Page 15 of Work: Strictly Professional

I’m going to have to accept defeat and resounding failure. I don’t have a choice.

Even if you could plan a wedding in three weeks—scratch that—two and a half weeks. You certainly can’t do it for a pair of grooms who don’t know their asses from their elbows.

“Anything at all?” I try one last time. “Just any plant on Earth that you don’t particularly hate? There must be someth—”

“Peach blossoms,” says Ryan.

“Yeah.” It’s true what they say about smiling when you talk. It must be because I can hear Miller smiling from hundreds of miles away. “We like peach blossoms. And citrus trees.”

Peach blossoms and citrus trees?

CITRUS TREES?

Fuck me dead.

This is karma, isn’t it?

I’m having my ass kicked by karma because I was mean to Bridget, aren’t I? That’s what’s happening here.

Fuck, it’s terrible.

I regret everything.

By the time I hear Bridget’s key in the door hours later, I’m sick with guilt about what I said to her. And I’ve found that legumes are one of the most commonly used ingredients in vegan dishes, neither venue serves chicken nuggets—frankly, both seemed offended at the request—and get this, peach blossoms bloom from March to April. So that’s not going to work very well for a wedding booked for the middle of September, is it?

I yank the door open, ready to throw myself at her feet and grovel for her forgiveness, and not just because I’m desperate to call karma off me. I step back when I see her and try to wipe theyikesoff my face. Half her hair is up and the other half down, and not because she styled it like that. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. A fresh sheet of tears streaks down her face as soon as she sees me.

“My God,” I cry, “what happened!?”

It takes a while, and I have to make two hurried trips to the bathroom to fetch tissues for her before she’s able to spit it out, but eventually, she manages, “It’s over. With Josh. It’s done. I-I broke up with him.”

The euphoria I’ve always thought I’d feel upon hearing the news is so badly dampened by the state of my darling friend that my eyes sting, and I’m forced to make another tissue run, this time for myself.

“Hey, Siri, play ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ by Taylor Swift,” I say when I’ve hugged Bridget and propped her into an upright position on the sofa. She’s decided to work fromhome today because her job is flexible and her boss is not an asshole.

I think it’s for the best. She’s doing better than yesterday, but she has a bit of a red-face-slash-swollen-eye situation going on, and I think a nice day at home is just what she needs. If my boss wasn’t an asshole, I’d be staying home with her. Sasha would have totally understood. If anything, she encouraged the people who worked for her to have their own lives.

Things being what they are, I drag myself into the office, heart sinking and then stupidly taking off at a canter when the elevator opens on the twenty-second floor. Derek is already at his desk. A dark, brooding presence skids across the tiled floor to greet me before he so much as looks up. When he sees me, he looks at his wrist pointedly and then back at me. A tiny, tight ball of rage starts to form in my chest.

Much as what’s going on with Bridget is awful, it has been a good distraction from terrible jobs, impossible weddings, and unmanageable men with giant hands.

“Sorry, I’m late,” I say, unable to drizzle anything more than a perfunctory hint of regret into my words. I set his coffee down on his desk. “There was a long line at Destresso.”

He picks up the cup, raises it to his nose, sniffs hungrily twice, and then puts it down without taking a sip.

The tight ball of rage expands notably.

He grunts something that could almost pass for thank you.

I flip my notepad open and flick through the notes I took on the call with Miller and Ryan yesterday.

“Quick question,” I say because judging by the way Derek looks at one of my eyebrows instead of making eye contact, he’s not loving my presence in his office. “Miller and Ryan seem to be having some trouble nailing down what they want for the wedding. Now, obviously, these are big decisions, so I totally understand, and I’m trying my best to be cognizant of that, butgiven that the wedding’s in nineteen days, we really don’t have much time to play with.”

Derek looks at me blankly. An obsidian gaze collides with mine, leaving me momentarily dazed. I quickly recover, realizing a little late that I haven’t actually asked a question.

“Do you have any advice on how I should handle this?” There’s a dreadful note of desperation in my voice. I’m deeply embarrassed by it. Groveling isn’t really my forte.

But fuck it, Iamdesperate.

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