Page 20 of Memories of You

“You can sit in on the meeting if you want to. I’d love tohave your thoughts on any tweaks you might want made.”

“I can if you want me to.” He reaches out and brushes myshoulder. Immediately, I tense, then just as quickly relax. I hope he didn’tnotice. I realized in the moment that he was brushing a leaf from the hallway ficusoff my shoulder, and I turn my attention back to my computer to hide myembarrassment.

He clears his throat. “All right, I’m going to go finish up.Give a shout if you want me to join the meeting.”

“Will do, thanks.”

I run through the platform and my various notes and makesure I’ve got my ducks in order, then buzz Marge to bring him to the conferenceroom. I take my laptop and meet them there. “Sorry I got here so early,” hesays. “I wasn’t sure about the traffic.”

“Not a problem at all,” I say, my voice completely cheerfuland chirpy now that I’m feeling in control of the situation. I hook my laptopinto the system and project onto the dropdown screen.

To Darrin’s credit, he’s both sharp and invested. He’s got avery studious manner about him, and after almost every comment, he asks me whatI think or praises my work. Twice he tells me how talented I am, and I can’tdeny that makes me happy. When we finally wrap, I know that we have a satisfiedclient.

“Bijan is going to be thrilled,” Darrin says. “I’ll tell himthings are going along nicely.”

“We should be able to roll it out in the next ten days,” Itell him.

“That’s terrific. Why don’t I plan to come back in a fewdays from now for final tweaks and review?”

“Perfect,” I say. “We can get Bijan and the rest of the ganginvolved through a video call.”

He tells me that sounds like a good plan, then stands, hishand extended for me to shake. I do, a little unnerved by the sticky dampnessof his skin. I’ve never been a fan of handshaking, and I resist the urge towipe my palm on my slacks once he breaks contact. I walk him out, then go backto my office and spend a couple more hours implementing the changes that wediscussed. I’m about to leave again when my phone rings. I assume it’s Renlysince Marge let the call through, and I answer it.

Immediately, I regret it. It’s my mouth breather. I listen,feeling sick to my stomach as he just sits and breathes heavily on the otherend of the phone. “Pervert,” I say, then slam the phone down before buzzingMarge and asking why she put him through.

“No calls came for you,” she tells me. “He must have yourdirect line.”

I already know that, of course, since I’ve been getting thecalls for days. But hope springs eternal and all that. I make a mental note toask Nikki about changing my direct line number.

It wouldn’t be that inconvenient. After all, I don’t giveout the direct dial to that many people. We’ll inconvenience a few clients, butif it stops this creep, I can live with that.

I stand up, feeling squidgy, and the phone rings again. Iconsider just ignoring it, but instead I grab it up, and yell, “Would you stopit already?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

I cringe. “Darrin. I’m so sorry. I’m getting prank calls atwork. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Oh. Wow. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yes, it’s just some asshole calling and breathing. Stupidlittle—” I stop before I curse in front of a client. “Um, is there somethingyou need?”

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to grab a late lunch.I went to the promenade and did some shopping, and I’m about to head back home,but I thought if you were hungry we could talk more about the rollout.”

“Oh. You know, normally I’d love to. But I already haveplans.”

“Sure. Just a thought. No problem.”

“Maybe a rain check?” I don’t really want a rain check, soI’m not sure why I’m saying that, but it seems the polite thing to do,especially since he works for our best client.

“That sounds great. And seriously, no big deal.”

I hang up, and this time I gather my things and head to thefront office to wait for Renly. He follows me home on his bike to make sure Iarrive okay, but despite my invitation, he doesn’t stay. “Summoned to theboss,” he tells me. “I’m off to see Ryan.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Doors locked, right? Nobody in except Lilah, not even fooddelivery.”

I grimace but nod. Soon, we’ll have to either figure outwho’s doing this or change the rules, because I don’t intend to walk oneggshells my entire life, especially if it’s just breathing.