Page 13 of Work: Strictly Professional

I’m just going to come out and say it.

Wyn is a pretty boy. He is. There’s no getting around it. He’s pretty and hard and soft, and no, I’m not totally immune to pretty boys. I never have been, but I have my ways of managing it. Things I do and things I don’t. I’ve always done it and it’s always worked in the past.

It’s fine.

“Do you mean this Gluckman report, Mr. MacAvoy?” A less-than-innocent tone chinks off glass.

I do mean that report.

Look, I’m a busy man. I have a high-pressure job. I can’t be expected to keep track of every single thing on my desk. Jesus.

“There it is,” I say loudly. Then, considerably quieter, “Thank you.”

He turns to leave, nose leading the way.

All the problems I’ve run into since Wyn started working here flit in the air around me. They mingle with old problems. Small problems and big problems. Things I’ve worked through and things I’ve never consciously let myself envision. Wyn’s a pretty boy. A soft boy. A vision of dark curls and smooth skin. Like I said, I’m not immune, but I have my ways of dealing with soft, pretty boys.

Too bad that’s not all Wyn is.

He’s not just pretty. And he’s definitely not just soft. True, he’s a pink-and-blue dream, all lips and eyes and good things, but if the furious way he just looked at me is anything to go by, he’s a hell of a lot more than that.

He might be soft and sweet on the outside. But inside?

Inside, he’s fire.

6

Wyn

“Organize a wedding inthree weeks?” I wail, and not for the first time, more like the tenth. “It can’t be done!I repeat, itcannotbe done.”

Bridget has taken to baking brownies, and that’s something she only does in times of severe stress. Or when she has PMS. Or when something is irritating the unholy hell out of her.

I know I’m on borrowed time on this issue as I’ve been talking about it ceaselessly for four days, but I can’t stop. I’m so wound up I could scream. I have to get the words out, or they’ll eat me alive.

The nerve of the man. The unreasonableness. The assholism. It’s staggering. I’m almost unable to describe how I feel about it. Almost. Not quite.

“And you know this isn’t some laidback family affair, don’t you? It’s not a chilled beach wedding where people go barefoot and are happy about it.” Bridget doesn’t reply, but the line where her mouth usually is makes me think I’ve touched on this before. “These people aredifficult, Bridge. Don’t even get me started on the ex-wife, Barbara Anne. You don’t even want to know whatshe’s like. And as for the grooms? God. Neither of them has a clue what the fuck they want for their own goddamn wedding. I could literally question them under torture, and they’d still come up with nothing. All they have is a long list of things theydon’twant. I mean, who doesn’t like cake? And I don’t mean chocolate cake or red velvet specifically. I mean, who the hell doesn’t likeallkinds of cake? How is that even possible? Have they tried them all? That’s what I want to know. And do they know that you can’t have a respectable wedding without cake? You just can’t. It’s expected. Guests travel for these types of things, sure, they’re happy to do it, but there’s an un…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says a supremely bored-sounding voice. “An unwritten contract. You mentioned yesterday. And the day before that.”

I know I should stop. I can tell she’s had enough. She needs a break from this topic. She needs to talk about something else for a few hours, and then we can circle back to this shit show of a wedding and the madman who’s making me plan it. I’m going to stop talking about it.

I just have one more thing to say.

“What I want to know is, who in their right mind thinks you can cancel a venue three weeks out from the day of the wedding without having anything else lined up. And more than that, I want to know what kind of an idiot thinks it’s a PA’s job to organize a fucking wedding. There are people out there calledwedding planners.” I overpronounce the wordsweddingandplannersfor extra effect as I can see I’ve lost my audience and know I need to claw it back. “Organizing weddings is literally their job.”

“Mm,” she says after a rather long pause. “You know what I want to know?” I nod supportively. I’ve been talking for a while, so I think it’s important to give her a turn. “I want to know why you haven’t quit this ridiculous job yet. That’s what I want toknow. Your boss is an ass, you don’t like the work, and the job is bad for you. It’sbeneathyou.”

Now, Bridget and I almost never fight. We spend almost every minute we aren’t at work together, and she hardly ever irritates me. I can’t say exactly the same for her, but on balance, if you take out the times I irritate her when she has PMS, I don’t irritate her all that often. The way she just spoke to me has got my back up though. It’s got it right up. Her tone was dismissive as fuck. I don’t like it at all. She knows me better than anyone. She knows I can’t handle failure. She knows I can’t quit something until I’ve succeeded. She knows that. The rush of anger I feel toward her makes my face hot.

“Oh, that’s what you want to know,” I say, flapping my hands in her direction for extra effect. “Why someone might find it hard to quit things that are bad for them? I thought you were the expert on that.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.” A low buzz at the base of my neck taps gently against my spinal column, letting me know it’s becoming urgent that I stop talking. I can’t seem to though. The stress of the past week has obviously gotten to me. My mouth is moving faster than my brain. “I’m talking about a little something calledJosh. You know, the boyfriend you’ve clung to for years despite the fact he’s bad for you. That he’sbeneathyou. You know, the dickhead who treats you like crap and promises you things he’s never,evergoing to give you? You really should know this, Bridge. The guy’s been making a mockery of you for over six years.”

As soon as my words settle, I feel the cold dread of regret. Bridget’s face is frozen. A mask of shock and horror. I expect a reply that blows my hair back and takes us both days to apologize for. That’s not what I get. Instead, she stands where she is as I attempt to put together a sentence that miraculouslymanages to take back everything I just said. Before I’m able to deliver my line, she flops down on the sofa and stares off into the distance.

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