Played By Riggs

31

Things were manic.

Tina rushed in, sweating, holding two cups of coffee and a redbull. I frowned up at her from my desk. "What's the redbull for?"

"Me," she sighed. "Coffee isn't working, so I thought I've give it a try."

I gulped down some of my coffee and tried not to imagine the aftermath of Tina hyped up on redbull. No doubt in twenty minutes, she would be jumping off the office walls. It was tempting. "Let me know if it works. I might need a can."

"You wouldn't like... whoa, you're going to need a whole lot more than a can," she said, whistling.

I followed her gaze and saw Claire stood at the door, about to knock. I almost spluttered my coffee everywhere which Tina of course found hilarious. Who the hell had let her in? And most importantly, why was she here?

She knocked.

"Well?" Tina asked. "You letting her in, or you gonna claw her off your property?"

My fingers twitched. I met Claire's eyes through the window and nodded, letting her know that she was welcome to come in. Well, perhaps welcome was a stretch. She was invited in on kind terms, without cat claws.

"What do you want?" Tina spat out.

I grunted. "Tina, please, I can handle this." But, she had pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. The only thing I could think to do, was to repeat. "What do you want, Claire? If you're looking for James, he's not here."

"I'm not here to look for him, I... but whilst we're on the subject, I do have something to tell you about him-"

"I'm going to stop you right there," I cut in. "James and I are not together anymore. You wanted your chance, so you got it."

"I don't... I'm no longer interested in James like that. Uh, actually, the second reason I'm here is to actually pass on a message from him."

"Don't want it," I said, shaking my head. "He agreed to give me some space until the opening in two days."

"I know, he told me, but he still wants to tell you something."

I bit my tongue to hold back on asking why Claire knew everything. I didn't want to know. "He can email me anything regarding work, he knows that. In fact, since you're so close to him now, tell him to stop emailing me his apologetic love notes."

Claire nodded slowly, beat. "Well, he wants you to go to his apartment tonight at eight. He said it's important."

No doubt, important meant trying to get my forgiveness. Which, in all honestly, he had. I get why he thought the worst about the pictures of Tyler and I. A misleading headlines paired with an innocent picture was hard to ignore. What stung most, was knowing that I was going to live by those misleading headlines for as long as I remained in the public eye and there was no way I could date someone who automatically assumed and believe, without asking, or trusting.

Trust was key. I thought James and I had that.

"What was the first reason that brought you here?" I asked, hoping to skip past the second and ignore his invitation.

She shuffled nervously on her feet. "I want to work for you."

Tina laughed so hard that redbull came out of her nose. "Ha! Honey, try stand-up comedy. You'd be alright at that."

I tried not to show my amusement. "Sorry. You want to... work for me? After what you've done?"

She winced, now bright red. "I know and I really am sorry about that but I... I quit my job because I was..." her voice broke and her eyes welled up. "I had to quit because I was sexually harassed and... I know you're opening in two days and you must need a pair of helping hands. You know I'm more than capable and... I was hoping-"