Talking to her is easy. Sure, most of her replies can be written off as polite responses to my questions or light efforts to keep the conversation going outside of awkwardness, but every tidbit she gives me is like a drop of water to a parched man.
I want to know everything. Buster was right. I spent months lamenting over her and kicking myself for never getting hernumber in turn. Now she’s here, and I can’t let this opportunity slip through my fingers.
“Calliope,” I say as we enter the building, enveloping ourselves in a comfortable warmth. “I?—”
“Calliope!” A woman screeches her name as soon as the elevator doors behind us open and she sprints toward us, her hair flying. “Oh, thank God you’re here, I— Oh. Hello.” She stops dead in front of us, her eyes wide as she gazes up at me, then her attention darts to Calliope. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Calliope replies immediately.
The woman, Victoria, if I remember correctly, glances between our matching coffee cups and then clutches at Calliope’s arm. “Good, because I need your helpnow!”
I swallow down everything I wanted to say and smile. “Is it something I can help with?”
Victoria gazes at me in alarm and her hands tighten on Calliope’s arm. “Nope! Just Calliope, sorry!” she gasps out, then swiftly drags Calliope into the elevator.
12
CALLIOPE
“What were you doing with Elijah?” Victoria finally releases my arm in the elevator and winks at me. “Are you trying to woo the gemstone supplier?”
“No!” My cheeks flare immediately and suddenly, the coffee in my hands feels more like a bribe than anything else. “We just bumped into one another at the coffee place, that’s all.”
“Oh, really? You justhappenedto bump into the hot out-of-state man who’s here to check up on the quality of his gemstones?”
“Yes.” Although the more honest I try to sound, the more it sounds like I’m lying, and Victoria doesn’t look like she believes me one bit.
“I saw how he was looking at you,” she continues as the elevator whooshes up to my floor. “I bet there’s something other than gemstones that he wants to check.”
“Oh, my God, stop!” It takes all my effort to keep my tone playful. “What’s this emergency you were blabbering on about?”
All lightness fades from Victoria’s eyes and she groans. “Oh, right. You’re not going to like this, but Jimmy wants you to do fresh inventory on everything that was damaged in the leak. He also wants you to take pictures of everything, and not only that, but we then have to go through everything that arrived downstairs earlier because apparently, he was moving a bunch of your stock to the stores?”
“Wait, the stock that was in that room was for the stores?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Since when?” All the pleasant, relaxed feelings from my walk with Elijah vanish as we step out of the elevator. “Everything in there was for my January subscription box. What does he mean it’s now for the stores?”
“I’m sorry, babe, but that’s what he’s saying. So everything that’s downstairs, after you’ve cataloged it, is now going to the stores.”
“Why would I catalog it if it’s not going on the website?”
Victoria grimaces and pushes her bangs out of her face. “Because he wants you to advertise the stores.”
“This is…” I catch myself immediately, not wanting Victoria to get the brunt of my rising anger. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
“I’ll be right back.” After a stop off in the bathroom to pour my coffee down the sink, I storm through to Jimmy’s office and barge in without knocking.
He’s lounging back in his seat with his feet up on his desk and a phone pressed to his ear. When he spots me, his expression darkens. “I’m on a call, go away.”
Anger surges through me and I approach his desk and slam my hand down on his phone cradle, ending the call. “Tell me Victoria was lying.”
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Me? I’ve just lost countless stock that I had stored becauseyoucut back on security that would have found that leak before it turned into the disaster it is. Now you’re telling me all my replacement stock is to go to the stores because you changed the shipments? What am I supposed to put in the January subscription boxes? What am I supposed to tell those customers?”
