Window Shopping, page 9
“Oh.” She gets fidgety. “She’s my best friend.”
Said with no small amount of hesitation.
I wait.
“She came from a difficult family situation. They moved from apartments to motel rooms and back. Her father had some substance abuse issues and couldn’t keep his jobs longer than a few weeks. She was over at my house a lot. Eating, spending the night. My parents were really generous. They were there for her as much as they could be, with their jobs being so busy. But of course she was defensive. Of course she was resentful. She was a kid in this unstable situation that was scary and uncertain.” She stops for a moment. “When she started partying and shoplifting…I went with her. I was her best friend. That’s what best friends do. They have each other’s backs. They don’t let them go out alone. And somewhere along the way, I just got so absorbed. She was my new family and if I did anything without her, she’d get hurt. I’d feel guilty. I never even told her I was taking online college courses after high school.” She wets her lips. “That’s when I knew something was wrong with our friendship. The fact that she wouldn’t like me pursuing a dream. But I still couldn’t break it off. And then it was too late. I agreed to hold up the restaurant, telling myself it would be the last time I caved. That I was going to let the numbness wear off. I missed myself.”
I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek so I don’t reach across the seat and pull her into my lap. Stella is this incredible blend of strength and pain and self-awareness. And I can’t even imagine the courage it took to apply for this job. To type out her mistakes on a page, show up and move forward and pursue something she loves after having her life veer in such a drastic direction from where it started. “And now? Do you still miss yourself?”
A line appears on her forehead. “I don’t know. I’ve been paused for four years. I’m still trying to hit play again.” Her gaze drifts over to Vivant. “No, I am…hitting it. I’m hitting play and trying to pretend I know what happens next. But really, I’m just walking into it blind.”
“You’re not alone in that, Stella. Most people have no idea what to expect from the next calendar day, let alone year. Look at 2020.” I wave a hand. “Actually don’t.”
Laughing quietly, she shifts a little to face me, crossing one long leg over the other. A physical subject change—and I’m going to let her have it since I already got a lot more than I was hoping for. “You don’t walk into anything blind, do you?” Her eyes narrow playfully. “Except maybe…decorating your office.”
Surprise leaps in my ribcage and pops right out of my mouth. “What?”
“You decorate your own office, don’t you?”
Wow. I can hear my own heartbeat. “How did you know that?”
“I…don’t know.” Her expression proves she’s puzzled. “When you carried me to your office the other night, I just knew. You’re so tidy and tucked in, but I think…”
“What?”
God help me, there’s a pink flush creeping up her neck. Pinker than the frosting on the strawberry shortcake donut. “I think you like to get messy sometimes.” She jolts a little, as though caught off-guard by the sensuality in her tone, sitting up straighter in the seat. “I mean, I bet you don’t plan out your Christmas tree decorating strategy.”
There’s no way she realizes how rare it is for someone to see into me like this. Does she get right to the heart of everyone or is it just me? I really don’t like the idea of her looking this deep with anyone else. I want that insightfulness all to myself. Jesus, I’m jealous of the possibility of her giving that gift to someone else who may or may not even exist. What is this girl doing to me? Is it possible she could appreciate my lighter and coarser sides?
“That’s exactly right,” I say, trying to keep my tone even when I’d like to drag her beneath me on this seat and feel the rasp of those tights on my hips. “Christmas should be a little messy.”
Her still-pink cheek twitches. “You manage the wrong department store for messy.”
I point at the establishment in question. “That’s for other people. Not me.”
“You don’t want your family store to reflect you in any way?”
“Maybe it already does. Tidy and tucked in on the surface. Messy behind the scenes.” The window is fogging up behind her and it takes me a few beats to realize why. We’re both starting to breathe harder. I know damn well I can’t just pluck her off that seat and sit her in my lap. Can’t slide my hand up the inside of her sweater or let her feel my hard-on against her ass. But I meant what I said last night. About being a rule follower. About making sure Stella wants me—authentically—and not because of gratitude. Or obligation. Or pressure because I’m her boss. The man who overlooked her prison record. I’m trying so hard not to lay a finger on her until I’m positive, but God, it’s getting more difficult by the second.
We’re in the back of this car, alone, it’s half dark outside and she’s in those dang soft-looking tights, looking at me with heavy eyelids, her tits rising and falling, ripe fruit asking to be stroked and sucked. One would think I didn’t churn one out in the shower this morning for all the blood rushing to my cock. Making it thicken and rise.
On top of it all, her mouth would taste like marshmallows and chocolate.
Who knew God would forsake me a week before Christmas?
“Stella…”
“Love contract. Paperwork. I know.” She leans forward. Toward me. Scoots a little closer on the seat. As if in a trance, she reaches out and traces the line of buttons down my white dress shirt, stopping an inch from my belt buckle. She draws that hand away quickly, but I catch it. Without thinking. I lay it flat over my heart and she makes this half-whimper, half-gasp sound, probably because that damn organ is going a million miles an hour and there’s no pretending it isn’t. “Aiden…” she murmurs, dragging her gaze up to my mouth and leaning in. And of course I’m leaning, too, ready to meet her halfway on everything from kissing to china patterns.
When we’re an inch apart, the sides of our noses touch, her expulsion of breath bathing my lips, my hand moves of its own accord, reaching out and fisting the section of her jacket that curves into her side, pulling her toward me, my dick turning to steel when she shudders.
“Tell me you’re wearing the key chain necklace.”
“I’m wearing it,” she says, her breath hitching. “Under my clothes.”
The gold resting on her skin. Heating. Staying with her all day. God, I love knowing that. It appeases the foreign possessiveness she stirs in me. Possessiveness I should be fending off or refusing to entertain, but I can’t seem to help it. I’ve only ever had this semi-twisted feeling for her and I don’t know how to turn it off. “Tell me you go home and think of me,” I demand against her mouth.
“I go home. And I think of you.” One second ticks by. Two. “I think about that time in the elevator you told me you can be downright rough. I think about it a lot.”
A fire lights in my head, my loins. She’s squirming on the seat and it’s painful to know what that means. What her body is communicating. If I laid her down on this leather seat and dropped my hips down, punched them a little and rocked some more, she’d moan. We’d wet up the seam of her tights in a matter of seconds. I know it better than I know how to fashion this bow tie around my neck. Even though we’ve never been physical. “Is that what…” I stop myself from asking what I want to know. This is not the time, place or circumstance.
“What?” She moves closer, her hip pressing against the outside of my thigh and now she’s got a hold of my jacket lapel, gripping it tight. How long have we been on the verge of kissing? It’s like some unique brand of torture foreplay crafted by the two of us. If our tongues touched right now, I swear to Christ I’d come. “Ask me.”
“Is roughness what gets you off?”
She moans at the question and I’m panting now, turning, dragging her closer, ready to yank down her tights and lick her until she forgets her own name. My question is out there. Hanging. I can’t take it back, no matter how inappropriate. No matter how much I wish the timing was different. “Yes. And thinking of you being…” She squeezes her eyes closed. “Turned on. In the office. For me. Trying to hold it together. You’re hard and sweaty and you need relief, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I didn’t realize you had a camera pointed at my desk.”
Her breathy laugh seals the deal. Completely robs me of scruples and ethics and restraint. I’m going to settle her onto my lap and unzip my pants. There is no way in hell I can live another second without the wet squeeze of her pussy sliding lower and lower, cradling me. Feeling her move, listening to her whimper. If we move slowly enough, the car won’t rock. Maybe. Jesus. I’m not even sure I can make myself care about being caught when I’m this hungry for her. “I need you, Stella,” I growl, turning us, positioning myself to be straddled—
A horn honks loudly.
Two, three honks.
I’m lost in a stupor, my thoughts sticky and lost in an unrecognizable pattern. Who is honking? What year is this? I don’t know, but I’m halfway through dragging an employee onto my lap in public. Having sex with her—all formalities tossed away like a batch of burned cookies. The sun has begun to rise while we’ve been…not kissing. Just grabbing clothing and breathing hard and confessing fantasies. I could live my life doing this. I could keep going through the next seventy Christmases, tasting her chocolate breath in my mouth and listening to her tell me she thinks of me erect and sweaty at my desk. That it gets her revved up.
But someone is honking and I’m outside Vivant. My place of work.
Possibly taking advantage of an employee.
The lining of my stomach burns. “Stella,” I manage, swallowing, settling her gently back on the opposite side of the backseat. “I’m sorry. Jesus. I got carried away.”
“We both did, Aiden,” she responds, dazed, repeatedly curling messed up strands of hair behind her ears. “It’s o-okay.”
I want to argue, but I get distracted by the swollen rosiness of her mouth. Her red-stained cheeks. The fact that her hips keep shifting around, as if I’ve left her unsatisfied. Of course I did. I started something I can’t finish. Yet. Something I might not ever be able to finish if she doesn’t like me enough to make this…situation between us official.
With that troubling thought in my head, I turn and look out the back window of the town car, inwardly wincing when I see my father and Shirley stepping out of their limousine, Randall skulking two feet behind them. They nod at someone up ahead and that’s when I see the store managers have started to gather, Jordyn, the first-floor supervisor among them. Either none of them have seen us or I’m exceptionally lucky to have so many discreet employees.
I turn back to the girl beside me, still trying to compose herself on the seat—I can relate. I’m not sure I’ll ever be composed again after what we just did. But this moment isn’t about me. Or even us. This is Stella’s time.
“Remember,” she says, addressing me before climbing out of the car. “You don’t have to protect me from criticism. Let me hear their opinion. I have to be able to handle it, okay?”
It costs me an effort to nod, but I manage a stiff one.
Watching my relatives out of the corner of my eye, my earlier nerves bubble back to the surface, accompanied on the growing tide of protectiveness I have for Stella. But mostly, I’m proud of her. For coming out of her pause. Moving forward. And I hope like hell that whatever is on the other side of the paper is enough to keep her pressing play.
7
Stella
When I was in fifth grade, my school PTA held a mock art gallery opening. Sculptures and paintings created by students were put on display in the gymnasium. Parents could walk through and buy the items. Of course, it was kind of customary to purchase your child’s creation and looking back, it was mainly a way for the PTA to make a lot of easy cash. And I remember it feeling just like this. Skin vibrating, muscles taut, so hot that I’m cold.
There is something about revealing art that is so personal, so vulnerable. The concept for this window came straight out of my head. No one approved it. No one said, yes this will work. It’s a flying leap. It’s believing in an idea—and since everyone has ideas, this is when the imposter syndrome kicks in. What makes me think my idea was going to stop foot traffic on Fifth Avenue? What makes me think I’m artistically gifted at all?
Just like at that PTA art show, it’s my parents whose reactions mean the most.
But this time, they’re not here. They’re not going to show up with big, enthusiastic smiles on their faces, armed with praise and a suggestion that we stop for celebratory ice cream on the way home. They don’t even know I have this job.
Maybe they’ve completely moved on with their lives and aren’t thinking of me at all.
That possibility threatens to take the wind out of me, so I push it away. I remind myself that if I can do well at window dressing, if I can prove to myself what I’m capable of, I’ll eventually attempt to prove it to them, too. I’ll try again with my parents. In time.
Up ahead, some of the upper management employees are gathered at the window. Jordyn is there, along with Mrs. Bunting, the head of human resources who I met on my first day. I notice she seems to be on familiar terms with Aiden’s grandmother, who is skeptical of me right off the bat. She watches me approach the way a house cat behaves when their owner brings home a puppy. Can’t say I blame her. I’m probably younger than she was expecting, went a little heavy on the eyeliner this morning—an attempt to keep Aiden at arm’s length that clearly didn’t work—and now I’m exiting a foggy-windowed vehicle with her grandson. Not to mention, my eyes are still crossed from…whatever just happened.
What did just happen?
I think Aiden and I almost skipped kissing and went right to the main event. In a parked car on one of the busiest avenues in the world. I’ve never lost myself like that with a member of the opposite sex. Granted, I haven’t even breathed on a member of the male species in four years, probably longer, but I would remember the feeling of having my stomach levitate, my intimate flesh squeezing, heart going bananas beside my eardrums. I definitely would recall feeling safe and cherished and required.
Unable to stop myself, I turn and glance at Aiden over my shoulder. I’m not the only one who is shaken up. Little sweat speckles soak through the front of his white dress shirt, his bow tie a touch off-center and that curl graces the center of his forehead. His gaze travels from me to his family ahead and darkens with…I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Worry, yes. But there’s a sort of fierce protectiveness in those depths, too, that gives my knees the consistency of wet paste.
When he returns his attention to me, I lift one corner of my mouth to let him know I’m good to handle whatever his family throws at me. Even though I’m not exactly sure of that fact. All I know is I’ve already gotten too much special treatment recently. From the judge, the prison system itself and now Aiden.
If my window isn’t a success, I need to take that result on the chin. And if I don’t get another chance to prove myself, well most people don’t even get a first one, right?
I just really, really hope they like it, because this has been the best week of my life. I spent the last four days decorating a Vivant window—for Christmas, no less. And it was a constant rush. Hours sped past in colorful blurs of enjoyment and creative impulses. Not only that, I had the means to follow those urges and watch them come to life. There is nothing, no job in this world, I want to do more. But as I come to a stop about ten feet from the glass, forcing a smile for Jordyn, that nervous PTA art show feeling has me convinced the paper will be torn down and there will be a pile of dirt sitting on a plate.
What if the last four days was a hallucination?
Something warm and solid brushes against the back of my fingers and I realize Aiden is standing next to me, his hand grazing mine in secret. His jaw is bunched up tight, but his eyes are reassuring. Confident in me. But they turn wary when his father and grandmother darken the sidewalk in front of us.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Aiden?” says the grandmother, her sharp attention zipping upward from my second-hand combat boots to my cat-eye makeup.
“Shirley, Brad, I’d like you to meet Stella Schmidt. Stella, this is my grandmother and father, Shirley and Brad Cook.”
I hold out my hand and they stare at it for a moment, before Bradley does a shoulder roll and we shake, followed by the same from Shirley, though she more or less just drapes her limp hand into mine and suffers through the handshake like it’s an indignity. I start to marvel over the fact that these two people are related to Aiden, but then I remember Aunt Edna.
God bless Aunt Edna, wherever she is.
“I’m definitely unfamiliar with your name, as I suspected I would be,” Shirley says, her warm breath clouding in the December air. She pulls her ankle-length coat tighter. “Where exactly have you worked prior to this?”
I can practically feel Aiden coiling like a spring beside me.
My own palms are growing damp in the laser sights of this woman. She’d make a good prison guard. None of us would cross her. Here comes Hawk Eyes, hide the nail polish. It has been a long time since I needed to impress someone. Most of my teenage years into my early twenties was about not caring if I impressed people. “I have a background in fashion merchandising, but this is my first time dressing a window.” I force a smile onto my face that comes suspiciously easy, probably thanks to the amount of smiling I’ve been doing with Aiden. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity.”
“Yes.” Her gaze ticks from me, back to Aiden’s town car. “How grateful is the question,” she mutters dryly, the words meant for my ears alone.
At least I think I’m the only one who hears Shirley’s comment until I turn around to find Aiden looking pale. Jaw bunched. His gaze tracks over my features and I can tell he’s not going to let that comment go unaddressed. Quickly, I shake my head at him, reminding him to let me handle whatever is leveled at me this morning. I meant it when I said I don’t want any more special treatment. Even if everyone hates this window, at least I’ll have earned the outcome by myself, whether it’s good or bad.
