Page 99 of Last Night Was Fun

The weight of it all hit her when they left the office and reentered the hallway. She paused to catch her breath and leaned on the wall.

“Are you okay?” Gabe asked, and instantly stepped to her side.

She looked up at him with a tremble in her lip and tears glossing her eyes. “Did we just ruin everything?”

He gently cupped her face to catch her tears before they fell. He shook his head. “No. Everything will be fine.”

“You don’t know that.” Emmy’s voice cracked, and Gabe wrapped her in his arms. The smell and heat of him enveloped her. Aside from that kiss he stole in the kitchen, it was the closest they’d ever been at work. She wanted to melt straight into him. At the same time, it felt forbidden to be touching so intimately.

“We’re going to get in trouble,” she said, and gently pushed him back with a soggy sniffle.

“No, we’re not. There are no rules, remember?”

“Yeah, but there might berecourse.”

He curved his fingers under her chin to tilt her face up. “Yes, but what’s the worst they can do, force us to work together? We already can’t stand each other.” He softly smiled with a sparkle in his dark eyes.

A weak laugh popped from her lips. “Stop making jokes.”

He caught a stray tear with his thumb. “At least you’re laughing at them.”

“Only because I’m sad.” She fiddled with the button on his shirt and then smoothed her hand against his chest.

“Come on,” he said, and pulled her away from the wall. “We better get back to the office in case anyone gets suspicious about why we’re both gone. Speaking of, are we going to tell Ishida and Torres?”

Emmy snorted. “Only if we want them to never shut up about it.”

“They never shut up about anything,” Gabe said, slinging an arm over her shoulders. She briefly leaned into him, wishing she could stay, and then removed herself to a professional distance.

“Let’s make sure we’re not going to get fired before we PDA all over the place.”

She was half joking, but he nodded in agreement.

They returned to their office with no fanfare. Pedro and Silas were fully occupied staring at their computers with headphones on. Emmy and Gabe sat at their desks and did their best to work. Emmy found herself jumping every time her inbox pinged, fearing an email from HR—or even Alice asking her why the hell she was throwing a wrench in her promotion plan, because surely she’d been notified by now.

But then Emmy would glance at Gabe and think about the warmth of his body wrapped around hers, the sound of his laugh. The way her frustration with him had so quickly ripened into a deeply rooted desire to be close to him, and how her heart was cartwheeling over the thought of where they might go together.

She silently prayed that there would not be a choice put before her—her job or him—because she honestly did not know what she would pick. The choice had been easy with Jacob, but with Gabe... The thought hollowed out her insides with fear.

At around three o’clock, her email pinged at the same second Gabe’s did. The chime in stereo sent her heart beating double time; she knew what it meant. Gabe glanced over their cubicle wall at her, and she read her distress all over his face. He attempted an encouraging nod, but it fell flat. She gave him just as weak of a nod before they both turned to their screens.

An email from Todd waited at the top of her inbox.

“Always straight to the point,” she muttered and clicked it.

She quickly noted both Alice and Director Allen had been cc’d.

Ms.Jameson, Mr.Olson,

Following up on our meeting this morning—after careful consideration and review, your supervisory team has determined the nature of your personal relationship is problematic to the potential for promotional advancement. Given that the senior analyst position carries seniority over your current roles as analysts, the department feels that the resulting power imbalance would be inappropriate should one of you assume the role. If either or both of you wish to continue being considered for promotion, please formally inform HR of the termination of your personal relationship by this coming Monday. If you wish to remove yourselves from consideration, no further recourse is necessary. We thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Todd Waters, Director of Human Resources

Emmy read the email twice, trying to make it sink in, but it kept bouncing off her brain as if she were throwing a rubber ball at a wall.

Problematic to the potential for promotional advancement.