I’m not sure why my skin buzzes as I wait to see the responding bubbles dance across the bottom of the screen. Or why my heart drops when I don’t see them after a few minutes.
“Stupid,” I tell myself, setting my phone down. “You’re being stupid.”
I startle when Farrah asks, “Are you talking to yourself?”
Hand flying to my chest, I stare over at my coworker, staring strangely at me. “When did you get here? I didn’t even hear you.”
Her perfectly tweezed brow arches as she gestures toward her heels. Stilettos that look like they could double as weapons. “How did you not hearthese? I’m offended. Somewhere out there, so is Tom Ford.”
I frown. “Who?”
She gasps, mouth open as she gapes at me in disbelief. “You don’t know who Tom Ford is?”
Slowly, I shake my head.
Then her eyes trail to my ballet flats, and she winces. “Makes sense,” she mutters. Instead of elaborating, she says, “You owe me big time. While you took personal leave, I had to answer the millions of calls you got. Here.”
She passes me a stack of sticky notes with her handwriting on them. There are a lot of them, which makes me feel bad for not coming in sooner and soaking up the time Janel gave me.
“If you’re going to play in the big leagues,” she tells me with an odd look on her face, “you need to keep up. That means knowing designers, because people like Thomas Moskins aren’t wearing secondhand items.”
If I were younger, I’d be embarrassed by the comment. It isn’t the first time I’ve had people poke fun at the clothes I wear. After my parents’ death, I wore a lot of Kourtney’s hand-me-downs or whatever we could find cheap at Walmart or local thrift shops. Some clothes were even donated to us. They never looked old or worn down, but they certainly weren’t up to date on trending fashions either.
“It’s a good thing I don’t care what Thomas Moskins, or anybody else, thinks,” I inform her with a tight smile.
To which she smiles back, with something flashing in her eyes. “Don’t you?”
That’s all she says before walking away with a pep to her step that I don’t trust.
I shake my head and try to avoid the funny feeling in my stomach. The anxiety bubbling there that reminds me something is off. Something I can’t put my hand on.
When my phone buzzes, my heart picks up, and I find myself lunging to check the message.
That’s when I know I’m in trouble.
Because it’s not Thomas.
It’s my sister.
And I’m…disappointed.
Kourt:Stop trying to think of excuses to get out of it. It won’t happen
Kourt:Five pm sharp
Kourt:Luca says he misses you
If I felt bad before, it doesn’t equate to the feeling now. I’m sad because a man who isn’t even mine to claim isn’t texting me back. I feel twelve again, waiting for my first crush to finally talk to me.
I type back a reply and force myself to lock my phone in my desk after.
Me:Tell Luca I miss him too, and I’ll see him tonight
*
Dinner isn’t atotal bust. Brad is on his best behavior, and so am I. Mostly because I spend the majority of my time in Luca’s roomwatching videos of children playing with claw machines instead of with the adults. I find it more distracting when Luca asks me a million questions about what kind of pulley system and motor I think is inside the machine, and what kind of money engineers make to build them.
I use my phone to Google answers for him instead of obsessing over the unanswered messages I sent to Thomas earlier.
