"Did Brooke—"
"No!" I interrupt. "No. It was me. I fucked it up—we fucked it up. Bad. Uh, not to get blue with you, but we had a bit of a… well. Here's the whole thing. We engaged in coitus in the bathroom during the dinner cruise."
"Gross, but how did that fuck everything up?"
"We got caught."
Her sharp inhale wheezes through the phone. "By who?"
"HR. And then the DropTop CEO got involved, and so did Kenton St. Clair, the bastard." I grimace.
"Why is Kenton St. Clair a bastard?"
"He made me give a speech in front of—it doesn't matter! I've been put on unpaid leave, pending investigation. And I'm not allowed to have any contact with Brooke." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Should I get a lawyer?"
"Probably. Damn, Dusty. Remember when I told you to keep it in your pants?" I can practically hear the smirk in her voice.
"Not fucking helpful."
"Nah, I know. You were always so stupid over her. Dumb of me to assume you'd be anything else, even now." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Dusty. I don't know what you should do here, either. I'm not the expert on corporate America. I'd usually run to you for stuff like that. But let me ask you this, yeah?"
"Mmhm," I grunt.
"Do you see a future with her? Like, a real future. Either in New York or out here. Hell, maybe even back to Michigan—the kids would love that, you know? But really, though. Do you want to take care of her when she's sick? Hold her hair back when she pukes? Run to the store in the middle of the night because she just realized she's out of tampons?"
The answer is immediate and fills me with joy—a feeling I thought I'd lost over the past twelve(ish) hours. "Yes."
"Then I think you have your answer, bud."
"I think I do, too."
Brooke
"Jesus,Brooke,Icansmell the vanilla extract from down the street!" Janine shouts as she kicks open my front door. Her eyes go wide at the state of my kitchen.
A massive stack of chocolate chip cookies teeters precariously on wire cooling racks. Naked cupcake bottoms wait for frosting on the already cluttered dining table. Two full pans of brownies steam under the window I successfully cracked open. The cold air is perfect for cooling them off faster, but not as shocking as dumping them in the fridge. The stand mixer dutifully whirrs away at the gigantic clump of what's going to be buttercream frosting.
So, I'm stress-baking. Sue me.
It's not like I can do much of anything else. Huey is so tired of me crying into his soft orange fur that he's gone into hiding somewhere in Eve's room. I can't talk to Dustin. I can't talk to my team. I'm not so desperate that I'll strike up a conversation with Ricky about his latest stock calls, but I'm getting there. Maybe I'll ask him what his favorite canned spaghetti brand is tomorrow.
"Okay, you're spiraling." Janine pokes at one of the cookies with a long, neon pink acrylic nail. "You're also keeping the local flour mills in business single-handedly. Which is commendable; we love supporting local. But seriously, you need to focus your energy on something else."
"What else is there?" I shriek and burst into tears for the sixty-seventh time today. "I don't know what to do! What if I lose my job? What if Idon't,but I can never talk to Dustin again? What if he's not upset like I am—what if he'srelievedto be free of me? What if he hates me, and this was all an elaborate ploy to get back at me for dumping him in college?"
"You're an idiot." My best friend in the whole wide world, who's also a massive bitch right now, plops down at the kitchen table and shoves a naked cupcake into her mouth. "Of course, he doesn't hate you. Do you remember how he looked at you? Do you remember how he kicked me out—very rudely, I might add—so he could dick you down?"
"Grrrgh." I drop my head into my hands. "But what if?"
"What if the world was made of cream cheese, you dumb shit?"
"That's not fucking helpful, Janine!"
"It's about as helpful as you wondering if hehatesyou. Of course, he doesn't fucking hate you. God, you're so dumbwhen you're in love." She throws a cupcake wrapper at me. "What do youwantto do?"
"I wanna talk to him, obviously." I peek out at her between my fingers. The crumpled cupcake wrapper even looks like him—kind of. If he scrunched his face up and was pink with red Valentine hearts. She's right—I am super dumb when I'm in love.
"And if you could talk to him, what would you say? He's back in Chicago, right? Would you start looking at plane tickets? Would you beg him to come back?"
