Jolie snickers, flicking through pages of her planner, her old-school mind rebelling against using a digital calendar as opposed to a good old-fashioned paper planner. Not that I blame her, because a paper planner is far more reliable. “We have roughly three projects that need our attention, but if you give us the design plan, the concept you’re aiming for, and locations if we’re not shooting here, then we’ll work on those in the two weeks you’re away.”
“We just need to find a slot where Boss Lady doesn’t have a packed schedule. Have you guys found anything yet?” Zeke wonders, a pen sticking out of his mouth as he continues searching through our shared calendar, the same one open on my screen.
Popping a strawberry in my mouth, I skip over this month, already knowing that is a no-no. I have far too many shoots planned this month, too many deadlines, and I can’t reschedule any of them. Next month isn’t looking so hot, either, and I start to begrudge my vacation win all over again. A little robot vacuum would never have given me this much trouble.
“How about here?” Zeke finally asks after all four of us grow silent as we delve deep into our search for the perfect time to jet off for two weeks.
“Where?” I ask, unable to see his highlighted cursor among the scheduled meetings, bookings, and reminders that litter the entire calendar.
“Right here,” he repeats, as though I’ve suddenly found where he is on my screen in the last second. “We can push this meeting back, reschedule these two, and bring forward this shoot. That’s week one. Week two is mostly packed with things I need to do with sign-offs from you, but I think it could work if we plan it properly.”
Shaking my head, I blurt, “I have no idea where you are on my screen, dude. Come here and show me, because my eyes are only being assaulted by all the different color tags.”
Snickering, Zeke stands and rounds my desk, slotting himself into the space at my right. Just as he reaches for my mousepad, Jolie hurries around to my left, her planner and pen in hand. “Wait for me. I need to double-check that things are good on my end, too.”
Zeke pauses and looks over at Gretchen. “You too, yapper. Come over here so I don’t have to do this a second time.”
Gee hauls herself up, slinging her legs off the arm of the couch before shuffling over, standing at my back with a smart-ass salute that tickles me more than anything. Though she’s a yapper, a woman who is a big fan of small and big talks, she’s also comically sarcastic when she’s comfortable with those around her. Since she’s worked for me for only a year less than Zeke and a year more than Jolie, our relationship has been built on plenty of late nights, bonding over snacks, work, and random things through the years that have blessed me with easy and fun relationships with my assistants. We’re a well-oiled machine, a functioning unit, even if all three of them can be as sassy as mybest friends. Thankfully, it’s a part of their charm, even though I’m sure it’s Zeke’s fault the other two have grown in their sarcasm and attitudes over the years. Jolie isn’t quite at the same level as Zeke or Gretchen yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
“All right, so the next two months won’t work, so it would have helped if you were on the right month,” Zeke notes with a heavy dose of mockery, and I glare at him before focusing back on the calendar. I watch as the mouse swishes to and fro, Zeke whizzing it around before he stops on the month after. “Right here. Check your diaries, ladies, because from what I can see, this is the perfect time for a two-week vacation.”
Sure enough, it’s the clearest month in my entire calendar. One week includes three meetings and a photo shoot I’ve planned with Henley for a mansion she’s renovating from top to bottom. Zeke is right. I can reschedule two of the meetings and push one back until I’m home from vacation. I’ll call Henley and discuss rearranging our shoot, and hey presto, there’s one week of freedom. The following week is a little busier, with more notes that will need clearing, but it’s doable.
Jolie presses her planner down on the desk and flicks three times to the same month, dropping her finger to the weeks in question. As though the universe is trying to apologize for the bird fiasco yesterday, Jolie’s schedule is clearer than mine, a healthy sign that she’ll be able to function for those two weeks without me.
“This could work for me,” Gretchen declares from behind me, leaning over my shoulder to double-check with her own calendar, and things start looking up a whole lot more.
Zeke nods, pointing at the screen. “This right here will be the trickiest, but I don’t think it’ll be a big problem. We can work something out. But those are two weeks we can clear enough for everything to run smoothly here while you spend some time in the sun. You’re looking a little pasty, boss.”
I ignore him, looking over the calendar once more before retrieving a sticky notepad and scribbling the dates down, nodding as I mutter, “All right. So we can all do these dates before I book them, right? Should we double-check the rest of the year before we cement it?”
With three different agreements, we all lean in and check the following months for a better spot. We’re so absorbed with our task, in fact, that not one of us hears the door open and close. We don’t hear or see anyone walk into my office. And we certainly don’t realize there’s a presence in the room until there’s a sharp knock on the desk.
We react as a unit, fear manifesting from all of us in a mirroring fashion that I would actually consider kind of startling. Especially when it comes in the form of four fully grown adults screaming in terror, three of them descending on the one in the chair as though I could actually save them. Zeke damn near crumples into me, his scream a decibel higher than the rest of ours, while Jolie ducks and shoves her entire body into mine with a hug tight enough to almost steal my breath. The scream that’s tickling my throat steals enough of it as it is. And then there’s Gretchen, who almost smacks me upside the head with her tablet when she grips me from behind, also releasing a sound of fear that mingles disturbingly well with the rest of ours.
And all because Ryan has appeared in front of us like an apparition, not there one second and there the next. He stands there looking just as shocked as us, eyes wide as he visibly leans away from the desk, hands held out as though he’s just happened upon a litter of terrified kittens and doesn’t want to frighten them even more.
The moment my brain finally realizes it’s just Ryan, I slump in my seat, and the others stop screaming and slowly release their hold on me. From my peripheral, I catch Zeke shaking his head with an embarrassed blush staining his skin,and I spy Jolie ducking her head with her eyes closed, likely feeling the same level of mortification as the rest of us.
I don’t even know what’s happened to Gretchen, the woman falling so silent that I worry she might have perished behind me. I currently don’t have it in me to check just yet, slapping a hand over my chest where my heart beats rapidly beneath my rib cage. Blowing out a deep breath, doing my best to steady my frazzled self, I stare at Ryan and declare, “You need to come with bells attached to your feet.”
“I did knock,” he innocently argues, pointing at the door as though that would help his case. “Three times, in fact.”
Zeke coughs, disguising a sudden bubble of laughter, and Jolie turns her face away to hide her amusement. Still don’t know where Gretchen is, but that’s the least of my problems.
“I also called your cell twice,” Ryan adds, pointing at my cell that I have facedown on the desk.
I grimace, because I’m pretty sure it’s on silent after the shoot earlier, because I didn’t hear a single call come through. Not that that’s saying much, because I apparently didn’t hear three knocks on the door, either.
“Do I want to know what you guys were doing that had you so absorbed with a computer screen that you lost sense of everything around you?” Ry queries, his expression now turning from one of surprise to amusement.
Sighing, I sink into my chair, my head bumping the back of something hard and relentless that moves suddenly. Oh, good. Gretchen isn’t dead. Just stood frozen behind me. That’s totally normal. At least she didn’t drop her tablet in the greatest scare of our lives.
“We were looking for space in my schedule for me to comfortably book that two-week vacation I won. It’s a challenging task given how occupied my work life is, and as you can see, it took four of us to figure it out. We managed it beforeyou almost snuffed our lives out by silently sneaking in here like a ghoul,” I answer, rubbing my face and hoping it isn’t as red as the others’.
I hear Ryan take a seat and peek at him through my fingers, finding his charming face still amused. He eyes the others lingering in the room, the atmosphere turning awkward now that he’s just successfully terrified four people into huddling in fear, and I can’t help the ridiculous laugh that slips through the cracks of my fingers.
“Guys, you can leave,” I tell Jolie, Zeke, and Gretchen, and I’ve never seen them move so fast in all the years I’ve known them.
