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It was Max.
I was violently coughing when I answered the unexpected andwhat the hell, why is hecallingme?call.
“This is Sophie,” I managed.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Fine,” I said between hacks. “Gimme one sec.”
I set down the phone just in time to see Edie watching me through her office window as I coughed so hard tears leaked from my eyes.Damn it.I finally got myself together enough to get back on the call. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, I don’t have any speeches, white papers, or PowerPoint presentations to forward,” he said, his deep voice rich with sarcasm. “I’m kind of an off-the-cuff guy.”
“Wonderful,” I replied, googlingwedding objectionsto see if I could find anything similar. “So I’m going to show up totally unprepared.”
“I’ll prepare you in the car,” he said, his tone changing to something a little more reassuring. “I promise it will be easy. You drop your bombs and walk away.”
I leaned back a little in my chair and tried imagining it—standing up and doing it.
“And I’ll be right beside you to help if things go sideways.”
I didn’t like him mentioning sideways possibilities, but I knew I couldn’t do it if he wasn’t going with me.
“Do you have cowboy boots?” he asked, and just as I was about to answer, Stuart walked up to my desk.
He had that scared-to-make-eye-contact look about him that he always got when he had to talk to me. I rolled my eyes and whispered, “What,Stuart?”
“You’ve got the big conference room at two o’clock today but Edie said there’s only going to be five of you in there,” he said quickly. Breathlessly. “Would you mind moving to the smaller room on the third floor so sales can have their QBR?”
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him unblinkingly until I saw him swallow.
I could definitely move my meeting—and I would—but I was going to make him squirm first. “I’m really not sure. I’ll have to get back to you.”
Another swallow. “Do you know when?”
“I’m on a call, Stuart,” I growled, raising the phone to my ear and turning my chair around so my back was to him. “I’ll let you know.”
I felt victorious when I heard him sigh and walk out of the HR area.
“That’s not the same Stuart, is it?” Max asked.
Which brought my attention back to the call I’d been on. “What? Oh. Yeah, it is, but it’s not what you think. We work together.”
“No shit?” he asked, sounding utterly shocked at my words. “You work together after everything that happened?”
“We do,” I said, not appreciating the judgment in his voice.
“Are you, like, a doctor? An astronaut? What do you do for a living?”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the question—or why he would assume astronaut—but I answered with “I work in HR. Why?”
“HR?” He sounded confused. “So you could get a job anywhere.”
I knew where he was heading, so I said, “Please make your judgmental point instead of asking an endless stream of leading questions.”
“Okay. Why would you stay at a job where you have to see that fucker every day?”
I was ready with a glib answer, but his use offuckermade my mouth close. There was something kind of nice about it, though I didn’t feel like exploring that surefire sign of my pathetic insecurities. “It’s a long story.”
