Chapter 14
Did I just quit? No, no, no, no, I didn’t.
Right? I couldn’t afford to quit. I had a year of savings but with zero prospects, that’s all I had.
I could not start over at the bottom again.
And I especially couldn’t make a move to New York now to find a place to do that. My money would last half as long there.
I made it to my desk, out of breath. I leaned onto my palms and sucked air into my lungs because my eyes were still stinging and my ears were red, burning beneath my hair.
I could feel the blood pumping through my veins, heavy in my limbs and loud in my ears.
I waited for several long minutes, thinking maybe Rob would come out, smooth things over.
After all, he was being an ass, despite the fact that I shouldn’t have pointed that out.
When he didn’t come, I retrieved my purse from beneath the desk and left.
If I was fired, I’d come back after hours and clean out my station.
“I can’t be fired,” I pleaded under my breath as I opened the door and stepped out into a perfect Southern California day.
How dare it be so nice today. “I will smooth things over. I have to.”
The first thing I did was kick my feet, one at a time, up behind me to take off my heels. Then I walked around the building toward the small lot in the back. A rock dug into my bare foot halfway to my car and I sucked air between my teeth before continuing on with a limp.
The buzz of my phone sounded in my purse and I stopped in the middle of the parking lot to look. Maybe it was Rob telling me to come back.
It wasn’t. It was a text from my sister: How did your meeting go? I’m sure you did great! I’m proud of you. Call me later so you can tell me how you plan to grow your client list.
I groaned.
Then I gasped.
My celebration lunch with Oliver.
No. That couldn’t happen. Our first time together was a disaster. This would be even worse.
I shot off a text: I know this is last minute and I’m so sorry, but today isn’t going to work after all. There is nothing to celebrate.
Once inside my car, I threw my shoes and purse onto the seat behind me and stared at the message from Audrey again. My heart thudded heavily in my chest as I responded: It went great! You were right, using my brain instead of my emotions was the way to go.
I pushed send, put my head on my steering wheel, and cried.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sobbing like my body had been saving it up for an eternity when there was a knock on my passenger-side window.
The sound startled me to a sitting position.
I glanced over while wiping my face. All I could see was a torso.
It wasn’t Rob’s. It wore a steel-gray button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to quarter length.
“No, thank you!” I called out. I wasn’t sure what this person needed but it was nothing I could give at the moment.
“Margot! It’s me,” came a muffled reply.
“Me who?” I could not think of a single person who would be standing outside my window right now. Sure, my brain was on overload, but that alarmed me.
“Did you forget my name again?”
My mouth fell open and Oliver squatted down.
Suddenly his handsome face with his thick, wavy hair and beautiful brown eyes was smiling at me through my closed window.
I could only imagine the image that greeted him: mascara down my face, smeared lipstick, snot.
Was there snot? I dragged the back of my hand across my upper lip.
It was wet, but it could’ve been tears. Please say it was just tears.
I covered my face with my hands. “I sent you a message!”
“I didn’t get it until I parked my car!”
I hadn’t realized I’d texted him so close to our meeting time. “I didn’t tell you to meet me here!”
“You told me to meet you at that restaurant!” He pointed across the street.
He was right. That’s exactly where I told him to meet me.
Since he worked from home, he offered to drive to my restaurant pick.
And I selected a place close to work so I could have the full hour.
He must’ve recognized my car, the same one I had driven to our date last time, parked here across the street.
“I’ll call you later! I’m sorry!” I was being weird. I knew I was being weird. At this point, he probably didn’t want me to message him later.
“Margot! Unlock the door!” He placed his hand flat on the glass. “Please.” He didn’t yell that last word and I could barely hear it, but his whole expression softened.
I clicked the unlock button. He climbed in the car and shut the door behind him. Suddenly my whole car smelled like soap and cedar and cinnamon and I breathed it in, remembering the scent. Remembering him.
I hiccupped through another sob.
“Come here.” His voice was low and husky.
“You don’t have to…” I tried to object but he pulled me into his arms, our cheeks brushing in the process.
Then I was sobbing onto his shoulder. He smelled even better up close, and the deep timbre of his voice speaking soothing words—“It’s okay…
I have you… let it out… I’m here”—rumbled through my chest, calming me.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed that way, stretched across a center console once again, but under much different circumstances than the first time.
Eventually, I took one last quivering breath, then sat up and wiped my face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he responded.
The wet mess that his shoulder had become was not helping his statement.
I flipped down the visor and hesitated before sliding open the mirror. Did I want to know how bad I looked? I steeled myself and slid.
It was bad. So much mascara. I had gone all in that morning to look good for my meeting. “I’ll dry-clean your shirt for you.”
“It’s fine, really.”
I rummaged through my center console until I found a fast-food napkin, then scrubbed at the mascara on my cheeks with it. There was lipstick on one side of my mouth and not the other. I wiped at that as well.
“Do you want to talk about it or do you want me to go get you some takeout and bring it back here? Or both?” he asked.
“I don’t think I can eat right now. My stomach is… I don’t know. It’s off. Might be missing entirely.” I did the best I could with my makeup, which was better than when I started but not great, and shut the visor.
“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“It’s not.” I scrunched up the napkin and deposited it in the compartment under the door handle.
“If you really want me to leave, I will,” he said.
I grabbed hold of his arm without any forethought, as if out of instinct, and shook my head no. Why was I going to cry again? How was there any liquid left in my body? I turned sideways and leaned my head against the headrest, my hand not leaving his arm.
He mimicked me. “Hi,” he said, placing his hand on top of mine. It was warm and a little rough. It made me feel cozy and dizzy at the same time.
“Hi,” I said.
“It’s been awhile.”
“Has it?” I asked.
“What have you been up to today?” he teased back.
“I think I just quit my job,” I said.
“There was some ambiguity to it?”
“I called my boss an ass.”
His eyebrows popped up. He was so expressive in person, I’d forgotten. “Was he being an ass?”
“A huge one.”
“And did you want to quit?”
“No?”
He didn’t say anything, just waited.
“What I wanted was a promotion, but once I realized he was talking in circles around that, making vague suggestions about how it would work, I don’t know, maybe I did want to quit.
He treated me like I shouldn’t have expected a promotion.
Like I had no idea what I was talking about.
Like I made up scenarios we’d discussed in the past. He acted like I was being unreasonable or na?ve. It didn’t feel good.”
Oliver squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’m sorry someone made you feel that way and I wish he was sorry.”
“Thank you.”
We fell into silence and my body became hyperaware of where I gripped his arm.
His muscle tight, his skin warm. Goose bumps sprang to life across my skin and my eyes traveled his face.
He was even more handsome than I remembered.
The way his energy vibrated through the car.
Several days’ worth of unshaven hair lined his jaw and upper lip.
It was a good look on him, something he hadn’t had last time or in any of his pictures. I wanted to rub my hand along it.
“I’m sorry this event isn’t as advertised,” I said.
“As advertised?”
“A celebration,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, lowering his head to look me in the eyes. “I’m glad I’m here. Besides, I told you the only celebrations I didn’t want to be a part of. This isn’t one of those.” His smile was sweet. “Would a speech about fonts help right now?”
For the first time since leaving Rob’s office, a weight lifted off my chest. “No, please.”
His eyes were steady as he stared at me, searching.
They were a golden brown and were making my insides feel light as air.
His mouth was soft and inviting, a small smirk lifting the corners.
He must’ve known I was staring at his mouth.
My eyes popped back to his. There was no humor there, though, only intensity.
We really did have an insane amount of chemistry.
“What?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly. His thumb, whether he realized it or not, was making lazy circles on the back of my hand.
I moved first, my mouth colliding with his, but he didn’t stop me.
He answered me with just as much intensity as had been in his eyes.
I parted my lips and his tongue was urgent yet deliberate as it explored my mouth.
He tasted so good. His hands cupped my face just below my jaw and I grabbed a handful each of the sides of his shirt, pulling him as close as the confines of the car allowed.
My right hip rested on the console and my feet were searching for purchase against the ground.
I hadn’t built this up at all in the last three years. If anything, I’d underplayed it.
My hands slid down his firm sides and were on his waistband, feeling for the button of his pants before he covered them with his and pulled back. I let out a disappointed huff of air.
“Probably not the wisest location for this,” he said, slightly breathless.
I looked around, seeming to come to my senses. He was right. We were literally in the parking lot of the job I still needed, in broad daylight. I flopped back onto my seat. “Right. There is something about you in a car that does it for me, apparently.”
He barked out a laugh. “And me outside a car?”
I smirked at him. “We’ll have to see. I don’t live far from here if you want to—” My stomach let out a large grumble, cutting me off, and I covered it with my hands.
“Your stomach has returned.” He gestured toward our originally planned destination with a questioning eyebrow raise.
“Yes, let’s go eat.” I opened my door, then went to my trunk, where I kept a set of gym clothes that rarely got used. I took out the sneakers, shut the trunk, and leaned against it to pull them on. “Can you be seen with me in a pencil skirt and sneakers?”
He’d joined me at the back of the car. “If I knew that was an option, I would’ve worn it myself.”
“That I’d like to see.”
We walked across the street in silence, my lips tingling from his scruff. His hand brushed along mine and I grabbed hold. My insides still bubbled from our kiss and our now-clasped hands sent warmth up my arm. He smiled at me as we reached the door.
Inside, I pointed to the restrooms. “Give me five minutes?”
“Take your time. I’ll get a table.” He squeezed my hand, then didn’t let go as I walked away, which resulted in our arms stretching until their forced separation.
In the bathroom, I shut myself in a stall and called Sloane.
“Is this a happy call or a venting call?” is how she answered. “And be fast because I’m on my way to my lunch meeting.”
All the giddy feelings of making out with Oliver rushed out of my body as the stark reality of what happened before that came crashing back. “I accused Rob of sleeping with Rebecca to his face, then called him an ass.”
“Oh no, I’m torn,” she said. “Because in my book, calling him an ass is cause for celebration, but I think in your book, that’s… bad?”
“Yes! It’s bad. Very bad. I’m jobless.” My leg bumped into the toilet with my exclamation and I recoiled, standing as close to the door as possible.
“He fired you?”
“No, but do you think I can go back after that?”
She gave a single laugh. “I can think of many different walks of shame that you went back after.”
“Ugh. I hate you.”
“You hate yourself.”
“I need to fix this.” I sniffled, my tears from before ready and willing to come back.
“Are you crying ? I didn’t mean that! You shouldn’t hate yourself.”
“I know,” I said. “But right now, I do. I’m in a bathroom stall.”
“Oh, Margot. Please don’t hate yourself. Get out of the bathroom and direct your anger where it belongs. At your stupid boss.”
“Ex-boss.”
“Do you even want to go back?”
“I have no other options. I need to.” I ripped off some toilet paper from the roll and blew my nose. “I better go. Oliver is waiting for me at my celebratory lunch.”
“That’s right. Oliver. How was it? Seeing him again after all this time?” she asked.
“Wet,” I said. “And not the good kind.”
“The universe really screwed you over on your celebration.”
“Can you cancel the thing tonight?”
“No, let’s turn it into an angry party. You’re going to need it.”
“I just want to crawl in bed and sleep for years.”
“Exactly why you need tonight. Now go celebrate being with a hot man and we’ll fix all your other problems tomorrow.” She hung up the phone.
On the stall door in front of me someone had written Men Suck .
The solidarity I felt with the author of those words in that moment was much more than the situation warranted.
I closed my eyes, tried to think of some words of affirmation to give myself, but when my mind remained blank, I walked out of the stall.
Some woman was standing by the door, staring at me with a look of disgust.
“Emergency,” I mumbled, and went to the sink to wash off my face, then used my purse makeup to make myself presentable. Maybe I could still salvage this time with Oliver.