Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cassidy
M y office has never been so organized, and I’m an organized girl. When it comes to my job, I keep everything in its place. That way when I need something I always know where it is. That being said, with this slow week, I am painfully bored and decided to reorganize my already organized space.
A ping sounds on my computer, and I roll over in my chair to check it out.
Subject: Upcoming Quarter Account Possibilities.
CC: Data Team; Acct Team, Project Mgt Team
I read over the possible accounts and open a second document on my screen. I take down two mid-grade accounts that will make for great bonuses but won’t cut into my personal time. It’s that perfect mixture of having a job and having a life.
I know that the competition for the accounts won’t be that bad either. People are often fighting for the top accounts and then new hires take on the easier ones to gain more experience. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t get an account I wanted.
Hunter has always known what he wanted to do, and he excels at it. Even more, he pushes himself constantly. The girls do, too. Everyone around me is so driven, and it’s not that I’m not. I am a top performer, never late, can’t think of a time when my reports had a mistake or my projections were wrong, and I even get referrals.
I could be making so much more money, but I just don’t feel like chasing a big account would be chasing my passion. If there was an account that I was passionate about, then sure I would go after it. Nothing has yet to pull my interest. So, I just keep milling away with the mid-range accounts, making good money and having time for me.
At lunch, I walk into the breakroom to warm some leftover takeout from the other night. Meal prepping is not a thing for me. When I walk in and open the fridge to grab my Tupperware, I notice a note on my lunch.
Dinner or death sentence.
Rolling my eyes, I pull out my phone.
Me: A bit dramatic?
Georgie: If it’s the only way to get you to respond, then yes.
Me: What time and where?
Georgie: 6:15 at Little Sicily.
Me: Mmmm yes please.
Georgie: You are allowed a salad, your lunch has enough calories.
I pout and look down at my two thick enchiladas. So cheesy. So good.
Me: Sounds like dinner AND a death sentence.
Georgie: Now who’s the dramatic one?
While my food is warming, I kill time by scrolling through social media. I try to train my brain to avoid ordering pasta later by looking at European fitness models. They may be in incredible shape, but these are all professional pictures. With professional makeup and touch-ups. I scrunch my nose and curl my lip. Along with the plethora of female models comes a hefty number of male models. They are all ripped, with beautiful faces, and uninterested looks across their faces.
Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much” starts playing in my head.
My mind goes into the replay reel, and I’m reminded of Caribbean-blue eyes that show plenty of interest. A gentle smile touches my lips when I hear someone clear their throat.
Pulling my eyes off my phone, I look up.
“You done with the microwave?” asks an unknown, yet very handsome man.
He’s tall, a few inches taller than me, with dark chocolatey-brown hair and matching eyes. His hair is styled artfully, and I wonder to myself how men can so easily achieve volume when they do their hair. That’s not a problem I have since my hair is so thick, but the girls who have thinner hair and dream of volume like Dolly.
Mystery Man has dark brows that lead to his straight nose with a triangle tip. His top lip is thinner than his bottom, but they both have enough tissue to avoid the thin lip category. He has broad, thick shoulders and a wider back coming down to a slim waist. It’s apparent he works out; his shirt might even be custom.
“Yeah, sorry. Got sucked into a web wormhole.” I stand and cross the breakroom to grab my food.
“No worries.” We trade places in a matter of seconds, and he smiles. I sit back down and let my food cool, all while jumping back into the World Wide Web.
“I’m Dom,” he states out of the blue and matter-of-factly.
“What?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Dom, short for Dominic.”
“Oh, Hey. Cassidy.” I offer him a kind smile, but also hope he can read the I’m-not-in-the-mood-to-chat-right-now look I’m shooting him.
“How long have you worked here?” Nope, he definitely missed the signal.
“Ummm, seven years?” I try to think back to when I started, and I feel my age creep up on me.
“Wow, you must be a team lead? Director? VP?” I shake my head at each one.
“Data Analyst.”
“No shit, I’m a new hire. Accounting.” He looks older than the typical new hire. He looks every bit in his late twenties or early thirties. Then again, people switch jobs all the time.
“Well, welcome aboard. It’s a great place to work.” I give him another tight, but sweet smile. You catching my drift bro? I don’t want to talk.
“Yeah, it really seems like it. The people are all really intelligent and driven, I’m hoping to climb the ladder myself.” He pulls his food out of the microwave and sits down.
Right.
Across.
From.
Me.
What? Am I emitting some kind of social signal I’m not aware of?
“There’s plenty of room for that here. If you push yourself, you’ll climb. Simple as that.”
“You haven’t?”
“What?” I ask.
“Pushed yourself?”
“No, I just do my job and go home. Don’t get me wrong. I do my job and I do it well.”
“I bet you do.” His tone is flirtatious, and it annoys me. He’s not an ugly man; hell, the girls would probably set me up with a guy just like him. He’s just not doing it for me at the moment. He’s all suit and tie, stuffy, ladder climbing, bullshit, city slicker. City slicker? Oh jeez, someone is rubbing off on me.
A laugh threatens to cut through my closed lips. I can’t hold it in, and a giggle comes out. Dom smiles and raises a brow at me.
Fuck, this guy thinks I’m laughing at his line.
“I’m pretty good at everything I put effort into.” I close the lid on my food and go to stand. “Actually, I think I should eat this at my desk. So I can keep doing the job I’m good at. ”
“Multitasker, I like that.” I inwardly cringe that he said those words out loud.
“Thanks, have a good day, Dom.”
“I’ll see you around Cassie.”
Yuck. No. No one calls me Cassie.
Dinner with the girls is just what I needed. We’re all sitting at a small table sharing our second bottle of wine. With four girls, a bottle goes quickly. We opened the conversation with Mary’s wedding talk. She gets the floor for the month, and we totally get it. Then the conversation shifted toward how all our days went.
Georgie was ball busting, Lynn had a family come in with chicken pox, and Mary is on work leave until after her honeymoon. Mary is still running her business, but from the “backseat”, she calls it. This means she’s letting her go-to girl at the office do the heavy work and she’s micromanaging. This may sound like a good gig to anyone else, but I know deep down Mary hates it. She’s a hands-on girl and likes to be the face and backbone of her company.
I’m leading with my Dom story now.
“He called you Cassie? God, I haven’t heard someone call you that since college.” Georgie’s tone is pure disdain. “But he was cute?”
“Yeah.”
“Cute enough to let him call you Cassie while he pounds you?”
“Definitely not”
“Speaking of getting pounded,” Mary interrupts. “Are we all finally going to get details on this mystery man from the produce stand?” I roll my eyes and Lynn beams .
“What do you want to know?”
“You’re lucky Trent’s mom was in the car Sunday, or I would have given you the tenth degree.”
“I don’t think that’s how that saying goes?” I raise my brow.
“Shut up and tell us everything!” Lynn barks. Mary, Georgie, and I all share a look before we look over at Lynn. We break out in a fit of giggles at her outburst. It’s a rare occurrence. Usually, it’s made in defense of one of us or her baby girl Rose. We’ve never really had it aimed at us.
Once in our college years, we were at brunch, and Georgie was doing a walk of shame; it was a bad one. Her hair was a mess, her eye makeup almost down to her cheekbones and her outfit was the clubbing dress she wore out the night before. I brought extra clothes, Lynn brought makeup removing wipes and moisturizer, and Mary brought a camera.
After Mary snapped a picture, Georgie went to go change and Lynn overheard the waitstaff making fun of Georgie. She had absolutely none of that. She mommed all those servers, grabbed the basket of pastries on the table, and said something along the lines of, “Maybe you should eat some of this shit so your salty attitude might change!” And then she threw one at each of them before storming out. Mary and I sat with our jaws on the floor and then followed her.
When Georgie emerged outside in her new outfit, we brushed her hair, kissed her cheek, and told her we saw mold on the muffins. We haven’t set foot in that restaurant since.
“Okay, I met Hunter a few weeks ago, thanks to our dear Lynn. ”
“Booya! I knew it was him! See! Pay up, Mary!” She holds her palm out on the table. Mary rolls her eyes, pulling out her full punch card to her facial spa.
“Is that a free facial?!” I ask reaching for it.
Lynn snatches it out of her hand. “It sure is!”
“Keep talking, I’m the only one who has no fucking clue what’s going on,” Georgie sighs.
“Okay, Okay. So, Lynn pranked me as you all know with the blind date with the country boy. Georgie, I know you were in on that, so you do kind of have an idea of what’s going on.”
I take a breadstick from the basket and fiddle with it for a minute before continuing.
“Well, we had our blind date, and it went so freakin’ good. Then he came back to my place, made out with me, and then left. I wanted more, but he wanted more than a one-night stand. So, in true Cassidy fashion, I sent him on his merry way. Then he started texting me thanks to our little backstabbing cupid over here. We talked a little bit throughout the week, but then I ran into him at the market with Mary. That’s when he asked me out to some Podunk country fair. I schooled him in shooting, and he fucked my brains out.”
“That man looked like he had it in him.” Lynn sighs, resting her chin on her fist.
“He sure did!” Mary agrees.
“Show me a picture!” Georgie says.
I pull out my phone and open our messages. Mary and Lynn watch me with wide eyes as I scroll. I find a recent picture he sent me of him on top of the hill where we made out under the moonlight. A country selfie. He has his hat on and the sky behind him picks up the blue in his eyes. His wide smile is blinding, and his forearm is visible, strong, and corded with muscles. I turn the phone toward Georgie, but all three girls are squished together to get a look.
“Oh, yes. That man has it in him. I bet you rode that man like a bona fide cowgirl.”
“Not yet.”
“Yet?!” Lynn chimes in.
“So, things went so great at the fair, and after, if you know what I mean. I left feeling weird Sunday, so I texted him.”
Mary was mid-sip and spit the wine in her mouth right back into the glass.
“You texted him, after sleeping with him?”
“Yes, okay! That’s not even the worst part. I accidentally called him when I was masturbating and then I invited him to stay with me this weekend!”
All three girls just stare at me. Lynn has a stupid smile, Mary is slack-jawed, and Georgie is sipping her wine with an arched brow. I’m still fiddling with my breadstick and Georgie takes it away. I pick up my own glass and take a healthy swig. I wait a few beats for them to say something, but no one does.
“Please say something, I’m drowning here.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes.
“Why do you think you’re drowning?” Lynn reaches across the table and rubs my forearm.
“I think I might like this guy. I don’t know what I’m doing. To make everything even worse, he lives so far away. It’s not like he can just give up his family farm and move to the city.”
“I see.” Georgie reaches for my other arm.
Mary gives me a sympathetic look. “Leave it to Cassidy to finally meet a guy she can take seriously and he’s unavailable.”
“Well… I wouldn’t say that,” Lynn chimes. “Is he coming up this weekend?”
“Yes, after the market, to stay the night.”
“That’s available. Who says people can’t make things work long distance? You guys aren’t states apart, just a few towns.” Georgie sounds so mature; it makes me roll my eyes.
“That’s not the point.”
“What IS the point?” Mary waves the server over and taps the top of the bottle of wine.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so confused. I feel like I want to hear from him, and I want to see him, but he mentioned kids the other day and?—”
“You guys were talking about kids?!” Lynn is about to rocket out of her seat fueled by romantic thoughts alone.
“Not like us having kids, just he wants some one day. I said I’m sure he’ll get them, but the thought of him with Franny or some other girl makes me feel all weird and sad.”
“Hmmmm,” all the girls say in unison. For any of us, that’s bad news. A three-way hmmm. It couldn’t be worse. It’s relatable to a doctor getting your test results and sighing in front of you when he reads them. No good.
“What?”
“You need to just ride this out, Cassidy. Don’t cut ties because you’re finally feeling something. It’s important for self-growth to experience this kind of thing,” Georgie offers.
The server brings us our bottle and Mary divvies it up between our glasses.
“Mary, please talk wedding again. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”
She gives me an empathetic look and nods .
“So, the bachelorette party is next weekend…”
I kind of tune out the conversation and think about how royally fucked I am. My impulse to do exactly what the girls said not to do is strong, but my impulse to see Hunter again is stronger.