Human musculature is made up of roughly six hundred individual components. Every single one of the six hundred muscles in my body coiled in a cringe.
Snapping around in my chair, I found Hudson standing infront of the elevators, his handsome face wrinkled in apprehensive confusion.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Oh, I think everything’sbetterthan all right,” Jared intoned.
BuzzCorp was small, and Jared worked fast; if I didn’t nip this in the bud, everyone from Mario in Accounting to Aimee in Janitorial would be chattering about my sexcapades before lunchtime.
“No, Hudson. I don’t have your sweatshirt. I think you left it on the plane.”
Hint, hint.Yes, I had his stupid sweatshirt, but I’d wanted to return it in private.
“I don’t think so. Didn’t you have it last?”
“Nope.”
Every eye in this room was on me, and I wanted to disintegrate. The discomfort was all-encompassing.Please just shut up about your stupid, soft, amazing-smelling sweatshirt.
“Oh. It’s just I thought I—”
“Maybe you should call the airline. They might have it in lost and found. Now, are you using the conference room this morning? Your team should be getting in any minute.”
I could not be hinting any harder if this was fucking charades. But Hudson persisted.
“I really could have sworn you had it last. I don’t mean to be a pest, but—”
“Why would she have your sweatshirt?”
Hudson turned his attention to Jared, who slurped loudly and deliberately from a near-empty iced coffee.
“I gave it to her.”
Slllrrrrrpppp.“Sounds cozy.”
Addie threw her hand over her mouth to cover up laughter. Terrence, clearly smarter than the rest of us combined, closed his laptop and walked away from this whole pathetic scene.
I shot up to my feet, too.
“All right, well. Great meeting, everyone. I want to crunch some more numbers on these fuck reports before we talk any further about next steps. Let’s circle back to this after lunch.”
Collecting my things, I went for my office, only to be stopped by Jared, who got the last word.
“Youneed some time to crunch the numbers? You’re the most prepared woman I’ve ever met. What gives? Someone keep you distracted this weekend?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
Mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to lie.
A moment later, I was in my office, highly aware that my audience could still watch me through the glass walls. I bottled my bubbling emotions deep down and tried to go back to work. Back to what I was good at.
That was all I wanted, after all. To get back to my simple, unaffected self. To once again walk the straight and narrow, with no complications or detours.
But then, probably because there’s no God and if thereisa God he clearly enjoys my suffering, there was a knock on the door.
“Scout? Can I come in?”
Hudson had only visited my office once, when Clara first introduced us. But there he was. In front of my transparent door. Being observed carefully by Jared and Addie.
