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“Again?” Sarah looked up from her phone as Eloise sprinted toward the elevator with as much dignity as she could manage in heels. They all usually went up together, it was nice to start the day with friendly faces, but the others were nowhere in sight and it looked like Sarah had been about to give up and decided to head up alone.
Eloise slid through the closing doors of the elevator with an irritated scowl and less than an inch to spare. “My car wouldn’t start this morning,” she explained. “This week has been a nightmare.”
“Sorry we didn’t wait for you. Kim and Chloe both had to be in early and I was just getting ready to text you.” She dropped her phone into her bag and smoothed down the lace of the red lace jumpsuit she wore beneath a trim black blazer. “Dwayne is on some kind of new power trip and he’s making our lives hell if we’re even a few minutes late.”
“I guess there’s no point in being bad at your job if you can’t also make everyone around you miserable.”
Sarah snorted but the look on her face was not amused. Her hostility toward Dwayne had increased with every week that went by after the promotion and she was bordering on plain homicidal. “I’m tempted every day to poison his coffee.”
“I’d be your alibi.”
Sarah smiled, and this time there was genuine humor in her eyes. “You wouldn’t. There’s not a rule-breaking bone in your body. I’d call you for a lot of things but not that.”
“Let’s hope we never have to test it.”
“Hmm.”
The elevator doors opened, and Eloise stepped out.
“Do you need a ride home?” Sarah asked, checking the time on her watch and tapping her foot at the slow elevator doors.
“No, the car’s fixed now.”
“You?”
“I’m afraid that’s something else that’s beyond my capabilities.”
“Oh? You had a mechanic look at it already?”
“No, I didn’t have time for?—”
“Oh …” Sarah’s eyes popped wide. “Wait, did you have a man fix it? Did you have company last night?”
Eloise laughed as Sarah tried to question her through the closing door, and her good mood lasted all the way through until it was time to meet up with the others for lunch. Most days she ate at her desk, but they had a standing lunch date at the little café down the street on Fridays.
Fridays were for the girls, and they huddled together in the shade at the outdoor tables and sipped on iced coffee as they waited for salads with a tart raspberry vinaigrette or chicken salad sandwiches with slices of pistachio. It would be too warm to sit outside soon, but for now they were content to sweat a little to enjoy the little courtyard with its happily bubbling fountain and sweet-smelling flowers.
“Sorry we missed you this morning.” Chloe popped a blueberry into her mouth and relaxed against the back of her chair. It sounded mostly like she meant it. “It’s been a miserable day.”
“Not so wonderful for Eloise, either,” Sarah informed her.
“Just a little bit of car trouble,” Eloise said. Her eyes were back on the menu, trying to decide if she wanted a chocolate éclair or a strawberry tart with her salad. She needed a little sweetness after the day she’d had.
“You never told me who managed to get it fixed for you in time for you to drive yourself to work and not be late?” Sarah had been fanning herself with the drink menu and casually fighting a bee for ownership of her glass of lemonade, but she sat forward in her chair, eyes suddenly calculating.
Eloise shot her a meaningful glance. “My lovely new neighbor.”
“Ugh.” Sarah deflated back into her chair; the hope gone from her eyes. “I was hoping you’d had a man over last night.” She was comfortable with men in her bed and was always looking for some sign that Eloise had found one for herself, at least temporarily. It was a running joke between them that Sarah fully believed Eloise would be less uptight if she got laid more often.
“No, not this time.” There was nothing more to say about that since they all knew she dated so rarely it bordered on never, even though they’d given up on asking her why. She’d never been able to put into words what it felt like to have your mother wind you so tightly men tended to practically run in the opposite direction.
Controlling women with mommy issues weren’t exactly hot commodities on the dating market even if she’d been willing to put herself out there, which she absolutely wasn’t. No dating until she was as firmly established in her career as possible or she’d never hear the end of it. It wasn’t worth the hassle for the inevitable heartache.
“And I didn’t ask my neighbor to come over and save me,” Eloise added after a moment of silent contemplation. “He just showed up with his self-satisfied little smirk and waited patiently until I admitted I didn’t know how to open the hood of the car.”
“The worst possible thing that could happen around a man that already thinks he’s a gift to women.” Sarah said. She’d gone back to fanning her face, slightly damp dark hair stirring lazily in the artificial breeze. “Bastard.”
“He did help,” Kim observed. Her hands were busy dipping a slice of lemon into her own drink and setting it on a napkin, a sweet temptation for Sarah’s buzzing foe. She always looked for the good in everything. People. Situations. Lemonade thieving bees. “Even if he was smirky.”
