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Her voice is hushed. “Can you try harder?” she begs.
Is she talking to the dogs?
No, I don’t think so. This isn’t the sweet baby talk I witnessed last night. Her tone sounds strained, too serious to be directed to the dogs.
“I can’t keep this up another full day,” she frets.
A few seconds of silence follows, then, “I can’t believe it… even with the extra ten thousand thrown in? That’s crazy, Lizzy. I would guess there would be people jumping all over the opportunity.”
Ah ha. So, she’s talking to Elizabeth Rixon—my head of Human Resources.
I’m about to redirect my sleepy, hungry body toward the kitchen when her words catch my attention.
“I’m not trying to; it’s just happening. I haven’t had a crush like this since I was in the first grade, and I got all giddy every time Frankie DeMarcico raced me to the swing set. And crushing on Brock is seriously not okay. I mean, I have to work for the guy, for goodness’ sake. How am I supposed to concentrate if I keep…” Her voice fades.
I freeze.
My perked ears strain to hear every word.
That’s not easy to do, given that I have significant hearing loss in my left ear thanks to the accident in Hawaii.
Again, I think of Mia. My ex-wife.
I don’t want to think about Mia right now.
“Yeah, he’s already at work,” Gwen says. “He told me last night that he goes in at five. I know. Crazy, right? Yeah… Lizzy, can I tell you something as a friend? Off the record? I thought about him way too much last night after I got home. And I keep coming back to how weird it was when he gave me the house key.”
Weird…
Does she mean good-weird or bad-weird?
I take a step closer. Though I do my best to listen, now her voice dips down in volume and I miss a few murmured sentences.
Darn my hearing loss.
I reach up and rub my temple. When my fingertips touch my scar, a brief, shudder-inducing memory of that car crash washes over me. These memories come and go. They feel like ghosts when they settle on me: cold, hair-raising, haunting.
I fight off the memory of the broken windshield, blood, and Mia’s screams and focus on Gwen’s murmurs.
Because I want, very much, to hear what she thought of that moment when we touched.
So, she thought about me last night, just as I was thinking about her.
That shouldn’t matter to me—because none of this is important, not really—but it does. It pleases me that I was on her mind.
She giggles. “I know, Lizzy. You think I don’t know that? But really, I’m telling you this as your friend. It is so early, the sun isn’t even up yet. This is not work-talk, you hear me? This is girl talk. So take off your HR hat already.”
She laughs again. “See? That’s better. Thank you. We’ve all thought it. But this isn’t just about how hot he is. This is more. I mean, I always knew he was gorgeous. Everyone knows that. But last night, I let myself feel things for him as a person.”
She felt things for me…
What kind of things?
A flash of heat courses through me. Now I’m feeling things for her.
Things I shouldn’t feel.
Yes, this is wrong. This is my employee I’m feeling magnetized to right now. And yes, she’s on the phone with my head of HR, of all people.
