One task at a time.
I open a new email and draft a brief message to HR, requesting a temp from the admin pool. It’s not ideal, but it’s a start, and it’s not like I have any better options.
The longer I wait to bring someone on, the worse things will get.
Christ, I miss Lucy.
I pull out my phone and tap the photo icon.
I’m not sure if it’s a reward or a punishment, but the action is becoming part of my daily routine.
Wake up, scroll my photo stream. Complete a task, scroll my photo stream. Eat a meal, check my photo stream. Collapse into bed, check my photo stream.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
They say new habits can be formed in as few as eighteen days. If that’s true, I’m well on my way.
The first photo to appear is the one of Lucy and me posing under the Route 66 sign on the pier. Right before things went to shit. She looks so damn radiant, beaming at the camera with that wide, inviting smile. There’s a playful gleam in her eyes—one that suggests she’s got a secret—and the ocean breeze lifts the dark waves of her hair, giving her a carefree look she never had in the Triada office.
My stomach clenches.
It was a perfect moment, and I was blind to it at the time.
Now it’s gone, just like Lucy.
It’s for the best. I know it is, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
I wake each morning expecting to hear her puttering around making coffee. Expecting to find her lacy panties hanging all over the place just to get a rise out of me. I even find myself turning to her, to share a joke or ask for her opinion, only to find she isn’t there.
Te amo.
I love you. I don’t know if she meant it or if the words just slipped out in the heat of the moment, but it doesn’t matter now.
Not after I went scorched earth and called her a hypocrite.
I was the worst kind of bastard, and even though it makes me uncomfortable as fuck, I can’t help but wonder if I was speaking from a place of fear.
“Where the hell have you been?” Nick barks, storming into my office. Beck is close on his heels, which can’t be a good sign. “You missed the R&D update.”
Shit. The invitation is probably floating around in my inbox, unopened.
I close my photo stream. Nick’s already fired up. No need to give him additional ammunition. “You could have texted me.”
Beck grins. “We did.”
I pull up my texts, and sure enough, there are three unread messages.
“Sorry.” I place the phone on the desk and scrub my hands over my face. “I missed the invitation.”
Nick folds himself into one of the plush chairs opposite my desk. It’s Lucy’s favorite—the one closest to the windows. Beck slouches into the chair on the right and props his head up on his hand like he’s ready for a show.
“What is going on with you?” Nick asks, voice edged with irritation. “First you take off on some cross-country trip without telling us. Then you’re posing all over the internet with no shirt on.”
“For what it’s worth,” Beck interjects. “I, for one, am going to miss all the skin pics. The comments were pure internet gold.”
I give him the finger, and Nick continues as if the exchange never happened. “Now you’re back, but it’s like your mind is somewhere else entirely.”
Not somewhere else. With someone else.
