Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
They were taken during our sunset walk last night, when I told him all about the interview, and he told me he was thinking about grooming this twenty-eight-year-old business wunderkind he’d put on the team to clean up Core Point Athletics.
His name was Javier Rojas. The child of immigrants from Chile, he’d graduated high school at sixteen, got his MBA from University of Chicago at twenty. He’d then gone right into turning around a failing record store chain, capitalizing on niche marketing and riding the wave of Gen Z’s return to vinyl. And he did this alongside investing in a fledgling fashion label that had since become the next Off White.
Hale had personally recruited him for the Core Point effort.
“And I think he could be my guy,” he’d said. “He’s smart as fuck, so smart, it’s scary. He doesn’t take shit. He’s young, but he doesn’t get intimidated. And he gets off on being insanely busy. He could travel with me, then I could scale back, and send him in my stead.”
I loved this idea, obviously, especially if Hale concentrated his efforts in LA and New York, and I got to a point I could open up a west coast studio. We could schedule our work around where one or the other would be.
I loved it more, because maybe that would free up time for Hale to do things Hale actually liked to do.
I didn’t share that during our walk.
I just encouraged him where Javier Rojas was concerned, but mostly I listened.
And that’s what the pictures made it look like. Hale’s arm around my shoulders, my hand up, holding his there, my other arm around his waist. Our heads were bent together, and it looked as serious as it was, what we were talking about.
Though, there were several pictures of us kissing.
I guessed we were official.
Another text came in from Zoey.
We’re getting requests from everywhere to confirm or deny.
I sighed.
Hale threw his sweaty body in the chair across from mine. He had a Hydro Flask in his hand.
“Good run?” I asked as he downed some water.
When he was done, he answered, “Fuckuva lot harder to run in sand. No clue how, but I always forget that.”
“I can imagine,” I mumbled, and that’s all I’d do. You’d catch me running on the sand (or anywhere) when you were chasing me with a chainsaw. “Have you been surfing while you’ve been home?”
He shook his head and took another gulp of water.
Then he looked at me. “Too busy.”
“Surfing is better in the morning, right?”
He nodded.
“You should go tomorrow.”
He grinned roguishly. “Rather be fucking you.”
“I’ll wait for you in bed.”
I saw that flare in his eyes but he shook his head. “It’s okay, baby.”
“You love doing it. We have the weekend off. Do it. I can go with you. I’d like to watch.”
“If you wanna watch, I’ll go.”
I frowned. “No, I want you to go because you want to go.”
He started to say something, his affect changing, I felt impatience leaking in, then he shook it off and said, “You can get up. Brush your teeth. Get some coffee. But then you wait for me in bed.”
That had me grinning. “Aye, aye, bossman. Now for the bad news.” I went back to the website on my phone and turned it his way. “We’ve been outed.”
He just glanced at the pictures before he said, “Not surprised. Actually, more surprised it took so long.”
I was pleased he wasn’t pissed.
“Zoey says I’m getting requests to make it official,” I shared.
“Never understood that shit,” he muttered. “How the fuck do they think it’s their business if it’s official or not, but more, do they not have fuckin’ eyes?”
I couldn’t argue that.
He sighed. “I’m probably getting requests too. Do what you want. We’re official, so you can say that. Or you can ignore it, which is what I’m going to do.”
“Ignore it, it is,” I decreed, texted that to Zoey, told her to have fun at Universal Studios, then put my phone down.
“Got a problem with sweat?” Hale asked after I did that.
“Before you, the answer was yes. Absolutely. Gross. Being with you and reading between the lines that you want to fuck me right now, the answer is hell no. Absolutely not.”
He was smiling huge at the same time laughing.
Then he pushed out of his chair, offered me his hand, and said, “Then get up, baby. Time to fuck.”
I took his hand, we went upstairs, and I learned what “time to fuck” meant.
That being, he gave me a break to get us some water, we showered together, we eventually shared some cheese and crackers and almonds and cuddles, but until it was time to get out of bed and get ready for dinner, that was all we did.
All day.
It was sublime.
Perfect.
But by the time we hit dinner, I was famished.