Chapter 15

Anna

I worked late that night. Lucy stayed late, too, but she didn’t harass me, not aside from a few sly glances my way when she walked across the office or headed to the breakroom for a coffee machine that—to Kelcey’s credit, wasn’t actually broken, miraculously. Guess I owed her an apology. I kept my head down, pretending not to notice Lucy, and when I packed up and headed for the elevators, she followed me, and I stopped at the elevator waiting for it to arrive, shooting her a look.

“What do you need, Masters?”

She glanced casually at her phone. “To harass you over those documents for the G&S case, of course, darling.”

Ugh… right. I’d honestly forgotten about it in the middle of all the… right. Lucy coming over to my apartment every night to work with me? I didn’t need that. I’d get nothing done.

I’d gotten enough of a head-start. And… honestly, though I’d never admit it to her face, I felt guilty. For breaking her heart, I guess, even though it felt weird to think that could be a thing.

“Right…” I adjusted my bag strap on my shoulder, leaning back against the wall. “You know, Masters, you win. I’ll send you the documents.”

She looked up, blinking fast, whatever she was pretending to be busy with on her phone immediately forgotten. “Preston? Are you feeling okay?”

I looked away. “Don’t get used to me saying this, but you’re right. If I’m aiming for the executive communications director position, I need to learn how to include everybody in the communications, regardless of who it is. I’ll stop playing dirty and send them your way. It’s still going to be my name on the closed case. And my name on the office door.”

She stared at me a minute longer—I wasn’t even looking, but I could feel her eyes on me, boring a hole through me—before she said, “You’re going to send me a mountain of false information.”

“They’re all still the undoctored originals from Dobbs and the outreach coordinators. You can see the digital signatures and tell it’s the real files. I’m good at what I do, but I’m not a forgery artist. You’ll be fine.” The elevator arrived with a ping, and I turned to go inside, pausing in the doorway. “Uh… Masters,” I started, an awkward feeling in my throat.

“Preston?”

“Sorry for… er… being oblivious.” I stepped into the elevator, turning to face her through the elevator doorway. “I’m not interested in you like that. And we shouldn’t push things by getting overly… familiar. We’re coworkers. Let’s leave it at that.”

The doors started to shut. Lucy drew her face in a tight line, watching for a second, enough that I thought the doors would shut before she said anything, but at the last second, she put her foot in the elevator door, and it stopped, opening again long enough for her to say, “So that’s your final answer?”

I swallowed, but I wasn’t cowering. I looked her in the eye, and I nodded. “I don’t—regret any of it, for the record. And thank you for being… pleasant with my family. You made the situation much more bearable than otherwise. Let’s leave this here and be cordial as best we know how. A clean break. We both deserve that.”

She gave me the saddest smile I’d ever seen, despite how hard she was trying to hide it, to smile through it like everything was normal. “Cordial hasn’t been our strong suit.”

“We’re both capable women. I think we can pull it off.”

She shrugged, pretend-casual. “Guess we’ll figure it out one way or another. Just one thing, Preston.”

“Mm?”

She smiled wider. “It’s going to be my name on the office. If you’ve officially rejected me now, I have no reason to go easy on you.”

“Hm.” I looked away. “Maybe you’ll finally start to measure up, then. See you tomorrow, Masters.”

“See you tomorrow, Preston,” she said, as the door slid shut again, and this time, she let it close all the way, shutting me off, a symbolic closing of a door as the elevator started down.

I’d been told when one door closed, another one opened. Maybe an elevator wasn’t a good choice. When one door closed here, I was trapped in a tight space and sank slowly into darkness I couldn’t see the bottom of. Not the best symbolism.

∞∞∞

Sent Masters the documents as soon as I got home, bundled up in an email attachment without any subject header or body text. Tried for a while to figure out what I was supposed to write, and part of me wanted to write something weirdly… emotional, but—this was a company communication anyway. So in the end, I backspaced everything, and I left it blank, sending them along, and I made a cappuccino with the Ethiopian beans and got to work burning the midnight oil.

I’d gotten out just in time. Not a moment too soon, judging by the fact that I missed the Guatemalan beans that Lucy always made for me.

I’d been so intent for a second on this idea that I needed a relationship, and ostensibly, now should have been the time to revisit that thought, but suddenly it felt as appealing as learning water polo. Sure that somebody out there was excited at the prospect, but I couldn’t see one reason to care about it.

Guess I’d just needed to get laid. Honestly, nothing wrong with that. We had our periods of life, and I’d gone through a long one where sex was a low priority, and maybe now it was a priority for me again. I was satisfied for now, but maybe it was something to think about once this job was settled.

Masters didn’t respond to the email. Guess I’d been hoping for her to. I had developed some weird little feelings over the weekend, and I had to give them space to mellow out, settle down. If I approached them calmly and nonjudgmentally—nothing wrong with developing feelings for someone attractive I had great sex with, I just didn’t want to be in a relationship with her and so I’d ride them out—it would go just fine.

And all was well with it until the next morning, when I headed into the office earlier this time and saw Lucy there ahead of me, having a cordial conversation with Sean, and it dropped a pit in my stomach.

Should have been about the fact that she really wasn’t pulling any punches now—clearly trying to maneuver her way into the position at any cost, looking to find a way to cut me out of the promotion lineup like she had all the others.

Instead, I was a dumbass, because I was upset she wasn’t more shaken up. Like I wanted her to be sad clinging to me, so desperately in love with me, begging me to give her a chance. Seriously? Maybe I was judging my feelings after all. There was catching feelings for the hot girl who topped you and then there was this, and one of those was understandable.

I walked a little slower past them, for some reason, and Masters glanced over and gave me a quick, “Morning, Preston,” before she turned back to Sean, and I tried to tell myself this was better—that this was what I’d wanted in the first place, trying to get Masters off my back.

“Good morning, Masters. Nothing’s broken today?”

“Another day in paradise. Good luck with work.”

This was not Lucy. Where the hell had she gone?

Somewhere she’d bother me less. This was a good thing. I strained a smile. “Paradise indeed. You too, Masters.”

I sat at my desk, and I got to work, dammit. Put in the hours, even as half of it was helping people troubleshoot their own problems they’d collected from the long weekend, and Lucy—Masters climbed onto my desk or into my chair a total of zero times through the day.

And when I packed up to leave late in the evening, she didn’t even look at me on my way out. And it didn’t bother me at all.

I got home, and I was bothered, because I couldn’t get work done to save my life.

I sat at my computer staring blankly at the template plan I had open, trying to make sense of the most basic words and getting nowhere. I didn’t know up from down, let alone how to manage this press release event we were scheduling and inviting Gould to be an exclusive part of.

After an hour and a half and a finished cup of Ethiopian coffee that didn’t taste right, I pulled out my phone, and I was out of my mind, because I almost texted Lucy. Texted her what? I didn’t know until I had her contact open on my phone, and I cringed, wrinkling my nose at myself.

What was I doing? I miss you, come over? I didn’t know what she’d done to me, but I didn’t like it. I put the phone away, closing her contact, and I forgot all about her. Tried to, anyway.

I didn’t sleep well that night. And seeing the Christmas tree the next morning helped no one. I needed to throw that damn thing in the garbage. There was a reason I didn’t do Christmas celebrations. This was bullshit.

The office was quiet the next morning, all of the long-weekend gossip spent now and everybody grinding their way through hump day, eyes on the end of the week. I joined in the hazy quiet of it all, everybody working in a trance, and I did too, put my nose down and turned off my brain long enough to get it done. End of the day rolled around, and I stuck around long after everyone else left, and even Lucy went not too long after the rest of the department, not sparing another look my way, and I wanted to chase her down and demand to know if this was her petty way of getting back at me for not dating her.

Of course, I didn’t, because that would have been clinically insane. She was engaged in the very normal, very reasonable activity of not wanting to talk to the girl who just rejected your romantic advances, and why the hell was I so upset by her not talking to me, anyway?

The simple answer would have been that I had feelings for her too—actual feelings, not just sex-fueled puppy love. But even if that was a thing, not only was it too late now, but both parties having feelings didn’t mean a relationship was a good idea. Me and Lucy would never have ended well, not with… well, just… I couldn’t imagine it.

Also—it was Masters, not Lucy. I was going to take some time to come around on that. Maybe by the time Lucy was talking to me again.

By the time Masters was talking to me again. Dammit.

Thursday morning, Sean met me at my desk with a concerned look in his eyes.

“Morning, Anna,” he said. “You’re in even earlier than usual.”

“Look who’s talking. Do you actually live here?”

“I’m just trying to make sure the place doesn’t burn down before I get out. Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” I said, sitting down, and he cleared his throat.

“Ah, well… it’s about the holiday party and this invoice…”

“Oh, that…” I tented my hands on the desk. “Yeah, that’d be my fault. Sorry, Dobbs. Uh—Kelcey ordered them and asked me if something was wrong with it, and I checked it and had to tell her the order was for boxes of lights and not individual lights, so I told her I’d send it along to Daniel to clear it up but, I, uh… well, I got distracted and forgot. That’s on me.”

“Well, as long as we’re not making a habit out of it. I guess we can repurpose them to decorate the office. Can probably dress up the whole building.”

“Just don’t take it as an excuse to put six hundred trees in your office. I know you would.”

“Any chance I can see you in that office for a few minutes? I’d like to talk about the job you’re on.”

Hard to tell from his tone if it was good news or bad news, so I put on a cautiously polite smile and agreed, following him into the office, where he sat down with a vexed look, ushering me to shut the door. I sat across from him, and we sat there in awkward silence for about ten seconds while I looked around at where he was already well on his way to six hundred tiny Christmas trees in here.

Finally, he managed, “I’d like to talk about the successorship to this office once I leave,” he said, and I smiled politely at him, showing no reaction one way or the other.

“I’m listening.”

“You’re interested in the position, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I’m doing my best work on the G&S case in hopes it can prove my dedication to the work and suitability to the role.”

He nodded. “Good, good. Yes, well, truth be told, I actually had two candidates in mind going into this, yourself and Lucy Masters.”

“Of course. Go on.”

“Well—” He clasped his hands together on the desk surface, a little red in the face. “I mean, you know the rules. If you’re dating each other, it’s going to be very complicated for me to promote either of you to the office over the other.”

Ugh… time for this conversation. I put a hand up, giving him an awkward smile. “Mister Dobbs, I really want to reassure you there are no problems.”

“Of course, I trust the ethics of both of you, but there are company policies—”

“Not because of that, but because Masters and I were never dating. I tried to tell you this.”

He shifted. “Well…”

“I did not want to get into the details of this, but if we must, we just had a fling. We’ve talked it through like adults and agreed to put it behind us now. I think you’ll have noticed Masters and I haven’t been interacting much directly since the weekend.”

“Oh.” He reddened further, but his shoulders slumped, relaxing into the desk. “Well. Er—I suppose that… clears things up? It’s still not exactly ideal practice, but, well, if we can’t promote somebody because they’ve had a fling with a coworker, we can’t promote anybody.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Is it that pervasive?”

He smiled politely and ruined my life, because he shut me down with a, “You can’t criticize when you’ve contributed to that number.”

“Ah. Well.” I scratched the back of my head. “You know, I guess you win this round, Dobbs. So—you’ll understand why I didn’t want this running all around the office and everybody talking about what a good couple Lucy… Masters and I are.”

“Right, well, I’ll send out an email blast,” he said, sitting upright, and I felt my soul leave my body.

“Please… don’t. We can use the water-cooler dissemination method.”

“Oh. Right, yes.”

This was my chance to salvage this interaction. I pulled my chair closer to his desk. “Say, while we’re here and while I’d like to change the subject—let me run by you what I came up with over the weekend. I’ve been getting in touch with some people and it looks like we have a good shot at being able to pull a press release and invite Gould as an exclusive member. We ask him to contribute for us, and since it’s a good look for him with good publicity, he’s likely to say yes, and then since he’s helping us, he’s less likely to publicly turn face on us. I have the plans on my laptop if you’d like to see.”

He sat up taller, clearly just as relieved as I was that the previous conversation was over, and he nodded quickly. “That sounds fantastic,” he said. “Ah—leave it to you two. Always the quick, efficient duo. Let’s have a look.”

Duo my ass. He’d have a look through the plans and see only my work all over everything. I was worried Lucy would beat me to it, but it looked like my head-start had worked.

We went through the plans, and I felt all right starting the day, finally—had been a minute since I went into a day feeling good, and I took the gift, riding that high as best I could, trying to forget about Lucy at her desk and just focusing on the work. Kept in touch with Sean all day, going back and forth on plans, and I was feeling good about it until the moment I clocked out of work and sat down in my car, turning on the engine and falling back in my seat, staring straight ahead.

I was tired. And something was stinging in my eye. Except when I pulled down the vanity mirror and checked, it wasn’t something caught in my eye but that I was crying—a tear escaping from one eye, trailing thinly down my cheek before its twin joined on the other side. I watched the quivering eyes in the mirror like they were somebody else’s.

“Anna, what the hell?” I said, low, my voice shaky, wiping them away. “Promotion’s not that scary. You can handle a press release, woman. No need to start crying in your car. Jesus Christ.”

I kept crying, though—new tears showing up to replace the old ones. I wiped them away, but they kept coming, and I finally gave up, frustrated, throwing the mirror shut and cranking up the music as I put the car in reverse and pulled out. I’d see an eye doctor if it continued. And if it wasn’t an eye problem, I’d see a therapist and find out what buried operant conditioning was making me cry after a good day of work with a promising lead towards my dream promotion.

So the last thing I needed, when I got home, was to find somebody at my door. And least of all the sense of hope shooting up in my chest at a silhouette there, and then the disappointment when I clocked it as Veronica, leaning back against the door, her phone out.

Dammit. I didn’t want to deal with this woman. I’d at least stopped crying by now, but I didn’t know if it would show in my voice. Maybe I could just lean into it and say I’d broken up with Lucy—with Masters—and then the whole family would hear about it in fifteen minutes.

And Veronica would stick around trying to comfort me. Whatever. A price I was willing to pay.

“Hey,” I said, my voice raspy, and Veronica looked up, jumping and nearly dropping her phone.

“Whoa—Jesus, you’re creepy. Where’d you come from?”

“One day a fissure opened in the earth, and from the raging hellfire a single coal of hatred, spite and envy was expelled, and that coal formed into the lifeless heart of a woman named Anna Preston.”

“That’s metal. I’d believe it. A coal of not checking her phone, too,” she said, showing me her phone, where she’d texted Grandma I’m at your door lemme in and had gotten no response. “Would it kill you to reply?”

“Ah… yeah, it just might. Might keel over dead.”

She stopped, looking at me strangely. “Were you crying?”

“No. But I will be if you try to invite yourself into my apartment for a cappuccino.”

She beamed. “Well, you said it, not me. I could kill for a cappuccino.”

I sighed, hard, unlocking the door and throwing it open. “Leave once you finish it,” I said, and she walked in with me, awkwardly standing at the door.

“Hey, uh… are you… actually crying? Like, seriously?”

I kicked my shoes off inside the door, hanging my bag up, and it felt a little too real when I said, “Things didn’t work out. With Lucy. After all. So let’s forget the whole thing over the weekend happened.”

And the universe had a bad sense of humor, because she furrowed her brow, put her hands on her hips, and she said, “Are you drunk? You weren’t even dating her, you were just leading her on and fucking her as you liked and telling everyone she was your girlfriend so you could get out of having to explain the real situation.”

I turned and shot her an incredulous look, blinking slowly. She rolled her eyes, turning to tug off her earmuffs, and her beanie, and her jacket, and her scarf, and her next jacket, and… well, so on. It kind of took the seriousness out of the moment when she took off winter clothes like a clown pulling out streamers.

“What are you talking about?” I said, finally, and she snorted, finally stripping her boots off and throwing them into the pile by the door.

“I’m talking about you bringing your fuckbuddy around the family and introducing her as your girlfriend so Mom gets off your case.”

“I just had a breakup, and you decide the best thing to do is to insult our relationship?”

She laughed. “Yeah, get over it. I was already onto you two, and she confirmed it when I asked.”

Son of a bitch. I blinked twice, hard, squeezing my hands. “She did what?”

“Hey, easy. She probably just didn’t want to admit she let it slip because she loves you and wants you to think highly of her. It’s pretty normal.”

“What are you…” I shook my head. “When?”

“At the tree farm, while you were talking to the old man about trees.”

Ugh… I hadn’t seen much of Veronica after that. I guess it made sense. According to Lucy, she’d gone off to have dinner with Kelcey, unfortunately for us all.

Dammit. Veronica was clueless ninety percent of the time and then the most perceptive person I knew the other ten percent. I dropped onto the couch, resting my head back against the wall, looking up at the snowfall outside the window.

“All right, Veronica,” I said, voice raspy. “You win. Yeah, that’s all it was. And then I told her on Monday that we can’t keep playing those games with each other, so we’ve had a clean break. And I’m not interested in her but it still feels weird that she’s ignoring me and I feel like a shitty person for leading her on so long without even realizing and then breaking her heart, and I kind of wanted to just get home and crash but you’re here.”

“Lucky you. Now you get a loving and kind sister to lend you a listening ear.”

Lucky… lucky me indeed. She apparently saw fit to repay herself for her kindness by starting on a coffee.

“Make me one, too,” I muttered.

“Ugh, bossy,” she said, but she grabbed a second mug. “I can’t make them like Luce can, though.”

“Yeah, I know, ” I said before I could think better of it. She whistled low.

“Regretting the break now that you don’t get her cooking for you?”

I looked away. “Despite everything, I have to give her some credit. She’s good in the kitchen.”

She laughed. “Sure sounded like you think she’s good in another room.”

This whole thing was so far off from the angle I’d wanted. I needed to steer it in the opposite direction. “Veronica, please stop screwing with Kelcey.”

“What?” She set down the portafilter, turning back to me with a horrified look. “Oh my god, you’re going to tell me what to do with my love life?”

“ Love life my ass. You don’t love her, you’re trying to mooch money off of her, and you’re going to break her heart, and then I’ll have to deal with the fallout.”

She rolled her eyes with a pointed scoff, turning back to the machine. “I’m not just using her for her money.”

“Oh, really. So now you do date women?”

“No. But I can still have a good time with them. It’s just casual. I can do casual with a girl.”

Veronica was fully bisexual and just in denial. At this point, the only thing she wasn’t willing to do with a woman was label a relationship. Wasn’t my business, though. “I thought you said she was too dumb to bother with.”

“She’s cute, though. And honestly, she’s really good in bed. I didn’t give her enough credit the first time just because I assumed she’d be a pillow princess and kind of pigeonholed her, but she’s—”

“Veronica, I don’t want to know.”

“She knows we’re just casual. It’s fine.”

I raked my fingers through my hair. “She fully does not know that. Hence our problem. She came to me gushing with feelings about how much she likes you and how exciting it is that she gets to date you.”

“Ah, psh… that’s just pillow talk. You know how it is between girls.”

I stood up, my head feeling hot, irritation bubbling through me. “You know, you do what you like, Veronica. Far be it from me to stop you.”

“You’re just projecting,” she shot as I headed for the bathroom. “Talking to me about leading a girl on and breaking her heart after getting what you want out of her? Get real.”

“I’m taking a shower,” I said coolly. “Feel free to enjoy your cappuccino and then be on your way. I’ll make my own once I’m out of the shower.”

“Ugh—you’re such a baby,” she called as I shut the bathroom door, and I heard her muffled voice from the other side still. “Arguing with me about Kelcey won’t fix what you screwed up with Lucy, you know!”

I turned the water up high, and I leaned against the wall watching steam swirl up through the air, waiting out whatever bullshit my sister had to say next.

Just wish she didn’t have to be right about it.