Going for Broke: Oakland Hills Friends to Lovers Romantic Comedy (Friends with Benefits) (2 page)

S
ebastian Cooper
, known to everyone as Ian, lifted his screwdriver to the underside of the desk and tightened the plastic hook for holding power cords in place. After a long week of high-stakes financial dealing, he’d jumped at the chance to take a break from staring at a screen.

“Thanks,” Lorna said above him. A part-time student at Cal State East Bay, she was his administrative assistant three days a week. “Now there’s room for my footrest.”

He hunched sideways under the desk and fitted the dangling cords over the hook. “There’s an opening here where you can add other cords or move them around if you need to.”

“There’s more room for my purse and my backpack, too.” Lorna leaned down, offering a rare smile. “That’s great. Thanks, dude. You’re not bad at all.”

He was lifting a second hook to finish the job when Lorna stood up and spoke to somebody he couldn’t see. “Hi. Who are you?” he heard her ask.

“I’ve been standing here for five minutes,” the man said. “How about you stop flirting with the handyman and tell your boss I’m here?”

Ian froze with the screwdriver in the air. He didn’t recognize the voice.

“Actually,” Lorna said, warming up for a fight, “this happens to be—”

Ian kicked her in the shin. Smart woman that she was, she fell silent.

“Yeah?” the man demanded.

Lorna, still new to the idea of holding her temper, was slow to reply. “Do you have an appointment?” Her voice was peppered with barely contained rage.

“How about you stop exhausting that little brain of yours and tell the big man that I’m here?”

Ian tapped her shin again, afraid she might knee the guy in the balls. She probably would if he spoke to her like that again. Her feisty temper was one reason he’d insisted that three days a week was her limit. Ian wanted to deal with the visitor in his own way.

“How about you tell me who the hell you are?” Lorna asked, this time in a sickly sweet voice.

“How about I don’t. If you don’t recognize me, you don’t deserve to know.”

Ian rolled his eyes. Whoever this guy was, Ian didn’t want his money. And that’s the only reason the man would be here. Ian’s fund had outperformed the market year after year, and if there was one thing rich people wanted, it was to be richer than other rich people.

Maybe it wasn’t good for business, but Ian had standards. He’d reached a point where he could pick and choose the people in his life, making decisions that many saw as irrational, even insane. His administrative assistant had anger issues. One of his accountants brought his toddler to work every Friday, preventing many of them from concentrating until the tyke passed out, sticky with apple juice and hummus, under Ian’s desk. And his senior analyst couldn’t stop herself from singing under her breath. Ever.

Ian liked and trusted his people, and they helped the young firm thrive. What else did he need? So he bought everyone noise-canceling headphones, kept Lorna away from stress, and put a pillow under his desk on Fridays—the cords were safely tied up out of choking range—and tried not to accidentally kick the rug rat in her button nose.

And he was fairly happy. Wasn’t that what really mattered? Not that he wasn’t rich, too, but he didn’t need to be richer than everyone else to hold his head high.

Or duck it under a desk if he felt like it.

Knowing Lorna’s patience was already strained, Ian crawled out from under the desk and stood up. He wore his usual loose camp shirt and old khakis on his six-foot-one frame, another advantage of owning his own business. The day he’d opened his office, he’d bagged up all his suits and dropped them off at the community back-to-work center. He’d actually felt guilty about that. Since he’d found them so uncomfortable, why would he be glad to put somebody else in that position? But he wasn’t that nuts; he knew an expensive suit could help some needy guy land a great job.

Just not him, not anymore. He had what he’d always wanted.

Well, mostly.

“Whoever you are, get lost,” Ian said.

“Are you shitting me?” The man was in his thirties, well dressed (like Ian used to be), and resembled a younger, less-bald Mr. Burns from
The
Simpsons
.

Since it was Friday, little Olivia was running around the office with a fistful of baby carrots in a plastic bag. “Watch your language,” Ian said. “We’ve got children around here.”

“I’ll be nice and pretend I didn’t notice,” Burns Jr. said, curling his lip.

Ian didn’t have time for this. He gave Lorna a look that said she should get back to work, then strode out from behind her desk and approached the visitor with his arms outstretched. “Out,” he said, catching him by the shoulder and spinning him around.

“Do you know who I am?”

Ian opened the door. “I don’t care.”

“I’m worth eight figures.”

“Not to me,” Ian said. “Out.”

The man’s eyes widened. He lost some of his swagger. “You’re Sebastian Cooper.”

“You’re leaving.”

His tone changed, became overly friendly, ingratiating. “No, listen. Sebastian. Or should I call you Ian?” He smiled, exposing professionally bleached teeth. “I apologize. I didn’t realize it was you.”

“I don’t care.” Ian pushed him through the door, shut it between them, and strode back to his own office. “Lorna, please call security downstairs and remind them I don’t want any visitors who aren’t already on the list.”

“Did you see how I didn’t even threaten to hit him?” she asked, just before he closed another door, this one to his private office.

He sank down into his recliner and pulled his keyboard into his lap. His monitor hung over him on a mechanical arm he’d designed, allowing him to work while he leaned back, never having to hunch or strain in an uncomfortable posture.

Just as he was lifting his noise-canceling headphones to his head, Lorna knocked and opened the door.

“Hold on,” she said. “Don’t clock out just yet. You’ve got company.”

“I’m not clocking out, I’m clocking
in
,” he said, scrolling through his accounts. The markets were closed for the weekend, but he still had plenty to do. “Tell him you’ll call the cops if he doesn’t—”

“Not him. That high school girlfriend of yours.”

Ian set aside his headphones and keyboard. There was no point in explaining again to Lorna that he’d never dated Billie—only her sister, Jane, who would never, ever visit him—but Lorna clung to her own reality with the tenacity of a terrier. “Billie Garcia’s here?”

“I knew you’d want to see
her
.”

He gave her a warning look just as Billie’s face appeared in the doorway.

“Am I here at a bad time?” she asked.

I
an scrambled quickly
to his feet. “Of course not.”

Lorna let the door bang shut on her way out. She always hurried away in case he asked her to get anything for his visitors.

He walked over to the water dispenser and reached for a cup. “Green tea?” he asked. “I know you avoid the hard stuff after four.”

“Green is great,” Billie said, smiling. “I can’t believe she’s still here. Your charming assistant.”

Ian glanced up from tearing open a tea bag and was distracted for a moment by the way her dark hair curled around her face. Usually she wore it tied back. He liked it this way, all wild and loose. “I can’t fire her. She’s too smart.”

“Which is why I’m amazed she hasn’t quit yet.”

“Nobody else would put up with her, and she knows it.” He dropped the tea bag into the water and handed her the cup. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he perched on the edge of his desk. He never actually sat behind it. That was his old life, and he avoided reminders.

After a long moment, she seemed to realize he wasn’t going to say anything more. “Yes, all right,” she said. “I was going to call, but I felt awkward. I thought this would be easier. But it’s actually harder.”

“Go into the hall and call me from there. I’m easy.”

She grinned, dimples forming in each cheek. Superficially, she and Jane, the older sister he’d dated, could’ve been twins. But when she smiled, Billie’s face became entirely her own: playful and fun. Chronically immersed in his work, which was all numbers and stress, he enjoyed Billie’s warm, easygoing company whenever he could get it. A drink after work, weekend hikes on Mt. Tam, sharing the drive up to visit their mothers, going dutch for a night of stand-up comedy, which they both loved.

“Did you hear my grandmother died?” Billie asked.

His pleasure faded. “No. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Last Thursday. I thought your mom might’ve told you.”

Their mothers up in Sonoma County, where they both grew up, got together at least once a week. “She left me a message, but I haven’t called her back yet.”

“I know how that is,” she said, flashing a dimple. But then her face suddenly crumpled and she looked away.

He held his breath. Emotions weren’t his strong suit.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling in that funny way people do when they’re trying to hold it together. “It just hit me again. I’m a mess.”

The thought of seeing Billie cry unnerved him. She was the happiest person he knew, quick with a joke or a self-deprecating smile. Nothing ever seemed to faze her. She always bounced back, slow to complain about her troubles even when she had plenty: at school, at work, with money, with men.

But they didn’t discuss her love life, or his. It was the one topic they carefully avoided.

They had to. Neither one of them could ever forget the years he’d been involved with her sister. It had been over ten years now, but high school sweethearts weren’t like other couples. You didn’t forget. You couldn’t. Even if you wanted to.

Taking away her cup of cheap, tepid tea, he took her by the shoulders and ushered her into his recliner. “You’ve had a hard day. Take a minute.” He moved away and dumped the cup into the trash.

Leaning forward to get out of the chair, Billie wiped her eyes and shook her head. “No, no, I’m fine—”

Gently but firmly, he pushed her back into the chair. “Take a minute,” he repeated, then marched out into the main office, where he found Lorna painting her toenails.

“I need you to get some tea at the café,” Ian told her. “Something rare and expensive that normal people have never heard of.”

Lorna scowled at her toe but nodded. By now she’d learned which moments were important, those moments when he was the boss. “Anything for you?”

“No, but you can get yourself something too.” He handed her a twenty, paused, added several more. “And whatever else people want,” he said, waving at the rest of the team as he returned to his office.

“I could buy a pony with this,” Lorna called after him.

He closed the door. Billie’s tears were gone, but her expression was still bleak.

“I’m really fine—” she began.

“Put these babies on,” he said, reaching over her to the second platform he’d built to hover over his chair, which held his earphones, tablet, beverage, phone, and other sundries. He picked up the earphones and slipped them over her head, fluffy curls and all. They were soft and springy, and he tried not to inhale the scent of her shampoo or anything else. When he clicked the switch over her ear, her face lit up.

“Ooh, everything got quiet,” she said loudly. “These are the expensive ones.”

He nodded.

“But I can still hear things,” she said. “It’s just muffled.”

With his bare toe—he wore flip-flops, as he usually did—he lifted the seat under her calves, seesawing her backward into a relaxing, supine position. The buttery leather over memory foam and teak was sure to soothe her more effectively than any awkward words about grief, loss, and the cycle of life. Not that he’d ever be able to come up with any words like that without a week to prepare.

He switched on the heated massage.

When she closed her eyes, moaning, no longer trying to sit up, he retreated to his desk in satisfaction. Sitting on the edge again, he watched her as she sighed and sank deeper into his chair. As he often did, he tried to see any resemblance between the two sisters and their mother. Sandra had straight blond hair and a lean, angular body like a marathoner. Billie and Jane, both brunettes, were curvy all over.

His gaze was exploring those curves when Lorna burst in with the tea. With pierced eyebrow raised, she glanced at Billie before handing him the cardboard tray. Feeling his face heat, he took it from her, annoyed, and waved her away. She rolled her eyes and smirked as she sauntered out.

Billie had opened her eyes and was watching him. The bulky, rounded earphones gave her a cute Princess Leia look.

“Here,” he said gruffly, walking over with the cup held out to her.

She slipped off the earphones and took the tea with both hands. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“But Lorna did. Every once in a while, I have to remind her who’s boss.”

Inhaling the steam wafting up from the cup, she smiled. “Well, thanks, but I’m fine. I didn’t mean to get weepy. I thought I was OK by now.” She tipped the seat forward, momentarily unbalanced, and he reached out to steady her. Her puffy vest deflated under his fingers and he felt her soft, warm shoulder.

“Don’t get up,” he said. “There’s no hurry.”

“But—”

He picked up the remote control for the chair and turned up the massage. “Relax. Tell me why you came by.”

He knew it couldn’t be for grief counseling. People didn’t come to him with emotional problems, only financial and mechanical ones.

She looked into her cup. “Now that I’m here, I think I was stupid to even think of it. I’m sorry. I forget you’re such a big shot now. Because I’ve known you so long, I’ll always think of you as the guy who came over to fix the plumbing. Not the world-famous financial guru.”

“I’m neither world famous nor a guru.”

“Close enough.” She smiled and lifted her tea, her dimples flashing.

His mind began to process the clues. “Did you need some help with her house?”

Her jaw dropped. For a full second, she stared at him. “How the heck did you figure that out?”

“Just being logical. She just died, and now you’re here talking about plumbing. I remember you saying she lived in Oakland.” When she continued to gape at him, he added, “Did you inherit the house?”

Her jaw dropped another inch, flashing him a view of her tonsils. “Me and Jane. How could you possibly guess that? It was a total shock.”

“Because you’re here,” he said. “If she’d left it to your dad, he’d be taking care of it.”

Eyes wide, she shook her head. “This is why they pay you the big bucks. You’re supernatural.”

“Just good at putting together the details.”

“Right. That’s all,” she said.

“Is the house in bad shape?”

She nodded. “It’s going to need a lot of work, but we don’t know exactly what.” Lifting the cup to her lips again, she mumbled, “I had this idea that you could walk through the house and take a look. You’ve always been handy. And Jane and I are so
not
.”

The room fell silent as he thought it over.

Jane wouldn’t want his help. Their breakup had been awkward. He wasn't crazy about seeing her again, but it didn't bother him as much as it seemed to bother her.

“It seemed reasonable before I got here,” she said, climbing out of the chair. “But now I can see it’s too much to ask. We’ll need to hire a pro.”

He shook his head, lost in his thoughts. An old house in need of major repairs was a tantalizing thought. All that work would be satisfying in a way that tying up electrical cords—and even making money—could never be.

And he liked Billie. He’d always regretted that his long hours at work didn’t allow for much social life. “Hold it.”

“No, forget it,” she said. “Thanks again for the tea. I’m sorry to bother you. You probably lost a billion just taking the time to see me.”

She was across the room and reaching for the doorknob before he snapped out of it and jogged over. He put his back on the door, blocking her way, and looked down at her. “What about Jane?”

“I told you, forget it. I know you hate to see each other.”

“Jane might,” he agreed. “But I don’t mind.”

Billie pressed her lips together for a moment. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to tell her. I thought we could be sneaky.” Then she smiled, devilish but cute. Nobody could look evil with dimples like that.

He found himself smiling in return. “Give me the address.”