Chapter Eight
I’m blind, not stupid.
Ruby
“I think we should have him tested for stroke,” I announce to the room the minute Mr. Warrick leaves – right after eating his fill of bean burritos and spicy potato soft tacos, complete with a sauce he brought in himself. “Or possibly drugs.”
“He’s not on drugs,” Brian protests. “He simply recognizes a brilliant idea when he sees one. That’s how you get to be a billionaire, you know.”
I scoff.
“Is this your ‘passionate project’?” I ask. “Forcing the entire building into this madness?”
“I’ll have you know, I didn’t force anyone,” he retorts. “I suggested all activities be voluntary. Mr. Warrick is the one who made them non-negotiable.”
“You expect us to believe that William Warrick, billionaire grump and certified buzzkill, orchestrated an elementary-level dedication to Valentine’s Day that we all have to participate in at risk of professional death?” Frank’s voice is all things skeptical.
“I don’t control what you choose to believe,” Brian sniffs. “But yes, he did do exactly that.”
“But… why ?” she asks, befuddled.
“How should I know?” he shoots back. “Rich people do weird things all the time. I just deliver the mail; and astounding ideas, obviously.”
“Obviously,” she replies, dry as the desert.
“I’m going back to work,” I mutter, pushing back in my chair. I grab my cane from my lap and unfold it as I stand, whacking Will in the process.
“Why are you always so close to me?” I snap. “Back up.”
“The distance will do nothing,” he replies. “As my heart is always with you, tucked as close as it can be.”
I gag, then crack my cane at him, this time on purpose.
“That’s definitely harassment,” I inform him.
“They’re doing the thing again,” Brian whispers, giddy.
“There’s never any popcorn when you need it,” Frank grumbles. A round of mumbled agreement sounds.
I glare at the shadows of my coworkers.
“We’re not a show for you to watch,” I tell them.
“But, sweetheart,” Will says, his hand hovering over my waist for a moment before it moves in, pressing against my skin and pulling until he’s got me neatly tucked into his body. My arm goes behind him to avoid being squished, and suddenly we’re half-hugging.
In the conference room.
In front of all our coworkers.
I’m going to kill him.
“The people just want to celebrate our love with us,” he finishes, kissing me on the forehead.
“I’m going to HR,” I declare.
“We’re here,” Michael, head of HR, says from across the room. “We’d also love some popcorn.”
“No kidding,” his underling, Erin, says. “This is good stuff.”
I frown at them.
“You’re bad at your jobs,” I let them know. “I’ll be reporting you to Mr. Warrick when I leave here.”
Everyone laughs.
I am not joking.
Twisting out of Will’s hold – and cracking him with my cane again, whoops – I march out of the room. Jaunty footsteps follow me.
“Go away,” I say.
“This way lies work,” Will responds, then he starts whistling.
My eye twitches.
“You’re being annoying again.”
“Whatever keeps me on your mind,” he hums.
Yes, because whistling the “Star Spangled Banner” is the best way to do that. Totally.
“Since when are you so patriotic anyway?” I ask as we approach the elevator. I find the call button, slapping it before Will gets the chance.
“Since this great and beautiful country produced you,” he answers, pretending like that’s not the most ick-inducing thing he could’ve said.
The elevator dings, and we step inside.
“We could always take the stairs,” Will says as I latch onto the railing.
“So I can trip and fall twenty stories?” I scoff. “I think not.”
“I’d never let you fall,” he replies, offended. “How dare you think such a thing.”
My eyes roll.
“You can’t be with me every second of every day.”
“And why not?” he asks.
I sigh, shaking my head, but don’t answer. There’s no point. The man truly believes he could be with me twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.
“Rubble, I don’t know how to break this to you, but we’re practically already together every second of every day. We work thirty feet from each other. We eat dinner together almost every night. We carpool. We’re together more than we’re not.”
I wrinkle my nose. Technically , all of that is true, and yet…
“Being in our very separate offices doesn’t count as being together,” I nitpick.
He laughs.
“It would, if you’d just leave your office door open. I’d have a direct line of sight to you at all hours,” he sighs dreamily. “It would be a blessing indeed.”
Yeah, except I don’t want to be stared at ‘at all hours.’
“You’ve got some stalker tendencies, you know that?”
“Yes,” he responds readily. “I’ve come to peace with it.”
Oh.
Cool.
Great.
Well, as long as he’s come to peace with it.
“You need professional help,” I tell him.
“I quite agree, Rubble,” he answers, shocking me. “Do you know any good couples counselors?”
Ah. There it is.
“Hit the button for the top floor, please,” I ask, sugar sweet. “I have a bone to pick with our CEO.”
? ? ?
“Is Mr. Warrick available?” I ask Teresa, smiling at the air above her head. “I’d really like to talk to him.”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” she responds. “He’s left for the day.”
Excuse me. He what now?
“Left?” I ask. “He left ?”
“I’m afraid so. Said he could feel a headache coming on, the poor thing.”
I’ll just bet he did. And I’m sure that headache looked suspiciously like a horde of disgruntled employees.
I didn’t peg him as a coward.
I keep my smile on my face by sheer force of will.
“Can I schedule a meeting with him, then?” I grit out, then wince at my forced tone. “Please?” I add.
“Of course!”
Tapping. Mouse moving. More tapping.
“How’s July third work for you?”
Um.
“ July ?”
She can’t be serious.
“Well, we could do August instead, but it seemed quite urgent, you coming all the way up here and all,” she says, tap tap tapping at the keyboard. “August ninth?”
I take a breath, nice and calming.
“Sorry, no, I meant to see if he has anything earlier than that?”
“Oh, dear,” she says, pitying. “No, no, no. He has a company to run, you know? Is this something you can go to HR about maybe?”
My eye twitches.
“Never mind.” I say through clenched teeth. “I’ll email him.”
Her tapping stops.
“Email him?”
I nod.
I should’ve just emailed him in the first place.
“Well… that is… how ?” Teresa asks.
I blink.
“How?”
What does she mean ‘how’?
“How will you email him?”
My brows furrow, then smooth.
Ah.
Right.
“I’ll have my assistant email him,” I tell her, not bothering to explain the ableism running rampant in her question.
I’ll bring it up in my email instead. Mr. Warrick can handle it.
“Ah, yes. That makes sense,” she says, worldview firmly intact. The disabled girl will not try to do anything on her own. The world is as it should be.
Barf.
Foregoing a farewell, I make my way down the hall to the death box that will get me back to my floor, magically finding my way all on my own. Crazy.
I hope this thing moves at normal elevator speeds instead of its usual molasses pace, the quicker to send out my complaints.
It’s one thing for me to play up my blindness for sympathy points to get what I want. Manipulative? Absolutely, but if it works, it works. It’s another thing entirely for her to think I’m incapable of something so simple as an email .
I jab at the elevator call button, increasingly enraged.
I mean, an email? Seriously? What could possibly be easier?
Ding.
I stomp into the elevator, ramming into someone inside.
“Oof!” they grunt, and my face flames as I’m caught up against a firm chest. An inhale of spiced cedar lets me know that it’s only Will, so I don’t apologize. If he didn’t want to be run into, he shouldn’t be stalking me from the elevator.
“Don’t you have a job to do?” I grumble, disengaging from his arms.
“Not really, no,” he answers, stepping back. “I’m pretty well done for the day.”
I scowl.
“It’s one o’clock.”
He hums an affirmation.
“And half our morning was taken up with that ridiculous Valentine meeting.”
Another hum.
“It’s a Friday,” he says, as if that’s an acceptable explanation for poor work ethic.
I grunt, eye twitching as I spin to face the doors.
You know what? Whatever. If he wants to be the office layabout, that’s on him. Best case, he gets fired and I get a nice pay raise when I take his job. A win-win.
“I can see you plotting to steal my job,” he says, head hovering above my shoulder. “It’s a nice look on you. I’m almost tempted to just hand it over.”
Hmph. It’s not any fun if he gives it to me.
“Don’t pout, Rubble. It makes me want to kiss you.”
I swing my cane behind me toward his corner, lips twitching as it makes a satisfying thwack against him.
“Darling dearest, I do believe we might be in a toxic relationship,” he grunts.
“We’re not in any sort of relationship,” I retort.
He huffs a laugh.
“That’s what you think. I’ve been married to you for years.”
I freeze. That’s exactly what Elodie said, too.
Married to me for years.
And I’d scoffed. Laughed. Because how ridiculous is that?
The most ridiculous. Obviously.
So why does he keep doing it?
“When are you going to give up this bit?” I ask. “Don’t you want a girlfriend? A wife? A family? How do you expect to get any of those things if you’re pretending to be in love with me for decades of your life?”
I’m met with silence so long I start to think he isn’t going to answer me. I sigh.
“I do want those things,” he finally says, barely above a whisper.
I shake my head.
“Then you’ve got to stop joking about being with me,” I say. “Women don’t like that.”
That seems obvious, yes? How oblivious can the man possibly be?
More silence.
“Will?”
“You’re really frustrating sometimes, you know that?” he asks.
Excuse me?
“ I’m really frustrating? I’m trying to help you!”
He groans as the elevator comes to a stop.
“Let me worry about my own love life, yeah?”
“You’re not going to have a love life if you keep telling everyone you’re in love with me!”
His hand hits my back, and we step off the elevator together.
“I’m not worried about it,” he says.
I hustle away from his hand, counting the steps to my office.
“Fine, don’t take my advice,” I tell him. “It’s your romantic funeral!”
“I’ll take my chances,” he snorts.
I sniff, entering my office. Fine. If he wants to be sad and lonely, that’s on him. I did my civic duty, and now I have more important things to worry about.
Like emails.