“What I got you?” he clarified. She nodded.
“Yes.”
“Christ, I'm scared to ask,” he groaned, leaning his elbows against his desk. She scooted even lower in her chair and stuck her leg up, jutting it over his desk so her shoe was in his face. It took him a second, and then he saw it. He curled his fingers around her ankle and pulled it closer.
“Like it?” she asked. He shrugged.
“It's okay. At least they're real this time. Why did I buy you the tiniest pearl bracelet you could find?” he asked, still examining the pearls she had strapped around her ankle.
“I'm not comfortable spending money the way you do, I needed it to be cheap,” she explained.
“Why did you do this?” he asked, letting go of her ankle. She sat upright and put her foot back on the floor.
“I bought it so ..., you would know that I can remember things, too. Good things. You said I deserved them. I listened. I did it so you'd know that I hear you. I'm not very good at it, I'm still trying to figure out how to speak your language, but I'm trying. It isn't necessary to spend $50,000 on a necklace for me. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to know you would have, that you think I 'deserve' them. But real pearls or fake pearls – I wouldn't know the difference anyway. One is just as good as the other to me,” she explained, laughing a little at the end.
“Depending on the intent with which the gift is given,” he repeated what she had told him so many months ago. She nodded.
“Yes. You don't have to spend $50,000, Jameson. Sometimes it's okay to get me the crappy, junior high prom style, pearl necklace. It's okay to just say you like me. You don't have to buy me,” she told him.
“Tatum, come over here.”
She got up and walked around his desk. He swiveled his chair towards her and she moved next to him, swung her leg over his knees, then sat on his lap. He grabbed her by the hips and helped her to adjust, so she was sitting as close as she could get, her face inches from his own.
“Hi,” she laughed, as the chair rocked back and forth.
“Tatum O'Shea, sometimes, I almost think I like you,” he told her.
“See? Such a dick.”
“Shut up. When do I get my real present?” he asked, using one hand to pick up the bottle from off his desk. He turned the front of the whiskey towards her. She had used the label to address him, then wrote her own little note.
When this bottle is empty, you may return it for one night of anything-you-can-think-of-sex, and the giver must comply. ANYTHING. Happy Birthday, Satan.
“It says it right there, when the bottle is empty,” Tate replied. Jameson let go of her entirely and unscrewed the lid.
“You do realize, I have a very vivid imagination. You wrote 'anything', and I'm going to hold you to it,” he warned her, before lifting the bottle to his lips and taking a healthy swig. She nodded.
“I know what I wrote. I'm just very glad you don't own any double ended vibrators,” she joked.
“Yet.”
“I said anything, meaning anything you want. I'm a woman of my word,” she assured him. He narrowed his eyes and took another drink.
“Sometimes,” he amended her statement.
“But I'm begging you, please, no threesome with the busty secretary,” she pleaded. He laughed and his hand cupped her jaw, tilting her head up.
“You said anything I want, baby girl,” he reminded her, then poured the Jameson down her throat.
Doesn't taste as good as him.
*
Since she was on a roll with the apologizing and forgiving, she decided it was time to face her sister. She wasn't sure if Ang had already told Ellie about their dinner, but Tate figured she had to talk to her anyway. Just get it all out there. So she invited her sister out to the house that night.
She made Jameson promise to stay hidden in the library. He wasn't very happy about it – he'd had plans to finish the bottle of whiskey then possibly fuck her with it. She told him it was quite a waste of such an extravagant gift, was that the best he could think of? She was literally thrown out of the library after that comment, and told not to come back unless she was on her knees.
As she watched her sister waddle across the driveway, she couldn't help but wonder what Ellie was thinking as she stared up at the grand house. In another life, Ellie had thought everything would be hers. The house that Tate felt was more like home than the one she had grown up in, was meant to be Ellie's. The man Tate slept with, had been picked out for Ellie. The apartment in Spain, the penthouse in New York, everything, all meant for Ellie.
It must be hard. I should be nice to her.
“Did you find the house okay?” Tate asked. Ellie leaned down to air-kiss her cheeks.