Page 3 of This Could Be Us
—James Baldwin,Nothing Personal
CHAPTER ONE
SOLEDAD
Three Years Later
Tonight is really important, Sol.”
I glance up from my jewelry tray to stare at my husband’s back as he strides into our walk-in closet.
“It’s a company Christmas party,” I reply dryly. “Not a board meeting.”
“May as well be,” Edward mutters, knotting the tie his mother gave him last Christmas.
God, I hate that tie. It’s plagued with red oversized polka dots that closely resemble drops of blood.
“Delores Callahan will be there,” he continues, a warning in the tone and the look he aims over his shoulder at me. “Let’s not have a repeat of last time.”
“The woman asked.” I grimace, remembering the last conversation I had with the daughter of CalPot’s CEO.
“Pretty sure she didn’t expect a Yelp review of our own product. Much less a scathing one.”
“It was not scathing.” I cross our bedroom to join him in the closet and flip through his ties, which I’ve organized by color. “It was honest. I told her the new pan only accommodates three average-size chicken breasts, and I’d love it even more if I could cook four at a time.”
“And the heat thing?” Irritation pinches the corners of his green eyes.
I shrug, plucking an embroidered Armani tie from the red section.“Well, itdoesn’theat evenly. I practically have to turn the thing every few minutes just to get the meat cooked all the way through. They’re one of the biggest cookware companies around. Aren’t pans kinda supposed to be their thing?”
“Just saying I already have Cross up my ass. I don’t need Delores Callahan after me too.”
“Cross is the new accountant?”
“Director of accounting, yeah.”
I stand in front of him and brush his fingers aside, tugging the awful tie loose and tossing it to the floor. “Not this tie, babe. Trust me.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.” I knot the preferred tie. “Besides, this one matches the red dressyouasked me to wear tonight.”
“I love that dress on you.”
“I like the gold better.”
“The gold shows too much. It’s a Christmas party, not a strip show. I’m not giving Cross room to criticizeanythingtonight. I don’t want to draw attention to us. I’m telling you, Sol. That guy has been after me ever since the day he showed up at CalPot.”
“Hasn’t he only been there six months? Maybe he’s still settling in.”
“It’s been a year.” Edward scowls. “A year of him watching me like a hawk and sniffing around my department all the time.”
“Let him look. You don’t have anything to hide.”
The expression that crosses Edward’s face is not so much a frown as a… twitch. Some tiny disruption in the symmetry of his handsome features, gone almost before it could be detected. Except we’ve been married sixteen years, together for eighteen. I make it my business to detect everything concerning my husband and our three girls. I practically know when this man loses an eyelash, I’m so attuned to his moods and emotions. Or at least I usually am. Lately he’s been harder to decipher and predict.
“Yeah, well,” he says. “I don’t need some geeky bean counter riding me.”
I rise up on my toes to press my lips to his ear.