Chapter Twenty
Blake
I slid my feet into my Nikes and was reaching for my keys when my phone buzzed. At a glance I could see who the email was from, and I didn’t want to open it for multiple reasons.
For starters, it was Saturday morning. Ever heard of work-life balance, Brad? I had a lot of respect for my boss, but the man worked 24-7, and I was not about that. I worked my ass off, too, but I also valued my free time and refused to let it get polluted by constant emails and phone calls.
But more importantly, I needed to pick up Iz and go work on her car. I was a little out of sorts about the way things ended yesterday morning, and I wanted to right the ship. I’d been pissed as hell when Izzy wouldn’t tell me the truth about who she’d been dreaming about—which was irrational, I knew—but then it hit me.
She’d called me Chest. She called me by my name. Sort of. She might’ve been having a dream when we kissed, but she’d been having a dream about me , not Tom Colicchio .
And that’d made me happy as a goddamn elf, all day long. I’d gone right back to text bombing her, acting like nothing had happened, and she’d even FaceTimed me that night as if I were still in Boston.
But the kiss—holy shit, THE kiss.
The kiss had been playing on a constant loop in my head, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to just forget the world and find a way to make it happen again. And again.
But that wasn’t possible, and that was fine.
We were destined to be friends, or some other bullshit platitude that was destined to fucking kill me.
I grabbed my keys and headed out, thinking of Iz’s I-like-your-door comment as I locked the dead bolt.
I opened Outlook and started reading the email as I walked down the hall, and kept reading as I got in the elevator. I hit the “G” button, the doors slid closed, and I clicked on the attached document.
Now that the merger had gone through, there was a new org chart. Leadership had reorganized the business units since the company had doubled in size, which made sense.
But when the color-coded chart opened and I looked at my division, my ears started buzzing.
Human Resources had shifted, and that department no longer reported to me.
When the elevator doors opened, I sprinted to my car.