Chapter 22
On Tuesday, Emmy put on the biggest Big Girl pants she could muster and all but dragged herself to work. At least Gabe moving
to his new office meant he wouldn’t be sitting beside her anymore, and she wouldn’t have to smell him all day.
That goddamned cologne. She had thought of tracking down the brand and requesting the company discontinue it. The odds of
success didn’t seem likely, so she instead decided she needed to render herself immune to its powers, starting immediately.
Thankfully, she didn’t smell any trace of it when she got off the elevator, which probably only meant Gabe hadn’t arrived
yet because, surely, it would waft off him as he made his way down the hall to his new office. She was early again, hoping
she could scoot in unnoticed and already be hard at work by the time others showed up so they’d be less likely to talk to
her. By the looks of light spilling out of Alice’s open door, she wasn’t the first to arrive.
She was two steps past the door when Alice’s voice echoed into the hall. “Jameson, a word?”
Emmy stopped in her tracks, tote still looped over her shoulder, and turned around.
Alice appeared at her doorway with an unreadable face. She wore a slate-gray skirt suit and shiny heels. “How are you feeling?”
Like I’ve had my heart ripped out , Emmy thought but didn’t say. She forced a tight smile and remembered she’d taken a sick day yesterday and needed to act
like it. “Better, thanks.”
“Great. The director would like to see you.”
Emmy flinched at her direct delivery, though she should have been used to it. Alice nodded her head and stepped out into the hall. Her heels began clicking, and Emmy knew to follow.
“About anything in particular?” she asked with a worried note in her voice. Hopefully she was not about to get reprimanded
for allowing her personal life to affect her work.
Alice simply smiled at her over her shoulder. “Yes.”
Emmy didn’t have time to ask another question because the journey to the director’s office was brief. They were outside his
door in a matter of seconds.
Alice paused to knock twice before opening the door.
“Ah, good morning, Alice, Ms.Jameson,” Director Allen said with a nod and welcomed them in. He sat at his busy desk teetering
with binders—some filled with reports Emmy herself had written—a coffee mug, his computer monitor, and a handful of signed
baseball memorabilia. More collector’s items lined his walls: jerseys, framed photos, a glossy bat, an old catcher’s mitt
Emmy knew had belonged to his father. “Have a seat,” he said to Emmy and nodded at the chair across from his.
Emmy nervously sank into it. She shot a glance at Alice to see her leaning against a filing cabinet with a tiny grin on her
lips.
They were both in too good of a mood for the purpose of the meeting to be a reprimand.
“Sorry, what is this about?” she asked. Her voice had risen to an awkward pitch.
Director Allen smiled at her. “I just wanted to officially congratulate you on your promotion to senior analyst. Alice tells
me you’re more than ready to take on more responsibilities. I look forward to your continued excellent work.” He stuck out
his hand for Emmy to shake, but she was still three steps behind.
Her head was spinning.
“I’m sorry, what?”
The director glanced at Alice, hand still hovering in midair.
“The job is yours, Emmy,” Alice said. “We wanted to catch you before you got settled at your desk because you can move into your new office today. Congrats.”
Emmy felt like she’d slipped into an alternate reality—and not the type where her secret pen pal turned out to be her archnemesis.
But one where the reality she’d constructed shattered.
“But Gabe took that job,” she blurted, still confused.
Alice and the director swapped another look. “Mr.Olson?” the director said.
“Yes. I heard him discussing it with you yesterday morning. You said he’d be in his new office by the end of the day.”
Director Allen’s face pulled into a frown. He looked like his patience was wearing thin. Emmy knew his time for sit-downs
was limited, so he probably expected this meeting to last no longer than a minute.
“Ms.Jameson, Mr.Olson requested a department transfer. He’s been moved to the training staff. I assumed you knew that given
the, um, personal nature of your relationship.”
A wave of heat rushed up into Emmy’s face. Clearly, wires had gotten crossed somewhere, but she wasn’t about to make more
of a fool of herself by admitting it.
“Of course,” she said with a forced smile while the bricks inside her brain crumbled and fell. “Of course I knew that,” she
repeated. She stood and extended her hand to shake his. “Thank you for the promotion, sir. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
Couldn’t be more confused was more like it, but that was not a conversation to have with a man whose valuable time she’d already taken enough of.
“Excellent,” he said with a nod and another grin. “I’ll look forward to seeing you in the next department meeting. Best of
luck in your new position.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Emmy was reeling when she and Alice returned to the hallway. Alice had apparently been waiting for privacy for questions, too, because she pinched Emmy’s elbow and towed her into her office.
“What was that?” she asked with an arched brow.
Emmy was still finding her footing. She sat on the edge of Alice’s desk as Alice shut the door. She took two deep breaths.
Pieces were sliding into place but still not lining up. Snippets of the conversation she’d heard yesterday ran through her
mind. It’s always been a dream of mine. Your new office. What about Ms.Jameson? That won’t be a problem.
“Sorry. I’m confused,” she said to Alice. “What happened with Gabe?”
Alice gave her a skeptical look. “Do you two not talk at home?”
“Alice, please!” Emmy snapped, feeling herself spiraling with all the unknowns.
“Okay!” Alice said with a befuddled shake of her head. “He emailed me on Sunday saying he urgently needed to talk. You know
me; I was working anyway, so I gave him a call. He asked what it would take to get him transferred to the training staff and,
if the transfer was possible, if that would eliminate the problematic nature of your relationship because you’d no longer
be in the same department. He told me— Are you okay?”
Emmy had put a hand to her chest like she might have been having a heart attack. She certainly felt something in her chest,
but it wasn’t pain. “Maybe,” she said, somehow winded despite sitting down.
When had Alice called Gabe on Sunday? They’d spent nearly the whole day vined around each other in bed. Perhaps he’d taken
the call while she was in the shower; he had left her waiting for a while before he joined her.
Alice cautiously eyed her as Emmy pulled her mind from a steamy memory.
“Well, maybe you should fully sit down for this next part, then.” She reached out and shepherded her into one of the chairs opposite her desk.
Alice’s office looked much like the director’s: busy, organized, full of baseball memorabilia.
Emmy looked straight ahead at the framed black-and-white photo of Alice’s great-uncle in his uniform from the 1950s. She took another breath.
“Okay. Keep going,” Emmy said. “I’m ready.”
“All right. Well, he told me the two of you had decided to stay together and give up your chance at the promotion, but then
when you told him the job was going to be yours, he realized there was no way he could let you give it up for him. He didn’t
want to stand in your way, so he requested a department transfer. That way you could stay together, and you could still get
the promotion.” She paused, and Emmy felt her eyes warm with moisture. “And I said, ‘Well, shit. That’s about the most romantic
thing I’ve ever heard, and who am I to stand in the way of love?’ So I told him I’d make some calls to see what we could do
because I agreed: there was no way we could let you give up that job.” She gave Emmy a stern look that was half smile and
layered in warmth. Then Alice’s mouth beamed into a full smile. “I swear to god, Jameson. All the doors I’ve opened to help
you get here, and you were going to walk away over some guy.” She playfully rolled her eyes, but Emmy could see the honesty
shining through. She’d wondered how Alice would receive news of their decision. If she’d be disappointed in Emmy for her choices.
Based on the look on her face now, maybe a little bit, but the situation was no longer relevant.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” Emmy said anyway.
Alice lifted a shoulder. “Don’t apologize to me; it’s your life. But listen.” She leaned in with a serious bend to her brow.
“I know now he’s not just some guy . He sees your potential and he wants you to succeed, Emmy. You know I’m not a relationship expert, but please listen to me
when I say hold on like hell to that, okay?”
The moisture glossing Emmy’s eyes washed over with a new wave.
The idea she’d been wrong about what she’d heard yesterday was both welcome and terrifying because that meant Gabe hadn’t betrayed her, but she’d made a terrible mistake.
At the hopeful look on Alice’s face, she didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t hold on to it because she’d already let it go.
She wiped her eyes with a sniffle as a thought occurred to her. “What about the rumors he got Mikey Walker fired?”
Alice’s face flattened into a frown. “You know I’m not supposed to talk about that. But since there’s obviously been some
kind of miscommunication here that’s got you in a state, I can tell you this: Walker was selling team secrets to scouts. Olson
found out about it and reported him. Management took action off his tip. He did the right thing, and it just so happened to
coincide with him getting hired. The ruthless reputation took on its own life-form, and Olson couldn’t do much to stop it
given the situation was confidential. Jameson, that doesn’t leave this room, okay?”