Epilogue
Six months later
All around Willow, her co-workers were packing up, preparing to leave for the weekend.
Willow couldn’t wait either. They had invited Barb, Mateo, and Gordon with their spouses, plus Fiona, for a barbecue tomorrow. Willow couldn’t believe she was actually looking forward to a social gathering for once! Even Kassidy, a fellow hater of parties, had promised to make an appearance.
Quickly, she finished typing a status update to Celeste and hit send.
Out of habit, she paused and listened.
Just one whoosh sounded, and no error messages popped up.
Good. With a satisfied nod, she closed Outlook.
A light tap came on her cubicle wall, and when Willow looked up, she wasn’t surprised to see Scottie peek around the partition.
She had one hand tucked into the pocket of her chinos, the strap of her messenger bag crossing over her black polo shirt. The soft grin on her face still made Willow’s heart beat faster. “Hey, beautiful. Ready to head home?”
Willow’s breath hitched. Even after living together for a month, giddiness still bubbled up anytime she thought of going home together—to their apartment, where Scottie’s plants and her typewriters peacefully coexisted. “Yes. Just give me a minute to shut everything down.”
In record time, she closed all open apps, powered down her computer, and straightened up her desk, sliding a couple of pens back into their cup and aligning the bronze plaque with her Rolodex.
Last year, she had shoved the paper jam award into the back of her drawer as soon as she’d gotten it, terrified that someone would connect the dots and figure out it was Willow who made the office equipment malfunction on a regular basis.
Now she was displaying it on her desk as if it were a badge of honor.
What a difference a few months could make!
Willow grabbed her purse from beneath the desk. “Let’s get out of here.”
Together, they crossed the bullpen.
“Hey, Willow!” Toby called as they passed his desk. “Trivia tonight. You’re coming, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Willow replied. “Someone has to keep the IT team from getting too smug.”
“Hey!” Scottie bumped her playfully. “Excuse me! I am IT!”
Willow bumped her back. “Yeah, and just look at how smug you are!”
The smoldering look Scottie gave her made heat shoot up Willow’s neck. Quickly, she dragged Scottie from the bullpen before she could make a remark like “and rightfully so” in front of all her colleagues.
The elevator doors closed behind them.
Scottie leaned against the mirrored wall and regarded her with a loving expression. “Have I told you lately how proud of you I am?”
Willow moved closer. “Why’s that?”
“The way you stepped into Barb’s shoes, not just keeping Operations from descending into chaos but also forming relationships with your co-workers… It was truly beautiful to watch.”
A new flush warmed Willow’s cheeks, yet it felt wonderful to have her efforts be acknowledged, especially by the person who mattered most to her. “It’s a lot easier to make friends at work when your colleagues don’t think you’re the tech reaper.”
Scottie chuckled. “For sure. How’s the Fortress holding up? Still behaving?”
It was the nickname they had given the static-safe workstation Scottie had set up for her.
She’d spent weeks researching, testing, and optimizing.
The computer and the monitors were rated for military use, built with internal shielding and components that were more resistant to electromagnetic interference.
Scottie had also used long cables so they could move the CPU tower farther away from Willow.
Willow nodded. “It didn’t fix all problems, but it made a big difference.”
Instead of grinning happily, Scottie frowned. “If it didn’t fix all problems, why haven’t you submitted any tickets or asked for help in ages?” She studied Willow with a worried expression. “You’re not sliding back into old habits, trying to solve your tech issues by yourself, are you?”
“What? No! Of course I’m not. I asked you for help when the Teams app kept freezing, remember?”
“Willow, that was last month!”
“No, that can’t be. It was…”
“The day you stressed about moving out and no longer being able to help your sister with the mortgage,” Scottie finished.
Willow sank against the elevator wall. God, she was right. She stared at Scottie. “But…but…that means… I haven’t had a single glitch for an entire month! Not even a little hiccup!”
“Well,” Scottie said with a grin, “we did make the lights flicker this past weekend when we—”
The elevator doors slid open, and Scottie cut herself off.
Still in a daze, Willow followed her through the lobby and into the warm summer air outside. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “I’ve never gone that long without a glitch. Ever!”
“How does it feel?” Scottie asked softly as they crossed the employee parking lot.
“Strange.” Willow laughed shakily. “Like I’m jinxing myself by saying it out loud.”
Scottie shook her head. “I don’t think you were ever jinxed.”
“Whatever it was, it looks like falling in love fixed it. Or at least helped reduce it considerably.”
“I’d love to take the credit for fixing every last one of your IT problems, but I don’t think it was falling in love,” Scottie said. “Or at least not just that.”
Willow thought back over everything that had changed in the past six months. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think so either.”
They reached Willow’s car, but instead of getting in, they leaned against it and faced each other.
Scottie tilted her head in that typical attentive Scottie way yet didn’t say anything, giving her space to process.
“I think…” Willow drew a deep breath. “I think it’s because I stopped hiding that part of me. I spent so long shutting everyone out, terrified that they’d find out. That added a lot of stress to my life, which made the problem worse.”
Emotionally, she had sealed herself away in a steel box, isolating herself from anyone but her sister. How ironic that getting stuck in an elevator—another metal box—had been what had started to tear down her walls of steel.
Scottie nodded. “Like a vicious circle—one you’ve successfully broken.”
“Because I listened to the advice a wise woman once gave me,” Willow replied. “Something about happiness being a choice that you make every single day.”
“Sounds familiar.” Scottie grinned at her. “And you’ve definitely started making a lot of different choices this year, not just when it comes to us, but in other areas of your life too.”
“Yeah.” Willow had decided that she no longer wanted her tech affliction to be something shameful that she had to manage alone. “I never would have believed it a year ago, but it really got easier with every choice I made.”
Scottie laughed. “After telling your boss, of course everything else felt easy in comparison! You were so scared, I thought you’d fry every device in the department!”
Now Willow could laugh about it too, but she’d been terrified then.
She had only told Celeste because Scottie wouldn’t have been able to set up the Fortress without the support of Willow’s manager.
“Of course I was scared! I really thought she’d hammer me with hundreds of questions, trying to get to the bottom of my weird effect on tech. ”
“Nah,” Scottie said, eyes twinkling. “I told you she couldn’t care less about the details.
You’re damn good at your job, so the only question she cared about was whether you could do it without setting the building on fire.
If it meant you could work efficiently, she would have gotten Mr. Sorensen and my boss to sign off on building you a nuclear bunker. ”
“Probably.” Willow chuckled.
When the world hadn’t ended once her boss knew, Willow had found the courage to tell Gordon and Mateo, then Kassidy and Barb. A couple of months ago, she’d even told Toby, her cubicle neighbor.
They had been stunned, of course, but no one had laughed or refused to believe her.
Willow reached into her purse and pulled out the car keys.
They jangled as she fiddled with them. “I don’t know when or how it happened, but somewhere along the way, it stopped being this terrible secret,” she said quietly.
“Now it’s just…a quirk. Like Kassidy’s hatred of small talk and Hawaiian pizza.
Or Mateo’s messy desk. Or the way you cry at cat food commercials. ”
“Hey, I don’t cry at cat food commercials!” Scottie pretended to bristle. “Just at cat adoption reels.”
“Right. Big difference, softie.” Willow gave her an affectionate look, then jingled the keys again. “Fiona once accused me of living my life like I’m cursed. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it then, she was right. But now I’ve stopped thinking of myself that way.”
Scottie looked into her eyes. Warmth radiated from her brown irises. “Yeah? What do you think now?”
“Now I think I’m blessed,” Willow said. “I have friends who accept me. A job I actually like. An apartment that feels like home. And a girlfriend I love.”
“And who loves you back,” Scottie added.
The words still made Willow’s stomach flutter. “There’ll probably always be the occasional glitch, but I’m okay with that now.”
“I can’t even tell you how happy it makes me to hear that.” Scottie’s voice was thick with emotions. She wiped at her damp eyes, then laughed shakily. “At least it’s not cat videos this time.”
With a tender smile, Willow lifted her hand and gently wiped away a single tear lingering in the corner of Scottie’s eye. “No spark,” she murmured.
“Hm?”
Willow nodded at her hand, which was now cradling Scottie’s cheek.
“There are no more sparks.” In the last few months, they had gotten really good at always grounding themselves before touching, and she had attributed the lack of zaps to that habit.
But now she thought it was probably because she was happier with herself and her life, more grounded.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Scottie reached up and cupped Willow’s face, mirroring her gesture. She brushed her thumb along Willow’s cheek, then let it linger at the corner of her mouth. “I still feel plenty of sparks every time we kiss.”
As if to prove it, Scottie leaned forward and kissed her.
The warm caress of Scottie’s lips still made Willow weak in the knees. She twisted her fingers into the fabric of Scottie’s polo shirt and deepened the kiss.
“Mmm, yeah,” Willow whispered against Scottie’s mouth when they finally eased apart. “Lots and lots of sparks.”
“Good. Because I promised you VIP girlfriend tech support for life, and I’m a woman of my word.” Scottie took the keys from Willow, unlocked the car, and held the passenger-side door open for her.
Willow shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s a promise you’ll be able to keep.”
“What? Of course I’ll keep that promise!”
“Yeah, but at some point, we might want to upgrade.”
Scottie gave her a puzzled look. “Upgrade?”
Willow nodded. “Upgrade my badge to VIP wife tech support.”
Scottie’s eyes went wide. “Did…did you just propose to me?”
Willow clutched the open car door. “Oh my God! I think I did! I mean…down the road. Once the current support package contract runs out, we could talk about it.”
Scottie pressed her against the door and kissed her passionately. “Well,” she said when the kiss ended, her voice husky. “You are a loyal customer, so an upgrade seems more than justified.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Scottie nodded eagerly. “Your favorite IT support tech is fully in favor of it.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, both smiling widely.
Finally, they tore themselves away from each other so they wouldn’t be late for trivia night.
When they got into the car and Scottie started the engine, the radio came on, playing Jenna Blake’s newest hit, “Counting on Forever.”
It was the first time since Christmas that it had decided to temporarily work.
They stared at each other, then burst out laughing.
“Immaculate timing.” Still chuckling, Scottie eased the car out of the parking lot.
Their fingers found each other across the gear shift and intertwined immediately.
Scottie sang along with the chorus, and after a moment of grinning at her off-key notes, Willow joined in.
For the first time in her life, she was counting on forever too.
~ ~ ~
If you enjoyed this story, check out Jae’s novel Under a Falling Star, which takes place at Kudos Entertainment before the events of this story.
Icy COO Dee Saunders is married to her job and has no time for romance, especially not with the cheerful new administrative assistant who has no idea Dee is practically her boss.
The instant attraction between them has to be the result of a head wound from a falling star-shaped Christmas tree topper… right?