In that moment, I was really hoping Momma Diane was right.
Sirens rang out loud and shrill as fire trucks forced their way through jam-packed Midtown traffic.
On the way to Wes's office to go over some of the players he was hoping to draft and the kind of money he'd have to put into their contracts, I looked down a 7th Avenue that seemed to have no end.
Cars and people and streetlights as far as the eye could see cluttered the space between the two rows of buildings. My height afforded me better vision than most, though, and as a shorter woman swam her way upstream through the crowd in front of me, I found myself picturing how different the city might look from Cassie's perspective. She wasn't short, so to speak, but she still came in nearly a foot below me and certainly wouldn't be taller than most New York men.
I really couldn't imagine it. I'd been tall since the end of high school, all of my childhood fluff disappearing in one distinct vertical burst. I'd never walked these streets as anything other than huge, and as I passed one of the many people of "questionable sanity" peppering the way through the city, my reverie took on an entirely different angle.
Did Cass ever feel unsafe here, or with her rough and tough exterior did she feel some kind of false sense of exemption? And more importantly, was she always responsible with her personal safety, or did she take it lightly?
As I approached the front of Wes's office building just up the block from his restaurant, BAD, I nearly came out of my skin over the fact that I didn't know the answer.
Me: Rule #55: You start carrying Mace with you every-fucking-where you go.
Cassie: Is this some kind of new fetish where I spray you in the face and lick your balls at the same time? I've heard of spicing things up, but most couples don't need it this early.
Me: Don't be cute.
Cassie: Fuck, Thatcher. That's like telling me not to breathe or eat nachos. I just can't stop doing any of it.
I shook my head and smiled. I'd have to remember to pick up nachos on the way home tonight.
Me: Just … I was just thinking about how vulnerable a woman can be in the city.
Cassie: I carry a switchblade between my tits.
Me: Now, I know that's not true. It'd never stay put.
Cassie: Actually, my tits are pretty hospitable.
Me: I fucking bet they are. Are they going to offer me a drink later? ;)
Cassie: Gross. And don't ever use a wink emoji again. Text messages are the only place I know I can escape your fucking wink.
Me: Is that an official rule?
Cassie: YES. Consider it #56.
Me: So you accept #55?
Cassie: Sure. I've always wanted to pepper spray somebody anyway.
Me: Jesus. Don't just go spraying random people.
Cassie: They won't be completely random. Just people that piss me off.
Me: Fuck. The Mace is just gonna get you in even more trouble, isn't it?
Cassie: Only time will tell, Thatcher.
Only when someone bumped me from behind did I remember I wasn't alone with her. All the sounds of the city came back immediately, finally penetrating the barrier her witty comebacks had formed around me. After getting back from Vegas and her parents' house a couple of days ago, it was starting to happen all the time.
I shook my head and dropped my phone back into the front pocket of my slacks before stepping up to the door of Wes's building and holding it open for a woman on her way out. Hair slicked back in a sleek ponytail and wearing skintight head to knee black, she smiled up at me from under her lashes and did a spin as she stepped past me so she could keep eye contact.
On more than one occasion that kind of move had led to dinner and horizontal dancing, but today, all I cared to exchange was a friendly smile. She raised a brow as if to ask me if I was sure, but it didn't slow her down. All in one move, she kept up her momentum, circling right back to her path and catwalking directly away from me.
I didn't even wait to watch her go.
"Hey, Mr. Kelly," one of the security guards greeted me. I wasn't at Mavericks headquarters a ton, but I'd definitely been there before, and Sam and I had a running commentary on Yankees baseball.
"Hey, Sam. You see the game two nights ago?"
"Nah, man. I had to work the night shift at my other job. I heard Rodriguez nailed that shit in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, though. Saved our asses."
I just nodded as I strolled past him, past the elevators, and straight to the stairwell door.
The Mavericks were only on the fourth floor, so I didn't mind making the climb in my suit. And with the amount that I'd been sitting around my apartment with Cassie and eating, I needed to get in a little exercise.
The receptionist's head jerked up as I pushed open the stairwell door into the entry in front of the Mavericks offices, but the surprise on her face melted into a smile when she saw it was me.
She looked at me like she knew the dimensions of my cock, but I'd always been careful to keep that shit separate. I never slept with anyone my circle of friends worked with. I flirted with them, which was probably what had Susie's toothy smile making a bid to eat up her entire face, but I never actually messed around.
"Susie," I greeted as I approached her desk with a smile.
Her porcelain cheeks flushed pink. "Hi, Mr. Kelly."
"I've got a meeting with Wes."
She nodded as though she already knew, but she signaled me to wait one minute with her forefinger. Punching a couple of numbers into the phone that I assumed connected her to Wes's assistant, she checked to see if I could go back.
We exchanged a few words while I waited, and I moved my eyes around the office rather than keeping them on her. The old candid player photos were more interesting than Susie anyway. Don't get me wrong; she was pretty in the conventional way, soft features and golden-blond hair, but she didn't even register on my dick's radar.
Apparently, he only gave feedback to supercell women now, the kind that fucking lit up your world with lightning-like surprises and thunderous opinions-the ones whose looks were ominous and their bite was just as bad as their bark. The kind of women who weren't a kind of women at all, but instead, a woman all their own. The kind of woman who wasn't just a woman because she was fucking Cassie.
She was a dozen things at once, and I couldn't fucking get a single one out of my head.
"Mr. Kelly," Susie called, and I turned at the sound of her voice. Her eyes moved upward dramatically, and I had the feeling they'd been studying my ass. "He's just finishing up on a phone call, but you can go on back."
"Thanks," I said with a wink and smile. She flushed again, and only when she tried to surreptitiously hike her breasts higher in her bra did I realize that maybe I shouldn't have done it.
It was just second nature. Like a facial tic. I wasn't even sure I was in control of it.
Pulling my face to neutral, I moved past her space and down the hall, looking at the nameplates on the doors as I did. Wes didn't have a huge staff here at the offices since the stadium was actually in New Jersey, but he kept the people he needed to interact with on a regular basis close. And for him, and his multifaceted entrepreneurship, that meant being in Manhattan.
Since he was still busy on a phone call, I had time for a little visit with one of my favorite women.
I knocked on her closed door before turning the knob and peeking my head in. Her lips curved into a smile when she saw me-a completely different reaction from the first time she'd laid eyes on me in the Raines Law Room.
"Hey, Georgia girl," I whispered when I saw she had her phone up and in front of her like she was FaceTiming with someone.
"Hey, Thatch," she said dramatically, and my eyebrows pulled together.
"Thatcher?" I heard from her phone and immediately understood. "What's that motherfucker doing there?"
I moved around the desk and into Georgia's space until my big head came into the shot beside hers. "Hi, honey. Nice to see you too."
She rolled her eyes and smiled at the same time. "I just didn't know you were gonna be there."
"Yeah, baby, I have a meeting with Wes," I replied, and then noticed Georgia's eyes go comically wide out of the corner of my own at the unexpected genuineness of my endearment.
"Oh, okay."
"Hey, I meant to ask if you're going to be home early tonight?"
Georgia's head moved back and forth between us, but I tried not to notice. Instead, I watched Cassie look over her left shoulder and talk to someone out of frame and back again, her dark hair pulling across the top of her low-cut shirt as she did.
"Yeah, I should be done with this shoot in the next couple of hours. What about you?"
"Yep. I've got to run back to the office after this and work on a couple of third-quarter plans that I'm almost done with, stop by and open up for Frankie, and then I'll be home."
"Okay, I'll see you there. Need me to pick up your dry cleaning on my way?"