beer dips into the pocket of his slacks. “I’ve got an idea to run by her that we should get aligned on before a big meeting tomorrow.”
“What meeting?” I ask, and Alex lets me read him just long enough that I understand he’s telling me just go with me, for once.
Dougie still looks like he’s trying to swallow a bar of soap. He clearly doesn’t like Alex, and that’s got to be his only redeeming quality. There’s history between them.
If I figure it out, maybe I can use it against them both.
“As long as you’re making me money,” Dougie concedes.
Alex gives him a tight smile and jerks a nod. He faces me with his body, eyebrows raised in question, and gestures with his beer toward a balcony that overlooks the Hudson River. I walk past the Yankees agents, managers, and bankrollers toward the sunlight whispering along the water. The balcony is broad and gold rimmed, and the warmth of the September evening bathes me as the air-conditioning dissipates.
Resting my elbows on the balcony’s ledge, I squint at the horizon. “What do we need to get aligned on?”
“Nothing.”
I frown and turn back to look at him.
He’s golden and hazy right now, the sun clinging to his frame like he’s a magnet for it, with messy black hair after a long day tugging at it and dark circles under his eyes. He’s calm now that he’s outside of work—no filler conversation, no bright grin.
What I’ve realized over the past four weeks is that Alex Harrison’s personality is like a charge. He makes people happier. Makes them feel more at ease. I’ve noticed it happen, again and again and again. Alex has an ability to endear people to him on their very first impression.
I have never related to someone less.
But for the first time since our elevator exchange the day he started, his focus on me feels singular, undiluted. Like this man is taking the full measure of me and expending no energy on a single other thought. It’s making my head spin, making my body react in a way I don’t want to be held responsible for. In fact, the way I’m physically drawn in only makes me more frustrated at the royal flush poker hand the universe dealt him. He’s attractive and rich and charismatic and smart. With millions of adoring HR reps.
Where is the fatal flaw?
“If it wasn’t about work, what did you really want?” I ask.
“I saw Dougie…” Alex drifts off, looking at a spot above my head. He doesn’t say it—touch you—but I blush anyway, like I’m the one who did something wrong. “Thought you might need an out from that conversation.”
I think about saying, I didn’t, or I could have walked away on my own, or even thank you. What comes out instead is “Why don’t you like him?”
Alex shoots me a flat look. “What gave you that impression?”
I take another sip of my drink, feel the crisp alcohol slide down my throat. “You seemed about as thrilled to see him as my boss is after his expense touchbase with the COO.”
Alex smirks. “Well, the COO is a nightmare. Did you hear about his ex-wife? Benny was giving me the scoop last week.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
Alex rolls his eyes. It’s a gesture I’ve become distinctly familiar with, since he rolls his eyes at me a lot. “I dislike the subject.”
“Why do you dislike the subject?”
“Aside from the fact that he touched you inappropriately?”
“I’ve fared worse.” According to his alarmed expression, this doesn’t appease Alex. “Aside from that.”
He walks forward and leans against the rail, looking out at the river. I turn my head toward him as a drop of condensation from his beer bottle falls to the street, stories below. “He’s got history with my father. If you must know.”
This piques my interest. A CEO and a board chairman at odds with each other? “What kind of history?” I ask, too curious to play it cool.
Alex shakes his head, humming out a gentle laugh. “It’s hilarious you think I would just tell you that.”
A laugh slips out of me, too, escaping me against my will. It is hilarious that I thought he’d tell me that. We play nice at the office, but Alex isn’t naive, and I’ve never been any good at subtlety. He knows I’m not his biggest fan. Why would he tell me anything personal?
“That’s a first,” he murmurs, half smiling. Then adds, “That was a real laugh, too.”
I want to shove the sound back down my throat. “How do you know it was real?”
He leans in. Smelling like expensive cologne I’m probably allergic to and freshly laundered sheets. “I know it was real,” he says, “because I’ve never once been around you when your heart wasn’t pinned to your sleeve.”
Um …
What on earth is a girl supposed to say to that?
Nothing, apparently. Alex doesn’t give me enough time to string together words in rebuttal, but he also can’t hide the blush that creeps into his cheeks just seconds before he says, “So. How does it feel to be the internet’s latest dream girl?”
When I only continue to look at him dumbly—still reeling from the heart-on-my-sleeve comment—he adds, “What, didn’t you hear?”
Oh, I’d heard. After the “Healthed-Up Hot Chicken” video went live two days ago, I got eight hundred new Instagram followers overnight and half a dozen texts from people I used to know. It had felt fun at first, and then fake. Then fun again, and stressful, and back to fake.