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“Still too fragile for a hug. Might throw up on you.”
He stops in his tracks. “Ew. Are you sure you should be at work?”
I shrug and give a wan smile. Maybe I’m playing this up too much. I don't know. But after being absent so long, it feels like the right play. “Don’t want to eat up all my PTO. But I'll go home if I can’t make it through the day.”
He smiles. “Well, I am glad you’re doing well enough to be here, even if it’s just for a few hours. Did the doctors say what it was exactly?”
“Some wicked combination of food poisoning and flu.”
“What ancestor did you piss off to get stuck with that?”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Whoever it is, I spent days over the porcelain apologizing to them.”
“Do you need a soda? Crackers?”
“I’m good. I don’t want to eat much of anything, actually.”
He nods knowingly. “Went to Mexico for vacation once. Ended up sicker than a dog for a week. The best, worst diet I was ever on.”
I laugh again and hold my stomach. “I bet.”
“June, is that you?” Madi’s voice cuts right through me from behind, making me hate whoever invented the open floor plan for offices. That trendsetter is the bane of my existence. What I wouldn’t give for a door I could slam in her face.
When I turn around, I begin, “Hey, Mad?—"
“You look like shit!”
Nice to know she thinks that’s appropriate to tell someone who’s been sick. Especially since I haven’t been. “Nice to see you too, Madi.”
“Did you lose weight from your illness?”
No. “Yes.”
“It shows. Never thought I’d say this to you, but I think you’ve lost too much weight.”
“That answers all the questions I didn’t ask.”
She looks taken aback. “Well, I didn’t mean anything bad by it?—"
“You told me I look like shit, and you never thought I’d be too skinny, but now I am. Exactly what part did you not mean bad?”
She flutters her eyes, and it’s like her brain is resetting. Garrett, on the other hand, snorts to keep his laughter down. Madi recomposes herself. “Are you certain you should be back so soon, June? You don’t seem like yourself at the moment. You’re sniping at me. It’s unprofessional.”
“What you’ve been saying about my appearance is unprofessional, Madi. I am pretty sure HR would not enjoy hearing what you’ve told me, but I’d be glad to tell them myself, and Garrett is a fantastic witness, wouldn’t you say?”
She stammers over a few syllables, then mutters, “I was merely expressing concern. You’ve been absent so long, I think you’ve forgotten how people speak to one another.”
“No, I haven’t,” I tell her as I sit at my desk. “What I have forgotten is my ability to let your bullshit slide off my back. I’m not doing that anymore. So, keep your inappropriate comments about my body to yourself, and we won’t have an interesting chat with HR. Got me?”
“Wallace will hear about this?—"
“Good. Tell him. Or would you like me to?”
She huffs, spins on her heel, and stomps away.
That felt so fucking good.
Garrett stares at me, mouth open for a few seconds. “Don’t turn me into HR for this, but I kind of want to kiss you for that.”
