I glance at the clock, seeing there are still ten minutes before we have to return to our desks.
“It’s the anniversary today,” I say quietly.
She looks at me for a moment, then her eyebrows shoot up. “Of your dad’s passing?”
Passing seems like a weird way to phrase it, making me think of drifting off peacefully in sleep, making me think of softly gliding away to some magical place.
Not what happened to dad, not all that pain and violence.
I wave a hand at her. “Anyway, there are bigger problems in the world than my little blog.”
“It’s not a little blog,” she says. “You’ve grown it way more than most people ever could. You should be proud. And if you want to talk about your dad, I’m here.”
“Thank you.” I smile, letting her know I’m grateful. “Let’s change the subject. I’m even bumming myself out.”
We talk about her kids for a while, laughing about her eldest, who recently decided he wanted to make a fort out of all the cereal boxes from the industrial recycling bin down the street from their house. I grin at the thought, but there’s an unfair feeling at the back of it all, tugging painfully at my heart, telling me this sort of love will never be mine.
Back at my desk, I get on with my work. As an admin assistant, a lot of my duties are rote and boring.
I spend the afternoon proofreading copy for a bunch of press releases, paying special attention to every line.
My boss, Lena, can be a real hardass when we make even the smallest mistake.
It’s like Lena has read my mind.
Just as I’m thinking about her, she comes to stand over my desk, a tall lean woman with sharp cheekbones and an even sharper grimace. She wears her hair in a tight bun, scraped close to her head.
On the other side of the desk, Juliana glances up at me, a frown on her face. We both know what could be on the way. Another of Lena’s infamous rants.
“Where’s the press release for the Policheck account?”
I swallowed, glancing at my computer screen. My email is open. Clicking onto the sent section, I pray that it’s there, that it hasn’t been sitting in my outbox waiting to be sent when I completed it almost an hour ago.
But no, it’s been sent, straight to Lena’s account.
Nodding at the screen, I say, “I sent it fifty-two minutes ago.”
“Hmm.” Lena huffs as she looks at my screen, then back to me. “Then why isn’t it in my inbox?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? Have you done something wrong?”
I resist the urge to groan. Lena is mostly a good manager, giving us the leeway to approach our work how we think best, but sometimes she’ll spiral into these rants, as though getting some perverse pleasure out of it.
“No,” I say.
Lena laughs coldly. “Pretty confident considering there’s no way you can know that for sure. I’m going to talk to IT. If this is your fault, there will be consequences.”
With a melodramatic huff, Lena spins and stalks through the office, her hands' tight fists at her sides.
“What the heck was that about?” I murmur. “The email is right there.”
Juliana leans over her desk, lowering her voice. “I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s been on edge all day. Apparently, her ex-boyfriend is coming in for a meeting later.”
“Really? What about?”
“You know Preston Packer, the football star?”
I shake my head. “I’m not great when it comes to sports.”
“He’s in his forties now. You were just a kid when he made his mark, winning countless awards… anyway, they dated for a while, I heard, years ago. But she’s never been able to let it go. It’s nothing to do with you, Penny. It’s all her.”
I swallow, not liking the idea of getting caught between them one bit.
CHAPTER TWO
Preston
“You should’ve told me,” I growl, squeezing the steering wheel hard so hard it might crack as I drive through the city.
Freddie, my old football buddy and now my publicity manager, sighs through the speaker in my car. I can imagine him standing on his apartment’s balcony, a grim set to his lips, staring out over the sea.
“I didn’t know until this morning,” he says. “But what difference does it make?”
I think about Lena, how we left things. It’s been eight years since we split up. We only lived together for only two months, but it was the worst time of my life, reminding me that that sort of life isn’t for me.
I’m too much of a grim bastard. I haven’t got the emotional depth a woman needs. All my life, I’ve been waiting to feel what other men apparently do, that soul-capturing longing, that deep primal need.
It’s never happened.
So I focused on my real estate business, my media appearances, and my sportscasting work. I focused, most of all, on my charity work, helping people with brain injuries live their fullest lives.