8. January 21, Friday
Chapter eight
Zoey
By Friday, Zoey had officially reached the stage of onboarding where she was no longer getting lost and could actually recognize a handful of names. Maybe even six if she counted the one she kept getting wrong.
In her defense, the woman looked like a Shantell.
“Okay, so just to confirm,” said Zoey’s favorite PR co-staffer, Liam Cho, as they hustled down the hall, tapping furiously on his tablet. “Nina wants a preliminary proposal for the Flea Flicker Rescue Center by Monday.”
“Right,” Zoey affirmed, matching his pace and typing into the Notes app like her thumbs were on fire. Guess she was working this weekend. “And we need Coach Montgomery to sign off before I send it?”
“Yep. And Captain Sergechev,” Liam added, grimacing like he’d just said Voldemort. “But good luck getting him to…”
He stopped so abruptly Zoey nearly plowed into him.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself was coming down the hall. And apparently the PR department reacted to him with the same energy normal people reserved for dental surgery.
A staffer carrying folders executed a perfect ninety-degree pivot into an empty doorway. Another woman spun on her heel and retreated into the copy room like she’d heard a child calling for help.
Zoey blinked at the doorway the woman just abandoned.
Maybe she left her phone by the copier…?
Then Liam snapped to attention like he was bracing for inspection.
Seriously?
They were acting like Ilya kicked puppies for sport.
Ilya didn’t seem to register the ripple of avoidance. He nodded politely to a passing employee, fist-bumped a player going the opposite direction, and slid his phone out of his pocket.
Several paces away, Zoey couldn’t see who was calling, but when he lifted the phone to his ear and looked up, his steps faltered the moment he saw her frozen in the narrow hallway.
For half a heartbeat, their eyes met, just long enough to punch air out of her lungs.
Recognition. Warmth. Familiarity. Surprise.
Then the voice on the phone must’ve spoken because his gaze dropped, and he murmured a low, “I’m here.”
He glanced back up—blue eyes intense—and tipped his chin at her, an affectionate quirk of his mouth pulling at one corner. And then he simply…kept walking by.
He didn’t get off the phone.
Didn’t slow down.
Didn’t say hi.
Which was fine.
Totally fine.
It wasn’t like she’d been thinking about him at odd moments all week like a normal, functioning adult who’d utterly lost her mind.
He’d texted her Monday to ask how her first day went and she’d worked late…and then forgot to reply, so she’d replied Tuesday—
Oh God.
Did she ever reply?!
Or did she forget during the chaos of the foster home visit?
Heart thudding, she fumbled her phone open, backed out of her notes, and scrolled frantically through her messages.
Why did she know this many people?!
Where was his thread?!
She abandoned scrolling, typed his name into the search bar, and tapped the thread. And nearly shriveled into dust on the carpet.
She never replied.
She left him hanging.
Zoey closed her eyes.
Oh God, she was such an asshole!
“Umm, not to interrupt whatever mental breakdown you’re having,” Liam whispered, sidling closer, “but did you just—did Ilya just smile at you?”
“What? No.” Zoey felt heat swarm her cheeks.
Why was she blushing about that? What the heck was wrong with her?
“Uhh, that was definitely a smile,” Liam whispered. “Like an actual smile. Not his usual terrifyingly symmetrical face.” He leaned closer, eyes wide. “Do you know Ilya like that?”
“What! No! Of course not!” Zoey searched frantically for something to say. “That’s just…his face.”
Liam nodded, accepting her obvious truth, and looked down where Ilya had just retreated.
“To be fair, most people look like they’re about to faint when he walks by,” Liam said reverently.
“I don’t think it’s just his presence, you know.
I think it’s partly those God-given cheekbones.
” He said the last bit with a relish that had Zoey raising her eyes at him and grinning at his open admiration.
Even so, she still had to disagree.
“The cheekbones are nice, but it’s definitely the eyes.”
The words slipped out before she could shove them back down her throat. She froze. Then stiffly lowered her phone and jammed it into her pocket.
What the fuck was she saying?
But just because a person didn’t want to sculpt, didn’t mean that they couldn’t appreciate the sheer excellence and skill required to create Michelangelo’s David.
Thankfully, Liam was too busy staring after Ilya, leaning in like he was confessing a felony. “Or it might be the way he fills out his gray sweatpants. If you know what I mean.”
He waggled his eyebrows. Looked down. Pursed his lips.
Oh.
Ohhh.
Heat slammed into her cheeks. That comment should have felt inappropriate in a very specific, sister-adjacent way. It did not. Which was deeply unsettling.
She immediately vowed never to look below Ilya’s waist if he was wearing sweatpants of any shade. Ever.
Liam, blissfully oblivious to her crisis, resumed their power walk as if nothing scandalous had just occurred.
Desperate to smother her own brain, she reframed the encounter. What would make this funny? Besides the sheet concept that Ilya was the Abominable Snowman for the PR team?
Well…she imagined Liam’s expression if she told him that the apparently hung hockey hottie once tried to microwave a Pop-Tart inside its foil wrapper.
That would certainly lower their fear factor appreciably. And maybe they would be brave enough to ask Ilya and the team for more event participation!
Her cheeks cooled.
Her lungs loosened.
There.
Ilya: friend.
She was being a dork and totally making a mountain out of a molehill.
So what if she had envisioned for a microsecond what might be under Ilya’s sweatpants?
It lasted for all of one second! Maybe two.
But it was just normal, human curiosity.
Totally impartial.
So what if he was built like a Greek God?
Just because a person was a vegan didn’t mean they couldn’t walk through the dairy section of the grocery store.
It was simple observation and curiosity.
Because he was a friend.
And maybe an important Ace in the Hole for future outreach planning!
As Liam rattled off deadlines, Zoey’s phone buzzed with a text from Kayla: Eat lunch, you absolute nut.
Zoey sighed.
She’d skipped breakfast again, and with this next meeting, she probably wouldn’t eat for another two hours. Maybe three. She checked her watch, already feeling that slightly hollow, over-caffeinated buzz in her stomach that came from running on coffee and momentum.
She’d skipped lunch more than once this week too. Not on purpose, exactly. Just...things kept happening. Meetings popped up. People needed help. The PR team folded her into the foster home event they’d been planning for weeks. She was busy. Useful. In motion.
It left her energized in a way she hadn’t felt in years.
Yesterday, noticing her dress pants were fitting a little differently, she’d stepped on the scale and felt a quick, guilty flash of satisfaction before common sense could catch up.
Kayla had seen her face and gone immediately still, wearing that carefully neutral expression she only used when she wanted to say something and was very deliberately holding back.
Sure, it wasn’t ideal that Zoey had been missing meals. But Kayla’s concern felt a little premature. This was first-week chaos, not a crisis. She wasn’t unraveling. She was adjusting.
At least, that was what Zoey kept telling herself.
She felt good. Purposeful. Alive, even.
Finally.
So no, she didn’t need Kayla checking in like she was one skipped sandwich away from collapse. She silenced the text. With love.
Next week would be calmer. She’d eat normally then.
“Okay, next,” Liam said, flipping his tablet. “We have Baxter, the youth outreach brief, the weekend shoot with the junior league, and the social pull for Monday’s teaser drop. Anything I’m missing?”
“Yes. The calendar proposal with the Spartans.”
Liam yelped. “Shiz! I did not take notes on that!” He spun, panic wide in his eyes. “Do you have notes in your shared folder?”
Zoey touched his arm reassuringly. “Yeah, of course. All the folders are named. Just click through.”
She hesitated, unable to stop herself. “Just don’t edit anything. I hate when people edit my files and I don’t realize it, and then I have to dig through version history…”
Liam recoiled. “Who would edit your files?”
Fucking Nina, that’s who.
Zoey attempted a shrug. “Not sure. Just mentioning it.”
They reached the junction in the hallway as Evan, their media relations coordinator, joined them. He gave Liam a quick greeting before turning to her.
“Not sure if Little Liam remembered to tell you,” Evan said, “but we’re all heading to The Five Hole after work. Drinks, bad nachos, questionable karaoke. It’d be nice to have someone pretty and still hockey-minded to sit across from. You in?”
Zoey blinked, glancing at Liam, his face now scarlet as he stared at his shoes.
“Oh! I…um…”
Kayla. She and Zoey had barely seen each other all week. Tonight was supposed to be their catch-up night.
But Evan’s expectant look—maybe even flirting?—stirred something low in her stomach. A flutter she hardly recognized.
Was he flirting? Was she…being flirted with?
Eight months ago, she would’ve assumed he needed something from her. Now? Now she had no idea. Everything felt different without a ring on her finger. Being single sucked. She didn’t know how to be single!
She wanted to go to rage room and let loose all her frustrations! Alas…
“I promised my roommate I’d hang out tonight,” she said, wincing. “Raincheck?”
Evan’s grin returned easily. “Raincheck. We’ve got a long season ahead.”
He veered toward the media wing, Liam scurrying after him, leaving Zoey alone with her buzzing phone, her mile-long to-do list, and a strange flutter in her stomach she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Five days into her new life in Springfield and she was sleep-deprived, had filled out a foster parent interest questionnaire, was slightly underfed, mildly confused about workplace flirting…if it was even that…and feeling more optimistic than she’d felt in years.
Zoey took a steadying breath and headed toward her next meeting.
She was finally taking her life and happiness into her own hands.
So what if she wondered for like…three seconds…if one of her oldest friends was…proportional to his six-plus feet of height?
It was ignorable.
Probably.