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“Neither,” I answered just in case he was serious, which was hard to tell with Noah. Both our dads would be livid, and I had no intention of creating that problem for her.
“You know she used to like me, so since you’re bowing out—”
“This isn’t a competition.” I also had never seen anything that indicated Alexa had liked my brother, and back then, I’d watched.
“I’ll keep going by the deli then, just in case I want to ask her to marry me. She’s been single for over a year now, you know.”
Single?That I didn’t know. “You’re twisted, you know that?”
“It’s in the genes.” He finished his glass with one last chug and stood. “Nice talk.”
* * *
Alexa
\Getting backat my building with a bag of Chinese takeout, I noticed the super’s door open, and stopped. “When are you going to get that leak fixed?”
“When are you going to stop being a pain in the ass?” he responded after a swig of his beer.
My free hand on my hip, I stood my ground and waited.
“Real soon.” He closed the door.
Upstairs, I shed my work attire, including my bra, and pulled on leggings and an old Columbia T-shirt, my evening work clothes. Powering on my computer, I was ready to get to work and put in a few free hours on two clients I was helping, off the books.
The sound of my ringing phone came from inside my purse. When I pulled it out, the cracked screen showed a name I wasn’t eager to hear from—Chelsea Hobbs, my friend and boss at the charity.
Getting a new phone would mean even more money I didn’t have. I had to swipe right across the crack in the screen to answer it. Nothing. I swiped again, and miracle of miracles, it worked. Maybe I wouldn’t need a new phone just yet, or then again, maybe it would crap out on me tomorrow. “Hi,” I said in greeting.
“How’d it go today?” Chelsea asked. The nervousness in her voice came across the airwaves loud and clear. We were behind on our goals for this year, and if it kept up like this, the board would most likely vote to close down our operations.
“Mostly good.” I might as well take the optimistic view. “I got table commitments from both McAllister International and Bear Foster. Three in total.”
“That’s great. Three more helps a lot,” Chelsea said. “Did Zoe come through for us?”
I bit my bottom lip. “That’s the not-so-good part. Zoe isn’t handling charitable giving at McAllister anymore.”
Silence on the other end said she was waiting for me to finish. “They replaced her with one of the McAllister brothers, and so that means—”
Chelsea finished for me. “Let me guess. They can’t decide yet what to do.”
“He’s new in the job, and with me involved, I doubt there’s any way he’s going to give us the same consideration Zoe did.”
“What doeswith you involvedmean?”
I huffed out a big sigh and skirted the specifics. “Let’s just say he and I don’t get along. Actually, our entire families have a problem. I can’t go in there anymore. I’ll only poison the relationship.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It’s worse. At the end of an hour together, one or the other of us will probably be dead.”
“But you came out of the last meeting alive.”
“A fluke. I caught him by surprise. I know you don’t have much time, but we’d stand a better chance if I stepped back and you handled the McAllister account from now on.”
I imagined her nodding knowingly. Her response took several seconds. “Of course. I’ll trade you for Bernstein Shoes.”
Chelsea’s tales of woe regarding the number of visits she’d had to make to the Bernsteins came back to me. They’d given to us each year, but the amount was small, and the process had taken forever.
