Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended—sharp enough that Chad actually stopped mid-sentence, which was a rare feat. He blinked at her like he’d just remembered she was in the room. April saw his face do the thing it always did when reality failed to match the story he’d been telling himself; instead of updating the story, he rejected the information.
He pivoted toward Caleb, leaning forward as if they were longtime buddies in on a joke.
“So,” Chad said. “The Heartland job. When do I start?”
Caleb’s eyebrows rose, “I’m sorry?”
“The audition.” Chad’s wide, confident smile returned. “I killed it, right? I mean, I know you probably can’t say anything official yet, but—”
“You didn’t get the job. The audition was a prank, Chad.”
The bass thumped faintly from the club. Their table was silent. Chad looked around at the seven men. The name tags. Then at her. He finally registered the obvious: he was the only person here who didn’t belong.
“You can’t—” he began.
Liam cut him off, “We can. And we did.”
Chad’s face shifted from anger to desperation, then landed back on April. She saw the exact moment he registered the details: the flushed skin, the mussed hair, the way she sat nestled between four men, each of them touching her with casual, possessive ease.
His eyes narrowed. “I see you’ve moved on fast. We haven’t even had a conversation.”
The entire booth tensed at once.
“We broke up this morning, while you were inside Brenda from HR.”
“That’s rich coming from you.” His voice was rising now, sharper. “I mean, look at you. You’ve been here, what, a few hours? And you’re already—”
Then Chad’s phone buzzed. Loud. Insistent.
He pulled it out with an irritated huff, but as he glanced at the screen, his face went white.
“What is it?” April asked trying to glance at the screen.
Chad stared at the device, his hands trembling. “I’ve been... terminated. For gross misconduct and misappropriation of company funds.”
She waited for the reflex to kick in: the apology, the smoothing-over. It didn't come.
He looked to Killian, his voice turning desperate. “Man, we need to talk about this wholefiringthing. I think there’s been a misunderstanding—”
His phone buzzed again.
“There’s been no misunderstanding,” Killian said.
“Look, I know things got a little... heated today,” Chad pushed. “But you can’t just fire someone over office politics—”
“You were having sex in the office,” Killian said.“With an HR employee. On company time. Using company resources.”
“Brenda doesn’t even count,” Chad said. “It’s just our Tuesday lunch break.”
April blinked. “Your... what?”
“Lunch break. Tuesdays. HR said it was fine!” Chad’s voice pitched up, louder now, defensive. “It can’t be misconduct if HR said it was okay!”
“You failed your audit,” Arthur said. “You’ve been misappropriating company funds.”
“It was just some coffees—like, normal stuff,” Chad stammered. “And some of those are holds, Arthur. Hotels do that. You can’t just stare at a spreadsheet and decide I’m a criminal. This is being taken wildly out of context.”
“Why are you treating me like some kind of embezzler?” Chad snapped. “This is insane.”
