“Not yet, but I will.”
“Alyssa, go and do it. Maybe take the time to actually tell the woman why we’re here. It is her company, after all.”
“It’s Richard’s company as far as I’m concerned.”
“Stop being antagonistic and just go apologise. Think of the centre. Think of what we’re trying to achieve. All of that can and will go away if you piss off the woman in charge.”
“Fine, I’m going.”
Lil was right, this wasn’t about her or Evelyn Crawford. It was about her dogs, and they were the only thing that mattered. If Alyssa had to put up with Ms Crawford and her catty attitude, she would. Alyssa Fox would do anything for her pups.
The ride up to the executive floor was silent bar the hum of the elevator. Alyssa counted down the floors as she ascended higher. A weird lump formed in her stomach, but she couldn’t quite work out if it was because she was going to have to apologise and grovel if necessary to Ms Crawford, or if it was because Ms Crawford’s beauty was unnerving. Either way, the next few minutes were going to suck.
7
Bug's Grand Tour (and the Art of Strategic Delay)
Alyssa
The elevator dinged its ascent, a tinny carol leaking from the speaker like a slow drip of eggnog through a cheesecloth. Alyssa stood in the back corner, clutching Bug’s lead in one hand and rehearsing her apology in her head for the hundredth time. Her nerves jangled with every floor.
At least she wasn’t the only one feeling the tension; Bug glared at the ceiling with all the silent judgment of a Victorianmagistrate, completely ignoring the trio of sales reps who tried to pet him on the fifth floor.
“Don’t take it personally,” Alyssa whispered to one of them. “He’s a bit…senior management.”
The woman gave a tight smile, then shuffled out, casting a wistful look back at Bug’s stumpy tail. Alyssa tried to smooth her hair in the polished steel doors and gave up. There was no smoothing anything about this day, this situation, or—if she was being honest—her entire adult life.
The elevator stopped on the twelfth floor. Alyssa pressed the button for the top floor again, but Bug had other ideas. The moment the doors opened, he yanked the lead from her hand and bolted.
“Bug! No!” Alyssa lunged after him, nearly colliding with a woman carrying a precarious stack of files that looked like they’d been photocopied sometime during the Major administration.
“Sorry! So sorry!” Alyssa called over her shoulder as she chased Bug down the corridor.
Bug, for his part, seemed to have a very specific destination in mind. He trotted with purpose past the open-plan office, ignoring the calls of “cute dog!” and “come here, puppy!” from various employees who clearly hadn’t read the memo about not distracting working animals. Alyssa followed, breathless, as Bug made a sharp right turn into what appeared to be a break room.
Inside, the accounts team huddled around a table that looked more like a battlefield of spreadsheets and half-eaten lunches. The fluorescent lighting gave everyone the complexion of someone who’d been underground for several months. Bug made a beeline for a dropped sandwich crust, his stealth operations worthy of a corporate espionage expert.
“I am so sorry,” Alyssa panted, finally catching up. “He’s not supposed to—”
A lanky guy, who introduced himself as Tom, with thick-rimmed glasses and a calculator watch that probably had more computing power than the building’s server, interrupted her. “Are you kidding? We’ve been the forgotten department all year. Last month, they forgot to invite us to the fire drill. We only found out there’d been one when someone mentioned it in passing.”
After Tom introduced himself, it was like a line of dominoes fell as Alyssa tried to remember all their names.
Priya, a woman with intricate henna tattoos peeking out from her sleeves and an expression that suggested she’d seen every creative accounting trick in the book, nodded. “Every other team gets a dog. Marketing? Golden Retriever. HR? Adorable Corgi. Us? Spreadsheets and the lingering scent of despair.”
Sarah, who looked like she’d been born with a red pen in her hand and had probably corrected her own birth certificate for grammatical errors, was already scratching Bug behind the ears. “We’re not ‘too busy,’” she air-quoted with the precision of someone who’d spent years highlighting discrepancies. “We’re just…strategically overlooked. Like that corner of the office where the printer goes to die.”
Alyssa recognised that tone. These were people who knew exactly how important they were, even if no one else did. The unsung heroes who kept the lights on while everyone else took credit for the electricity.
“Accounts keeps this place running,” she said. “Without you, no one gets paid.”
Tom’s eyes lit up. “Exactly! We’re the unsung heroes. The backbone. The—” He paused. “Actually, we’re more like the spleen. Vital, but no one really knows what we do.”
Bug, sensing an ally, dropped the sandwich crust and sat directly on Tom’s shoe, looking up with what could only bedescribed as professional solidarity. Or possibly just the hope of more sandwich.
“I think,” Alyssa said, watching Bug settle in like he’d found his spiritual home, “Bug would like to be your official morale officer. Lunch breaks only. Non-negotiable.”
The trio exchanged looks of pure, unbridled joy—the kind usually reserved for discovering the vending machine had been restocked or that the quarterly meeting had been cancelled.
