Walk of Shame (Love Unexpectedly 4)

He drummed his fingers more rapidly, his brain running through the options before finally settling on one. It was a cliché. He’d hardly get points for creativity. But he needed to do something to ease the weird throb in his chest, or he’d never get any work done.

In the end he opted to text Hailey after all.

Then Andrew started to reach for his desk phone to call his assistant, but at the last second opened his laptop instead.

He might not know much about women like Georgiana, but even he knew that there were some things that you were better off doing yourself.

Georgie

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, LATER

After the snub from Andrew Mulroney, Esquire, Asshole of the First Degree, I’ve spent most of the day trying to lose myself in a breast-cancer fundraising brunch I volunteered to help plan.

I know a lot of people think that women who work on fundraisers are just women trying really hard to make it look like they’re “working,” but the truth is, it is work.

Just try it. Go ahead and try to find an available venue on a Sunday afternoon in Manhattan that fits five hundred people, allows outside caterers, and has plenty of natural light, or at least is old and established enough that people forgive the lack of windows.

You try to find a bottle of champagne that’s impressive enough to move the richy-rich to open their wallets without being so expensive as to negate the entire purpose of a fundraiser in the first place.

You try to spend forty-five minutes on hold with some aging pop princess’s agent in hopes she’ll do a show for free.

Anyway, you get the point.

As far as distractions go, it hasn’t been a horrible one. Not only does it keep me busy, but it keeps me busy doing something that doesn’t feel brainless.

Okay. So, not quite as distracted as I thought. I just keep thinking of this morning, and, well…hurting.

Which is dumb, right? I’m letting some anal, uptight tool have way too much power over me.

I push back from my kitchen table to retrieve my phone from the couch, where I threw it after getting exasperated with the caterer’s insistence on asparagus-stuffed cheese puffs. Let me ask you this: what is the point of a cheese puff if it’s ruined with vegetables? Am I right? I’m right.

I pick up the phone and see a couple of texts from my mom asking if I want to meet up with her for dinner tomorrow night. Just her. No Dad. Hmm.

I’ll respond to that later.

I text Marley to ask what the plan is for tonight, and I’m a little embarrassed to say I consider texting Brody, even though I’ve recently learned the hard way that drowning one’s feelings in toxic substances has dire consequences. And as far as toxic substances go, I’m pretty sure that attention from Brody is right up there with too much vodka.

Luckily, I’m saved from making that mistake by an incoming phone call from the front desk of my apartment building.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Watkins, it’s Joe downstairs.”

I smile and plop onto the couch. “Joe! How are you? Is your pup all better after being fixed?”

“Hating the cone of shame, as expected, but all good, thanks. I’ve got a delivery for you here. You around for me to send it up, or shall I hold it here for you?”

“Sure, send it up,” I say, even as I scratch my nose in puzzlement.

UPS, FedEx, and all that good stuff is automatically received and delivered by them as part of the daily routine. The only time they ever call before sending something up is if it’s a food delivery, and I haven’t ordered anything.

A few minutes later I open the door to something that’s anything but part of my daily routine.

I can’t even see the person behind the delivery, because the flowers literally take up my entire doorway.

I gasp in pleasure. I’m totally not one of those girls who bemoans fresh flowers for the flowery death they represent. Nope, I love me some flowers, the more elaborate the arrangement the better, and this is most definitely in the elaborate category.

I hand the guy a generous tip and kick the door closed.