“Oh, you’re already sharing everything with each other?” Marissa smiled. But her face immediately transformed into a furious expression. “Even the things someone was particularly told not to share?” Marissa looked in the direction of Sebastian’s office. With its intensity, it probably pierced through the wall and hit its intended target.
Emily let her get it out of her system and dug into her lunch. “That doesn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.
“Don’t worry, it’s not to bitch about you,” Marissa reassured.
“What! I wasn’t thinking that. Why would you bitch about me?” Emily asked, worried.
“Well, you did ask us to wrap up Simon’s birthday party early last week," Marissa complained, stealing a carrot stick from Emily’s plate when she had many left on her own.
“We were on a deadline, and your celebrations go up to two hours!” Emily protested.
“Well, that started the group chat. We had to channel all that energy somewhere,” Marissa said, as if that made all the sense in the world.
“I wish you guys would direct your energy at work while you’re here,” Emily mumbled.
“See, that’s why you don’t get included in chats. Everything is about working with you,” Marissa complained.
“You guys are so spoiled,” Emily countered. “I don’t know how any of you will survive if you ever have to work anywhere else.”
“Well, why would we do that?” Marissa looked at Emily like she was slow.
“Yeah, yeah! So, why are you making collages on the chain if it’s an anger channeling space?” Emily inquired. She was curious, and she always failed to understand how the minds of her team worked. They were brilliant at their work, but outsideof it, they were all a bunch of weirdos who had accidentally found each other.
“Oh, that!” Marissa sputtered. “Seb showed you that? Well, that was brave of him,” Marissa mumbled. “But then again, you’re childhood boos, so it’d make sense,” she nodded.
“We were never boos!” Emily scoffed.
“Sure, sure,” Marissa nodded again.
“And delete the group chat. You can celebrate 30 minutes longer the next time it's someone’s birthday,” Emily offered. “There, no anger anymore.”
“For sure!” Marissa said, sarcastically.
Emily rolled her eyes.
They cleared the table together.
“I’ll hold you to the 30-minute extra,” Marissa said instead of goodbye.
Emily just smiled, even though she felt betrayed that her team had already included Sebastian in secret group chats.
But she should have guessed it. It wasn’t her team’s fault. It was just who Seb was.
Chapter 2
10 years ago
“You know what, I can do so much better than that loser anyway,” Emily’s best friend announced with all the scorn of a heartbroken 16-year-old. She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes further.
Emily nodded. “I told you he was just using you to get some points with his bros anyway!” She gave a stink eye to the bunch of guys sitting at the far-off table in the cafeteria. In between them was Ray’s first-ever serious boyfriend, now ex, talking to a guy Emily didn’t recognize. He was taller than all the guys, more muscular too. Definitely a jock! “Who’s that?” she asked Ray.
“Oh, he’s the new guy. Aaron wouldn’t stop talking about him,” she said, absentmindedly.
“Oh…”
The guy had a huge smile on his face, the kind of smile that attracted people and put them at ease. That demanded deep, hidden secrets from whoever was exposed to them. The second thing that immediately stuck out was his eyebrows. They were very thick but perfectly shaped.
“Oh my god!” she gasped, clutching Emily’s shoulders, her eyes wide with sudden excitement. “You’re a genius! I should date that guy. That’ll totally kill Aaron. He’s hot too, and I heard he’s great at football,” Ray said quickly, practically bouncing on her chair. “Aaron was so desperate to be his friend. It’ll be hilarious,” she added, rubbing her palms like a Disney villain.
