Page 104 of Boss Me
“I know. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” I missed my job and my former coworkers. Updating my résumé and spamming it out to every job board I could find was more painful than I’d expected. Especially when I had to enter an end date on my employment with Synergy. I could imagine the questions they’d ask me about it. Why did you leave after six months? And the answer I couldn’t give: I fell in love with my boss. Too bad he didn’t feel the same way.
“I heard you haven’t answered his calls or texts?”
I swirled a piece of lettuce through a puddle of vinaigrette. “I blocked his number.”
“Oh, honey.” Her voice was full of sympathy.
It felt good when I did it. The final severing of communication. I’d been tempted to listen to his voice mail messages, but I deleted those, too. If he couldn’t acknowledge me in public, I wouldn’t listen to him in private. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I know better now.”
“You know better?” She pushed her own salad around on her plate.
“Better than to fall in love again.”
“You deserve love, you know.”
Ah, Marlee and her romantic ideas. “Deserving love and being willing to break myself open again are two entirely different things.” I set down my fork.
I glanced across the table at Marlee and her still-full salad bowl. Shit, I was a self-centered asshole. Something was bothering her, too. “Marlee, what’s up with you? Everything okay with Tyler?”
“Oh.” Her eyes went soft at that. “Yeah, we’re good. In fact, we’re going away together this weekend. Some sort of big surprise.” She made jazz hands.
“And your dad?”
Her smile dimmed. “He’s good. About the same. But same is better than worse, I guess.”
I reached across the table and patted her hand. “You’re getting him excellent care. Same is good. Is that what’s bothering you?”
She turned over her hand and squeezed. “Not exactly. Today is the day”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“they’re voting.”
“That’s today?” I shouldn’t have cared. It didn’t affect me at all anymore. But my breath caught in my chest. Would Cooper be able to save his company, everything he’d worked so hard for? Or would he get what he said he wanted, an extended break, retirement? As idyllic as our time on the island had been, I couldn’t picture him lying on the beach, day after day. Though lying on the beach—and in bed—with him had been something I’d wanted once upon a time. I’d been back from the island for seven days, but it seemed like a lifetime separated me from those perfect weeks with Cooper.
I sensed it before I heard it. A prickle along my arms made the hair stand up. Then the hum in the cafeteria lowered.
Marlee, who faced the entrance, looked up and blinked her eyes wide. I swiveled in my chair.
Cooper stood a few feet inside the entrance, scanning the faces in the cafeteria.
“Shit!” I whirled around, my back to him. Of all days for Cooper to make a state visit to the cafeteria, I had to be sitting there like a stalker.
Marlee waved her arm at him.
“No! Don’t do that!” I whispered.
She arched an eyebrow and continued to wave. “I want to find out how the vote went. And you two need to talk.”
Fuck. Me. It had all been a ruse. “Our friendship is over. I will not be the loving gay uncle to your adorable children.”
Her cheeks pinked. “Be reasonable. You love him. You can’t avoid him forever.”
She lowered her hand, and I sensed him, tall and inflexible, standing next to us. “Mind if I join you?”
Unnatural silence surrounded us like still water in a lagoon. I nodded. He certainly wouldn’t say anything here, in the middle of the busy cafeteria, surrounded by employees trying to figure out why the COO had suddenly developed a taste for the sloppy joe special.
He lowered his tall frame into the chair next to me, but he didn’t look at me. He looked at Marlee and said, “It went our way. No sale.”
Some of the tension left me, and I slumped against the plastic back of my chair.
