Just You (2 page)

I wasn’t gonna lie and say it didn’t annoy me–it annoyed me.

But I knew why Mom stalked me, ‘cause Dad had messed her around for years, until she’d got to the point she’d had enough and told him to go. Now her single-minded mission in life was that none of us would turn out like him. So I gave her leeway ‘cause out of all of us, I was the one who knew most about the things Dad had said and done.

For the last few years I’d spent my life trying to make it all up to her, and make her life easy–and that was why I was on the same mission as her–to make sure my brothers stayed out of trouble, and turned out nothing like the man who’s DNA ran in our blood.

Jake moved, finally, ‘cause he knew I was getting pissed off, and there was no point in messing with me. I’d lose my shit if he pissed me off.

I wasn’t letting any of my brother’s grow up like Dad. I didn’t accept any of their bullshit. At least Robin had hit the point that he understood that. Jake? I didn’t know about Jake… He was the odd one out, but only ‘cause he was at that obnoxious teen stage. He didn’t know any better. It was just instinct at his age to think of himself first.

I wished I’d had that chance.

Chapter Two

When I walked into the office my gaze honed in on Portia. She was sitting at her desk, with earphones in, typing up some dictation. Or maybe listening to her latest favorite song and pretending to type up dictation–I knew she did that. I walked past her. She didn’t acknowledge me, but I caught the color of her skin shifting up several levels of pink.

I smiled. Maybe if I’d been looking in a mirror it would have come out as a smirk, but she never looked up at me, just stared at her screen, like two days ago her tongue hadn’t been in my mouth, and my fingers…

I dumped my bag on my chair, and walked over to the coat rack to strip off my coat. Was she embarrassed about getting it on with me?

When I’d hung my coat, I turned and looked at her again. She was still staring at her screen with her fingers flying over the keyboard, but her face was nearly as red as the takeaway Starbucks cup sitting by her elbow. I wanted to laugh.

It looked like she was feeling awkward.

I wasn’t suffering. I had no complaints. I was super happy with the opportunity she’d given me… The girl was wicked, if a bit arrogant. But shit, I’d never really had any expectation I could pull a pretty, money loaded, white girl like Portia.

On my way back, I swiped the usual no-nonsense ponytail she had her blonde hair confined in. One of her hands lifted off the keyboard. But then it fell and she didn’t look around.

Whenever I saw her outside work, her hair was always down. It had been down New Year’s Eve.

Her pretty red lip-gloss painted mouth, which had a natural perfect pout, stayed closed. Her lips were held tightly together as she focused on her screen, like her screen was the savior of the world.

She was hiding from me, without actually hiding. She didn’t want to face up to what had happened at the party. Clearly she
did
regret our little interlude.

Well, whatever. Who gave a shit?

I moved my bag, sat down and sparked up my machine–ignoring her too.

If that’s the way she wanted to play it–that’s the way we’d play it.

I had two pages of the magazine to pull together today. Days off always had to be paid for, I’d be short of time today.

My mate Jason rocked up twenty minutes after me, just before nine, drawing a fine line between being on time and getting caught up in a pile of shit; especially as he’d had a bunch of time off with short notice before Christmas.

He seemed in just as bad a mood as Portia though, as he threw his stuff down under the desk and glared at his computer, starting it up.

“Where’d you go to New Year’s Eve, you just disappeared?”

“I had to go.” He looked up at me. “Rach texted.” That didn’t have a ring of truth, it stunk of an excuse.

“Wife-y got you on a ball and chain already?” The guy had got married about a week ago. I mean he was twenty-two, and the girl was already knocked up, and he’d only met her two months ago.
Fool.
But then I’d never seen the girl, maybe she was
that
hot.

My computer pinged to say I’d got an email.

‘Can we do coffee at lunchtime?’ It was from Portia.

I glanced over at her desk, but I couldn’t see anything other than her arm.

‘Okay. What time?’

‘12.30, but meet me in Starbucks.’

‘Ashamed of me, baby?’

There was no reply. I had a feeling the conversation was gonna go something like–
don’t tell anyone I hooked up with you.

Well we were from different leagues. The girl was arrogant, rich-kid all over. The whole world seemed as if it was beneath her the way she stuck her pretty little nose up in the air. Although her tastes had turned to Jason, she’d had her eye on him for weeks. Me… I was just the one who was there when she’d got drunk.

I looked up and said something about the party to Jason, but he just grunted, ignoring me and glancing at Mr. Rees’s office. The boss wasn’t in yet. Jason looked over at the door into the open plan office.

I gave up making any effort to talk. It seemed the whole place was in a bad mood today. I focused on getting my pages done.

At eleven-thirty, not that I was clock checking, Portia got up and headed for the toilets. She was slender, but she was slender with hips. The girl had some junk in her trunk for sure, Beyoncé style, and she had a pencil skirt on today that exaggerated the movement of her hips as she walked across the open plan room weaving between desks. The movement thrust the image of her ass in an emerald bikini into my head. My temperature soared.

I got up, without even thinking about it–and followed.

When I got in there, I found myself hovering outside the women’s like a pervert.

Slipping my hands into my back pockets, I leaned against the wall. She took a couple of minutes to come out, but when she did her pretty pouted lips parted in an ‘o’ and she turned pink… tipping up her chin, and her pretty little nose, with a look that implied disgust, like I smelled bad.

I shifted off the wall and stepped forward. “Portia, we need to talk.”

“We’re going to talk, at lunchtime. Away from the office.” Her words were a sharp, crisp rejection; spoken in her slightly British–perfectly rounded and toned, I’m-up-here-and-you’re-down-there–accent. Then she just walked past me, her body expressing her usual demeanor that said: stay away from me, you’re worth nothing.

Shit. She was definitely regretting what had happened–awkward.

I went into the toilet but didn’t use it, just stared at myself in the mirror over the sinks. I wasn’t that bad looking, was I? I ran my hand over my hair. I kept it buzzed short. I really didn’t think I was that bad?

Bad enough to regret.

But then I wasn’t rich. I wasn’t Jason, white, Mr. handsome and nice from-out-of-town. Nope–I was straight out of the ghetto. Not Portia’s type at all.

I was seriously surprised she’d gone anywhere near me if I was being honest with myself.

But dishonest… I wasn’t that bad, and persistence and a bit of charm usually paid off.

I washed my hands and went back into the office.

Mr. Rees came in a few minutes later. That would lift the mood. The man was a tyrant and as arrogant and ignorant as Portia. Really, what the fuck had made me want to kiss her… Oh yeah, her in a bikini.

I started talking to Jason, about the party again–about everything other than me and Portia in the pool. But I’d lay hot odds she was sitting at her desk listening, fearing I’d throw in that little fact. Then all of a sudden Jason got up…

“Hey, I’m talking.”

“I got something to do.”

Well, I knew when my company wasn’t wanted. I was getting a lot of messages like that today. Lucky I had thick skin.

A few minutes later he came back with a look of thunder on his face and started shoving stuff in a box.

What was up with this day? “Where you going?”

“I just realized that this job’s not for me. Bye…”

Nice fucking knowing you! I glanced over to see Mr. Rees was watching Jason.

Well, what the hell was that about?

The girls were watching too. I could see Portia. She’d turned her chair to face Crystal and, having seen Mr. Rees, they were all pretending they hadn’t been about to start gossiping, but any moment now, there was going to be a gossip fest…

Jason walked out without a “thanks”, or, a “nice knowing you”, or, “see you”, or anything, and he looked pretty crazy with his cardboard box of stuff tucked under his arm, and an angry face.

I watched him go feeling like my hangover from the other night had returned. Seriously, what was going on today?

And now it was nearly twelve-thirty.

Mr. Rees shut the door on his office. Normally I’d have gotten up and gone over to the girls–when the ogre had gone back in his cave–and they all began whispering. I didn’t. I figured Portia wouldn’t want me there. ‘Course I could go over anyway, to wind her up, seeing as she was so embarrassed over having had a thing with me. But that was the sort of game my dad used to play; I wasn’t that guy. If she regretted the stuff we’d done, that was fine. Let her regret. I didn’t, and there were dozens more women out there to be fished.

When the clock in the left-hand corner of my screen rolled over to twelve-thirty, an email message flashed up. I opened it.

‘See you there.’

Showdown time.

She got up, threw a red scarf around her neck and pulled on her coat, then threw her purse over her shoulder and walked out.

Here we go. I gave her a few minutes head-start so no one would think anything of me following, then got up too, and went to get my coat. The shock of Jason going rattled through my nerves. The guy was there, then gone.

Mr. Rees came out of his office as I walked past, and I heard him speak to Hilary, our sub-editor, asking for Jason’s contact details, to forward a letter of notice.

Jason had been sacked.

Shit. The guy had done nothing wrong. I’d better watch my ass. I was nowhere near as focused as Jason had been. Keith was always having a quiet word with me. Usually it was, “Don’t talk so much,” or, “You’re too loud.”

Shoving my hands deeper into the pockets of my coat, I walked out.

When I reached Starbucks, a block away from the office, Portia was in the queue.

I walked up and joined her.

“Hey.”

She looked at me and turned red again. “Hey.” She looked away, like she was looking at something else. Anything else – as long as she didn’t have to look at me.

“You eating?”

She shook her head, her chin and her nose tilting up, like I was a bad smell, or something else revolting.

The girl was not a great eater. She was always on the latest celeb diet. But she wasn’t overweight.

Whatever, I decided to buy her a ginger muffin. I knew she liked ginger. For the last three weeks, the smell of her seasonal gingerbread latte had hung around when I’d walked into the office in the morning.

The guy looked over to take my order. She must have given hers already. “Black coffee, two ginger muffins, and one of those pepperoni things, heated.”

The guy nodded at me and headed off to put it all on, to cut the queue. We moved along, not speaking. But when we got to the point to pay and she reached for her purse, I said, “I’ll get it,” pulling out my wallet.

Her fingers rested over my hand for a moment. “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. I want to.” My answer was probably sharper than it should’ve been, but I was starting to get a little pissed. I may have a millionth of the money her family did, but I could afford to buy her coffee.

I really didn’t think I was so bad. Maybe I was thick skinned–but I did have some pride.

She picked up her drink and left the rest for me to carry on a tray. She moved right to the back, probably to avoid anyone in the office seeing us together through the window.

Such a glowing assessment of my performance New Year’s Eve. She obviously hadn’t had as much fun as I had, although she’d seemed to be enjoying it at the time.

I slipped into the chair opposite her and lifted one of the muffins off the tray. “For you, eat it or don’t eat it, whatever.”

Her blue eyes, which were mid-gray in reality but reflected blue, glanced down at the plate and then up at me. She bit her lip then opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, her expression hardening. She shut it again, turning pink, saying nothing, and then gripped her cup with both hands and looked down.

The girl looked meek. When had I ever seen Portia look meek before? Never. Her arrogance was cringing over this. Her blush no doubt expressed the shame this society girl, felt for slumming it with me.

“Portia, you asked me here to talk?” My pitch probably rang with sarcasm, expressing my impatience.

“Justin…” she said to her coffee, in a voice that told me off for my belligerence. It sounded a little more like the Portia I was used to.

“What?”

She looked up again and stared at me, appearing anxious, which was a new look for Portia, as far as I was concerned.

“I… we… did…?” She bit her lip, and then she came right out with it suddenly, “Did we do it? The other night… I mean… Shit… Did we, you know? I was so drunk I don’t remember.”

So that was what all the blushes were about. I started laughing, I couldn’t help it. Really I should be insulted; she looked so terrified, like it would be a scene from a horror movie if we had done it. “No. We didn’t, Portia.” The air swept out of her lungs and her breath brushed my cheek before she looked down at her coffee again.

I leaned back in the chair, trying hard
not
to feel insulted… “We kissed, and I made you come, and you never returned the favor.”

That had her eyes and her color back up, along with her chin and her nose tilting. “Justin.” It wasn’t a shout, it was a hard whisper. “That would have been disgusting in a pool anyway.”

“Nice to know you got your priorities right, Portia…”