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“Of course, and I’m glad for you to enjoy the place. You’ve worked hard for me this year. You deserve a break. I’ll send you over the details, codes, that sort of thing in the next few days. We’ll finalize plans and get everything set up.”
I shook his hand, thanked him again, and walked him to my office door. A plan was already starting to form in the back of my mind.
There was only one person I wanted to take with me to Curaçao.
Abbie.
Now, I’d just have to work hard to convince her to go.
***
I went through the last part of my afternoon in a blur. My secretary thankfully took charge of the files on my desk, made sure I had the stack of notes on phone calls I had to make in the next day or two, and left me alone in my office, my computer beside me tempting me to forego the last bit of paperwork I needed to do and instead start planning my dream Christmas vacation.
I made it through half my paperwork, stuffed the rest in my briefcase to take home with me, and leaned back in my desk chair, angling it to look out the window at the city skyline around me.
Grey and dreary skies. Cold and snowy. Just what the weather would be like now for months.
But Christmas in Curaçao… Heat, blue skies, crystal-clear water…
How amazing would that be.
It might be just the thing to get me out of the friend zone.
Five years. Five long, agonizing years of watching my best friend...be my best friend.
From the moment I’d met her, literally bumping into her on campus. I’d been on my way to a seminar on contract law; she’d been talking on the phone crossing the courtyard. She hadn’t seen me coming. I’d bumped into her accidentally, my own head down as I was setting up my phone to record a voice memo. In an instant, her bag dropped, and what fell out would have put a movie theatre to shame.
She had enough candy to make a group of trick or treaters create a statue in her honor. But it wasn’t anywhere near Halloween.
She’d glanced up, blushing as she scrambled to put a handful of full-size chocolate bars back into her bag.
My seminar had suddenly lost its pull as our eyes met and I caught the embarrassment flash across her beautiful face.
And Abbie had my full, undivided, total attention. Just like she would from that moment forward.
I crouched down, my books, phone, lecture forgotten as I looked into those gorgeous blue eyes and went completely speechless for a good ten seconds. I shook the fog from my head while reaching for a package on the ground near my feet. Candy was literally everywhere around us, like a piñata had suddenly exploded. How could it have fit into one little backpack that she now had beside her, cramming in another handful of candy.
“I’m so sorry…” The words came out hoarser than I intended.
“No worries, my fault totally. I wasn’t paying attention.” She shook her head as if admonishing herself.
I picked up another package of gummy worms and held them out to her. “You throwing a party or something?”
Everywhere I looked around us was still more bags of candy.
She took the bags from me with a shy smile, hurriedly dropping them into her backpack, then starting to close it up. “Looks like it, huh?”
“That, or you just robbed a movie theatre and thought the candy was worth more than the cash itself?”
She laughed shyly. “No robbery involved, I promise.”
We both stood up, and she slung her backpack carefully over her shoulder. The wind played with her blond hair that had come loose from its ponytail, and she hurriedly tucked it shyly behind her ear.
My only other thought was a break-up and that she was in deep need of drowning her sorrows.
“I’m Lucas Ridley…” I said, holding my hand out.
“Abbie Thornton.” She shook my hand, glancing quickly at her watch. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to be late… I have a showing to help set up, and I was in charge of snacks…which is why it looks like I’m running a candy store. I’m not usually so…” She waved her hand, trying to find the word. “Distracted.”
