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I rode the elevator down to the lobby, trying to feel something. Anger, irritation, sadness? As I descended, I vaguely wondered how long a person could merely exist in the world before something had to change. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? And I was a vacuum of humanity.
I stood in the lobby for a long moment after stepping out of the elevator. I knew Rob needed me. And he’d need me even more now that I’d given Tony the ax. But I wasn’t ready to come back, and no application of will was going to change that.
Just as I turned to leave, Pamela stepped out of the next elevator and marched over to me, her chin in the air.
“I was trying to tell you that I had some messages for you,” she said, her voice level but thin, like a knife’s edge. “But you walked away. Which was rude.” She raised an eyebrow at me and thrust a book full of message slips at me.
My hand reached out for it before I could stop it, and I took it from her. “Sorry,” I said automatically.
“I copied each of these into an email for you as well,” she went on. “But you haven’t checked your email in several months, according to the system admin I asked.”
“Right. Thanks.”
She shook her head, as if she was disappointed with me, and I felt smaller under her narrowed gaze. “I don’t really know you, Mr. Cody,” she said, adopting the air of a woman much older than she could possibly be. “But I’m going to say something, anyway. Just because you’ve been through something terrible doesn’t give you the right to treat other people terribly.” Her eyes blazed as she stared up at me, and I noticed she was shaking.
“Also,” she said, her voice much softer now. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
Something about the way she said it felt more sincere than the way four thousand other people had said those very words to me lately, and my heart twisted painfully.
“Thanks,” I muttered, and walked away.
I found myself in the campus coffeehouse, mostly because I’d never gotten a campus bar installed.
Note to self: If you ever do come back to work, build a bar.
“Sam,” I said, greeting the guy I’d hired a couple years ago to work behind the counter. “Double Americano.” Sam wasn’t a barista, not really. He was an insanely talented guitar player. I paid him way too much to make coffee down here and run the shop while he worked on his music.
Sam flashed a smile in acknowledgment as the four people in line ahead of me turned to glare. I pretended not to notice and threw a twenty on the counter as Sam dropped my drink before me. “Take care, man,” he said in a low voice.
Ignoring the angry mutters of the other coffee drinkers in line, I slid behind a table and let scalding hot coffee flood my mouth.
“So. That was fairly shitty of you,” a voice said, coming from above me.
I looked up to find my gaze caught by a pair of crystal-blue eyes set in the face of an angel. A very pissed-off angel with a scowl and long dark auburn hair.
“There was a line, you know. People who were actually waiting their turn? People who work here? Who might be having a shitty day but can still manage to find the decency not to cut the line and bark at Sam?”
“Yeah, saw that.” I took another sip of my coffee, mostly to give myself time to figure out if I knew this girl. Clearly she worked for my company. Did I hire her? I would have remembered the knockout curves, those cutting blue eyes.
“You owe us an apology.”
“If this were a perfect world, you could certainly expect one.” I didn’t want to look back into those eyes, or let my eyes trace back over the swell of the tight button-down shirt she wore tucked into a slim red pencil skirt. My eyes drifted down the length of her legs instead. Mistake. My dick was suddenly jumping to attention.
“Are you always this much of an asshole? Or only on Fridays?” This girl was clearly on a mission.
I squinted back up at her, found the eyes still locked on me. My body buzzed slightly—the most response I’d had to pretty much anything in the last eight weeks. Interesting. “So why are you having a shitty day?”
Her back straightened, and her eyes narrowed. “Besides you cutting the line when I was about to order my coffee? None of your business. Do you even work here? This coffeehouse is for employees only.” She took in my scruffy face, the wrinkled T-shirt.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Seriously?” she barked it, a quick laugh of a word. “What’s yours?”
I ignored her question. “So you work here?”
“Obviously. Do you?”
I shrugged in response. That was the same goddamned question I was asking myself.
