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“Your life is not fine. You’re working yourself to the bone. You’re exhausted. And you’re lonely. You need to make changes.”
As she gestures, I can’t help but notice the sparkling engagement ring and wedding band set she wears. Sunlight catches all those little diamonds.
Lizzy, I’m well aware, is happily married with two little Rixons running around her feet when she’s home.
I’ve always wanted kids. The stars have simply never aligned.
But this isn’t about the family I want one day.
This is about work and how running around after Brock is the last thing I need to add to my already overfilled plate. And now, thanks to my stupid inability to set boundaries, I have the dogs to worry about in addition to everything else.
This is a mess.
A major, disastrous mess.
“Adding another job is not the change I need to make,” I say. “Believe me.”
“This is not about the assistant responsibilities, and you know it.” She hops out of her seat, marches to the door, and closes it. When she turns to face me, it’s with kindness written on her features. She returns to the desk and perches on it by my side. “It’s about Brock. You and Brock.”
I gulp.
She grins. Her eyebrows hitch up, and she peers at me. “He’s a great guy, Gwen. He is smart, hard-working, funny… He’s confident. He’s friendly. He has a big heart, even though he keeps it locked up beneath the tough-boss act.”
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter as I slide off the desk.
It feels good to pace the length of her office.
Maybe if I pace, I won’t have to think about what she’s saying.
I face the window and look out at the green patch of lawn and the orange and red leaves of a nearby oak. It’s another sunny, crisp fall day out there.
She goes on, addressing my back. “I know people, Gwen. That’s why I do the work I do. I see Brock—the real Brock. And I see you. And you two would be a fantastic couple. You’d balance each other out. You’d have fun. You need him, and he needs someone exactly like you.”
“This is not even worth talking about. That’s not even on the table.”
“I knew you guys would hit it off!” she squeals, rubbing her hands together. “You cannot imagine how psyched I was when you called this morning, all frazzled and frantic ‘cause of your crush.”
“But—what we’re talking about is a job. A job I don’t want to do, which someone else should be doing. Please post it to the recruitment sites. He has to hire someone else.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Un uh. You asked me to take off my HR hat this morning. You told me about your feelings for him. You know what a crush is, right? It’s your heart screaming out, sending chemical signals through your whole body. Begging you to stop and take notice of what’s really going on.”
I stare out at the leaves and nibble at the edge of my nail for a minute.
She’s wrong.
She has to be wrong.
“No, a crush is like an illness,” I argue. “It’s like when you ride a boat and get seasick. It’s a physical problem that I can solve if I put some space between me and him. I want out of this job as his assistant—as soon as possible.”
I’ll still have to deal with the dogs, but maybe, if I’m careful, I can manage to make those visits without bumping into him. Under the radar. My old ways…
That sounds heavenly.
I don’t want to get stuck in another flirtatious conversation with him.
I can’t endure that again.
This morning, I felt like I was losing my mind when he stood so close to me that we were nearly touching.
