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“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ and levels me an unimpressed look. “I’m good here.”
“On the floor?”
“Yep.”
“Amber.”
“Hawthorne.”
She’s not going to budge, is she? She’ll happily sit on the uncomfortable hardwood floor if it means not giving me this win. That shouldn’t excite me. If anything, it should annoy the hell out of me, but it doesn’t. I am tempted to push some more and see how far this can go, but then my phone buzzes in my pocket and brings me crashing back to a reality filled with endless emails and spreadsheets.
“Suit yourself,” I say. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She hums non-committally and I turn to leave.
“Wait.”
“Yes?” And I know I’m wearing the most shit-eating grin possible, because she immediately rolls her eyes again.
“Nothing to do with the beanbags, don’t worry. Cynthia’s asked if you want to have lunch together this week. Send over your availability and I’ll book a restaurant for you two.”
I frown. “You’re not coming?”
“Why would I?” Something flashes in her eyes, and I can’t quite make out what it is. It looks like irritation, but it’s tinged with something else.
“Because you’re the one doing all the work here,” I say. Isn’t that obvious? “Of course you should be there. In fact,Iwant you there. It’ll be good to speak to you and Cynthia at the same time.”
Her jaw tightens for a brief moment, but then her expression clears and she gives me a small nod. “All right then.” She pauses, looks a little unsure of herself, and then adds, “Thanks again for the wrap, by the way. I sometimes forget to bring something in the morning, and then I end up being so busy, I never end up eating.”
“It’s no big deal,” I say. I know how it feels to lose yourself in your work that you start to neglect basic needs. Burnout comes quickly after, and I know all too well how shitty that feels. “And your beanbag will be in the office waiting for you.”
Along with me.
She laughs at that and shakes her head. “It’ll be waiting a long time.”
It’s nothing like the laugh I heard last Friday — this one is soft, breathy, and slips out of her like she barely even realises she’s doing it — but it’s a start.
8
AMBER
Hawthorne has boughtme lunch for the last four days in a row.
I’d assumed that Monday was a one-off. His way of apologising for the unexpectedly cruel jab he threw my way. But then on Tuesday he wordlessly dropped a taco bowl into my lap on his way back up to the fourth floor. Wednesday, it was some sushi from a market stall around the corner. And on Thursday, he handed me a baguette from a nearby café.
I don’t know why I keep accepting his food offerings. It would be easy to just say “no, thanks” and pull out the slightly squashed sandwich and bag of crisps from my bag that I’ve remembered to bring every day since Monday. But I don’t.
I’ve almost started to look forward to this little routine of ours. Hawthorne is practically robotic with it. Every day at twelve he descends from the fourth floor, strides past without sparing me so much as a glance, and disappears for an hour or so. When he comes back, he’s got a bag of food — and he’s always got enough for me.
At first I thought he might be using the whole lunch thing as a way to try to coax me back up to the office, but he’s not mentioned it since Monday. He just hands me my food, gives me a small nod, and then heads right back upstairs. I can tell he’s waiting for me to make the first move. To slink back up to the office with my tail between my legs. But he’s going to be waiting a long time.
If there’s one thing I am, it’s stubborn. You don’t grow up with parents like mine, or working under someone like Cynthia, without learning how to hold your ground. Bailey says it’s simultaneously my best and worst quality. She calls merelentlessly stubborn,but even she agrees with me on this one.
I’ve dubbed Hawthorne “Asshole Client” in my furious text rants to her, and she’s firmly aboard the hate train.
I try not to think about how I’ve not mentioned the lunches to her, instead choosing to focus on the torrent of annoyingly pedantic emails Hawthorne sends me every day even though there’s only a floor between us.
“You ready to go?” I ask.
