“Why haven’t you answered your phone?” I walked into the lobby of The Ink Well, with a tumbler of pure black coffee in my hand. I still hadn’t told Alexa or Erica what had happened in Vegas, and I’d been dodging their calls and texts all weekend. I had lied when I originally told them I was staying in Vegas a few extra days. I said I had lost my ID and needed to wait for a temporary to fly home and that Greg was staying with me to make sure I got back fine.
“We had a busy weekend.” I bypassed both Alexa and Erica in the lobby, heading straight for the stairs. I turned around to see if they were following me, but both girls were still standing by the elevator, with questioning looks on their faces.We. I had said “we.” Shit.
“Lilly?” The amused look on Alexa’s face made the heat rise to my cheeks. She knew me too well, and it didn’t help that I had all but told her before she moved here that I had a thing for Greg, so she knew I wouldn’t have gone out with anyone else.
“Not today, Alexa.” I waved my hand at both girls, opening the door to the stairs. “Not today.”
I knew I couldn’t avoid this conversation for long, because as habits would show, we always had lunch together. I just had to prepare myself for what I was going to tell the girls. What was I going to tell them? “Hey, I got married, not so accidentally the night you got married, and now I’m trying to get a divorce, but the judge won’t grant it. Also, I have marriage counseling set up every Wednesday and Friday for the next three weeks.”
Fuck.
When I finally made it to my desk, I flung my bag under the desk opened my emails.
Sixty.
This was why I didn’t fucking take vacations.
Even though Greg ran this floor, I was the one who called all the shots while he worked in his office.
I tried to get back into work mode, taking a sip of coffee after reading each email. I didn’t bother saying hello to anyone as they passed me, and if the irritation in the air was any indication of how today was going to go, I knew it was going to be the most Monday of Mondays. I didn’t notice when Erica took her spot in the cubicle next to me nor when Greg passed me and set a few papers that needed to be reviewed on the edge of my desk.
I looked them over. One of our new clients was in the finishing process for their royalties agreement. All I needed to do was double-check the numbers and sign off for Greg to send out. There was no avoiding Greg anymore today and that was the same with most days. It was inevitable having to face him since, when I worked with a client, he was there; if he worked with a client, he always got with me for a second opinion. I was just hoping that this whole situation wasn’t going to affect our work life, because I seriously loved my job.
I reluctantly got out of my chair and, for once, Greg’s door wasn’t closed. I never knocked since Greg always expected me to stop by his office at least four to five times a day, so when I stepped over the threshold, I knew I shouldn’t have.
“No, Mom.” He was standing over in the corner, trying to whisper into the phone he cradled on his shoulder. He was browsing through a stack of papers that were perched on his bookshelf. Greg wasn’t one for reading the books he worked on, so I was confused as to what he was holding. “I won’t be there for dinner on Wednesday.”
I stood there, frozen, next to his desk.Please don’t say anything.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Greg’s parents. In fact, I loved them. But by the way his mother always tried to set him up with other women, I never knew what to expect with her. Even though it seemed to most onlookers that Greg and I were just work friends, that wasn’t the case. Well, it didn’t use to be the case.
When I started to look for big-girl jobs after college, I found The Ink Well when it was still a small publishing company. Max, the founder of it all, had recruited Chase, Jack, and Greg to start on this adventure of helping indie authors publish their works. Even though they graduated with English degrees from Georgia State in different years, somehow the four of them ended up taking the same classes. It branded them as the power team once Max finally graduated last of the four. They had been inseparable since.
Greg was the first person I met when I walked through the double doors of this office building over five years ago, with my not-so-impressive resume in hand. He took me in and interviewed me and then gave me a job on the spot. He soon realized I didn’t have anywhere in the city to stay, so he let me crash at his place almost every night. My relationship with my family was staggered back then. I had just graduated college and might have been living at home but almost never saw my parents since they were traveling every other month since I graduated high school. They were finally able to retire and didn’t have to care for a child. They took full advantage of it. Sometimes I would see my brother Eric, when it was convenient for him, but I hadn’t seen my sisters or my brother Jim in years and I had no desire to. I was just some child to them, having over thirty years difference between me and my oldest sister Mila. I had ended up living in our family home alone most of the time, out in the suburbs of Atlanta.
Because of this, Greg had always made sure I was invited over for his family holidays and what started out as a work friendship soon became more than that, at least for me. I fell in love with Greg about five years ago, when he stood up to his mother that we weren’t dating. The passion that he held there was one that I wanted, needed, to have directed towards me.
Now everything had changed and I didn’t know how any of this would affect others around us, which was why I hadn’t said anything to the girls, and why I was silently praying Greg wouldn’t say anything to his mother. The second Greg’s parents found out about it, all hell would break loose.
I tried to tiptoe out of the room, but Greg spun around and locked eyes with me. He squinted them as a warning that, if I ran, he would come and get me. I didn’t want to have a chase scene in the office or to try to hide from him, so I stood still while he said his goodbyes to his mother.
“We’ll talk about this later.” I watched as Greg set his phone down on the papers that were still resting on the shelf beside him. He left it there and made his way towards me. I held my breath as he moved past me without a word, closed the door to his office and latched the dead bolt.
“And I’ll talk to you now.” Greg came up behind me, but didn’t touch me. The words he said were whispered against my skin, a promise that I wanted to beg for him to keep.
“What do you want to talk about, Greg?” I closed my eyes and waited for him to answer the question.
“I have no idea what to tell my mom.” My eyes snapped open to see Greg standing in front of me. His hands were in his pockets and he was hunched over. He looked defeated, almost like he was in pain.
“What do you mean?” Greg looked up at me, his eyes searching mine for an answer I didn’t have.
“I mean about us.” He moved away from me to sit at his desk. I followed and took the seat in front of him. To an observer it would look like we were just having a business conversation, rather than talking about our nonexistent relationship. “I can only skip so many family dinners before someone starts asking the harder questions, Lilly.”
I knew what he meant. Our relationship wasn’t the normal kind, but it had worked for years. Every Wednesday was family dinner and most of them I went to as well, but lately that wasn’t the case, so for me not to go was one thing, but for Greg not to go would cause people to start snooping in areas I didn’t want them to.
“I get that.” I leaned back in the chair and tried to make myself comfortable by propping my feet up on Greg’s desk. He mimicked my actions. This was a typical position for us to sit in when we were trying to work out big client issues. “But what do we say?”
There I went again, saying “we,” like we were in this together. I looked at Greg and then around the room. We kind of were in this together, though.
