Brown eyes widen dramatically. “Usually Max has pool parties. Everyone over there today is wearing fancy clothes and there are no naked bodies in the pool.”
“You don’t even like swimming, so why do you care?”
Hazel can’t swim. Her reasons include allergies to swimwear, bikini-line maintenance and chlorine. It’s her loss. Pretty much all my nonwork time now is spent in the ocean.
She ignores me and instead inventories my desktop as she nudges the laptop screen closed. “You work too much.”
Coming from Hazel, that’s rich. She works all the time.
“Are you trying to tell me what to do?” I cross my arms over my chest and lean forward a little. Yes, it’s wrong to use my larger size to intimidate, but these are desperate times. “Because you’re my business partner, not my boss.”
“Coleman and Reed,” she points out, not a little smugly. She chugs champagne. “My name comes first.”
I should never have discussed business with Hazel after doing tequila shots. She’s entirely ruthless and far too convincing. “Because you insisted on alphabetical order.”
“I’m first. You’re second. If this was a wolf pack, that would make me the alpha and you the beta.”
“You’re still not the boss of me.” My glass is empty, so I hold it out for Hazel to refill.
She grins the evilest of Hazel grins. “It’s my month, so technically I am.”
Right. Fuck. Hazel and I have control issues, which is a polite way of saying we both have a pathological need to be in charge. In our early days, we settled our differences with “rock paper scissors,” but that looked weird once we started acquiring staff. So then we switched to taking turns. Every other month, Hazel gets to be the boss.
“We’re not at the office.” I feel compelled to point this out because not only are we both workaholics, but Hazel is also the kind of person who gleefully takes a mile when given an inch.
“You need to get out. No more working this weekend. That’s an order.”
“Since when do I take orders from you?”
She winks at me. “You should try it. I’m awesome at giving orders.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that, but she doesn’t wait for an answer, anyhow. She just nods as if she’s finishing up an argument with herself and then tosses more words at me. “You need to get back out there.”
That’s alarmingly vague.
“To the party?”
There’s a moment of silence, or as near silent as you can get when there are two hundred people crammed into the house next door. Somehow Max always gets away with the most over-the-top parties.
“Life.” Hazel punches up a finger as she makes each point. “Dating. Casual sex. When is the last time you had an orgasm?”
I choke on nothing at all. “Inappropriate, Hazel.”
She grins at me unrepentantly as she sets the champagne bottle on the floor. “Make a dating plan. Go pick out someone fun on the Billionaire Bachelors app.”
I don’t have to think about it. “No.”
“I’ve already set up your profile. Say thank you.”
Jesus. I think I might pale.
Hazel beats me to my phone, probably because she’s already on the bed thanks to her laptop-slamming move, while I’m an entire room away. She’s such a cheater. She holds up my phone triumphantly as she punches in my passcode. She knows all my passwords, just like I know hers. And like any good friend, she lives to torture me. She starts scrolling and swiping, while I try half-heartedly to wrest the phone away from her. She’s pointed out repeatedly that my gorilla size gives me an unfair advantage over her more petite frame, so I try to be careful. I go for a wrist hold, but she wriggles, my hands slip and we end up twisted together in a Jack-and-Hazel pretzel. Her boobs pop right onto my arm like I’m a shelf or something with way fewer nerve endings. Her tank top gapes and there’s no way to avoid seeing that her bra’s made out of a dark blue satin material. The fabric cups her boobs into sexy little mouthfuls. I shut my eyes, but it’s too late.
Some things can’t be unseen.
My brain’s already assessing the new data points and drawing conclusions. Hazel’s got great boobs, two perfect handfuls from the look of things.
She’s super flexible and I bet she’d look amazing naked, her face all lit up as she comes, her fingers digging into my wrists and holding on to me as she lets herself go while she—
Cease and desist.
You do not—not ever—think about your friend and business partner like that.
“What about this one?” Oblivious to my inappropriate sexual thoughts, she jams an elbow into my ribs as she turns the screen so I can see. I let her go because I need to put some safe space between us more than I need to win this argument.
Objectively speaking, Hazel’s suggestion is pretty. She has two eyes and two ears, and a happy grin lights up her face. Blond hair spills over her bare, suntanned shoulders. Melanie likes water-skiing, scuba diving in tropical locations and designing jewelry. Wow. Is this what Hazel thinks is my type? I mean...maybe I prefer something less over-the-top. Or blue satin.
What is wrong with me? “No.”
There. Two birds killed with one stone.
Undeterred, Hazel retrieves the champagne and flops back on my bed, swiping left like a madwoman. I can’t remember if that’s the dating equivalent of putting the girl in my shopping cart for later or not.
“How about this one? Tell me where she rates on the Jack-o-Meter. Better yet, tell me a story.”
Ever since one drunken, amazing night in a college dive bar, Hazel and I have had a game. When we spot an interesting stranger, we make up stories about who he or she might be. There are no rules other than we use our inside voices—Hazel can get loud—and that we never, ever make up stories about someone we know. The redhead Hazel’s pointing to could star
