“I’ll let you live it down. You want to know why? Because you’ll bankrupt me and I won’t even be able to afford a phone to yell at you.”
“Buster.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I don’t even like being comfortable. You know what? I hate it. Take my money. Take all of it. Bury my name in bad investments and just leave me there.”
“You’re so dramatic sometimes. Has anyone ever told you that?” I lean forward and grab my phone, then prop it up against my travel mug so Buster’s no longer staring at the ceiling.
“Hmm. No. Never been mentioned before,” Buster replies with a smirk while rubbing at his eye. “Fine. I’m awake. Take me through it again.”
“Okay. Everything I’ve seen so far is pretty good. You remember the warehouse I was telling you about?”
“The one where you got to play hero?”
“Dude.”
“What?” He leans close to the screen. “I know you loved it.”
“We’re getting off topic.”
“Are we? You snatch up this little company and just happen to waltz back into the life of the woman you could not stop talking about formonthsafter you met her?”
“It was not months.”
“Why did I give my number instead of taking hers?” Buster whines, poorly mimicking me. “Would it be weird if I went through every single I.D to find out who she was?”
“I do not sound like that.”
“Back then, you did.” He laughs heartily, then clears his throat. “But sure. What you sent from the warehouse looks good. Maybe some logistical troubles, but with an injection of money and manpower, what they have running should support a bigger operation.”
“And the website?”
“It’s decent. I mean, it’s a website. It does what it says on the tin. Although…”
“Although?” My heart jumps faintly. Buster’s not far off the mark. Finding Calliope working here has me doubling down to ensure this deal becomes a roaring success for everyone involved, which is proving more difficult than I’d like.
“It’s not hard to find the history, and I’m finding a lot of stock issues. Products added and then removed within the day. It could be because they do a lot of flash sales, so we’ll need to end those.”
“I can look into it. The pipe’s all fixed now, and as far as I’m aware, the offices have dried out. As long as no one finds mold, everything should be back into the swing of things, so I’ll find out about these sales.”
“Sounds good.” Buster ends the call with a list of legal documents I need to get from Jimmy, and silence falls.
Despite burying myself in work all weekend, Calliope was never far from my thoughts. She remembers me butthe past should remain in the pastis a pretty clear indication of how she feels about what happened between us.
So why do I still feel the urge to keep going? To do something, anything, that will make her take notice of me and give me another chance? A lot’s changed in six years, but what I feel for her surged up the moment I saw her.
Maybe Buster’s right and it is just infatuation linked to one of my only good memories these past years.
Shoving the paperwork aside, I pocket my phone and head to the nearest breakroom in search of coffee. It’s far too early foranyone else to be here but as I approach the breakroom, the soft bubbling hum of the coffee machine drifts through the door. I knock once, not wanting to startle whoever is inside, and enter.
“Calliope?”
She stands in front of the coffee machine with both arms crossed, her head tilting to one side as she gazes unseeing at the pot. When I say her name, she jumps slightly and spins around, causing her ponytail to catch on her shoulder.
“Elijah? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I work here,” she points out.
