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Chapter 1 - Carmen
“Hi, Carmen.”
I looked up from my desk to see the water guy strolling towards me with this week’s supply of five-gallon water bottles stacked on a dolly, his smile set at a thousand watts. Brandon, with his tiny shorts and powerful thighs, had a confidence he liked to manifest towards anyone with a willing ear. Maybe I was a softie, because while my coworkers practically hid under their desks when he showed up, I found him endearing.
“Hey, Brandon. How was your New Year’s Eve?” I asked.
He stopped and rested his elbow on the top bar of the dolly, pursing his lips at my question. “Excellent. It was just me and my dog, snuggled up in bed by nine-thirty. Neither of us like fireworks or staying up late. And as a result…” He moved his hands up and down his CrossFit body. “We were on our morning run by five the next day. This year can’t be anything but excellent for me. It’s already built into my routine.”
“How inspiring,” my friend Sadie said with a small dollop of mockery as she walked past us to reach the elevators. She smiled big when Brandon turned and frowned at her. Sadie was such a stinker, bless her heart.
“What about you?” Brandon asked, turning back to me. “Go to any New Year’s Eve parties on Saturday or anything?”
“Yep. A family party.” And by family I meant anyone who knew my parents, related and unrelated. They were all equally nosy, with the ability to hug as fiercely as they pried into my love life. There was always someone’s daughter’s soccer coach’stíowho was very handsome, rich, single, and only a little bit eccentric. If I took them up on it, I could have blind dates lined up from now until the end of eternity.
I yawned. “Sorry. I wish I was in bed at nine-thirty on any night.”
Brandon took my yawn as his cue to launch into all sorts of advice about energy recovery and optimal sleep rhythms, but he quickly lost me because another familiar face walked in the building with a delivery. Flowers this time.
Oh, please, no. Not him. Not today, when my hair was thrown back in a ponytail, my makeup was a relic from yesterday, my to-do list was a mile long, and my concentration was already at half-power. I couldn’t even blame it on a party. Last night I stayed up way too late reading a stupid high-seas romance to see if the pirate rescued the girl. He did. And the loss of sleep was totally worth it. Well, mostly worth it.
I hadn’t considered in my rush to get here this morning that I might seehim.
Flower deliveries always showed up in the hands of one Isaac Romano, florist at Beautiful Blooms. Isaac. That name was so formal-sounding when I’d always known him as Zac.
I couldn’t believe he became a florist. Or that he grew up to be so incredibly hot. But the most baffling thing? Why he was still pretending not to know me. The old me. The one with a bad haircut, braces, and a mouth that never shut up at the right times.
How long were we going to play this game? We ‘met’ briefly at an after-work thing at a restaurant around the corner last year, and when he didn’t show any signs of recognition, not even of my name, I went along with it. Even when his eyes met mine, over and over again, he said nothing. So, I said nothing. I wouldnotbe the one to bring up a past he apparently didn’t remember.
After asking for my number through a mutual friend and getting a no, I braced myself for his next move. I had everything I’d longed to say to him planned out. How dare he be intrigued by the cleaned-up, grown-up version of me when he couldn’t even remember breaking my awkward middle-school heart?
Except, that was it. He didn’t approach me again.
But he did start showing up at our office with flower deliveries. He used to have someone else do it. Now, it’s always him.
Today, he had on a fitted leather jacket that complimented his dark hair in the same way his dark-wash jeans brought out the blue in his eyes. He was holding a solid square vase filled with a mixture of yellow roses and daisies. It was a gorgeous arrangement, just like the man carrying them. Holy guacamole, he was attractive—and didn’t he know it. The second he noticed me watching him, his lopsided smirk came out to play before he finally dropped his gaze and continued strolling on by, looking satisfied. Like all he needed was to rest his eyes on me for a few seconds, and then his day was complete.
A tiny part of me melted. A very tiny part. But then I froze it again with my special ice powers. Bad Carmen. No melting.
“Carmen?”
“Hmm?” I focused back on Brandon, touching the corner of my mouth self-consciously. Not to check for drool or anything. Just because.
Behind us, Isaac brought the flowers over to a desk and carefully turned the arrangement around so Margaret could read the birthday card. She was beaming. Isaac was beaming, putting his dimples on display. The flowers were so sunshiny yellow it almost hurt to look at them. It was a happiness-fest over there, and I wasn’t the only one watching. That man was eye candy.
You’d think the corporate headquarters for a dating app would have better security. Sure, this was only the first floor and all the data on clients was locked away upstairs, but still. Did we let just anyone in here? All these deliveries were distracting.Hewas distracting.
“So, I’ll see you next week?”
My eyes went back to poor Brandon, who was just trying to leave our clearly one-sided conversation with some dignity. “Yes, of course. Have a great week.”
He smiled and gave me finger guns. “Right back at you, gorgeous.”
I waited until he strolled away with the water before collapsing into the gliding rocking chair next to my desk. That’s right, a gliding rocking chair. I had heard all sorts of zany things about the GoWithFriends work culture before I started here, and I was happy to report, most of them weren’t too far off the mark. Everyone should have a rocking chair by their desk. It was excellent for brainstorming, or for times of stress, like right now.
Okay, back to work. I pulled up my calendar and realized I was two minutes late to a very important phone meeting. Great. Just great. I didn’t have time to wait for Captain Flowers over there to exit the building. I had to be on top of things no matter what was going on around me.
Taking in a deep breath, I picked up my desk phone. Freddy’s was the hottest new restaurant in downtown Phoenix, and if I could convince the manager to give us a regular reservation slot, our clients would be very happy.
