16
MACY FELT like a small, slimy toad. She’d known telling Griffin the truth would suck, but she hadn’t anticipated just how awful she’d feel once he knew about her betrayal.
She’d taken a cab home, then tried for hours to sleep, but whenever she dozed off, she was awakened by nightmares. She got up early Sunday morning and tossed the sheet back on the bed, which mocked her with its emptiness now.
Where she and Griffin had made love less than a day ago, she’d now get to while away her days and nights alone, left with nothing but cold memories of a relationship she’d let herself get too invested in. A relationship that had been doomed from the start.
She spent the morning cleaning the apartment with her old Guns N’ Roses CDs turned up extra loud in the hope that the screeching heavy metal would drown out her thoughts. It only occasionally worked.
Sometime around noon, Carson had called, telling her another trip to Vegas had come up for tomorrow, and would she like to come since it involved the art side of the project? While her stomach had lurched at the thought of going back to work, she’d jumped at the chance to get the hell away from the office.
He said Griffin wouldn’t need to make this trip, and panic swirled in her belly. What if he was planning to quit because of her? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
Once Macy had cleaned the apartment within an inch of its life, she went to the bathroom and took a shower, lingering too long under the hot water. Then she dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a stretchy white tank top, pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail, and went to the kitchen to look for chocolate.
All she found were some old, grayish-looking chocolate chips in the refrigerator, a box of See’s Candies left over from Christmas with only the hated pieces of toffee left in the box and a disgusting chocolate-flavored energy bar purchased over a year ago during one of her misguided healthy-eating campaigns.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
She wished like crazy she hadn’t estranged herself from her best friend. Sure, she had other friends, but she’d always turned to Lauren when she needed a shoulder to cry on or a chocolate delivery person.
And really, if her love life and her work life were going to be royally screwed, she needed to fix something. She needed to make amends with Lauren.
But the thought of doing so left her wanting chocolate even more. She went to the fridge and pulled out the bag of chocolate chips, made a point not to look at the best-if-used-by date on the package, and flopped down on the couch.
Fifteen minutes later, the bag was empty, and she’d worked up the nerve to pick up the phone.
She grabbed the receiver from the end table and dialed Lauren’s number. As the phone rang, her stomach churned. After four rings, the answering machine picked up, and Macy debated whether to hang up or leave a message. She’d just hang up, except Lauren almost always screened her calls.
Then she heard the beep. “Lauren, it’s me, Macy. Please pick up the phone if you’re there. I owe you an apology, and we need to talk. Lauren? Please? I know you’re there reading the paper—”
“Talk,” Lauren said, her voice on the line now.
“I’m sorry. Can we be friends again? I need a friend right now.”
Lauren made an offended noise. “So this call is all about you needing a friend right now? It had nothing to do with me needing a friend to stand by me when I’m trying to ward off attention from a guy I don’t want? It has nothing to do with me needing a friend not to give out my phone number to said guy?”
“I’m so sorry. I was a lousy friend. I should have been on your side and not Carson’s.” Macy peered into the yellow chocolate chip bag, hoping she’d overlooked a few.
“Give me one good reason why I should forgive you?”
“I’ll pay to have your number changed?”
“I don’t want to have my number changed. I want Carson to stop calling me.”
“I’ll talk to him and make sure there are no more calls. I just thought—”
“I know, I know, you just thought I need to get hooked up with some guy so I can get married and become a breeder and live happily ever after.”
“That’s not it. I just thought you two were good together.”
“Spare me the fairy-tale endings, okay? I’m happy alone, and that’s the way I want it. If we’re going to be friends, you have to accept that.”
“I promise, no more meddling in your love life.” Though Macy really didn’t get it. While she was always looking for the right guy and never finding him, Lauren was so uninterested in guys, they couldn’t help but be interested in her. Macy needed to learn from that disinterested aloofness.
But no, she’d tried before, and she’d failed. She couldn’t hide the fact that she loved men, loved being in love, and wanted to find a guy who would love her.
The thought nearly made her lose her chocolate chips. She’d found that guy and she’d screwed him royally. She had no one to blame for her unhappiness but herself. She’d gotten so caught up in stupid images, she’d never stopped to consider the true nature of their relationship.
“So what happened that’s brought you groveling back to me?” Lauren asked, her tone less hostile now.
“I ruined everything with Griffin…. I told him about my efforts to dumb him down with sex, right after he told me he loved me.”
“Oh, dear God. Why do you have to be so honest?”
“He was furious. I think he might turn down the promotion now just so he’ll never have to work with me again. Or maybe not. I’m not sure.”
“Turn it down for you?”
“Because of me.” Macy filled Lauren in on all the details of the past week. When she finished, Lauren was silent.
“Are you that shocked by my failure?”
“No, I’m just…well, I’m sorry. I gave you bad advice.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You were just trying to help me get the promotion, and you couldn’t have known Griffin would fall in love with me.”
Her throat tightened up at those last words, and tears stung her eyes. She’d never minded playing games casually—playing the clueless ingenue, letting guys believe whatever they wanted about her if it meant having the upper hand.
Until now. She’d never played with such high stakes before, and she’d never once wanted to stomp on any guy’s emotions. Especially not Griffin’s. Not after she’d gotten to know him.
“But in a way this is good news, right? Because if he doesn’t want the promotion, that means you can take it.”
Macy sighed. She’d tried to imagine that as a bright side, but it didn’t work that way. “I’ve already told the senior partners I didn’t want the job. I couldn’t take the promotion now if it’s offered to me. I’d always know I got it using underhanded means—and that I’d gotten it by stepping on other people. I couldn’t live with that.”
She’d been a little late remembering her principles, but better late than never.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Quit my job and join the Peace Corps?”
“That’s your grief talking. You’d be awful in a Third World country. You’d never get to wear cute suits or high heels, and there’d be no place to get your highlights done, no place to do a proper pedicure—”
“Okay, okay, I’m not Peace Corps material. But seriously, I’m not sure I can show my face in the same office as Griffin again.”
“I think it’ll do you good to face him and see that life will go on.”
“What if he tells people what I did?”
“Then you might want to quit and join the Peace Corps.”
“Very funny.”
“Griffin seems like a guy with some principles—”
“Unlike me.”
“I doubt he’d kiss and tell.”
Lauren was probably right. Macy couldn’t imagine Griffin sinking to her level. Even when he’d used his sex appeal to get ahead, he’d always done it in a harmless way. He’d never hurt anyone. Unlike Macy.
“This sucks.”
Lauren was silent.
“What?” Macy finally said. “What are you thinking?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that if Griffin turns down the promotion, and you can’t have it, maybe Carson will get it.”
“Why do you care if he gets it or not?”
“I don’t. It was just an idea that popped into my head, that’s all.”
Macy felt like an idiot for never having considered the possibility before. She’d been so focused on beating Griffin, she’d failed to look around at the competition. And Carson, always so laid back and casual, had never struck her as competition. But he’d be perfect for the job. Everyone loved him, and he’d never sleep with someone just to diminish their abilities.
“You know,” she said. “I hope you’re right. If Griffin doesn’t want the job, I hope it’s offered to Carson.”
“There will be a million other opportunities for you,” Lauren said.
“Thanks, I need all the confidence I can get right now.”
“You sound like what you really need is a badly translated kung fu movie and a double pepperoni pizza.”
“Would that be hoping for too much?”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“I’ll call for pizza at the place on the corner if you’ll pick it up.”
Macy hung up the phone and forced herself to smile. Yes, an actual smile, because she’d read somewhere that the simple act of smiling could lead to happiness. She was willing to try anything at this point.
As she waited for Lauren to arrive, Macy read her e-mail—mostly junk—checked her cell-phone messages—three from her mother, two saying that she hoped to see that nice boy Garrett again soon—and rearranged all the CDs on her CD rack by alphabet and music genre.
When Lauren arrived with pizza, Macy realized she did have one little thing to feel good about. She might have lost a great guy, but at least she’d gotten back her best friend. And now if she could just find a reason to respect herself, she’d be well on her way to not feeling like crap.
Had she really thought she could blame her stupid decisions on a city? Even if it was Sin City? Had she actually gotten so desperate that she’d mistaken such a crazy notion for logic? For clear thinking?
Yes. She had.
They put in the movie and settled on the couch with cold cans of Coke and the box of pizza.
She took a piece out and bit into it. It tasted incredible, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“You think you are a talented pugilist?” the hot shirtless guy on the TV screen said. “You will feel my wrath.”
Lauren snickered. “How many times do you think they can use the word pugilist in this movie?”
“I think they’ve already broken a world record.”
She watched as the hot guy used a wooden pole to fight with the old guy who was missing two of his front teeth. What the old guy lacked in strength, he made up for in speed, and the match was pretty even. Of course, this was the world of martial arts films, where the usual logic of fighting didn’t apply.
Macy tried to get lost in the laughable subtitles. But her mind kept wandering back to that simple yet oh, so diabolical phrase—What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
She’d never imagined how untrue it would be.
GRIFFIN STARED OUT at the bay, where the afternoon fog was just starting to roll in. A hard run across the Golden Gate Bridge and back hadn’t cured him of his restlessness, and neither had another two miles along the beach.
The scents of eucalyptus and sea water were heavy in the air, and the cold dampness left him feeling as if he was running in an icy soup.
When he finally realized that it didn’t matter how far he ran, he wasn’t going to escape any of the demons lurking in his head, he stopped, walked along Crissy Field as he caught his breath and finally let his brain work over the problems. There was no avoiding them.
It didn’t take long for him to realize how much he wanted to get a fresh start. He wasn’t sure why he’d been putting it off for so many years, but maybe this mess with Macy was the impetus he needed to strike out on his own, leave Bronson and Wade, and start his own agency.
Clearly, Macy wanted the promotion more than he did or she never would have gone to such ends to increase her chances of getting it. So, with him out of the picture, she could have what she wanted, even if she didn’t particularly deserve it after recent events.
What he wanted was the issue here. And as soon as the idea was fully formed in his head, he felt a surge of relief so huge, he wanted to jump up in the air and kick his heels together.
He’d do it. He’d turn down the promotion, put in his resignation tomorrow and move forward. He had enough in his emergency savings account to last him at least five months before he’d start running low on cash. That was enough time to get a business going, he hoped. It would have to be.
When he reached the car, he got in and grabbed his cell phone out of the passenger seat, then dialed Carson’s number.
“Hey, man,” he said when Carson answered. “It’s me. Looks like the creative director job is still open.”
“What are you talking about?”
Griffin filled him in on his decision.
“Whoa. You sure about this? You can’t just drop your career because of some woman trouble.”
“It’s not her. She’s just the one who made me realize what I really want to do. I know it sounds crazy, but hey.”
“Sometimes the crazy ideas turn out to be the smartest ones in the end.”
“Don’t suppose you’d want to be hired away from your current job?”
Carson laughed. “Dude, I like you too much to go into business with you, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do. Thought I’d ask, anyway. I know a good ad man when I see one.”
“I wonder how Macy’s going to react to your leaving.”
“She’s a big girl. She can handle it, but if you could keep word of my departure to yourself for a while, that would be great. I want to break the news to the senior partners before anyone else hears.”
“No problem. What’s the deal with Macy, though? Aren’t you two on speaking terms?”
“We were until last night when we parted ways for good.”
“I still don’t get that you two can’t get along. You’re clearly perfect for each other.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Women always are.”
True, but it felt wrong lumping Macy into the general category of all the women he’d dated. She stood away from the rest, maybe because of her deception, maybe because of the craziness of their relationship or maybe just because she was Macy.
Something was nagging at the back of his conscience, and he was struck with the feeling that he had to get off the phone and figure out what it was.
“Hey, I’d better go,” he said.
“No problem. If you need to talk, you can reach me on my cell tomorrow and Tuesday.”
“Oh, right, the meeting in Vegas with the photographer for the print ads.”
“Yep, and the hotel’s comping our trip again. I’ll be living it up on their dime.”
“Just be careful—if you happen to hook up with anyone while you’re there, I hear sex is bad for your IQ.”
Carson laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Maybe it was better to just let him figure it out on his own. “Oh, nothing. It’s just some dumb-ass study I heard about recently. It was probably funded by Celibates of America or something.”
“Whatever, dude. You get some rest. I think the stress is going to your head.”
When Griffin hung up the phone, his thoughts turned to that nagging sensation again.
Macy.
Not like the others.
Not like any other woman he’d ever known.
How many women would try to sex a man out of his intelligence, all for the sake of a job promotion?
He should have been pissed off about it, but she did tell him the truth, and honestly, she’d only played the game he’d started.
Sure, he’d used the sexual tension between them as a weapon at times. He’d occasionally tried to woo her with their attraction to each other all for the sake of winning in the office.
He was a competitor, and now he realized he’d been playing anything but honorably. So all she’d really done was sink to his level, and he couldn’t blame her for that. At least she had the grace to feel guilty about her actions, come clean and apologize, whereas he hadn’t even acknowledged until now that he’d been playing dirty at all.
He was the one who owed her an apology. And he was ashamed of himself now for letting himself get so fixated on winning the game that he’d forgotten to play fairly. Hell, if he’d learned about the sex study before Macy, he’d have done the same thing she did. No doubt.
He smiled. Then he laughed. Sex had a dumbing-down effect on the human animal.
He was living proof of that very fact.