“I’ll be right back.”
She went to her desk, found the emails he wanted, and set them to print. More trees had to die because Jake liked to hold paper in his hand rather than read from a screen.
She was about to walk over to the printer when she noticed for the first time a wrapped present on the corner of her desk.
It was wrapped in solid blue paper with a pink bow stuck on the top. She knew who it was from.
Jake must have bought a huge bag of those pink bows at some point, because he always stuck them on his presents.
She also knew what the present was. Some sort of book on surfing.
He gave them to her on birthdays, at Christmas, on Secretary’s Day—or whatever they called it now—and sometimes he gave them to her just because. When she first started working for him, she’d admitted that she’d never surfed before and had never even wanted to. He’d teased her about how she needed to learn, and he’d bought her a book on surfing as some sort of light-hearted encouragement.
Since then, he kept giving her books on surfing. It was their thing. Some were expensive coffee table books with beautiful, glossy photos. Some were cheaper paperbacks. A few were novels. One was a children’s book. The single unifying characteristic was that surfing was somehow featured in the book.
Today, she felt a familiar ache of affection in her chest as she slid her fingers down the fold to disconnect the tape. The book she unwrapped was old—very old with thick, aging pages and a faded cover.
She opened the cover and saw it had been published in 1942. It was the real-life story of a group of surfers on the California coast.
She flipped the pages, amazed and delighted by the formal language and the antique feel of the book. Where the hell had he even found this old thing?
After looking at it for a few minutes, she laid it on the low bookcase behind her desk that held the rest of the books he’d given her.
Then she made herself put aside her soft feelings and stand up. It was time. She needed to tell him about the job offer. She needed to give him two-weeks’ notice.
And a sweet gift wasn’t going to change it.
She was going to have to leave him. She could barely imagine life without him, which should be a clear sign that she was in too deep here and it just wasn’t good for her.
She grabbed the stack of pages from the printer on her way back to his office. He was back at his scribbles and didn’t look up as she came in.
She set the printouts on his desk and then sat down in a side chair and waited.
After a moment, he looked up, evidently realizing that she was waiting for him. “Oh,” he said, “You wanted to talk about something.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the book, by the way. Where did you find it?”
He gave a shrug. “Some old bookstore.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“What else would I do with a book on surfing?”
“Put it in one of your shops,” she suggested. Jake’s surf shops had been so successful because he’d designed them for people to spend time in rather than just buy surf equipment and get surf lessons. They sold snacks and beverages, offered clothes of all kinds, had large book sections with comfortable chairs, and a variety of charming gifts. The one in Malibu even had an art gallery above the shop. “Maybe you could add a section of rare books to—”
“It was for you.” For some reason, he looked a little grumpy. He frowned at her.
“Okay. Anyway. Thank you.”
“You had something to talk about?”
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I need to tell you something.”
He must have heard something in her tone because he put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, watching her closely.
She tried to start talking, but no words left her throat when she opened her mouth.
After a moment, he said, “What did you have to say?”
“I got a job offer.”
He stiffened visibly. “What?”
“I got a job offer. A good one. A marketing job.”
“What are you they offering you?”
It wasn’t the reaction she’d been hoping for. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was hoping for—maybe for him to suddenly see what he was about to lose and fall on his knees to propose to her—but it wasn’t this. He sounded matter-of-fact. Business-like.