Page 94 of The Chase

I groaned and put my phone down on the bedside table. Groveling it was…but first, I had to win these next two games.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MAXINE

TJ was supposed to get back from his latest road trip today, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him. I had been such a bitch the last time I saw him. When he said he needed space and suggested we break up, I knew it was over between us. I didn’t deserve the love he tried to give me. It didn’t surprise me he finally came to his senses.

He texted me exactly once while he was on the road, only to ask if we could talk when he got home. That meant only one thing; he wanted to break up. We were just delaying the inevitable because of his travel schedule. I half wished he would have done it over text, so I wouldn’t have to look into the face of the man I loved as he ripped my heart from my chest.

“Doesn’t your man get back today?” Keiana asked, startling me from my daydreaming on the couch.

“I guess.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You guess?”

“I think we broke up.”

“Since when?” she screeched. “What happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

She looked at her watch. “Wait, shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Took a sick day.”

She narrowed her dark eyes at me. “Is that because you’re avoiding TJ?”

Well, no, I took off because I was avoiding his sister. I still wasn’t sure if I was getting fired or not. I had been keeping busy getting up to speed on the social media stuff that I wasn’t at my desk all week. Rox wanted to get something on the calendar to discuss my workload, but I was sure she would still fire me, so I called out sick.

I didn’t have to answer my bestie because the doorbell rang instead. Keiana went to go see who was at the door. When she walked back into the living room, Rox was following her and carrying a bouquet of tiger lilies.

“Okay, two things,” Rox began. She walked over to the coffee table and set down the flowers. “One, these are from my brother, but he had practice. And, two…we need to talk.”

I sat up on the couch. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow to fire me?”

She sat next to me on the couch and rubbed the bridge of her nose. I noticed Kei casually slipped away. She didn’t like drama.

“Maxine, why do you think I’m gonna fire you?”

“Because Quinn said you knew I didn’t like my job.”

She sighed. “Um, that’s not a secret. You aren’t exactly enthusiastic about it.”

Oh.

Oh, crap. I was such an asshole. I blew up at TJ because I thought he told his sister how much I hated working in sales. Did everyone know I hated it?

“Oh. So why did you tell Quinn I should help with Debra’s maternity leave?” I asked.

She pinned me with an annoyed look. “Why would you think that meant you were getting fired? How does that even make sense?”

Okay, she got me there. I don’t think I was in the right frame of mind when I talked to Quinn.

She reached down into her briefcase and pulled out a print-out from the team’s website. She shoved it at me. “I think you need to move to marketing.”

“What?” I asked.

I scanned across the paper and saw it was a job listing for a social media coordinator. At the bottom, scrawled in Rox’s handwriting, were the words, ‘PERFECT FOR MAX!’ in all caps.