Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (25 page)

TWENTY-ONE

Reid started with Sarina. Found a florist. Parked outside her place
on the bike and watched the florist empty a van and fill her doorstep with every
sweet-smelling lily they had. Her rattletrap car was in the drive so it was
likely she was home. He didn’t knock. She wouldn’t want to see him. The card
said simply,
I’m sorry I’m an asshole and made you cry.
He didn’t need
to sign it.

He went
from Sarina’s to the park where Owen cycled on Sunday mornings. He waited an
hour but Owen was a no-show. Next stop Dev’s. He parked outside and called him.
The call went promptly to message bank. That was the decoy. He knocked on Dev’s
front door a minute later and when a sleepy Dev opened it, he put a foot in the
jamb to stop it being slammed on him.

“Two
minutes, that’s all I want, Dev.”

“Month
of Sundays. I’m busy doing nothing. I don’t have two minutes.”

That
was better than an amputated foot. “I’m sorry. I was an asshole and I was
wrong.”

“No,
no, no. That’s not how it works. You don’t get to rock up here and say sorry
and think it’s all over with.”

“I
don’t think—”

Dev
pulled the door further open, but blocked the entrance. “Shut your mouth. I
learned to cook Indian food for you.”

Reid’s
jaw hinged open and Dev silenced him with a shove to his shoulder.

“I
learned to do it, because on the rare occasions in college you bluffed someone
out of their allowance at poker and we could afford to order in, you devoured the
stuff. And when you were on a genius coding binge you stopped eating. I was
always worried you’d pass out. You’d go flog yourself at the gym and then code
for sixteen hours straight and not eat unless I brought you food.

“I grew
up on hamburger helper, boxed mac and cheese and wiener dogs. I made my
eighty-six-year-old grandmother teach me to cook Indian food via Skype because
you liked it, and so you wouldn’t freak me out.”

Reid’d
had an upset gut since last night. Dev’s words were making him feel like
puking. “You never told me that. You—”

“Close
your fat trap. I never told you because you’re one in a million and I’m the million
and I got lucky to meet you. Look at my life because of you,” he shoved the
door against the wall with a bang and gestured to the apartment. “I have money,
security. My family is cared for. My ninety-six-year-old grandmother went on her
first world cruise. All that was never happening to me no matter how hard I
worked. I’m the million, I’m the every other person who’s not the infinitely small
number of people who are like you.”

He
pushed a breath out. If Dev would punch him, break his nose, this would be
easier to take. Broken noses, cheekbones, they healed. This was ripping the
connective tissue that attached his brain and his heart to his body.

“And
you know your problem?”

He
needed to sit down. He put his hand out and braced on the wall. “I—”

“That
was rhetorical, dickhead. You suck at being a friend.”

“Then why
did you stick around? We were mostly nothing, working on dreams and living on vapor.
Years of that. Failure was the most likely option. Why did you stick by me? All
of you.” Knees gone the way of Dev’s Masala noodles, Reid backed up against the
wall and slid down it till he was sitting on cold tiles. “Sarina could’ve had
any job in the city. Owen never needed to work. You could’ve cleaned up in the
Valley. None of you needed me.” He looked up at Dev. “But you kept cooking for
an asshole, filling my fridge, so what’s your problem?”

“Once
you get off my doorstep, I don’t have one.”

“That’s
how you want it?” His cell rang. He fished it out of his pocket. Sarina.

“Did
you take Sarina flowers?

He
nodded.

“Yeah,
like you don’t remember she has wicked bad allergies.”

Oh
shit. He knew that. Only hadn’t recalled it. Too busy thinking about grand
gestures. “Fuck.” He answered Sarina’s call

“If you
could arrange to have the flowers collected, maybe delivered to a hospital,
that would be great.” Sarina in his ear, calm and clear, no trace of emotion in
her voice.

“I
remembered.”

“No,
you didn’t.”

“I’m at
Dev’s.” Cell got snatched from his hand and Dev disappeared with it inside the
apartment and shut the door.

Bile in
his mouth. He swallowed it back. He sucked at being a friend and he knew it. He’d
always known it, he’d tattooed it on his chest, but it was too big to deal
with. How could you consistently fail at such a basic thing as friendship? Same
way you could avoid sex till you scored it almost accidentally. He was the
weird, loner guy and he was missing the gene that most people had to rub along
well with others.

His
whole life was a hack to avoid the hard personal stuff. Once maybe not having
his personal shit together might’ve been excusable, but since running Plus
stopped being a life or death experience, what reason did he have for not
building a proper adult life, with furniture and friends and people he loved in
it?

Because
there was worse. He couldn’t do basic friendship and yet he wanted Zarley in
his life as more than a friend, more than a lover. How was that ever going to
work out? How had he even entertained the notion?

She’d
fuck near turned him inside out last night, being there for him, knowing
exactly what to say, using her body to make him forget, to believe in himself
again and asking nothing for herself.

His
road, but she’s stood in his path to make him think.

He was
still sitting on the tiles when Dev opened the door and held his hand out. He’d
reached for it before he realized it was Dev’s hand, without his cell in it. They
clasped and Dev pulled him upright.

“I
can’t be doing this with you right now, Reid. Last night was one step too far. Owen
is trying to decide if he should resign today to stop the share price crash
that’ll happen Monday. You’ll get Plus back, but I won’t be there, none of us
will, but that’s okay, we all get it, it’s business. You don’t suck at
business.”

But he
did. Dev was wrong. And Reid was right—again. Because as much as Plus needed
him, it needed Owen’s financial smarts, Sarina’s pulse on the company’s culture
and Dev’s precision as an engineer. It needed Kuch and the employees he’d
badmouthed in a backhand way last night.

“I
fucked up royally and I’ll make it so it’s clear I was in the wrong last
night.”

Dev held
out the phone. “If that’s even possible, Reid, only you could find a way to
pull it off.” He turned away to go back inside.

Reid
called after him. “But the other, the sucking at friendship. I don’t know how
to fix that.”

Dev
turned, eyes down on the floor. “Once I’d have been impressed the great Reid
McGrath was admitting he needed my help. That he was confiding in me, showing
me he was vulnerable. Human.” He looked up. “Now, not so much. Maybe one day I
can stand to talk to you again.” He put his hand on the door and as he closed
it Reid heard him say, “But not this century.”

He
called the florist, organized to re-home the flowers. He rode to the office. That
had to be where Owen was. He no longer had a building pass and given it was a
Sunday, there was no lobby reception he could bribe his way through. But unless
they’d changed the security coding he could still find a way in.

Hand to
the keypad, he paused. Technically this was breaking in to a workplace he was
no longer part of. If he did this, it meant he’d learned nothing from last
night’s gate-crashing.

He sent
Owen a text telling him he was outside the office and wanted to talk.

Five
minutes later the double glass doors opened and Owen, wearing the effects of poor
sleep and the weight of his decision in red-rimmed eyes and an unshaven jaw,
stepped out. “I figured you’d show up.”

“You
know I’m going to fix this.”

Owen crossed
his arms. He wore an old Plus t-shirt, the same one Reid had with the words
Better Together stamped on it. “We’re missing Ziggurat deadlines. You’ve been
gone no time and already the wheels are falling off. I’ve sent Kuch my
resignation.”

“Call
it back.” He said it, knew it to be one of the truest things that’d ever come
out of his mouth.

“No
point, Reid.” Owen wasn’t angry, he wasn’t even tense, he was accepting. “It’s
done. We can hate the circumstances, weather the headlines, but the outcome,
having you back, is what Plus needs.”

“You’re
wrong.”

Owen
laughed.

He
rephrased. “I’m wrong.”

Owen
stopped laughing.

“I’m
wrong about so many things. But first off, Plus. You were right to terminate
me. I’m not the guy to run Plus now and you are. I’m the scared weird loner who
mentally got stuck at eighteen and knows how to set a vision but can only whip
people toward it. You’re the likeable guy who knows how to inspire and lead every
day, not just the critical ones, and with Sarina and Dev, you don’t need me
anymore, but I made it so you thought you did. Call it back.”

“You
mean that?” Owen scrubbed his face with both hands. “You’re serious?”

“I did
the wrong thing last night for what I thought were the right reasons. I didn’t
think I had anything to live for but Plus. It’s time for me to let go, get out
of the way, learn to be your cheer squad and let you guys do what needs to be
done.”

“What
changed?”

Sarina’s
tears, Dev’s confession. A use for more than one kitchen stool. A girl who
danced on a pole, who had her own wings, despite not stretching them fully, who
eased into his life and filled up the empty spaces. He might not be able to
keep Zarley, but she’d shown him the kind of life he needed to grow up to fill.

“I met
a woman.”

“Zarley.”
Owen gripped the back of Reid’s neck. “You should’ve had more women in your
life.” Had Owen guessed how few? Reid had kidded himself they were similar men,
dedicated to their work, no distractions. But Owen choose to keep relationships
casual, because he’d lost the love of his life, and it’s only now Reid
understood how different that made them.

“I
didn’t know how.”

Owen gave
his neck a quick squeeze. “They change you.” He took his hand away, steepled
his fingers and rubbed the place on his ring finger where a wedding ring
would’ve once sat before the accident that killed Lacey. “The good ones make
you want to be a better person.”

Reid
had teared up last night in Zarley’s arms, and his eyes burned now. “I’m going
to lose her,” like he’d lost Plus, “like I lost the three of you, because I
don’t know how to be with people.”

“There’s
a reason they say you shouldn’t hire friends and family. It’s the same reason
we lost funding opportunities. When you insisted the four of us were a job lot,
it turned some of those money taps off. The smart money wanted you, they could
hire plenty of me, a dozen Sarinas, and Dev wasn’t the powerhouse he is now.”

“They
were wrong.” He said it unconsciously and Owen had the grace to laugh. “We made
Plus, the four of us. It couldn’t have happened any other way and you know
I’m—”

“Right,”
they finished together.

“Call
it back,” Reid said.

Owen
smiled. “I didn’t press send. I got your text. Figured if I didn’t come down,
you’d hack your way in and then I’d have to have you arrested for breaking and
entering. You won’t lose Zarley if you let her see you.”

Only
weeks ago he wouldn’t have understood what that meant. But it’s what Dev had
been talking about. He sucked at friendship because he didn’t think he had
anything to offer that wasn’t business. The two things so mixed together in his
head they were indistinguishable, until spending time with Zarley had shown him
there was another way.

Not
alone. Better. Together.

“Have I
lost you?” He heard a car glide into the spot adjacent to where they stood. Whoever
was pulling a weekend shift deserved an apology. They’d get one.

“You haven’t
lost me either, except I need to not see you for a while and then we need to
renegotiate, set some boundaries, see if we can become friends again,” Owen
looked back at the building, “without all this.”

That
was more than fair. Reid looked down at his scuffed bike boots. “Sarina. I made
her cry, and this morning forgot about her allergies and sent a truckload of
flowers.”

“Don’t
flatter yourself, Reid. That’s not the only time you’ve made me cry. It’s the
only time I let you see it.”

“Oh
shit.” It was Sarina’s crappy car in the lot. It was Sarina leaning in to kiss
Owen on the cheek. He’d made her cry before last night. How could he not know
that?

“And Dev
is the only one of you who remembers it’s lilies I’m allergic to. Send as many
roses as you want.”

He
closed his eyes, mortified, so he had no warning when Sarina kissed him on the
cheek. His hand went there. “What was that for?”