His answer: All of the above.
I’d barely contained my tears as I laughed it off and scuttled out of Elliot’s Ikea-clad apartment before I broke down into full-blown sobs. Because being with him had made me feel like I wasn’t hopeless when it came to romance. But apparently I was wrong.
Jutting out my chin, I take a deep breath. I can be spontaneous, damn it.
Just last week, I got the quiche when I always order the French dip sandwich.
I wait for a sense of satisfaction to settle over me. Except it doesn’t. One, because we’re talking about a stupid sandwich, and two, that day my BFF Kendall coerced me over the phone into ordering something different. And three, if I’m determining my level of spontaneity by what I got for lunch, I’m probably a lost cause.
Damn you, Elliot.
Three minutes. I’ll review Josh’s website for three minutes.
I reach over to set my timer before I click the link in his email.
And I immediately regret it.
I try to close the page. Try to hit the back button. Try to quit the browser. But the hourglass icon pops up.
Christ on a cracker, the hourglass won’t stop turning. Our traditional law firm hasn’t caught up with the times and upgraded our internet. Perpetually slow bandwidth has now gone from a daily annoyance to makes-me-want-to-tear-out-my-nails. Yes, a decade after the iPhone, some law firms still use dictation machines. At least we have email.
My three minutes are up and the damn thing is still frozen.
I blow my bangs out of my face and pray I don’t need someone from the tech department to fix this.
Finally, Josh’s blog starts to load even though I’ve done everything I can to get it to stop. Sweat builds on my neck and under my boobs as the page fills at a snail’s pace.
Deep breaths, Evie. The ground won’t open up and swallow you. What’s the worst thing that can happen besides boob sweat?
I could get fired and lose my job, my 401k, and my health insurance. Maybe I’d have to sell my house because no respectable law firm will hire someone who was laid off for being a deviant at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon. My dad will be humiliated and wonder why he bothered working all that overtime at the fire station to help send me to good schools. No big deal.
A throaty voice in my doorway makes me jump.
“Evelyn, you need a vacation.”
Angela picks this moment to saunter into my office. Yes, she saunters, swinging her ass like she’s bouncing to some silent beat—the ones her perfect, buoyant boobs keep as they struggle to stay contained in that expensive silk blouse. I’d kill to have her bra size instead of my DDs.
She pauses in front of my desk, and I’m almost at eye level with her knees. The woman is tall, built like a Victoria’s Secret model, the kind you want to hold down and force-feed some deep dish pepperoni pizza. Beautiful black hair tumbles down her shoulders, emphasizing her porcelain skin and sky-blue eyes. Her burgundy Chanel suit molds to her body and screams Confident Bitch from here to the Pacific.
Side note: the only reason I know she’s wearing Chanel is because she told everyone about it this morning. She doesn’t have student loans and isn’t crazy enough to renovate a house. Must be nice to have disposable income.
With irritation, I realize I could never pull off that outfit even if I had her body, but I guess that’s what I get for having my head buried in work and school my whole life.
Where exactly does one learn how to be sexy and wear clothes like her? My dad never gave me the 411 on that.
“Hey, Angela. What’s up?” I ask as calmly as possible even though the blog is still loading. Fortunately, she can’t see the screen from this angle. But I can. So far, it’s just a skyline of New York. Maybe I misunderstood what’s on his website.
My attention is diverted to Angela as she runs her hands over her slender hips and sighs dramatically, tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder. With irritation, I realize she’s eyeing the mess on my desk. Why is she always up in my business?
The skyline keeps loading in my peripheral vision, and it takes every bit of control I have to not fidget when Malcolm Waller walks in behind her, but fortunately, there are no dicks in sight.
Angela taps one perfectly manicured talon on a stack of my files. “Mac wants to know if Penny has dropped another one of your calls.”
I can’t tell if my eye twitches because she’s calling our boss Mac, something no one does—not even his wife—or because she’s angling to get our secretary Penny fired.
Malcolm lets out a weary breath and runs his hand through his white hair. “I hate to say this, but if I hear one more complaint, I’m letting her go.”
Inside, I shake my fist at both of them. Penny is a single mom with three kids, and while she does drop or misdirect our calls on occasion, she’s also the sweetest person I know. She puts up with everyone’s shit and never complains about her endless workload.
Folding my hands on my desk, I tilt my head like I’m thinking. “Honestly, I can’t recall the last time she did that.” This morning. “But she did a fantastic job photocopying that enormous presentation you gave last week, Angela.”
I refrain from giving her a dirty look, but only barely. How quickly we forget when someone saves your ass because you put it off until the last minute.
She rolls her eyes and grabs Malcolm’s forearm. “Let’s go ask Nathan. I’m certain he has something to say on the subject.”
Does she have to practically purr when she says his name? God, I hope she hasn’t slept with Nate. He’s been my work crush since he joined the firm last year, and Angela always acts like she could have a spontaneous orgasm when he’s around.
As she walks out the door, Malcolm motions toward me. “You’re going to bring us a great case this week, right, kiddo?”
Still with the kiddo. I paste a smile on my face and nod, hating that he saw me running around in diapers when I was a toddler.
My mother, while lacking every maternal instinct known to humanity, did me one favor prior to divorcing my father and moving to the East Coast. Before they split and my dad went back to his blue-collar roots, my mother dragged him along to every society function in greater Portland, where he met people like my boss.
So even though I’ve worked my ass off to get good grades and graduated at the top of my class in college and law school, I’m not na?ve enough to think that’s what got me this job, a fact that has me even more eager to prove my worth beyond my family’s modest connections.
Malcolm makes that face, the one that says, Tell me what I want to hear.
“Yes, sir. In fact, I’m working on something big—” I do a double-take at my computer screen that has finally loaded. I swallow. “Something huge, actually.”
A nervous laugh escapes me and my cheeks burn. Dear baby Jesus in the manger. Blogger guy is packing some serious heat.