Page 18 of Terms and Traditions

Oblivious to my ponderings, she smiled wryly and nudged the coffee towards me.

That smile was a gut punch after her reluctance to agree to real dating. But I could be patient and play the long game. Prove to her I could be the guy for her. That didn’t mean it hadn’t stung when she shot me down, though. But I hoped it was more fear than repulsion that made her hesitant. That it wasn’t me she was against dating, but the dating concept itself that had her glitching. For half a second, the moment in the café had taken me back to Alexis’s rejection. But Stephanie isn’t her. Her reaction wasn’t artificial; she was genuinely nervous.

Taking a sip, I sighed, refocusing on the present conversation. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Vigilance is key.” I drummed my fingers on the desk absently. “We’ve all worked too hard for me to let him ever sweep in here and try to pull one over on us.”

“We won’t let that happen,” she announced with a nod, something like anger burning in her eyes.

I appreciated her confidence and loyalty. I had no reason to suspect Hiram of interfering in our upcoming software program launch as there were no hints of it. But having those articles pop up this morning gnawed at my gut in a way I couldn’t shake.

Stephanie rose. “Five minutes till your eleven o’clock.” At the door, she paused. “I dropped your dry cleaning off this morning. Anything else before your meeting?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, Stephanie. I should be done by lunch.”

“I’ll have it waiting for you.”

I swiveled back to my computer and pulled up the virtual link for my meeting. As a marketing firm, we worked with businesses to give them a polished branding package and presence. But there were plenty of small businesses and entrepreneurs who weren’t looking for our big corporate packages and wanted a small-scale approach, which was where our new software program slated for spring came in. It fit a small budget and offered creators more supportive do-it-yourself and design options than were available to them anywhere else on the current market. Kelsi, Ryan’s wife, had been the one to propose the idea over dinner one night last year. As an independent author, she was responsible for all her own marketing and design, which was a big job on top of writing. She’d test run the program and all but begged me to make this a reality. The balls were all in motion, and after the new year, we’d head into our final phase before launching in early March.

Hovering my cursor over the Join Meeting button, I rolled my shoulders. It was go time.

I logged off just after noon and stretched with a groan. We were on track and according to plan.

“Hey, Stephanie, is the big man in?”

I froze when I heard the familiar upbeat voice. He wouldn’t.

“Ryan, Emmett, hey. Yeah, he’s back there now.”

Apparently, they both would. I heard her shuffle a few things on her desk, no doubt checking my calendar like the diligent worker she was. She’d know I had finished my meeting.

“He’s free. Head on back. Oh, and take him this, will you? I’m out for lunch.”

Usually, she would have paged me and asked if I was taking visitors, but she knew they were my best friends. Why wouldn’t I want to see them? And it was my lunch break after all.

Except they were the last people I wanted to see right now because I’d been avoiding their texts all weekend like the mature man I was. Not for any particular reason, but I wasn’t sure how to act around them after my meeting with Stephanie on Saturday. I wasn’t egotistical enough to think she’d jump at my offer to date for real just because I’d asked. But I had thought there was something there between us and that she might at least consider it. And she was considering it—she’d been uncertain, not given me a flat-out rejection. That was something.

My door flung open, and Ryan marched in, grinning like the Cheshire cat himself. He broke every stereotype of being a staid high school history teacher, and some days I questioned the mental state of whoever decided to put him in charge of impressionable teens, but his students loved him like he was a second John Keating. Meanwhile, Emmett’s hulking, silent presence slipped in behind him. The man was an accountant who could pass for a bearded lumberjack bodyguard. I’m dead.

“Nash, I see you haven’t perished from off the earth,” Ryan said too loudly, flinging his arms wide like he was welcoming home a long-lost brother from war.

I glared at him, not rising from my chair. “If you’re going to be obnoxious, shut the door so my employees don’t have to know I have such deranged friends.”

Ryan slapped a hand over his chest dramatically, but Emmett closed the door. That was why Emmett was my favourite. The strong silent type. Solidarity, brother.

“You converted to Hallmark yet?” Emmett asked, setting down a brown paper bag on my desk. No doubt with the soup and sub Stephanie had ordered.

Scratch that. Emmett was not my favourite friend. I would disown both of them and be in the market for new friends if I thought there was hope of finding replacements. But once you hit a certain number of years in friendship, you didn’t get rid of your friends. They knew too many embarrassing stories and secrets. “No.”

“So defensive,” Emmett tsked with a wry chuckle.

Ryan dropped into one of the overstuffed leather armchairs and crossed his ankles. “We’ve been talking—”

“You’ve been talking,” Emmett grumbled, leaning against the far wall. “Like always.”

“Right. Like I said, we have been talking,” Ryan continued, “and we’ve decided it’s about Stephanie, isn’t it?”

“Is what?” I asked slowly, crossing my arms as I reclined in my chair.

“The fake dating question.” Ryan pinned me with a glare, adding to Emmett, “Back me up.”