The Cornerstone (14 page)

“Mmhmm. And I can take a mission seriously but find a way to be relaxed when I’m on the water with a pretty girl who happens to be rubbing her ass against my cock. Worrying doesn’t solve anything. Look at the ocean. Be calm.” He bent and pressed his lips below my ear. “And I didn’t tell you to stop rubbing all over me.”

I wanted it to be that easy—be calm—but it was
never
that easy for me.

We were quiet when the ferry docked in New London, but our embraces were tighter, our touches were firmer, as if we were trying to leave marks on each other. Proof this happened.

Traffic was heavy following the holiday weekend, and it only clogged my thoughts with reminders of all the work I hadn’t accomplish these past few days.

“I see you’re busy freaking the fuck out despite my direct orders to the contrary,” Will said when the city came into view. “Still worried about getting those trousers dry cleaned?”

I yanked his hand away from its resting place on my knee. “Why are you such an asshole?”

“Mostly because it annoys you,” he said. His hand moved back to my knee, and it stayed firm there.

“Can’t believe I wasted an entire weekend with you,” I said to myself, crossing my arms.

“You did, but I’m sure you forgot some of it,” he said. “You blacked out a couple of times. My cock is talented like that.”

“Right, if you call coming within fourteen seconds a talent.”

“I do, Shannon. I really do,” he said. “Those fourteen seconds are why you’re walking with a limp today, right? And why you groan every time you sit down?”

“Don’t you have some guns to polish or a tomahawk to sharpen?”

“Yes to both, but first,” he said, pulling into my garage. “The second weekend in November. I’ll figure out where.”

I started to argue but Will pressed his fingers to my mouth and cupped his hand on the back of my neck. “Yeah, I know, I’m gonna choke on your dick, and I’ll enjoy it, too. And you…you will be seeing me in November.” He met my eyes, pausing, and slipped his thumb between my lips. “Now let’s go upstairs and get you on your knees where you belong.”

*

“It is bizarre
to be doing this on a Tuesday,” I said, settling into my seat at the attic conference room table.

Neutral. I was aiming for neutral this morning. No one was going to notice me wincing as I sat—Will’s parting gift was fucking me hard enough to leave my ladybits throbbing his name—and no one was going to notice that I was slowly coming down from the wild rollercoaster of this weekend if I kept it locked on neutral.

“It would be less bizarre if you were on time,” Patrick muttered.

“I’m five minutes late. Does that warrant a debate?” I asked. “Or are we going to start the meeting?”

“All right, people. Shannon’s here, so we can start.”

“Thank you, Patrick,” I said, rolling my eyes. Bickering was expected; for this crew, it was the definition of neutral. I glanced at Matt, Sam, Andy, and Riley, ready to turn the attention away from me and onto them. “How was everyone’s long weekends?”

“We went to a seafood festival in New Hampshire,” Andy said, nodding toward Patrick.

I loved them together. It shocked the shit out of me when I realized they didn’t hate each other, and now, whenever they talked about all their foodie endeavors or weekends spent geeking out over
Harry Potter
, I wanted to coo all over their dorky cuteness. I wanted them to have a cute, dorky wedding, and loads of cute, dorky babies, too.

“You went to a
seafood
festival?” Riley asked.

“He ate the fish,” Andy said, jerking her thumb at Patrick. “I drank the beer.”

They exchanged a quick high-five before he said, “I was bartending down in Rhody. Newport kicks ass on long weekends.”

“Are we not paying you enough?” Patrick asked.

“I was filling in for a buddy, and I just like it,” Riley shrugged. “But if you’re looking to unload some cash, I won’t stop you.”

An instant messenger window opened on my screen.

Patrick:
Are we paying him enough

Shannon:
Yes

Patrick:
You’re sure? His shirt has a hole in the armpit and he’s not wearing socks.

Shannon:
I’m sure.

Shannon:
That’s his look. It’s RISD chic.

Patrick:
In other news – Sam has a black eye.

Shannon:
Either a chick decked him (probably deserved) or he got it stumbling around drunk.

Shannon:
Or, a chick decked him because he was waving his dick around while drunk

Patrick:
That’s more like it

Patrick:
This kid is going to send me to an early grave

Shannon:
Have you seen my white hairs?

We’d started messaging in meetings over the summer. It started with me pinging him a link to a property auction, and snowballed from there. Finding time to discuss all the business matters that Patrick and I handled without the involvement of the group was challenging, and it was nearly impossible to get time to plan agendas and collaborate on our approach to strategic issues. This was the best alternative, even if it meant we were essentially carrying on a side conversation through the entire meeting.

“And what about you, Sammy?” I asked.

I glanced at him over the lid of my laptop, and sipped my coffee. I sent Tom an instant message to get me another because I knew one hit of espresso wasn’t going to get me through. All told, I probably caught less than three hours of sleep last night. I woke up alone—I expected that part; Will was supposed to be in Virginia by noon—and totally fucking overwhelmed.

I didn’t want to have
feelings
for this guy. Desire and attraction were fine, but that was where it ended. I wasn’t interested in the pang of sadness that came with an empty bed, or the urge to snap a snarky comment in his direction because he never hesitated to fire back. I wasn’t interested in any of that.

We’d had sex, it was good, and it was over.

Maybe we’d have more sex, but…we weren’t a
thing
. We were an arrangement of sorts, and feelings weren’t coming along for the ride.

But they were.

“My weekend was sensational, Shannon,” Sam said. He was glaring at me, and any hope of him forgetting about the appointment I missed with him on Friday was lost. “I went to six different music festivals in four states, got drunk at the Feast of St. Anthony, passed out in Cambridge, and almost died in a goddamn elevator crash. Where the fuck were you on Friday and why the fuck weren’t you answering your phone?”

The table fell silent, and eventually Riley said, “Did you get to the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass show? I heard that was good this year.”

Patrick:
WTF?

Patrick:
Is this real?

Patrick:
Regardless of whether it’s real…I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again: he needs regular appointments with that psychiatrist, the one who helped him with the OCD shit.

Shannon:
Yes, because that will go over so well.

Shannon:
Why don’t YOU have that convo with him?

“Is that a metaphor for something? Or are you talking about an actual elevator?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah. What do you mean, you almost died?” Matt said.

“The power went out in the Back Bay, and I was trapped in an elevator at the Comm Ave. property for eight hours,” Sam hissed.

Sam’s words landed like a fist to the gut. The one weekend I convinced myself I could sneak away was the same weekend the world had to implode.

Patrick:
There must be more to this story because this sounds ridiculous

Patrick:
Sam doesn’t go to music festivals. He must have gotten into RISD’s special brownies again.

Patrick:
I’m almost fully convinced this entire story is a hallucination.

Patrick:
And you were supposed to meet him there? What happened?

“The same elevator that slammed into the basement of that building?” Matt asked. “The one I read about, with the massive system failure compounded by the outage?”

“Same fucking one,” Sam said, his eyes locked on me. “So I’d love to know, Shannon. How was your weekend?”

I could almost hear Will’s voice telling me that my brothers were codependent children, and Sam’s insistence that I offer up an explanation worthy of abandoning him only confirmed it.

“Did you go somewhere?” Patrick shifted in his seat, staring at me. “You didn’t mention anything…I thought you were staying in town.”

“That’s because I don’t need you to approve my weekend plans, Patrick,” I said. “I don’t have to tell you where I’m going, or what I’m doing, or who I’m with.”

Okay, my attempts at neutral were not working out such that I was now sliding into screechy bitch territory.

Patrick:
Was that really necessary?

Shannon:
Quiet down over there.

Patrick:
What? I thought we agreed we weren’t throwing down in meetings anymore

Patrick:
United front? No fighting in front of the kids?

Shannon:
Oh right, right, I forgot about that when you made my weekend plans a topic of this status meeting

Patrick:
If you’re going dark for a weekend, prep me for that. I’ll support you but don’t send me in blind

Shannon:
Noted.

Patrick:
So…? Where’d you go?

Shannon:
Away

Patrick:
…and?

Shannon:
I was getting back to neutral

“But it would be good if you tell me, so I don’t wait around at a property and get stuck in a fucking elevator,” Sam said.

“Jesus Christ, Sam, I’m sorry! I lost track of things, okay? I’m sorry.” I set my coffee cup down and took a deep breath. “I went away with some friends, and I forgot about the appointment at Comm Ave., and—”

“The only person you spend time with who isn’t presently accounted for in this room is my wife,” Matt said, and I was ready to fling my computer at his head. It was lovely hearing about my hollow, anti-social existence at such an early hour. “And she was with me, on the Cape.”

Sam turned to Matt. “Do you ever get tired of saying it with that sanctimonious tone?
My wife
?”

He shot Sam a smug grin. “Never.”

Shannon:
Either you rein Juggernaut in or I will

Patrick:
Ignore Matt. He’s just being a shit stirrer

Patrick:
But the runt is off his fucking rocker this morning. He might actually want a pound of flesh for ditching him

Shannon:
If he wants a pound of flesh, he’ll need to bite off my dick to get it

Patrick:
There are times when you really scare me. This would be one of them.

“But you’re okay, yeah?” Riley asked. He pointed to the bruise on Sam’s face. “Is this from the elevator or blacking out in Cambridge?”

“Elevator,” Sam said.

“Why didn’t you call one of us?” Andy asked him, angling her pen at Riley, Patrick, and Matt.

Sam shrugged, and shifted his focus to his coffee cup. It was odd, considering the past ten minutes were loaded with a dramatic retelling of his weekend. I expected the tirade to continue, for the rest of the group to come under attack as well, but he smiled to himself, like there was a secret he was keeping safe.

Patrick:
There is so much more to this story than we’re getting

Shannon:
Yep

Shannon:
But he’s mad that no one noticed he went missing for a weekend and I blew him off, and he’s withholding the details

Patrick:
Yep

Shannon:
We don’t have time to pander to this. Move on.

“All right,” Patrick murmured. “Let’s get back on track here. Sam’s alive. Shannon can’t manage her appointments. Moving on.”

It was Patrick’s favorite long-running quip: I could manage everything except my own schedule, and that was amusing because a thread of truth ran through it. I’d dedicated years to coordinating everyone else and forcing them to use a consistent, office-wide calendar system, and it was perfect for the nature of their work. Mine, not so much. Few were the days when I wasn’t overscheduled to the point of neurosis, but I made it work. I was everywhere, all the time, but something was always falling off.

While the boys talked properties, I paged through my calendar until I came to November. Thinking about another weekend with Will was reckless. I was tempting fate as far as ridiculous incidents involving Sam were concerned, and Lauren would hear about this soon enough, which was a bundle of awkward if I’d ever seen one.