More Than Friends

Chapter 5: Brady

When he first started working at Hughes, Brady loved the idea of being in a cubicle with all women. He'd always gotten along well with girls his entire life, had never felt his own masculinity threatened, and could easily enjoy their company. He had plenty of guys friends as well, but he liked working with the three women in his office. But as he watched them all fanning and falling over themselves as they discussed their boss, he felt a familiar prickle of annoyance. No matter how good he felt about himself, there is no way that he could compete with someone like Max. So, he didn’t even try to. But no matter how mature he felt he was, no matter how confident he felt in about his looks, it always left him feeling a little like a schlub. He tried to be good humored about it, but the conversation he’d just had with Madison had left his nerves a little frayed.

“The reason you don’t remember Gigi is because you’re always thinking about, spending time with, and pining over her,” she said in the kitchen earlier that morning, indicating Charlotte as soon as Charlotte had walked out. “It’s not healthy, this obsession you have with her.”

“I don’t have an obsession,” he’d nearly spat the word back at her.

“Hit a nerve, did I?” Madison asked, an eyebrow raised.

Brady took a deep breath. Of course, she’d hit a nerve, he felt uncomfortably exposed, someone seeing his deepest secret—or what he’d thought was his deepest secret.

Madison’s face softened, “Look, I know that this is hard for you, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so in love with someone who doesn’t love you back—” he opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with the palm of her hand, “in that way.”

She took a loud, deep breath, making an obvious effort not to roll her eyes, “But, you can’t just keep your own life on hold, Brady. You can’t give up everything hoping that she’ll someday, magically develop feelings for you.”

He stared at the floor, silent. He knew Madison was right, he knew that he had been hoping that one day she would just see what was right in front of her face… just like all those rom-coms that Charlotte hated. Why would he think there was any chance of this happening? He knew that he was wasting his time.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know you’re right, it’s just so hard—I feel like I’m letting her go, like I’m giving up the chance of ever having something with her.”

She put a hand on his arm, “That’s probably normal and you might need to grieve what you thought was possible.”

“I don’t think you can know for sure that it’s not possible,” Brady said softly, still looking down, biting on the inside of his mouth, not ready to let go completely.

“Well, you know what they say, ‘If you love something, set it free; if it comes back, it’s yours and if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be,’” Madison said, straining her neck to make eye contact with his drooping head. “You need to let her go, Brady. At least let go of the idea that you'll end up happily-ever-after with her.”

“Tell you what,” he said, looking up and clapping his hands, startling Madison so much that she jumped a little. “I’ll give Gigi a call and see if she’s around this weekend.”

He tried to look genuinely excited, even though he felt like an avalanche of emotions. He certainly wasn't going to discuss one of his deepest and more painful realities with Madison. He liked her and all, but she wasn't that kind of friend.

“Deal,” she said, sticking out her hand.

They shook on it and walked out of the kitchen together.

He sat down at his desk now and tried to focus while the three other women next to him made a few more comments about Max.

“Was he wearing the usual?” Steph asked expectantly.

“Yes,” Charlotte said with a sly smile. “Fitted white button-down that hugs him in all the right places, tailored pants that show off that perfect ass of his, and those eyes…”

“Ugh… those eyes,” moaned Madison.

“He’s not wearing his eyes,” Brady said with a laugh to cover the irritation that was creeping into his voice.

“Oh, don’t be jealous, Brades,” trilled Steph in a sing-song voice. “You’re still our favorite guy here!”

Brady rolled his eyes at his computer. He knew that Max was a good-looking guy… aggressively good-looking, so he could understand why they thought he was hot. He could even understand why they talked about him— at least he got it in the beginning. But they had all been there for almost three years. He would have thought the talk about his outfits, his body, and his damned blue eyes would have died down by now.

As his computer hummed to life, he put on his Beats headphones, and looked over what he needed to get done today. He was in the middle of fact checking a book set in 1800s London and he decided to start with that. Fact checking was one of the biggest priorities at Hughes and one of Brady's favorite parts of the job. He liked the precision of it, the history involved, the constant learning that he was still able to do. The storylines could be fanciful, romantic, even paranormal, but the facts that could be checked had to be perfect. Since this was a period piece, there was a lot of work to be done.

After a couple of hours, he let himself have a break. After setting his headphones down, he stretched his arms over his head, and got up to go to the bathroom and grab a Coke from the kitchen. The window in the kitchen looked down on the sunny courtyard with its smattering of rod iron tables and chairs, brightly colored umbrellas, and oversized pots erupting in sprays of flowers and greenery. He decided that today was the perfect day to sit outside for lunch and on his way back to his desk, which made him think about his conversation yesterday with Gigi.

They had chatted happily, and he found her really easy to talk to, so easy in fact that before he knew it, they had been there for over two hours. She was a sweet girl, who seemed genuinely interested in him, asked him questions, and laughed at the things he said. They both had close families that were deeply important to them and he really liked that about her. He was struck by her beauty, she was effortlessly gorgeous with a lithe body, full breasts, and smile that engulfed her entire face. With her dark features, olive skin, and caramel colored eyes, she was about as different from Charlotte as she could be. Charlotte was tall, blonde, and ahtletic. Gigi was more petite, thin, and her dark hair was nearly black. He'd always assumed that he was only attracted to blondes, but as he sat across from Gigi, that was clearly not the case.

He'd had a great time talking to her yesterday, but there was something niggling at him that he couldn't quite put his finger on. it had only been after their conversation that he’d questioned it. It just seemed to him that she had been trying too hard, laughing too easily, wanting too much for him to like her. It made him wonder if he was meeting the real Gigi or if it was the version of herself that she wanted to project instead. Time would tell and he was determined to get to know her better before writing her off. Madison was right, he needed to move on.

In the end, she had given him her number and he told her he’d reach out that week. When he left the coffee shop yesterday, he wasn’t sure when, but after his conversation with Madison in the kitchen this morning, he knew he would do it today. Typically he waited for a few days, mostly so he didn't appear too eager, but in this case he didn't think that she would count it against him. As he grabbed a Coke from the fridge, he promised himself that he'd reach out to her during his lunch break.

“What are you working on, Char?” Steph was asking when Brady returned, opening his can of Coke.

Brady glanced at Charlotte and realized that she had been awfully quiet the entire morning, uncharacteristically so. She was a diligent, hard worker, but she didn't typically sit this quietly for this long. He noticed that all three of them were watching her, waiting for her to answer and he thought that they'd likely all had the same thought he had.

Charlotte turned around looking as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be. He glanced at her computer and it just looked like a word document up on the monitor, so he wasn’t sure why she looked so guilty. Which then made him even more suspicious. It wasn’t like any of them to have secrets about what they were working on, everything was a total known commodity—the space was too small for anything else.

“Oh, just this thing that Max sent me this morning,” Charlotte said dismissively, but Brady could hear the hesitation in her voice, making it sound like she was trying to hide something. And making him even more curious. The three of them kept staring at Charlotte, waiting for her to elaborate.

Eventually she said, “Look-- it's just this book from a new author that he wants me to proof.”

Brady felt the air in the room crackle and he could see the flush crawl up Charlotte’s face. As assistant editors, none of them had ever received a full book to proof directly from Max and never from a new author. Whether this book was a debut or the author was just new to Hughes wasn't clear, but the fact that Charlotte had been given a massive opportunity was not lost on any of them. The four of them spent their days doing partial edits, fact checking, lots of back and forth with the editors, and working with the marketing department, but never a full book to proof from the Editor-in-Chief. And never a new author. The tension in the room was palpable.

It could mean a promotion. In fact, they had all long discussed that getting to edit a full book would be a pretty good sign that a promotion could be around the corner. It was a much bigger responsibility, so much more at stake. This was a big deal and he felt bad that she didn't feel comfortable sharing it with them, her closest work friends. Especially with him, her best friend. He should be thrilled for her, he should be cheering, high-fiving her. But he simply sat, frozen to his chair, unsure of what to say. Something snagged in the back of his mind, the way that she talked about Max and how obviously attracted she was to him. He felt jealousy creep through him like a vine, but he wasn't sure if he was jealous of Max or jealous of Charlotte.