Chapter 22
Chapter
My leg jiggles as I ride the elevator up to the eighth floor the next morning.
Come on, come on, can’t this thing go any faster?
I need to finish Erica’s deck as quickly as I possibly can.
I understand the data, finally. I worked on it a bit more after I got home, nodding off in front of the screen, waking up to find the curve of my laptop imprinted on my cheek.
But when I get to my desk, there’s something strange waiting for me. An unmarked shoebox.
My face heats as I open it, and I have to stifle a gasp.
I don’t know shoes, but even I know the red bottom on these sleek beige pumps means they’re expensive. This is Mark Winterson’s replacement for my $50 TKMART heels?
He must have changed the box because he wanted to be discreet. Or he asked whoever does his shopping for him to change it. Not that I don’t feel molten with embarrassment anyway.
“Hellooo!” Morgan trills, stopping short as she passes my desk and backing up. “And what have we here?”
Oh no, now everyone in a ten-mile radius will hear about this!
I snatch the box away and stuff it in my work tote, even though it’s too wide to slide in easily.
“It’s nothing!” I muster my most innocent smile.
“Ah ah ah.” Morgan wags a finger at me. “I know a secret admirer gift when I see one.”
Sarah appears behind her, forehead wrinkled. “Everything all right?”
“Love is all around in Advertorial!” Morgan singsongs, knocking her shoulder against Sarah’s.
“The rizzler strikes again!” Al exclaims as he walks by, and Sarah hoots so loud, you can probably hear it across the office.
“Did I get it that time?” he asks, beaming while he waters a yellowing snake plant. Erica assigned him to plant care duty this week.
“Nailed it,” Sarah says with pride.
At the far end of the floor, the elevator doors ding open, and Greg walks in—probably here for Sarah. He’s carrying a to-go cup of coffee in either hand, and sure enough, he delivers one to her, and she reaches for it appreciatively.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. I am the picture of serenity. I am a grown woman with a rich inner life who does not need anything from him.
“Ruby.” Greg’s voice is too close suddenly, and I open my eyes with a start. He’s standing in front of my cubicle, holding the other coffee cup out to me.
“Since you worked late,” he says, lowering it onto my desk when I don’t reach for it.
“Oh, thanks!” My hands close around the paper cup. “You didn’t have to.”
I push the tote with the shoes deeper under my desk with my foot.
“Are you still working on that thing for Erica?”
“Yeah.” I do a raspberry. “Pivot tables.”
“Oh, I love pivot tables.” Before I can protest, he’s already coming around to the inside of the cubicle. “Let me help.”
The elevator doors ding again, and I glimpse Erica’s signature red hair. She looks over here, and oh fuck, I need more time! I have to hide!
And Greg is standing there behind me—if she sees him standing suspiciously alone in my cubicle, she’ll definitely walk over. In a panic, I grab a fistful of Greg’s shirt and tug him down under the desk with me.
“Uh—”
I put a hand over his mouth.
“Shh,” I whisper. “We’re hiding.”
I can feel his smile forming under my palm. He’s always been game for a ridiculous situation.
I withdraw my hand, and Greg mouths, Erica? I nod, and that’s all he needs—he shifts around so he’s shoulder to shoulder with me, our backs leaned against the inside of my desk.
It reminds me of a time in eleventh grade when I spotted someone I was avoiding in the high school parking lot. And I noticed Greg nearby, sitting behind the wheel of his Acura, so I slipped into the passenger seat, sliding down low so no one would see me.
“I’m hiding,” I said in response to his questioning look.
So Greg slid way down, too, legs folded into the footwell. “Okay, then I’ll hide with you.”
“Ruby?” Erica calls from the direction of her office. “Is Ruby here?”
Greg shakes with a silent laugh, and he presses a hand against the side of my head, bringing it in to rest on his shoulder.
He’s patting my head in a there, there kind of way, still part of the joke.
But his warm palm on my ear, and that familiar lemon scent—it brings me right back to the first time we kissed.
If it had happened only once, I might have thought it was a fluke. We’d been friends a long time, we had too much history. Anytime someone asked if we were a thing, we said, Oh God no, we know each other way too well for that!
We were at the movies with a group of friends, sitting next to each other, and I leaned on him, more sleep-deprived than flirty. He pressed a hand to the side of my head, as if to say, Get comfortable, stay awhile. So I nestled in, cheek against his shoulder.
The music swelled just right at an emotional moment, and I turned my head toward him, at an awkward angle.
It was dark, but he was already staring at me.
There was something intense about it, like I caught him watching me sleep.
The inches between us ached. And then our mouths brushed, his bottom lip pillowing between both of mine.
It was the briefest contact, but I felt it everywhere, a full-body unclenching. Like all my molecules sighed out the revelation: Oh, this is what you’ve been missing.
Then one of our friends made a joke, and I panicked and straightened up. We pretended to go back to watching the movie and acted like nothing happened for the rest of the night.
Under the desk, my lips tingle from the memory, and I jolt upright.
Greg tilts his head questioningly at me, our faces perilously close.
“Have you seen Ruby?” Erica’s clipped tone carries faintly across the office.
“Oh,” Sarah says, “she was here, but…maybe she went to the bathroom?”
“Tell her I’m looking for her,” Erica says. “And I need that presentation after my next meeting, or else.”
Greg raises his eyebrows and points sardonically at me. I try to smile, even though I feel like I’ve been chopping an onion.
He was a confused, experimenting seventeen-year-old then, and he’s concerned in a strictly platonic, I’ve-known-you-forever way now. And I do want to be friends with him. It’s a good thing in my life, one that I held at arm’s length for stupid reasons for too long.
I can fix it. We can make it work. I just have to try harder.
Greg pulls one leg to his chest, and he must feel the awkward shape of the box wedged inside my tote behind him. He peers into the bag.
“No, wait, that’s—” I hiss.
“Hey!” Sarah raps her knuckles on the desk, and I jerk at the sound and hit my head.
“You okay?” Greg whispers.
Sarah’s standing inside my cubicle now. From here, I have a view of her wide-leg trousers and chunky heels.
“Ooh, sorry,” she says, kneeling down and grimacing. “I was just going to say—Erica left for her eight o’clock, you can come out now.”
“Oh my God, thank you!” I say, scrambling out from under the desk and offering Greg a hand.
He takes it and lets me pull him up. “You good?” he asks.
“I will be, if I can finish this in the next hour.” I wave frantically at my computer.
Greg shoves his hands in his pockets and nods up at Sarah. “Should we…?”
“Oh yeah, I have that…thing to tell you about,” she says, giving me a tight smile. “Bye, Ruby.”
The two of them head for the elevators together, but I’m too busy tearing through this presentation to think much about it. And when Erica appears next to my cubicle, saying, “It’s eight fifty-five, Ruby, where is it?” I can finally beam at her and say, “It’s in your inbox!”