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They were in there for AN HOUR. She’d never taken a shower for an hour.
1) She’d never imagined doing what they’d done in the shower (twice), and
2) The hot water heater in any place where she’d lived wouldn’t have supported it, and she hated cold showers.
Truth be told, if the water had turned ice cold, she doubted that she’d have noticed, that was how distracting Jamie was.
She hurried down the aisle toward her cubicle, ignoring her painful shoes and the fact that she was late—reallylate. Hopefully no one would notice. She winced, thinking about how much trouble she could get into.
She hadn’t been acting like herself at all this week.
Part of her secretly liked it. She liked how she felt like she could fly around Jamie. It was the strangest thing, how every day she spent with him she felt better. She might have tried to rationalize it: they’d only been together for a matter of days, and how well did she actually know him?
She sighed as she stepped into her gray cubicle. She knew him pretty darn well.
Noticing some of her coworkers looking at her, she tried to smile at them. One gave her a wide-eyed look—Rachel couldn’t decide if it was awe or shock. Another one gave her two enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Oh my gosh—they knew she was late. She groaned under her breath. Hopefully they wouldn’t tattle on her to Hailey.
Putting her overnight bag to the side, she turned on her computer right away, trying to make it look like she’d been there a long time. She checked her email, going light-headed when she saw a memo from Robert’s assistant, asking her and Hailey to meet with him in his office in an hour.
She dropped her head into her hand. She was busted.
Biting her lip, she tried not to panic, but that was fruitless, because the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that they’d found out about everything: her playing hooky, her helping Chris and how it was in direct competition with the Threshold project, and even her thoughts about how she hoped that Threshold fell through so the old neighborhood would stay intact.
“Are you okay?” she heard Alice ask.
She whirled around in her chair. “Not really.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “Are you going to be sick?”
It felt like a definite possibility. “Robert called me and Hailey in for a meeting.”
Her friend gasped, leaning in. “You think this is about your promotion?”
That they weren’t going to give it to her. “Do you think they found out about Tuesday?” she whispered.
“I guess it’s possible.” Alice pursed her lips in thought. “But it’s not like other people don’t call in sick too, for whatever reasons. Dave in accounting calls in sick once a month to hang out with his wife’s best friend, if you know what I mean.”
“Ew.” She made a face. “What a jerk.”
“That’s the general consensus.” Alice hesitated, looking unsure as she played with the top button of her sweater.
“What is it?” Rachel frowned. “Dave didn’t come on to you, did he?”
“Of course not.” Alice opened her mouth and closed it. Then she blurted, “Want to have lunch?”
“Sure.” She studied her friend. “Is everything okay?”
“I think so, but it’d be good to talk to someone.”
Rachel pointed to herself. “I’ll be your someone.”
“Thanks.” Alice smiled in relief. “Good luck with Robert. Can’t wait to hear what it is!”
The sick feeling came back. She could wait because she was pretty sure she was in trouble.
The hour dragged on so slowly that by the time of the meeting, she was ready to throw herself on their mercy just to get it over with. What was she going to do if she lost this job? She hadn’t been able to get hired anywhere else. She’d be thirty-five and aimless.
