“That was for an old friend.”
“Yeah, well…” She slid off my desk. “Your old friend must share an address with Aubrey Everhart because I pulled up her records from HR and she definitely stayed there.”
Silence.
“I thought so.” She smirked. “So, since you and I are so close—”
“We are not close.”
“It’s my duty as a friend to let you know that you’re really letting yourself go...” She actually looked saddened. “You’re not shaving, you’re coming to work every morning reeking of alcohol, and you’re barely yelling at the interns…I haven’t had a wet dream about you in a very long time.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up, wiping the part of my desk where her ass had been.
“But, since I know your secret about Aubrey now, you can know one of mine,” she said, lowering her voice. “Sometimes, in the mornings, when she would bring you your coffee and shut the door, I would stand outside and listen…” Her eyes lit up. “And I would just pretend that it was me…”
“Pretend what was you?”
“Aubrey,” she said. “Clearly she was good enough for you to break the ‘I don’t f**k my employees’ rule.” She stepped toward the door. “I knew the second she started here that you liked her.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I don’t.” She looked over her shoulder. “But I do know that the second she quit, you’ve been a shell of yourself. You have yet to realize that you’ve been wearing the same blue suit for two weeks straight.”
I took a long swig of scotch from the bottle, numbly staring at the images that were playing on my television screen. A little blond girl playing in the rain—stomping her red boots in every puddle she could find.
“It’s time to go, Emma…”
I winced at hearing the sound of my old voice, but I continued watching the scene.
“Five more minutes!” She begged with a smile.
“You don’t even know what that means. You’ve just heard me say it…”
“Five more minutes!” She jumped into another puddle, laughing. “Five more minutes, Daddy!”
“It’s going to rain all week. Don’t you want to go home and—”
“No!” She stomped her feet in a puddle again, splashing me. And then she smiled innocently into the camera before running away—begging me to chase her.
I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I turned off the TV and knocked the DVD player to the floor.
Fuck…
Walking down the hallway, I straightened the “E” and “H” frames that hung on the wall—trying my best not to look too hard.
I didn’t need to make myself another drink tonight. I needed someone to talk to.
I grabbed my phone from the night-stand, scrolling down my contacts for the one person who’d once kept the nightmares at bay. Aubrey.
It rang four times and went to voicemail.
“Hi. You’ve reached Aubrey Everhart,” it said. “I’m unable to take your call right now, but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
The second the beep sounded I hung up. Then I called again, just to listen to that small snippet of her voice. I told myself that I wasn’t being pathetic by calling her five times—knowing damn well that she wasn’t there, but when I called the sixth time, she picked up.
“Hello?” she answered. “Andrew?”