"Of course it's okay for you to work her. I've loved having you here. And now I'll get to see you every day like I did in college." I released her when she started making dramatic choking sounds. "I've missed you like crazy, dumbass."
Sierra rolled her eyes, pretending that she didn't have tears in her eyes. “Take the damn flowers and shut up. Your man was incredibly sweet when I snuck into his office to pick them up.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond because Sierra’s cell phone went off and she answered it, turning on her heel to walk down the hall where she disappeared into my office.
The flowers weren't the only things that Sierra brought in.
When I went back to my office later, I found a framed photo on my desk that definitely hadn't been there before. It was a picture of Brody, Jacks, and me. At first, I wasn't sure where it might have been taken. Until I saw that we were sitting on my parents' couch. No doubt my mother had snuck the picture when we weren't paying attention. Brody and I were sitting close together, looking at each other, and laughing. Jacks sat in my lap and she was laughing too.
It was a beautiful picture.
My mother must have sent it to Brody so he could print it out and frame it. Now it sat on my desk in my office.
I yearned to call him. To thank him for the picture. To tell him I missed him. Just to hear his voice.
I settled for adjusting the picture frame so I could see it when I sat at my desk to work on the computer.
"Like it?" Sierra asked from the doorway.
I looked up and smiled. "Yes, I do. Let me guess, you snuck this out with the flowers too?"
She nodded. "He has one just like it on his desk."
Oh, he was definitely buttering me up and he was using my best friend to do it.
"You have the dopiest expression on your face. You're totally going to let go of the stupid thing he did, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I think I am."
"If it were any other man, I'd try to talk you out of it, but Brody's a good one. He's just as clueless as the rest of them, but he's not afraid to admit when he's wrong."
I gaped at her.
"What?" she asked, hunching her shoulders and crossing her arms over her chest.
"You're actually advocating that I don't hold a grudge against him? I can't believe it. You've held a grudge since your first boyfriend broke up with you in the sixth grade."
"I have not!"
"Sierra, you hacked his Match dot com account and sent screenshots of his messages to his mother."
"He was sending out unsolicited dick pics! Who does that? Dicks, that's who! He deserved it."
"Did you know he was sending them out before you hacked him?" I asked.
Her face turned bright red. "Actually, I did. Because he sent one to me when he came across my profile and realized who I was."
"Wow. This I did not know. Then he definitely deserved it. But you still hold grudges."
"Whatever," she said. Sierra pushed off from the doorjamb and made her way to the chair across from me. "I still think you should forgive him. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place and he made the wrong decision."
"I know," I answered. "I just want him to think twice so he'll make the correct decision next time."
"And people think I'm the evil one. You have them all fooled."
I shrugged. "It's not my fault if they form their own erroneous assumptions."
"God, stop bringing out the SAT vocabulary words before noon. It's painful."
