Page 3 of The Trouble with Love and Ink
Because, really, what else was there to say? They’d already hired Shirt Guy. It’s not like the powers that be were going to say: Oops! We forgot we had a totally competent employee for the position until she whined about it.
It was a done deal.
Wesley looked at his phone, claiming to have a Zoom meeting with corporate. So, I returned to my cubicle, immediately pulling up an email I’d gotten from a headhunter a month ago. I wondered if she was still looking for a business analyst fluent in AX.
I’d start by updating my resume. I’d worked at The Arlow Group for five years. I had experience now. Certainly, I could find a pay range to match that. Maybe I could even find a job with a healthy work-life balance. If those even existed.
I pulled my resume from Google Docs but stopped, mouse hovering by the reply button. I let out a long breath. I wasn’t in any position to make life-altering decisions, not when this angry, anyway.
I worked in a big, clean office in a beautiful location with mostly good people. My job was secure, and I made enough money to afford rent.
The grass wasn’t always greener on the other side. I clicked out of my resume and dropped the idea of quitting.
I didn’t have time for fantasies. There was a reason I’d had to cancel my trip with Hailey. I opened my inbox to find eighty-three unanswered support tickets. My stomach dropped at the daunting day ahead. Not even my new mouse pad or coconut plug-in could save me now.
At six o’clock, Anna shuffled past my desk, tote on her shoulder. “Don’t let them keep you late,” she said with a yawn. “At least you won’t be alone. The new guy is burning the midnight oil too, wants to get through as many orientation videos as possible.”
My eyes flicked in the direction of his cube, but I had no intention of discussing Beckett. He may not have intentionally stolen my job, but I was still sore about it. “I’m not staying much later,” I said to her original comment. “One more ticket, and I’m out of here. Ten minutes tops.”
Except the last ticket I opened proved to be quite the challenge, and before I knew it, I found myself lost in the puzzle. By the time I realized the complexity of the problem, I’d already dove too deep.
I emerged from the office two hours later than Anna, eyes burning from staring at my computer screen too long, shoulders aching from my rigid posture. The only perk of leaving the office late was the view of the Woodlands waterway. Our building was nestled among boutique shops, several restaurants, and my gym. All of which sat right on the bank. At night, they illuminated the stringed lights on the trees, which reflected romantically on the water. There was no arguing; it was a great location.
Or so I thought.
As I pulled my keys from my bag, a piece of paper knocked loose. The wind picked it up, and the note tumbled to the waterway, where it snagged on a low-hanging branch reaching toward the water like a witch’s gnarled hand.
I squinted at the paper, only inches above the water, hating littering but sure I wasn’t missing anything important. Then I made out the lavender square. It had seemed like seventy years ago Anna had given me her cousin’s address on that sticky note.
Damn it! Can’t forget Georgia.
I dropped my bag near the tree and tested a perpendicular branch—a skinny thing—but it seemed sturdy enough. Gripping tightly, I leaned out and over the water, my free hand stretching toward the note.
My fingertips grazed the paper when I heard the crack.
I barely had time to register the branch had snapped when water enveloped me—cold and unwelcoming. I doggy-paddled upward, forgetting all other strokes until I surfaced, gasping and sputtering. My hand slapped against the concreted edge, and I pushed myself up—something I do every morning after swimming laps at the gym—but my arms buckled, and I slipped right back in.
“Here, I’ve got you,” a deep voice called. “Grab my hand.”
With hair and water in my eyes, I could only make out a squatting figure on the bank in front of me. I reached out. My hand met a muscular forearm, and I held tight as he easily pulled me up.
“Th-thank you,” I said, pushing soaked hair away from my face.
As soon as I did, I locked eyes with my rescuer, Beckett—Beck, The Arlow Group’s newest senior associate. It took half a second for my gratitude to dissolve into embarrassment. Had he stayed this late trying to get ahead of those orientation videos? No one worked this late on our team . . . except me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, helping me to my feet.
Can you die from embarrassment? “Yes. I’m okay. I just dropped something, and I—”
Beck’s eyes trailed down to his arm, where I’d soaked his nice dress shirt from wrist to elbow. And as quickly as my gratitude had flipped to embarrassment, his concern turned to disgust.
“I’m sorry,” I said, cheeks and ear tips flaming.
Beck looked back at me. “What could you have possibly dropped to warrant diving for it?”
“I didn’t dive for it!” My voice rose with the need to defend myself. “I fell in.”
Beck ignored that. “Because even if it had been a hundred-dollar bill—”
