Dear Jenna,
So proud of you for all your hard work.
Always thinking of you.
Love, Grandma
Let me take this moment to say...my grandma was dead.
My whole body froze, temporarily lost in the overwhelming aroma of roses. I was still staring in bewilderment at the card when my door pushed open, and Michael stuck his head inside. “I hope you like my present.”
My eyes flickered twice between him in the card, before my face clouded in anger. “This was you? You sent these?”
He flashed a quick grin. “Well, I didn’t want to sign them myself and make a big deal of things at the office. Discretion’s the name of the game, you know. So I used a code name, so I’d be incognito.”
Before I had a chance to retort, he breezed back down the hall, leaving the door wide open in his wake. With a little shriek of frustration, I tossed the card in the trash and slammed it shut behind him. It was still very early. Hardly anyone was in the office yet, and I wasn’t really afraid of who might see. Tensions were so high these days, what with Christmas just around the corner, they probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it anyway.
With a grand sigh, I slumped into my chair, dropping my face into my hands. How did a week that started so magnificently end in such a depressing rut. Tom had been avoiding me like the plague—which not only hurt my feelings but started office rumors that I’d offended him in some great way. Michael was finding every excuse possible to stop by, and now, had apparently started sending flowers; and Macer had decided after the merger and our strange two-handed-handshake that I was some kind of superwoman and was giving me the workload of five people.
All in all—things sucked!
There was another knock on my door. My head snapped up in irritation. Oh, the man certainly had some nerve.
“What?!” I demanded, up and ready for round two.
Much to my surprise, it was Tom, not Michael, who stepped inside.
For a second, we just stared at each other. The terrible week hung unspoken in the air between us, and he opened his mouth with an apologetic frown. Then his eyes came to rest on the bouquet of roses. All at once, his hesitant expression darkened dramatically as whatever he was going to say flew right out the window.
“Who are those from?” he asked with soft menace. “Your boyfriend?”
That’s when I snapped.
My eyes narrowed, and I stood up slowly behind my desk, fixing him with a scalding glare. He didn’t get to be an overly-distant asshole and leave me to answer awkward questions all week, and then come over the second he saw some roses. It didn’t work like that.
I snatched up my copy of the merger and kicked my rolling chair halfway across the room as I stormed past him on my way out. “They’re from my dead grandma!”
Five minutes later, I was in the copy room. My face flashed neon blue as the machine scanned each page of the merger, humming mechanically as I angrily switched out the papers after every turn. This was intern’s work. Assistant’s work. The work that I’d be doing if Katie McGill hadn’t gotten back on that plane to California. But despite the somewhat cramped and musty quarters, I rather liked it down here. At least I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be running into any Larchwoods in the copy room.
“Jenna?”
Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!
I cursed and whirled around in frustration. “What do you want, Tom?” Before he could say anything, I quickly added, “And I thought it was ‘Miss Harks.’”
He slipped inside and shut the door behind him, eying my face with caution. “Why are you in the copy room?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped back. The machine beeped and I shoved another paper inside. “And what do you care? I’m surprised you even know where this place is.”
“I had to ask someone,” he admitted. When he didn’t get a reaction, he stepped closer, resting a tentative hand on the merger to stop my constant motion. “Will you—will you stop and talk to me for a minute?”
“Now you want to talk?” I asked scathingly. “Okay, fine Tom. What do you want to talk about? How you’ve been openly snubbing me for the past week? How this entire office thinks I must have run over your dog or something because of the way you’ve been treating me?”