I pointed at her. “Don’t you even open that can of worms. We just got our friendship back after you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”
“Then, why be so protective of something that isn’t anything?” Kelly asked.
I looked over at Brit for support, but she simply shrugged. “I mean, she’s got a good point.”
I groaned as I flopped back into my office chair. “I just can’t win, can I?”
As the two of them continued talking about office gossip, I tried to stifle my worrying. I wanted to be a better person. A stronger person. I wanted to be that bad bitch that didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought of her. You know, like my sister had been back in high school. But the more I focused on what I thought was going on, the more it showed me that things were so much different. I focused on the fact that all I wanted to do was worry about my job and fix my past with JoJo. But instead, I had fallen into his web of secrecy and seduction and deceit in order to get close to him to try and fix shit in the first place.
And I liked it a little too much.
“Fuck,” I said with a sigh.
Brit placed her hand on my shoulder. “Look, the office is gonna talk no matter what. Mr. Ryker is a mystery to a lot of us. There are many, many people in this company who have never once had a conversation with him. So, yes, your multiple trips up to his office and all of this overtime looks suspicious to them.”
“But,” Kelly said as she pulled a sucker out of her purse, “you have a very serious job. Only one other person has the job you do, and, like you said, they’re out due to being sick. That’s all they need to know, so that’s what we’ll tell them.”
My head fell back against the leather chair. “But there shouldn’t be anything to tell in the first place.”
Brit squeezed my shoulder. “I know, girl. I know.”
“Why can’t people just keep their nose out of other people’s lives. Did you know that my parents showed up about five minutes after you left this weekend, Brit?”
She gasped. “No, they didn’t.”
I barked with laughter. “Yeah, they did. And not only that, they saw everything.”
Kelly furrowed her brow. “Did I miss something?”
Brit giggled. “Our girl here went spree-shopping at Happy Haven’s, or whatever that place is called.”
Kelly clapped her hands. “Oh, I love that place. Did you get some good stuff? What kind of things did you end up with? Did you buy enough to get some of their free shit? I love their free shit.”
I held up my hand. “It gets so much worse, though.”
Brit paused. “What do you mean?”
I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. “I thought I pulled out my personal credit card, but I ended up pulling out my company card.”
Brit barked with laughter. “No, you didn’t!”
Kelly squealed so loud that I thought the windows would break. “I would’ve been mortified!”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my sore, tired eyes. “So, yeah, I have slightly more important shit on my mind than what the office wants to gossip about this week.”
Brit laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes. “Wait until Mr. Ryker sees that shit.”
Kelly scoffed. “With how much he’s got this company on lockdown, he’s probably already seen it.”
I puffed out my cheeks with yet another sigh. “He saw it and, yes, called me into his office about it. He gave me a very stern lecture on how that could look when audit time comes around, so I took all of my stuff back Sunday afternoon once they opened.”
“Please tell me you kept some of the stuff, though,” Kelly said.
A small smile crossed my face. “I just explained to the woman what happened. I told her I used the wrong card, so I needed to refund that card and then I just paid for everything again with my personal debit card.”
“Oh, thank God,” Brit said, “because you had some awesome stuff in there.”
Kelly wiggled her eyebrows. “Care to fill me in on the stuff?”
