Page 53 of I Saw You First

How am I going to survive without Aurora and Cesar, especially because Wil is so, so mad at me?

“I’m not going to steal Cesar’s thunder,” she says. “He’s off today but coming in to tell Wil in person. Then I’ll tell Wil my news. By the way, I’m leaving early. Like, in an hour. There are new video game planograms on the desk that need to be set. Truck got rescheduled to tonight, but Dex wasn’t able to call in enough people to help. He’s going to pull you for it.”

“Great,” I say, my head spinning. Fucking great. I shouldn’t have taken so many chances with the interview. Susan would have loved me, if only I’d been on time. I could be leaving, too.

“God.” She breathes out a long, loud breath. “I’m not going to miss the pressure of always needing to be on all the fucking time. Coming to the flagship store did nothing for my mental health. Nothing. I’ll, like, miss you and everything, but I cannot wait to get out of here, even if it means looking at carpet samples and going to brunch with my future mother-in-law.”

Yeah. Poor Aurora. Brunch and carpet samples. How will she ever survive it?

She leaves me standing dumbstruck in the productivity software aisle.

“Hey,” Wil says later, after I clock back in from lunch and slowly make my way to the media desk. His greeting is the same as always but hardened. He’s standing at a nearby half-empty video game endcap. I slide my latte cup behind the monitor so he doesn’t see it. “There’s a title missing on this endcap.”

“It’s on tonight’s truck,” I say. “I figured it didn’t make sense to flex in another title if I can fill it from the truck.”

“And let the endcap sit empty for hours?” he barks, and I flinch. “Flex it!”

Whoa. I’ve heard him snarl at Shane and even Aurora, but he’s never turned on me like this, like a rabid raccoon. Sure, he’s still pissed about yesterday, and he might be in a foul mood for losing two-thirds of his media leadership team in one fell swoop, but so am I. And I am not having it tonight. “You know what? In the time it’s taken for you to ride me about this, you could have flexed it yourself!”

His jaw drops, but before he can respond, Sam pages me to the warehouse for the truck, and I spin on my heel and leave.

I’m hot, and in more ways than one. Maybe “ride me” wasn’t the best term to use in this instance.

I peel off my jersey and step into my spot on the rollers behind Sam, ready to unload boxes and stack them onto pallets. Tonight’s truck was a split-load with Riverview, so it’s only half full.

“You okay?” Sam asks.

“Fine. Why?” I’m grumpy.

“You and Wil patch things up yet?”

“No, and I don’t expect that we will. What do you know about it, anyway?”

“He’ll get over it. Eventually.”

“I suppose he told you? About the interview?” He probably knows everything that happened between Wil and me the other night, too.

“He didn’t have to,” Sam says. “I figured it out all on my own. I know he was angry with you, but have you tried to talk to him since then?”

I shake my head as Eric and Tyrell start to send boxes down the rollers.

“Hmm,” Sam says, and then: “Sometimes you gotta do the hard thing and apologize.”

I let that sink in as I carry two small boom boxes over to the audio pallet. At one point, I’m struggling to heft a microwave onto a full pallet, and Tyrell comes over and grabs the box.

“I got this, sugar,” he says. He smells pungent and ripe, like sweat and weed. “Let’s get your pretty little ass back on the truck and see if we can’t find something lighter.” He sets the box on a pallet and then slaps my backside. I freeze, the waterfall of fear and shame that courses through me turning to crackling crystals of ice.

Oh, no. I can’t handle this. Not tonight.

“Find somebody else to help, Sam.” I can barely get the words out. I push past Tyrell and speed-walk toward the media warehouse, my safe space, as the beast in my belly rumbles to life. I swipe at a tear, pissed at myself for crying over this.

“Tyrell, I knew you were a stupid motherfucker,” I hear Eric say behind me, “but I didn’t know you were that stupid.”

I sit on a stack of empty totes and gasp for air. Things have gone so completely off-kilter since that morning in Ryan’s office. I can’t seem to get a handle on my life. Everything’s always working out for me? What a joke.

I drop my head in my hands and take deep breaths, willing the pit monster to go back to sleep. I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear a quiet “Hey” a few minutes later. I look up to see Wil and his ever-present clipboard, his icy blue eyes soft and concerned. He cracks a Diet Coke open and hands it to me, and I fall in love with him a little bit.

“Sam told me what happened,” he says. “And Eric gave me some additional color commentary.”