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Well, her apartment door, anyway. I never said anything about stalking her and approaching her on the street or just barging into her office at work.
I headed home on my lunch break to tend to my many pets. Rat was in a particular mood and tried to bite me, but I knew he was just grumpy because he was still molting. Mr. Meatball kept sticking his paw in my water, which he knew I didn’t appreciate. And most surprising of all, Windbag was angrily cursing when I got up to leave. It was like all my animals were going haywire, and I couldn’t help wondering if they were picking up on my mood.
Back at the office, I drummed my fingers on my desk. They’d set me up in a weird little office that I suspected might have once been a closet. As far as I could tell, every other employee worked out in the open plan space with a view of Elizabeth’s office. But they’d shoved a desk in a cramped room and put my back to the windowless door. Technically, my office had a window, but it was too narrow to climb through, too high to see through, and made me feel like I was in a prison cell.
This simply wouldn’t do. First, I needed to figure out who was making the decisions around here and introduce them to my winning personality. I guess I should also be on the lookout for all that shit Adrian was talking about. Maybe somebody around here could tell me what Mrs. Glass had on us. Then again, I could always just befriend the woman and talk her out of it.
I wandered out of my office and into the break room. I recognized Addie and Matt from the day I applied. They were Elizabeth’s interns. Addie was the one who kept making eyes at me, and she spotted me right away. She was young, pretty, and not very subtle.
A few others in the break room looked up when I came in and smiled, but Addie was the first to walk up to me. “Hi,” she said. “How are you adjusting?”
“I think I may need to ask for a picture of Rita Hayworth and a nice collection of spoons.”
Addie’s big eyes were blank.
Matt, who was standing at the corner and holding a cup of coffee in his hand, laughed after a short delay. “Shawshank Redemption, right?” he asked.
I nodded. “I thought the HR guy was kidding when he said all I’d be doing was going through expense reports. He wasn’t kidding.”
Addie laughed a little too hard. Two other women in the room started drifting closer. One was around Addie’s age with short black hair and the other was slightly older. All three were looking at me in a way I’d come to recognize. It was the look that meant the game was already over. Ask them to sneak away to a private room, a car, or back to my place, and they’d agree without batting an eyelash.
Boring.
Besides, I had my sights set on a much more difficult catch. A catch who I was beginning to suspect was avoiding me. “Is Elizabeth in the office today?” I asked.
Addie’s expression soured slightly, and she looked like she didn’t plan to answer. Matt chimed in. “She’s probably running around like usual. It’s impossible to say where you’d find her.”
“What do you think of her?” I asked.
“Elizabeth?” Matt blew a raspberry. “I think she needs to get laid.”
“Watch it,” I snapped. Then I frowned in surprise at myself. I’d basically been thinking the exact same thing. I just didn’t appreciate hearing the bearded intern talk about her like that.
Matt pulled his head back, giving me a look somewhere between wounded and annoyed.
“Anyway,” I said, taking a strategic step back from the three women who seemed to be drifting closer to me by the second. “I should be—”
I bumped into Elizabeth in the doorway. She had a cup of iced coffee in her hand that smooshed between us and spilled cold, dark liquid between our bodies. Her pure white pantsuit looked completely ruined.
The others in the break room evacuated like a fire had just broken out. Within milliseconds, we were alone. Elizabeth looked at the crumpled cup in her hand, then at her clothes, then at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hey,” I said, lowering my voice and planting a palm on the door frame. “How you doin’?”
She rolled her eyes. “Your tie and shirt are ruined.”
I looked down, then blew it off with a wave of my hand. “Turns out I spend all day in a closet here. I think I could show up naked and nobody would notice.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” She pushed past me, ignoring my impressive power pose in the doorway. She grabbed a handful of napkins and started dabbing at her blouse. The worst of the coffee had hit her right in the chest.
