I grabbed it from her and bent over, stuffing my face into it. I heaved up my breakfast and the better part of my lunch, along with the water I had just chugged. The pain in his eyes, I had caused that. I had struck him where it hurt the most and not once did I ever second-guess myself. My stomach turned itself inside out. I had hurt JoJo.
I had hurt the man I wanted to help heal.
“There you go,” Kelly said softly as she kept rubbing my back, “get it all up.”
“You’ve been through a hell of a lot since starting here,” Brit said as she pulled my hair back, “so, you do what you need to do.”
I leaned up after everything had been ejected and placed the trash can off to the side. Brit picked it up and started cleaning it off while Kelly went in search of some more water. I laid my head on top of my desk, allowing the cool nature of the wood to stifle the sweating of my forehead and the back of my neck.
And after Kelly came back with some more water, she offered me a piece of gum.
“Here, this will help,” she said softly.
I took the offering from her. “Thanks.”
Brit came back with a fresh wastebasket. “Here, I just tossed the other one. No use in saving it when we’ve got a closet full of these little things.”
I took it from her and put it underneath my desk. “Thanks. I’m really sorry about that.”
Brit scoffed. “No need to be sorry. Mr. Ryker’s an intimidating man, and you’re essentially his right-hand woman right now. It stands to reason that you’re under a lot of pressure so you don’t lose your job.”
“Ugh, you have no idea.”
Kelly ran her fingers through my hair. “Will you talk to us one day about all of this? You know, once it passes?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can talk a little bit about it right now, if you’d like.”
They both settled in for story time as I gathered all the strength I could muster. Then, I started in on my high school history with JoJo.
“So, I don’t know if you know, Kelly, but Mr. Ryker and I know each other from high school.”
She nodded slowly. “So, that rumor’s true.”
“It is, yes. We actually grew up in adjoining neighborhoods. My sister and him dated at one point, and things went south.”
Brit scoffed. “Understatement of the year.”
“What happened?” Kelly asked.
I leaned forward and rested my forearms on my desk. “See, that’s the thing: I don’t know what happened. Maggie, my sister, never talked about it. And neither will JoJo.”
Kelly quirked an eyebrow. “JoJo?”
I pointed at her. “It’s just a high school nickname, don’t go around calling him that.”
She held up her hands. “Trust me, I know better than that.”
I sighed. “Anyway, it was bad. There was this massive blow-up fight in the middle of the school day. Maggie shoved JoJo into a locker and he almost hit her had it not been for the principal intervening.”
Brit balked. “He almost hit a girl? Are you kidding!?”
I shook my head. “You need to know my sister. If you did, you’d want to hit her, too. To this day, I have no idea how he tolerated her.”
Kelly grinned. “Must’ve been a good lay.”
I snorted. “No one knows what happened between the two of them, and when I interviewed for this job I had no idea that JoJo owned the company. I didn’t do much research before the interview itself, so I was insanely caught off-guard. But the tension between me and him wasn’t—and isn’t--some weird-ass sexual thing.”
Then, it clicked behind Kelly’s eyes. “You remind him of your sister.”
