Callie shut her bad eye and helped herself to a scoop of the sweet mashed potatoes. The orange blobs looked delicious at the moment and she didn’t even like sweet potatoes. Or yams. Whatever.
“I’m sure it pays off for other people as well. Like the ones who use it.”
“You know what I mean. As administrative assistants, we put up with a lot of shit. We do everything around the place and never get any credit. You make it so Matt Hilbert can function on a day to day basis and he gets the award. Never thanked anyone once.”
“How do you know? I thought you were as tuned out as I was during his speech.”
“Unlike you, I wasn’t so busy eyeing up his assets that I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”
Callie felt her entire body go out. Okay, so Matt Hilbert was freaking gorgeous, but what could she do about it? Nothing. She wouldn’t have done anything if she wanted to. It was just strange, realizing that she was actually attracted to another person, even on a base level. She’d been pretty damn done with that kind of thing for the past eighteen months. Ever since her fiancé walked out on her the night before their wedding. It hurt. Obviously. It still did, even if she pretended that it didn’t.
“Stop. Show me where the turkey is and the peas and put some salad on my plate and let’s get out of here. Is there a dessert table? Tell me there is. We should stop there before we go back to the table to make sure that people don’t take all the good stuff before it’s gone.”
“I don’t think anyone’s taken anything from there yet.”
“Perfect. Let’s be rebels. No one will notice us anyway. You said so yourself. Let’s go take a damn cheesecake or something. There had better be cheesecake.”
“Alright, alright,” Chantara laughed.
She filled up Callie’s plate and Callie followed close at her heels. She let Chantara point out which white lump was actually cheesecake and followed her back to the table. She set her plate down and sick of being completely dizzy, slid her other contact out. She wasn’t sure what to do with it after, so she hid it in a fold of her napkin.
“It figures,” she complained between a mouthful of sweet potatoes, which were actually amazing.
“What does?” Chantara asked, mouth also full of food.
“That I would lose my stupid contact at the worst moment. I’ve never lost one before. I honestly didn’t even think of bringing my glasses or a second pair.”
“Sounds about right. Oh well, don’t worry. I’ll be your seeing eye dog. We’ll have a couple of drinks, complain some more, listen to some bad music, watch some bad dancing, which I will, of course, describe to you in full hilarious detail and then we can leave. Deal?”
Callie started laughing. It was one of those silent, uncontrolled laughs that didn’t even allow for breath. She had to brush away a stray tear forming at the corner of her eye after. When she could actually breathe again, she put a hand to her aching stomach.
“Oh god. Alright. It’s a deal. Even though I’m starved, and the night has been completely boring so far, you’re right. It would have been way worse alone. And the food is good.”
“That’s just because they made us wait so long for it. An old boot would have been delicious at this point. There are the drinks though. I’m in for that. I haven’t had a good gin and tonic in a long time.”
“Oh no. Not that. I thought you were talking about a beer here or there.”
“No way. I don’t drink that swill.”
“Okay, coolers then.”
“Heck no.”
“Punch?”
“Nope.”
Callie sighed. “Just make sure they put more tonic than they do gin and we should be fine.”
“I’m done with that. There is going to be no more dancing on car roofs. I promise.” Chantara put a hand over her heart.
“Serious? I need you now. I can’t even see. I’m so damn blind that I am relying on you to navigate the rest of the evening for us. So please, please, please, manage to stay upright.”
“Got it.” Chantara flashed what Callie thought was a huge grin. Maybe even a thumbs up. She saw a flash of hands and a blur of teeth.
Callie finished up her meal, way too fast, and started in on the cheesecake. Everything was absolutely amazing. It had definitely been worth the wait. Although, maybe Chantara was right. It was the wait that made everything taste that good.
Now that the food was done, she really was looking forward to leaving. She didn’t mind having a few drinks, but she was definitely not up for dancing and all that corny Christmas office party spirit that people either faked or produced by some miracle, as genuine. She wasn’t into it. It was the whole holiday overall. Ever since she was a teenager, she found Christmas really, really hard.