6
Imade it to work on time, but it was a close thing. I barreled through the door three minutes before my shift was due to start, but they couldn’t mark me down as late, so I would count that as a win for the time being. I hurried to my office where I found Darla waiting for me. She grinned as she saw me come around the corner, that broad, slightly crooked smile that seemed to light up her whole face.
“Hey,” she greeted me, and she looked me up and down. “Late night?”
“Shit, is it that obvious?” I asked, pulling a face as I unlocked the door and gestured for her to go inside.
“You want the truth or the nicety?” she asked.
“The truth.”
“It’s obvious,” she replied with a chuckle, and I glanced at myself in my reflection in the glass in the door. It was clear to anyone who cared to notice that I had been up late last night and maybe had a little too much to drink on top of it. Then, I remembered what Kristo and I had gotten up to, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. It was worth running late for, no doubt in my mind.
“I have an emergency makeup kit in my bag.” She jerked her head back in the direction she’d just come. “I can grab it while you sign off on these lists for me if you’d like?”
“That would be awesome.” I nodded to her. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”
I started on the lists she’d left for me, and a minute or two later, she returned with the bag. She thrust it in my direction, and I pulled out a small, slightly grubby compact and checked my face. Dusting on a little blush and dabbing on some lipstick with my finger, I managed to make myself look marginally more alive. I ran her brush through my hair and pulled it up into a ponytail, hoping it would be enough to pass for professional, and turned to her.
“Well?” I asked, and she stepped back and gave me the once-over.
“Works for me,” she replied, and she grabbed her bag back from me and checked her own face in the mirror. She looked impeccable, and I was jealous. I was supposed to be her boss, yet she was the one here helping me out of a tight situation.
“Here are the papers,” I handed them back to her with a smile on my face, and she took them.
“Thanks for these.” She nodded.
“Thanks for the bag,” I replied with a rueful smile, and she lingered for a moment, eyeing me.
“What is it?” I asked, shifting on the spot slightly. I wasn’t used to people paying this much attention to me, and I had to admit, it kind of freaked me out a little.
“Just …” She trailed off and shook her head. “Seems like you have a pretty interesting life, that’s all. Everyone else here seems so buttoned-up, but you—”
“Trust me, you have no idea.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Sometimes, I wish things could be a little more straightforward.”
“All right, you have to tell me something.” She leaned in, eyes shining as she sensed gossip in the air like a shark sensing blood in the water. “What’s going on with you?”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to tell her anything, mainly because everything in my life seemed to be shifting so rapidly that anything I came out with right now would probably be a lie by lunchtime. But I wanted to tell her something. I liked her, and it was a long time since someone had actually shown this kind of interest in me or my life. Why not dish a little? It wasn’t as though I was short of shit to dish on, and just because I shared a few small things with her didn’t mean she got to hear all of it.
“Let’s just say,” I bit my lip, “my husband and I reconciled last night. Well, my ex—no, my husband-to-be—we had a rough time this last week, found out some stuff that nearly wrecked us, but we’re back together now.”
“Holy cow.” She shook her head. “You’ve got me all intrigued now, you know that, right?”
“Honestly, I’ll tell you more as the situation develops,” I promised her. “I know about as much as you do right now.”
“Ooh, mysterious,” she teased lightly. “I look forward to the next installment of Least Boring Person in the Office.”
“And I’ll give it to you, right after I fill out these return forms,” I promised her, sitting down behind the desk. “Catch you later?”
“See you soon.” She play-saluted me and left the room, and I turned my attention to the tasks I needed to take on for the day. But her words were running through my head as I did so, and I realized she was right. My life had become really exciting these last few months. Had I met her just a few months before, I had a feeling she would have lumped me in with the rest of these people who she seemed to find so dull, but now that I was with Kristo, my life had been nonstop excitement.
But maybe that wasn’t as good a thing as I felt like it was. What happened when all that excitement dropped away, and it was just the two of us? Not playing at husband and wife anymore but just married. Spouses. How would he deal with the day-to-day? How would he find it? Would he struggle when the two of us weren’t sharing a secret that nobody else was supposed to know? Would he find me boring? Would we both unpick these layers, outside the thrill of everything that had happened since we’d met, and find the everyday and the dull underneath?
I tried not to let that stick in my brain too long. Even if things did take a turn for the normal after we got married—and I hoped they did because my lazy-ass self couldn’t deal with all this drama in my personal life day after day—it was for the best. I wanted an easy life, a normal one or as close to normal as I could get, given who Kristo was and what his family was like and the enormous fortune they had access to. I hoped he wanted the same thing too. I hoped my life wasn’t going to be a source of gossip forever, that eventually things would even out and we could just enjoy being together once again. I remembered how it had been those first few weeks when we had been getting to know each other, peeling away our layers and falling slowly but surely in love. That was what I wanted for the long term. Long nights sitting up drinking beer and eating ice cream and talking about everything and nothing. That, I could live with.
I finished up my work and got to my feet. I was starving, having had to run out of the house without breakfast that morning, and I needed something to eat if I was going to keep from keeling over in the stacks later in the day. I yawned and made my way through to the dining area, and that’s when I spotted a delivery driver handing over a box of pizza to Darla.
“Hey, you got pizza?” I asked, a little jealous, but she shook her head and held the box out for me.