Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

It would be inappropriate to fling her arms around Adro and say take me with you, but that’s what she wanted to do. They stood in the sun outside the council offices entrance and looked at each other. Five years they’d worked together, plotted together, gone on coffee runs together, Foley’s seniority was rarely more than an on paper factor, they were colleagues and friends and this was going to hurt.

“I’ll miss you too,” she said it grudgingly, like it was a required line giving voice to a mandatory sentiment, then added, “like a bad smell.”

He grunted. “So classy. How have I ever lasted this long with you?”

She followed him up the steps. “You love me.”

He held the door open. “Against my better judgement.”

She stood in the open door way. “And the rest of the team?” She braced for his answer, she’d been so busy, so full of excuses, she’d been ignoring all but the basic workflow needs.

“Holding for now.” He took his sunnies off. “A little more insulated from the brawling.”

“We’re not brawling.” Seriously, she wasn’t that obvious. She moved through the doorway, Adro at her back.

Gabriella was standing in the entrance. She smiled. “Afternoon tea.”

Foley tensed for no good reason, remembering that moment earlier, Gabriella turning her face away in avoidance, Roger’s perhaps too bright smile. “We’re desperados.”

“Java addicts,” said Adro.

“Team meeting is in,” Gabriella consulted her watch and having seen it enough times, Foley knew it was a posh brand, “two minutes.”

“What team meeting?” she said.

Adro gave her a nudge in the back, a shut up nudge.

Gabriella tapped her watch face. “One minute.” She walked towards one of the conference rooms.

“What meeting?” Foley muttered. Fifteen minutes ago there was no team meeting. “She’s up to something.”

Adro nudged her again, this time in the direction Gabriella took. “See what I mean, duelling menus at dawn, sharpened spatulas in the back. She’s entitled to call a team meeting whenever she wants one.”

“She called it to catch us out.”

“Why would she bother and she didn’t, so what’s the issue?”

Was she jumping at shadows, so uptight about Gabriella she was seeing conspiracy without a theory? She turned to face Adro. “Why?” She meant why did he want to leave and she knew he’d know it.

He grinned. “Because she called a meeting to try and catch us out and much as it’s entertaining to watch the two of you go head to head, I’ve honestly got better things to do.”

“Like your hair,” she hissed. Adro was balder than Hugh.

“My hair is perfect,” he said and this time outright shoved her in the direction of the meeting room.

It was a meeting about nothing, about Gabriella hearing the sound of her own voice, about taking up time and messing up people’s afternoons. Foley sat silently because there was no call on her to speak and because that seemed the least obtrusive and obnoxious thing to do, but forty minutes later when they were all filing out, Megan said, “Why didn’t you say something?”

Foley opened her hands in a what gesture.

“You could’ve said something.”

She repeated Adro’s line, “Gabriella is entitled to call a meeting whenever she wants one.”

“She’s not entitled to waste our time and that’s what,” Megan pointed behind them towards the meeting room, “that was.” She pushed past Foley. “I’ll have to work back late now. If you don’t say something, what hope do the rest of us have?”

The answer to that was not much. Back at their desks there was a lot of surreptitious significant eye contact and a loud call from Megan to her husband about having to work back. Foley couldn’t wait to get out of the place. She put her head down and powered through, and was one of the first out the door. She was home and changed into her running gear and parked at the beach ready to pound her frustrations out before Megan’s husband could pick up their baby from day care.

She’d run alone the last two nights. No sign of Drum. She figured she’d be doing it alone again tonight. She’d managed to scare him right off with her talk of friendship, but she hadn’t been able to forget about him and tonight she could do with a friend.