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Kate clicks a few things on her screen. “I’ve just sent you both the job posting, as well as the contact information for the recruiter. A Mr. Bishop. He’s supposed to be one of the best.”
I push to my feet, ready to leave, but Lauren holds me back. “Is there any reason why Frankie can’t apply for the job herself? If she’s the one narrowing the candidate pool, then she can’t be in the running for the position herself.”
Kate and Mercedes share a smile. “Frankie, you should have an invitation to a meeting with Mr. Sutton in your inbox. He wanted to explain in person,” Mercedes says, slipping past us and out the door.
A few hours later, I stop on Lauren’s floor after my meeting with Mr. Sutton, part of my new efforts to be less of a recluse. She’s in her office, headphones on and dancing at her stand-up desk while she types. “Lauren?”
She turns, her scowl disappearing when she sees it’s me. “Tell me everything. What did Sutton want with you? I really hope your surprise was nicer than mine.”
“What surprise?”
She waves me off. “Not important. What did Sutton say?”
“He apologized, again, for what happened. And then he explained why I’m not eligible for the position.”
Lauren’s eyebrows pull together. “He better have a damn good reason or I’ll make sure he never gets a cheese danish again.”
I let the danish comment go, resigned to Lauren speaking in inside references that I’ll never get. “He offered me the team lead position. We’re hiring my replacement, not Derek’s.”
“It’s about damn time!” Lauren emphasizes her words with claps and a twerk of her hips before hugging me tight. “Are you going to take it?”
I nod. “Yes. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Can you tell the recruiter that we want as many female candidates as possible? I can send him a list of people I know.” If I was going to be more visible at Mailbox, I wanted to have a team behind me I trusted. Raj and Manesh were a start, but until I was no longer the only woman, it would never be right.
Lauren rolls her eyes. “Your surprise was way nicer than mine. Turns out, this recruiter is going to be a real pill, I can already tell. I can feel the toxic masculinity through my screen.” She shudders. “The email they sent us? A list of his demands to work with us. Can you believe this guy? And he’s sooooo condescending. He seriously put the line ‘I’ll make sure he has a clear understanding of appropriate office relationships, especially with the female administrative staff.’ Can you believe that?” Lauren holds up one hand, then lifts the other toward it like she’s going to high-five herself. “Bishop”—she swings and misses completely—“The point.”
Laughing at her own joke, Lauren pulls herself together and gives me an evil grin. “But I have a plan. He’s not going to work with Francesca and Lauren from Mailbox. Oh, no. He’s going to be working with Frankie and Luke. If he only wants to deal with a man, then a man is what he’ll get.”
All the ways this could backfire on us fly through my head. “But won’t he figure it out? Didn’t Kate say who he would be working with?”
“She only gave him your name and my title. He’ll figure it out eventually.” Lauren shrugs. “But not until I’ve had a little fun with it. Our emails are just a first initial, so that won’t give it away. And he’s based in Boston, so I highly doubt we’ll ever meet face to face.”
I still have my doubts, but I have an even bigger problem to solve. “Hey, so I had another reason for stopping by.”
Lauren freezes mid-dance. “What do you need? Oh my God, please tell me you need help planning a grand gesture to win Julian back? Please, please? I barely got to do anything for Theo and Soph. Emma stole my thunder. I neeeeeeeeeed you to let me do this.”
When I hesitate, Lauren pulls over her chair and sits in it, miming zipping her lips before clasping her hands over her bouncing knees. “When you say gesture, are you talking about hiring a skywriter or the jumbotron at a Blazers game kind of grand? Because I was thinking more like, a medium-sized one?”
Lauren laughs at me, but I’m serious.
“First, I really need to get you reading some romances. You’re terrible at this. I’ll loan you my copy of Burn for Me. I think Ilona Andrews is probably a good starting place for you. Or maybe we go big—I’ll need to consult Sophie.” She rubs her chin, thinking. “Second, no. I don’t think you need to go quite that big. But I think you need to do it publicly. In his world, not yours.”
Something he mentioned clicks in the back of my mind. “Oh, I think I might know just the thing.”
Twenty-four
Julian
Girlish voices ring out through the gym. I turn to Carl, Liam two steps behind me. “Wow, I had no idea you had so many signed up. That’s fantastic.”
Carl claps a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure the credit goes to this young man and you, from what I hear.” He points to a pair of familiar blond heads. “His girlfriend invited all her friends. And the rest all said they came because their company was paying for it.”
It clicks into place as I look over the crowd. I recognize quite a few of the ladies who work at Mailbox in the crowd. Jess, Angela, and Lauren are talking to Sophie in one corner. Tina waves to me from near them. Sutton wasn’t kidding when he assured me that he would be making sure the women at Mailbox never felt intimidated by a man again.
“I’ve got a contract sitting in my inbox to host one of these self-defense classes exclusively for Mailbox, Inc. once a month for the foreseeable future. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“I don’t know a thing, but I’m glad to hear it.”
Liam takes off to greet Emma and her friends. He and I are here as the sacrificial dummies for the women to practice on. Now I understand why Liam didn’t protest when I told him what we were getting up early on a Saturday morning for. Of course, he’s happy to be pinned to the ground by not only his new girlfriend, but her friends too.
