Eliza:I worry aboutyou, too.
Me:See you afterwork?
Eliza:You bring the wine, I’ll bring the hummus :)
But I didn’t just worry about her. I was going to miss her when she left, and I couldn’t bear to think about her leaving.
A meeting invite blinked at the top of the screen:HR check-in—11:00 a.m. Tuesday
I stared at it. No agenda. Since when did Bonnie schedule meetings with no agenda? She had an agenda for buying lunch.
It was probably standard restructuring stuff—everyone who was left was getting extra accounts. Our workloads would almost double, and there had already been an email about “leaner, more agile teams.” Someone had reacted with a beaming emoji, then thought better of it and deleted it. Was it even possible to use that one without sounding sarcastic?
I accepted the invite and opened my sales dashboard. My pipeline was a mess. Three deals markedPausedand one markedTransferredwith no details attached. I clicked into a note flaggedOverdue. Kelly’s name was still on it.
I reassigned it to myself.
Only sixteen more to go.
Yeah, no. They could wait.
I stood and went to the kitchen. The coffee machine was still blinking aDescalewarning. Who normally did that? Maybe I should.
I grabbed a mug and popped a teabag in it instead.
When I turned, James was there.
“Morning.” I poured hot water into my mug, and it slopped over the rim onto the counter. I watched it spread for a second before grabbing a paper towel.Crap, Andy. Get your head intogear.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
His eyes shot to the open door, then back to me. “All right. You?”
“Yeah. You know.”
There’s a dull ache just next to my heart like a bruise, but apart from that, peachy.
Bonnie walked past the kitchen and kept going. She was already on her phone.
“Good weekend?” I dipped the teabag in and out of the water. “Baz and you still going strong?”
“Yeah, okay. I had to work half of it though. HR’s… busy.”
“Oh? That’s not good.”
“No, it’s—” He stopped. “Baz is fine.”
“Fine?” I chucked the teabag into the bin. “Is that all you’ve got for me? Whatever happened to James’s Monday morning hot sex updates?”
“Sorry, Andy. I’ve got a thing.” He picked up his instant coffee. “There’s shit going on, I’ll fill you in when I can—”
He was gone.
What was up with James? When I’d told him about Liam and me breaking up, he’d been genuinely upset for me, although it made sense to him more than it did to my sister.
She didn’t have to see the fallout from the restructure like wedid.
Monish and Kelly had both been quiet when I’d mentioned Liam and I were over. It had hurt just to say it out loud, but I’d wanted them to know, so they wouldn’t think I was somehow okay with this disaster happening to them. But Monish was always reserved, and Kelly was too focused on trying to find somewhere else to live to worry much about my love life.
