“Did you watch the game last night?” Flynn asked, leaning back and putting his feet up on Chase’s desk. Yeah, that couldn’t continue.
Chase pushed Flynn’s feet off and turned to look at him. “What game?” Chase hadn’t watched any sports team with regularity since high school, though he often caught the highlights on the news. For all he knew, Flynn could be talking about women’s softball.
“Never mind. I forgot you have all those Orphan Annies at home who keep you from having a life.”
Chase glared at him. “Forget it. Just go back to your desk. I’ll write the stupid article myself.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Flynn put his hands together, somehow managing to actually look contrite, though Chase didn’t believe for a minute Flynn ever felt sorry for anything.
Flynn pushed his chair back and stood up. “Look, I don’t think we’ve bored people with an article on defensive driving in a while. I’ll come up with a bunch of bullet points. You write the meat of it, okay?”
“That’s fine.” Chase’s eyes strayed to Ashley’s desk. She was stretching out her shoulders again. He should look away. Ashley hated it when people caught her doing it.
Flynn gave a low chuckle. “Dude, does your girlfriend know how often you stare at your hot coworker?”
Chase turned back to his computer and yawned. It was better to pretend like Flynn’s imagination was running wild. After all, it usually was. “We broke up. And no, Ashley had nothing to do with it. She and I are just friends.”
“Maybe so. But you wish you were more.” Flynn walked back to his desk, whistling a happy tune. The guy was such a weasel. And now, Chase’s lie had thoughtlessly just morphed. Why had he said that to Flynn?
No doubt, Flynn would take delight in telling Ashley and everyone else that Chase’s girlfriend had dumped him. He’d probably make it seem like the makeover was part of it too. Something to build up his fragile ego.
***
Ashley pretended the information was nothing to her, but in reality, Flynn’s gossip meant a lot. Chase broke up with his girlfriend? How recent was recently? Could he be her secret admirer? She’d ruled him out, but maybe it had been his way of getting over a breakup. A harmless distraction to mask the pain. Ouch. If so, that was seriously unromantic. After dating someone for that long, the feelings didn’t go away overnight, even if you desperately wanted them to.
Okay, she really needed to take her imagination down a couple notches. She and Chase were friends. She’d be mortified if it was her breakup news being batted around. And it was her fault Flynn even knew about Chase’s girlfriend. She’d mentioned her once in front of Flynn and the look Chase had given her … not happy. Yeah, Chase really didn’t like his personal life talked about. Chase couldn’t be her secret admirer. No one separated work life and personal life better than he did. And leaving secret gifts for a coworker was taking the two and throwing them in a blender.
She met up with Chase after work, and they clocked out together, talking about the scare on the third floor when someone forgot about a scented candle and started their desk on fire. Once that happened, it was all anyone could talk about.
“I heard,” Chase said, trying not to laugh, “that she was always complaining about her stinky coworkers. The guy next to her eats tuna fish sandwiches and Doritos every day at his desk for lunch.”
“Poor lady. Just trying to clean the air.”
Chase’s eyes widened. “Poor lady? She almost killed us all.”
“It was an accident.”
“Supposedly, she had it right up against the cubicle wall and the flames raced up it. I’m surprised they didn’t make us all evacuate.”
“We don’t know what actually happened. All we got was that stupid memo, kindly reminding us that flame of any kind is prohibited, and from now on we’ll need managerial approval to light birthday candles.”
Chase’s mouth twitched. “I wrote the memo.”
“No!”
He opened the door to the outside, and they both squinted as the sun hit their faces.
“H.R. was busy interviewing her and dealing with the fire department. So they sent it to Mr. Davidson, and he gave it to me to do.”
“It was a good memo, Chase.”
He crossed his arms, pretending to be offended. “You just said it was stupid.”
She stopped and put a hand on his arm. “The information was stupid. But it was well-written and to the point.”
“Your flattery will get you nowhere, missy.” He stared her down, both of them losing at keeping their poker faces. A question appeared in his eyes, and she realized she’d never removed her hand from his arm. What was she doing?
“Hey, you two.” Yolanda walked up behind them.
Ashley stepped away and turned to smile at her, suddenly grateful for the interruption. “Hi, Yolanda.”
Yolanda smiled at Chase. “I heard you’re single now. Are you too broken-hearted to go out on Friday? A bunch of us are dancing at this great bar I know.”
“Well, I … can’t do that. But thank you.” His discomfort was palpable, but Yolanda didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she only asked to see him squirm. Sometimes she could be like that.
“What if I got Ashley here to go?” Yolanda turned her mischievous eyes to Ashley.
“I don’t dance. Like ever. But thank you.” Ashley gave Chase a small nudge, and they started walking again towards their cars, waving goodbye to Yolanda. Great. Now that Yolanda brought it up, Ashley couldn’t act like she didn’t know about his breakup. But she was not about to mention it unless he did first.
And Chase didn’t. They barely spoke the rest of the way to their cars.
