Chapter 10
The next day, Monday, I was recharged from a day in bed reading the newest John Irving novel, and couldn’t wait to get back to Montrose’s office. But first I had to get through my shift testing faux grading in the new front end system.
One of the consultants asked what I was doing for New Year’s Eve. The consultants, most from the firm’s Texas office, were here for the holidays too. They’d flown home for the long Christmas weekend, but apparently they would not be doing the same for New Year’s.
I told the guy I didn’t know of anything going on.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I was asking if you were doing anything. And if not…would you like to?”
I stared at him. He was pretty hot and we’d done a little good-natured joking when we’d been working in the same areas. But something made me tell him no.
Okay, it wasn’t just “something” and I knew it. It was Montrose.
Which was totally stupid, and also… Yeah, stupid was definitely the best word for it.
It wasn’t like there was anything between us. And yet, there kind of was.
It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be out with someone on New Year’s Eve. And yet, I somehow thought he wouldn’t be.
It wasn’t like I’d be spending it with him. And yet, maybe I would be…at least virtually.
A girl could—foolishly, completely inappropriately—hope.
The consultant took the rejection in stride and I got the feeling that he was a co-ed in every port kind of guy.
When I got to Montrose’s office in the late afternoon I stopped cold as soon as I opened the door.
He had been here. I knew it, though everything looked the same. It was just—okay, this is really hokey—the air was different.
I looked at my well-thought-out piles of his notes. They hadn’t been moved or jostled from the precarious perches some of them maintained. But I knew he’d looked through them.
I circled around the desk and my breath caught as I saw a note right in the center. And definitely not one I’d written.
Sorry I missed you. I was in Chesney for that wedding so stayed at my place.
I didn’t want you to get out of bed (or book) yesterday, so I didn’t mention that I’d be stopping in.
The notes are in great shape, organized much better than I could have done.
And just seeing them would have sent me off on more note-taking tangents, so it’s great that you were able to do them for me.
Can’t thank you enough.
Billy
I dropped into the creaky, wooden desk chair. Unfuckingbelievable. I’d missed him because I’d wanted to stay in bed and read on a snowy Sunday afternoon. Something I could have done any Sunday—in fact, did most Sundays.
I looked at the note again, this time noticing the small postscript at the very bottom of the piece of paper.
I miss you—is that crazy?
Just as I was thinking how un-crazy that was, my phone rang with his tone. Knowing I couldn’t get my laptop out and booted fast enough, I answered the FaceTime call on my phone.
“I just got here,” I said, out of breath, like I’d run all the way here from the admin building, when in reality, I was just gasping from the absurdity of our near miss.
And then chastising myself for feeling that way. I worked for him. Next week I’d be seeing him all the time.
The thought of seeing him more than just three times a week for a very short hour got my breath going all the more quickly.
He chuckled a little. “That eager to get to work? That you’d run to the office?” But he seemed to know that it wasn’t physical exertion that had my cheeks red and my chest rising. Not that he’d even see my chest with me holding my phone so closely to my face.
The better to see you with, my dear.
I didn’t even bother to explain my out-of-breathness. “You were here?” I said, trying to control my voice. Shit, it almost cracked.
Get it together, Syd. You are going to see this guy every day, you can’t let him know what he does to you.
But he knew. And what’s more, he seemed a little flushed too.
“I actually thought you’d still be at your other job,” he said.
“Nope. Like I said, I just got here. They had us stop a little early today because they found a bug or glitch or something that they wanted to look at.”
“Oh,” he said. Nothing else, but he looked slightly embarrassed.
“Why would you call if you thought I was at the admin job?”
“Nothing. I mean…” he let out a big sigh, ran his hand over his sexy stubble like he was noting it for the first time. “Did you already see the note—yeah, of course you did.”
I nodded, not saying anything.
“I just thought…Christ, I don’t know what I thought. I was just going to tell you to trash it without reading it, but…shit…even saying it out loud sounds stupid. As if you’d not look at something I wrote to you just because I asked you not to.”
The funny thing was, I probably wouldn’t look. Well, okay, maybe. Yeah, definitely.
I kept my mouth shut.
He sighed again. “Well, listen, I have to go. My parents and I are going out for dinner and we ‘simply can’t miss our reservation, darling.’” Thurston Howell had returned.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m just going to organize the last of it tonight and put it in to the order I want to transcribe from. I’ll start that fresh tomorrow, so I probably won’t be here that long tonight.”
“I most likely won’t have my phone on during dinner, so just text with any questions, and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.”
“Will do. But I don’t think I’ll have any questions, I’m in the homestretch with this part.”
“Well…” He looked down, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. Looking up, he finally said, “I guess…good night.”
“Okay.” I started to move my thumb to the “end” button, but stopped. “Billy?” I said, I think using only his first name to him for the first time. Maybe I had that first day in his office when he’d hired me. But it was different this time.
“Yes?”
“It isn’t crazy,” I said softly. “I miss you, too.”
He smiled softly, then more widely. “Night, Syd,” he said, and then disconnected.