In the Eye of the Storm (3 page)

“Oh…um, everything’s great.  Thank you.”  Sighing, Holly looked out the window, dreading the drive home in this weather.  “So why breakfast?” she asked, desperate to keep the conversation neutral and avoid actually looking at him.  For some reason, sitting here in Stephen’s kitchen, having him cook for her in his pajamas just seemed way too intimate for comfort.  The faster she ate, the faster she could go out in to that miserable weather, go home and stop fantasizing about other intimate activities she’d like to engage in right about now. 

“I just figured you’d be hungry…”

She laughed.  “No, I mean, why can you only cook breakfast?  Most people when they say something like that, it usually means they can make toast or instant oatmeal.  But this,” she nodded her head towards all of the food on the table, “is clearly more than that.  This is a feast!  I can’t remember the last time I had such a decadent breakfast.  But really, I would have been just fine with some instant oatmeal.”

“Ah.  Gotcha.  My mom used to make big breakfasts on the weekends.  After my father died, she had to work two jobs all week long and the only time we really spent together was on the weekends.  I used to make sure that I got up early with her and we would make breakfast together, just the two of us.  She didn’t believe in being lazy so I had to be an active participant in the making of the meal.”

“Wow, impressive!”

“Not at first.  I thought it was girl-stuff to cook like that so at first I tried to mess up so that she would let me just sit and watch.  But she caught on to my scheme pretty quick and made me eat whatever I cooked.”  Holly laughed.  “I figured that if I really wanted to eat something edible, I was going to have to pay attention and get better at it.  Burnt pancakes and eggs with shells in them are as bad tasting as they sound.”

“That is a very sweet story,” Holly said.  She nibbled on her whole wheat toast.  “My whole family loves to cook.  We spend hours in the kitchen concocting things.  My parents had their own café for years up on Long Island.  I always thought I would do the same but I enjoy cooking much more when it’s not a career.”  She paused at that thought.  “You know, I can’t even remember the last time I actually took the time to really get in to cooking a meal.” Shaking her head, she added, “I’m going to have to remedy that.”

“What made you stop?  I mean, I know it’s not as much fun just cooking for one but…” he asked, sincerely curious.

“Oh, no, it’s not that, it’s just that…well,” she hesitated, “our work schedule really doesn’t allow me to come home and cook.  You know, we eat dinner most nights in the office.  Why would I come home and cook dinner at nine o’clock at night after already eating with you earlier?”

He had the good sense enough to look sheepish.  “Sorry.  What about on the weekends?  Why not cook then?”

Placing her fork down, she looked at him pleadingly, not really wanting to say any of this.  “You normally call each morning and talk to me all through breakfast and then I spend the rest of the day trying to do the things that I need to do for my life.”  Stephen actually paled. 

Unfortunately, Holly realized that this would be the perfect opening to clear the air of all that was said in the car the night before – or rather, earlier.  She slowly finished chewing her last forkful of home fries, lingered over the last drop of coffee, and even went so far as to play around with her place setting before actually chancing a glance at her boss and speaking what was on her mind.  “Look, Stephen, I think we need to talk about some things.”

Taking a last drink from his coffee mug, Stephen set it down and then stood to clear the table.  “I know, I know,” he said wearily.  “I had no idea you were so unhappy working for me, Holly.”

“It’s not that I’m unhappy, I never said that,” she began.  “It’s just that, I need a life outside of work.  I didn’t realize how much I was resenting that until last night.”  And now.  “You just made me so mad that I guess everything just came to the surface.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you that you couldn’t have a life,” he snapped as he dropped the plates in to the sink. 

Getting defensive at his tone, she replied, “No, you never
told
me that I couldn’t have a life but you sure make it hard to!  I don’t go out during the week to see friends because I’m too tired from the long day.  I don’t sleep in on the weekends because you’re calling me first thing in the morning.  I know that your business is very important to you, Stephen, and you are very good at what you do but it’s not
my
company or my business and it certainly isn’t
my
life.  I want to go out and not worry about staying out too late and being woken up early on my day off.  I want to socialize with people.  I want to date!”  A thought suddenly occurred to her.  “What if I hadn’t been alone last night?”

“What?”

“What if I had been otherwise occupied with a man last night?  Do you think I would have just left him in bed to come and get you?”

“Were you in bed with a man last night?”

Holly sighed with frustration.  “Of course I wasn’t in bed with a man last night!  I wouldn’t be here now if I was!  Geez, did you
not
see where I was going with this?”  The man was clueless.  “What I am trying to say here is what would you have done if I was not available to help you?”

“But you were.”

“But what if I wasn’t?”

“But you were,”

“
Stephen
!” she yelled.  “Stop being obtuse for a moment!  Why didn’t you just call a cab?  Or George?”

It was as if she had flipped a switch, so fast and so sure was the change in him.  Where he had been calm and casual, he now stalked like a caged animal.  He ran his hands through his jet black hair as he prowled the length of the kitchen.  In normal circumstances, Stephen was intimidating by his size alone; standing at a little over six feet tall, he was built like an athlete.  But seeing him now, clearly angered, he seemed to have doubled in size.  “You know, Holly, I think I kind of liked it more when you’re not so pushy and argumentative,” he snapped.

Totally taken aback, Holly opened her mouth to speak but Stephen held up a hand to silence her.  “Oh, no.  You have had a
lot
to say in the last twelve hours and you’ve been poking and picking and prodding for answers, so here they are!”

He started off telling Holly of how Derek and Will had shown up at the office not long after she had left the night before.  “I guess you must have just missed them because it could not have been more than a matter of minutes after you left,” he said.  “The plans were to just find someplace casual to go and just hang out like we used to do when we were younger – nothing fancy, just a night out with the guys.” 

Stephen stared out the window at the rain pounding the deck as he continued.  He had no idea how they had ended up at McGavin’s but once there, they put their rich-boy attitudes aside and decided to just go with it and have a couple of beers and maybe shoot a couple of games of pool or darts.  “I started telling them about the new Gideon project that you and I were going to be working on and Will made the comment on how I work you too hard.”  Stephen turned around abruptly; his eyes bore in to the top of Holly’s head as she looked at the ground.  “You felt comfortable enough to tell Will that I worked you too hard but not me.  Why?”

She looked up then.  “I didn’t tell Will any such thing.” She sighed.  “Remember last week when he came to the office to have lunch with you and your conference call ran long? 

Well, he sat with me out in the office and asked what my plans were for the weekend and when I told him, he looked at me like he felt sorry for me.”

“Why?  What were your plans?”

“Cleaning house.  Balancing my checkbook.  Basic things that most people do during the week but what I do on the weekends because it’s the only time that I can.”  Saying the words out loud made her feel lousy about herself all over again.  “He asked me why I wasn’t going out on a date or to a movie with friends and I just sort of shrugged; I had no excuse except I was too tired to.”

Stephen stalked away and began to pace again as he talked.  “Anyway, we were shooting pool and I argued that I do not work you too hard.  Will snorted, Derek laughed.  So I asked what his problem was and he made a snarky comment that maybe if I had a social life, I’d get out of the office once in a while.”

Holly looked at him quizzically.  “What’s the big deal about that?”

“I’m trying to not be crude here, Holly.  He didn’t word it quite that way…”

“Oh.”

“So I told that my sex life or lack thereof at the moment, was none of his business.  But he kept going at it like a dog with a bone. 
‘You need to get out more’; ‘You need to get laid more’
.  Honestly, sex is Derek’s answer to everything.”  Needing to stop the pacing, Stephen began cleaning up the breakfast mess.  “Will told him to back off and I thought we were through with it when he looked at me and said that maybe I wasn’t interested in getting laid because I had you around.”

“What?”
Holly wheezed.  She had always liked Stephen’s friends but out of the two, Derek was certainly a little more vulgar and harder on the senses.  The fact that he would think such a thing about her hurt her feelings but didn’t really surprise her.  “Why would he think that?”

“Like I said, he figured that the only reason I’d not be out screwing around and staying around the office with you was because
we
were screwing around.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Holly said, pulling at some imaginary spot on her sweatpants. 

“Then Will chimed in that it did seem odd that a woman as attractive as you had no other social life besides the time you spent with me and that it didn’t really seem to faze you.  They agreed and conspired that it all made sense and then wanted to know how the sex was.”

“Oh…my…God…” Holly stammered.  She was sure she was blushing form the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet.  If Stephen’s friends thought this, was it possible that other people in the office that it, too?  “Oh…my…God…” she repeated as she stood, her heart racing, and then began to pace, herself.  “This is unbelievable.”

“I tried brushing them off but after a couple of beers, they were a little relentless and I was a little defensive and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, pool cues were being thrown and I had Derek on the pool table by the throat.  Will pulled me off of him but not before I had pounded his face pretty good.”

“Oh, no!  You didn’t!”

He nodded.  “Unfortunately, I did.” 

“Was he alright?”

Stephen looked away before answering her.  He busied himself with loading the dishwasher and placing food in the refrigerator.  “It didn’t end there.  It got worse.”

Holly rolled her eyes.  How could it possibly have gotten any worse?  “Why?  What happened next?”

“Are you sure you want to know because it’s not pretty,” he snarled.  If he was hoping to change her mind, he was sorely mistaken.  At this point in the story, Holly had to know everything that happened.  “Will pulled me off of Derek and we stood facing one another.  I was about to apologize for what I’d done when he looked at me and said
‘Well, if you’re not man
enough to…
” Stephen searched his brain for a kinder word for what Derek had said but could find none before continuing.  “…
then maybe I will
.”  He turned and looked at Holly and cringed at the horrified look on her face.  “I snapped.  I have no excuse.  I don’t know why it bothered me so much for him to say such a thing.  I mean, he’s always saying things like that about women we see when we’re out but for some reason, hearing him say it about you, well, it just…it just made me snap.”

He stood there, waiting for her to say something, anything.  Minutes passed and still Holly just stood there, her green eyes huge in her pale face.  Not knowing what else to do, Stephen did one final sweep of the kitchen, poured himself another cup of coffee and sat back down at the table, and stared at Holly’s back.  The tiny pit bull that had been relentless in wanting to know what happened last night apparently had nothing left to say.  He should be smug about silencing her, but just thinking about the look in her eyes stopped him.

“Holly?” he whispered.  “Say something.  Please”

Slowly she turned to face him.  “To be honest with you, Stephen, I don’t know what to say.”  She sat down slowly, almost as if being poured in to the chair, before standing back up again.  “No, that’s not true.  I do have something to say.”

Stephen hid a small smile behind his coffee mug.  He wasn’t sure what was coming but at least that devastated look was off of her face.  He’d welcome anything she had to say just as long as he didn’t have to see such hurt again in her eyes.

“If this is what your friends think of me, I can only imagine what the rest of the company must be whispering about us.  I…I don’t think I can work for you anymore.  I had no idea that people thought this way.  I just…I…”

Standing abruptly, he walked over to Holly and grabbed her by the shoulders.  “You can’t make a mass judgment on everyone based on the words of a couple of drunken men, Holly!  You’re being ridiculous!”

For just the briefest of moments, she wanted to agree with him.  She really did, but the reality of it all wouldn’t let her.  “You have no idea what people think, Stephen, because you don’t pay attention to anything else around you that doesn’t directly pertain to a project that you’re working on.  I would hate it if after all this time that people thought such low thoughts of me.”

“Sleeping with me would be low?” he asked, taking his hands away from her shoulders.

“For the love of it, would you
focus
?   This is not about that and you know it.  I thought that your friends truly liked me.  I liked them.  But after a few beers suddenly they think I’m some sort of…of…slutty secretary or something!”

He knew he shouldn’t have laughed, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself.  “Holly, please!  You make it sound like bad porn or something.  Those guys were drunk!  They were being stupid.  I’m sure if I talked to them right now they’d apologize for what they said.”  Thinking he had it all worked out, Stephen walked over to grab the phone.