Chapter 14 #2
They chipped away at their respective tasks.
She controlled herself, only glancing at him once, when she came to the competitive analysis slide.
GreenField UnLtd. was still out there, looming, but they’d barely had time to breathe while drowning in a sea of Brad-related tasks.
She already felt bad for him. They’d talk, tonight.
Although she’d promised herself that every night this week so far, and every night they collapsed at the end of the day, exhausted, to feed Luke’s newfound addiction to Hallmark movies.
It was easier to debate the impracticalities of pursuing dreams like ‘Christmas ornament decorator’ or ‘pumpkin farmer’ than plan future moves that had to acknowledge reality.
Still, that conversation was definitely not happening in the office.
Morgan slipped into a fugue of adjusting font sizes, which was strangely soothing.
It wasn’t until she hit the last page that she realized her neck hurt and Luke had wandered off at some point.
“Where’s the intern?” Brad stalked through the office. “When you see him, tell him he doesn’t need coffee, he needs to be in my office.”
Rix raised his head from his paws and whined. Morgan stroked his ears, careful to avoid where she knew the spines must be, and he settled.
“Hey, marketing girl,” Brad called through the open door as he passed.
“Morgan,” she reminded him.
“Morgan,” he repeated. “I took a glance: good job on the pitch deck for the analysts. Dropped in some comments.”
The wash of pleasure shocked her. When was the last time someone had said she’d done a good job?
Some time in school, maybe. Not at work, or at home.
She didn’t like or respect him, and yet she hungered to hear it again.
How sad was that? And it had only happened because of Luke—she wondered if somewhere, there was another shoe waiting to drop to balance this out.
Where was Luke, anyway? She glanced at his laptop screen, flooded in a sea of Slack messages from Brad. She might be in the CEO’s good graces, but poor Luke was very much not. Her stomach twisted in guilt.
She faked a stretch and then grabbed her empty mug. It made a good excuse to do a little walkaround. She didn’t want to lead Brad straight to Luke if Luke didn’t want to be found. She ambled her way over to the kitchen, trying to keep the fact that she was looking around from being too obvious.
The double-decker chocolate-chip-cookie/brownie bars she’d brought in had been thoroughly decimated. She snagged one of the remains that someone had cut unevenly into pieces while she waited for the Keurig machine to fill her cup with Decaf Caramel Bacon Popcorn Toast Extra Dark.
“Those cookie things are like, totally extra,” Vijay said, refilling his maté gourd from the hot water tap. “I think Ronaldo ate, like, half of them.”
“I’m carb-loading,” Ronaldo said defensively as he rummaged through the cabinets.
“I thought you were doing keto,” Morgan said, raising an eyebrow.
“That was two weeks ago, I’ve got a big race this weekend.” He found the protein powder he’d been looking for. “Vijay’s right, though. You should go on one of those baking shows. Make some big bucks.”
Morgan couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less than try to build a five-layer cake, with at least three different mousses sculpted to represent her childhood, in four and a half hours.
If nothing else, she didn’t know how to make a will-o’-the-wisp or a hostage situation out of buttercream.
“I think the marketing’s working out for me, thanks. ”
“If you say so.”
Nettled, she shot back. “What, you’d abandon the glamorous startup lifestyle for reality TV?”
“Maybe one of the American ones, not the wimpy everyone-is-nice British ones,” he said, dumping the powder followed by a can of energy drink into a giant metal water bottle emblazoned with the logo of a startup from down the hall who had failed, leaving all their remaining swag in a pile in the lobby.
“It’s not worth the opportunity cost for some glass cake stand.
You want at least half a mil to be worth it. ”
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And what would you do with half a million dollars? Are you one of those FIRE guys, then?”
He shook the vile concoction and took a swig. “You say it like it’s a bad thing. Financial independence, retire early? Sign me up.”
“When are you planning to retire?” she asked. “Thirty?”
He snorted. “If I stay on track, I should get my student loans sorted by thirty, and then I’m getting my mom set up.”
She blinked. “Your mom?”
“Yeah,” he said, a little defensively. “She’s a nurse. It’s been just her and me, you know? But her knees aren’t going to last forever, so it’s gonna be my turn to take care of her. Get her a nice little apartment where she can invite her friends over to watch her shows and shit.”
“That’s… really nice,” she said, feeling unbalanced. She wasn’t used to thinking of Ronaldo as caring about anyone but himself.
“Besides, she’s a total drag,” he continued. “She keeps buying me the wrong brand underwear and she harasses every chick I bring home for being different than the one I brought home the week before.”
And there was the Ronaldo she knew and didn’t love.
“Anyway, you should give it some thought,” he said, leaving with his horrid protein thing. “You need to get grinding, girl.”
“Or maybe you could open a bakery,” Vijay continued.
“What, you also think I suck at marketing?” She expected it of Ronaldo, but she’d thought Vijay was nicer.
“No, no!” he said, holding up his hands. “I meant that you seem to like baking more than working here. Or you did. You seem happier now.”
“Maybe I am?” It shouldn’t have been true, but it was.
Everything was terrible and her immortal soul was in peril.
But. Somehow she felt more fulfilled than she ever had before.
Maybe they could pull this off. Collaborating with Luke felt natural, almost effortless.
People liked her work. Brad had been surprisingly easy to sign and unsurprisingly annoying enough that she had trouble feeling that bad about it.
She knew she should feel bad about not feeling bad but every time she started to feel a flicker of remorse, Brad demanded something else ridiculous from Luke.
Was that the true price of her not-a-Deal gift from Luke?
The slow erosion of her soul? Except that it wasn’t hanging around Luke that made her feel more callous: it was hanging around Brad.
“Good for you,” Vijay said. She searched his face for some hint of sarcasm, but he looked back at her guilelessly.
“Thanks,” she said. It still felt weird, getting compliments.
Luke wasn’t in any of the little side rooms. He could be in the bathrooms, although it had been an awfully long time.
He could have left the building, but his bag was still there.
Also, he almost never went outside without her, she suddenly realized.
She might be having a better time, but he definitely wasn’t. She felt a wash of guilt.
Had something happened to him?
She took her mug back to her desk (the cookie bar didn’t make it). She had a brief pang of loss for the heat of her coffee, but it didn’t seem like the chemical-y caramel popcorn toastiness would be made significantly worse if she had to reheat it. She leaned over and whispered to Rix.
“Can you find Lucareoth?”
Rix bounced to his feet, tail wagging madly.
She followed him through the office. Hayley glared at him mistrustfully, Floofums growling from behind the safety of her ankles.
Carter ignored Morgan but gave Rix a little nod.
Kelly and Brad were mercifully ensconced in his office, so at least she didn’t have to deal with either of them.
Rix paused at the door to the supply closet.
Morgan considered. The closet was big enough for one person to hide and cry in, as she knew from personal experience. It would be very tight with two. Two plus an excitable hellhound was right out, unless Rix could squeeze himself onto one of the shelves.
“Good boy,” she told Rix. “Can you go back to the desk now?”
Rix cocked his head, tail wagging, not a thought in his big puppy illusion eyes.
She wasn’t sure if the glamour covered actual intelligence or if there really weren’t more than three brain cells bouncing around in that head.
She sighed, took him back to the desk, and returned to the closet.
She took a breath and then slipped inside.
She immediately knew it had been a mistake.
There was nowhere to stand that didn’t involve at least one part of her body touching him.
He’d been facing away from the door, so her front ended up pressed against his back, one of her feet between his.
This close, he smelled like charcoal smoke and her own jasmine body wash, which explained how she’d been going through it so quickly.
Flustered, she tried to figure out what to do with her hands.
She wanted to put them on his hips, or maybe slide them up his chest. Which was not friend-like behavior.
She shoved them in her pockets, knocking over a bottle of glue.
“Oh! Ah. These, umm, metal things are really twisted together,” Luke blurted, fumbling around on the shelf. The box of paper clips crumpled in his hand and the clips showered to the floor. He dove after them. “I’ll, umm, pick these up and get out of your way.”
“I’ll help,” she said, starting to crouch right as he looked up and slammed the top of his head into her face.
Her vision went briefly white as pain exploded along her cheekbone. She flailed and sat down heavily on the bottom shelf. Pens rained down on them both.
“Are you OK?” he cried. More crashing heralded additional office supply casualties, but her eyes were tightly shut.
“Oww,” she gritted out.