Chapter 48 Andrea
Andrea
The elevator was heading up, and I pulled my bag a little tighter against me. I still wasn’t a huge fan of lifts, but I could handle it if someone was in there with me. This morning, there was only me and Roger from accounts going up.
Unfortunately, he didn’t look like the kind of person who’d joke about penis graffiti and asses if we got stuck in there together.
The doors opened onto the fourth floor, and I walked over to my desk and powered up my laptop just as my phone pinged.
Eliza: Andy, just talk to him. Today.
Me: I can’t. I told you why.
Eliza: I told you why you should.
Me: I just … can’t.
I couldn’t face him. Couldn’t stand seeing him here like this in the office, wanting him so much but knowing it wasn’t possible.
Liam was always in before everyone arrived and still there when everyone left—more than he’d even been when he’d first bought us. He’d tried to catch my eye again the other day like he was going to come over, but I’d looked away quickly.
It didn’t matter how much my heart ached, I still struggled with his need to control everything.
Hello, kettle. This is pot calling. Yeah, Eliza had certainly made sure I’d got that memo.
But what Liam had done was nothing like me with Eliza. Yes, I liked to keep certain things … under control. But that just made sense. My sister was young, and I was looking out for her. It came from a good place, and Eliza knew that, underneath it all.
And of course I liked my independence, too—who wouldn’t? But independence isn’t the same as control. It’s just … adulthood, isn’t it? I’d never make decisions for Liam without his permission. That was controlling.
How could he not have known how buying my painting would make me feel?
I’d loved what we’d had together, especially since I’d got to know him more, but maybe our relationship had simply run its course. Maybe the grown-up thing to do would be to just accept we weren’t right for each other, and to move on. We were too different, that wasn’t going to change …
But still, my head lifted from my screen every time I heard his voice.
He was almost always walking quickly, phone to his ear, his tone serious and subdued.
Other than the odd glimpse of him, he was shut in rooms with Bonnie or the leadership team all day.
The glass wall to the boardroom had been frosted.
I missed him. I missed laughing about silly anecdotes that only we found funny. Feeling his arms around me at night.
The way he was so formal one minute and then joking with me the next.
How stiff he was with Mr. Darcy, and how he tried so hard to be nice and pet him anyway.
How he noticed what I needed and always made sure I was okay.
And it hadn’t been getting better, the missing. It had been getting worse.
I even missed those hideous pink cushions I’d left at his place. He’d kept them there, exactly where I’d left them the night Hugo and Miranda came over, insisting he actually quite liked them.
Did he lie on the sofa in his Snuggie with a pink pillow under his head without me? My eyes filled with tears every time I thought of it.
Eliza’s words had been going around in my brain nonstop.
“But you’re so scared that maybe if you care too much, maybe if you love someone for real instead of just looking after them like a stray cat, it might not work out, and then you’ll be fucked.”
Was it fear that kept me from reaching out to Liam?
No, anyone would feel like I did if their boyfriend had done what he had.
I slid open my phone.
Me: I’m glad we made up.
Eliza: Aw, don’t be silly. We always make up. We’re sisters.
Me: I just worry about you, you know.
Eliza: I know you do.
A pause.
Eliza: I worry about you, too.
Me: See you after work?
Eliza: You bring the wine, I’ll bring the hummus :)
But I didn’t just worry about her. I was going to miss her when she left, and I couldn’t bear to think about her leaving.
A meeting invite blinked at the top of the screen: HR check-in—11:00 a.m. Tuesday
I stared at it. No agenda. Since when did Bonnie schedule meetings with no agenda? She had an agenda for buying lunch.
It was probably standard restructuring stuff—everyone who was left was getting extra accounts.
Our workloads would almost double, and there had already been an email about “leaner, more agile teams.” Someone had reacted with a beaming emoji, then thought better of it and deleted it.
Was it even possible to use that one without sounding sarcastic?
I accepted the invite and opened my sales dashboard. My pipeline was a mess. Three deals marked Paused and one marked Transferred with no details attached. I clicked into a note flagged Overdue. Kelly’s name was still on it.
I reassigned it to myself.
Only sixteen more to go.
Yeah, no. They could wait.
I stood and went to the kitchen. The coffee machine was still blinking a Descale warning. Who normally did that? Maybe I should.
I grabbed a mug and popped a teabag in it instead.
When I turned, James was there.
“Morning.” I poured hot water into my mug, and it slopped over the rim onto the counter. I watched it spread for a second before grabbing a paper towel. Crap, Andy. Get your head into gear.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
His eyes shot to the open door, then back to me. “All right. You?”
“Yeah. You know.”
There’s a dull ache just next to my heart like a bruise, but apart from that, peachy.
Bonnie walked past the kitchen and kept going. She was already on her phone.
“Good weekend?” I dipped the teabag in and out of the water. “Baz and you still going strong?”
“Yeah, okay. I had to work half of it though. HR’s … busy.”
“Oh? That’s not good.”
“No, it’s—” He stopped. “Baz is fine.”
“Fine?” I chucked the teabag into the bin. “Is that all you’ve got for me? Whatever happened to James’s Monday morning hot sex updates?”
“Sorry, Andy. I’ve got a thing.” He picked up his instant coffee. “There’s shit going on, I’ll fill you in when I can—”
He was gone.
What was up with James? When I’d told him about Liam and me breaking up, he’d been genuinely upset for me, although it made sense to him more than it did to my sister.
She didn’t have to see the fallout from the restructure like we did.
Monish and Kelly had both been quiet when I’d mentioned Liam and I were over.
It had hurt just to say it out loud, but I’d wanted them to know, so they wouldn’t think I was somehow okay with this disaster happening to them.
But Monish was always reserved, and Kelly was too focused on trying to find somewhere else to live to worry much about my love life.
Understandable.
Now that I wasn’t with Liam, the option of her staying at mine was unworkable, unless two of us shared a room. But we’d do it if we had to. James’s landlord wouldn’t allow another lodger, so there weren’t many options left.
I headed back to my desk and passed a meeting room. Two people I didn’t recognize were making notes on the whiteboard, and their conversation floated into the hallway.
“No, those teams aren’t going now. They’re on the transfer pathway.”
One of them saw me approach and shut the door. What the hell was a transfer pathway?
On my desk, an all-staff email had landed while I was gone.
Subject: URGENT: Facilities Update - Desk Reallocation
Please do not move ANY equipment until further notice.
I closed it without reading the rest, then opened my calendar and stared at the empty blocks around my meeting tomorrow.
HR check-in—11:00 a.m.
Was this something I should be worried about? The terms of my NDA still applied, didn’t they?
I minimized it and went back to work.