Chapter 28 - Day 10 The Ice Cream Lady #2
"Good. Just checking."
"Ms. Stone."
"Coming."
I hung up.
Maya looked over.
I pointed at her before she could speak.
"No."
Her mouth closed.
I grabbed my notebook and walked toward Adrian's office.
He had a drawing open across his desk.
I stopped in front of it.
"What did I do now?"
"Nothing."
"That sounds suspicious."
He looked up.
"Do you require criticism before you'll review something?"
"From you? Usually it arrives automatically."
"Sit."
I sat.
He turned the drawing toward me.
"North entrance."
I looked down.
The Solara entrance canopy.
"What about it?"
"The revised dimensions."
I studied them.
Then looked at him.
"No."
His eyebrows lifted.
"What?"
"No."
"You haven't reviewed them."
"I've seen enough."
"For approximately three seconds."
"It only required two."
Silence.
Adrian stared at me.
I stared back.
Then the corner of his mouth moved.
Barely.
Oh.
I smiled.
"You taught me that."
"I regret it."
"You should."
I leaned closer to the drawing.
The canopy projection had been reduced.
I frowned.
"Why did you pull this back?"
"Structural coordination."
"Too much."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"You're going to lose the shadow line."
"It remains sufficient."
"It remains boring."
"Not everything that displeases you is boring."
"Most things that displease me are your decisions."
"That explains your resignation."
I stopped.
So did he.
The joke had come out easily.
Too easily.
And landed somewhere neither of us expected.
His expression changed.
Mine probably did too.
For a second, the office disappeared.
Four days.
I looked back at the drawing.
"That wasn't why I resigned."
His voice was quieter when he answered.
"I know."
I looked at him.
He was already looking at me.
No defensiveness.
No joke.
Just-
I know.
And somehow that mattered.
Because he did know.
He knew exactly why I'd resigned.
He knew what he'd done.
And he hadn't done it again.
Not once.
We still argued.
He still rejected things.
He was still rude.
Still impossible.
Still Adrian.
But since that day, every argument had stayed where it belonged.
On the work.
I looked back down.
"It's still too short."
"I disagree."
"Obviously."
I drew a line across the plan.
"Give me another eighteen inches."
"Twelve."
"Eighteen."
"Fourteen."
I looked up.
"Are we negotiating a canopy?"
"Apparently."
"Sixteen."
"Fifteen."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Fifteen and a half."
"No."
"You're being petty over half an inch."
"You're the one who added it."
"Because fifteen is ugly."
"Measurements don't have personalities."
"You would say that."
He leaned back.
"Fifteen."
"Fine."
I circled it aggressively.
"Your ugly fifteen inches."
"I'll try to recover."
My pen stopped.
I looked up.
He knew.
Absolutely knew.
Asshole.
"You're doing that on purpose now."
"Doing what?"
"Stealing my stolen vocabulary."
"You stole it from me."
"I improved it."
"Debatable."
I shook my head and started writing the revision.
For several minutes, we worked.
Actually worked.
No Ethan.
No mug.
No car.
No resignation.
Just dimensions.
Materials.
Structure.
The kind of ordinary argument I had somehow started measuring my days by.
Lunch came and went.
The afternoon disappeared into work.
Real work.
Annoyingly productive work.
At two-fifteen, Daniel disagreed with one of my transition notes.
He was wrong.
At two-forty, Nicole asked where I'd hidden three months of consultant correspondence.
I had not hidden it.
She simply lacked investigative skills.
At three-ten, Ben discovered the mug.
This was inevitable.
He picked it up from beside my monitor.
I looked up.
"Put that down."
He read the front.
Then looked at me.
Then back at the mug.
"Oh, this is disgusting."
I frowned.
"What?"
"You let Ethan officially declare himself your favorite coworker?"
"I didn't let him do anything."
Ben turned the mug around.
His eyes found the heart.
His eyebrows went up.
"There's a heart."
From her desk, Maya said, "We've already litigated the heart."
Ben looked interested.
"Who litigated it?"
I immediately pointed at my screen.
"Nobody."
Maya smiled.
"Your Majesty."
Ben went completely still.
Then slowly looked toward Adrian's office.
I closed my eyes.
Wonderful.
When I opened them, Ben was grinning.
"No."
"Yes," Maya said.
"No."
"Yes."
Ben looked at me.
"He objected to the heart?"
"He did not object."
"He observed."
Maya nodded solemnly.
"Several times."
I took the mug out of Ben's hand.
"All of you have jobs."
Ben looked toward Adrian's office again.
"So does he, apparently, but that hasn't stopped him from conducting mug surveillance."
"Go away."
He laughed and finally did.
I put the mug back beside my monitor.
Exactly where it had been.
At least until Tuesday.
My smile disappeared.
Tuesday.
I looked at the clock.
3:17.
Friday was moving too quickly.
That was unfair.
For weeks, I'd wanted workdays around Adrian to end faster.
Now I wanted this one to slow down.
Just a little.
Because after today-
Saturday.
Sunday.
Then Monday.
Then Tuesday.
And that was it.
I looked toward his office.
He was standing beside the window.
Deep blue against the Miami afternoon.
I looked back at my screen.
Four days.
I hated that number.
Around five, everyone started packing up.
Computers shut down.
Chairs rolled back.
Bags appeared from under desks.
I was putting my laptop away when Ethan stopped beside me.
"Are you sure you don't want to leave with us?"
Before I could answer, Maya stepped in.
"Come on, Ethan. She already told Adrian she's leaving with him. It'll look bad if she doesn't now."
For once in my life, I was thankful to Maya.
Deeply thankful.
"I already said I'd go with him," I said.
Ethan nodded.
"Okay."
No argument.
No weirdness.
Thank God.
I picked up my bag and left with them.
We separated near Adrian's office.
I slowed when I reached his door.
It was open.
After that day in the conference room, I had never gone into Adrian's office without knocking.
I didn't even peek inside anymore.
Not once.
It had become an invisible boundary.
One I hadn't realized I'd created until now.
For the first time in a long time, I peeked inside.
Adrian was behind his desk, looking at his monitor.
"Come in," he said.
Of course he'd noticed me.
I walked inside.
"Sit."
I sat in the chair across from him.
"I'm almost done. It'll just take five minutes."
"Take your time. I don't have a flight to catch."
His eyes remained on the monitor.
His fingers moved over the keyboard.
"Hungry?"
I blinked.
Apparently yesterday had traumatized him.
"No. Not today. You?"
"No."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes."
"Just checking."
He didn't respond.
But I saw the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth.
A few minutes later, Adrian finished whatever he was doing.
He closed one window.
Then another.
Saved something.
His phone rang.
He picked it up.
"Yes."
A pause.
His eyebrows pulled together slightly.
"Today?"
Another pause.
"Right now?"
He leaned back in his chair.
Listened.
Then-
"Okay. I'll pick them up."
He ended the call.
I didn't ask.
Adrian put his phone down.
Then looked at me.
For some reason, he hesitated.
"Angelica."
"Yes?"
"I have to pick up my kids."
Oh.
"Oh, it's fine, Adrian. I'll take an Uber."
"No. It's on your way home. It'll just take five minutes."
He paused.
"If it's not too late for you."
"I don't have any problem."
He studied my face.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Told you, I don't have a flight to catch."
I reached for my bag.
"But if you don't want me to be around your kids, then-"
"No."
The answer came immediately.
I stopped.
Adrian seemed to realize how quickly he'd said it.
"No, that's not what I meant."
Oh.
"Okay."
He picked up his jacket.
"Let's go."
Adrian was driving.
Again.
Apparently this was my life now.
I sat in the passenger seat of his Tesla while he pulled out of the parking garage.
For the first few minutes, neither of us said anything.
Then I looked at him.
"Where are they?"
"School."
I turned toward him.
"At five-thirty?"
"After-school program."
"Oh."
That made significantly more sense.
I looked out the window.
Then back at him.
"How far?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"You said five."
"I said picking them up would take five minutes."
"That was deceptive."
"It was accurate."
"Selective accuracy is still deception."
"No, it isn't."
"It absolutely is."
Adrian glanced at me.
"You're still in the car."
"Unfortunately."
"You can get out."
"We're moving."
"I'll stop."
"Keep driving."
He did.
Asshole.
About fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of an elementary school.
Adrian parked.
I reached for my phone.
"I'll wait here."
His hand stopped on the door handle.
"Why?"
I looked at him.
"Because they're your kids?"
"Yes."
"And I'm your employee."
"For four more days."
There it was.
Again.
I looked away.
"Exactly."
Adrian was quiet for a second.
Then-
"You don't have to wait in the car."
I looked at him.
He had already opened his door.
That wasn't exactly an invitation.
But coming from Adrian Vale, it was practically a handwritten one.
So I got out.
We walked toward the building together.
And something felt strangely different about seeing him here.
No glass office.
No tie-adjusting executives.
No Solara drawings.
No employees moving out of his way.
Just Adrian.
A father coming to pick up his children.
We had barely made it inside when I heard-
"DADDY!"
A small blonde missile came flying down the hallway.
Adrian barely had time to bend before Elena crashed into him.
He caught her automatically.
Both arms around her.
And there it was.
That version of him.
The one that still did something deeply unfair to my internal organs.
"Hi, bug."
"You're late."
"I'm not late."
"You are."