Page 11 of Not Safe For Work

“Liv? What’s wrong?” She’s breathing erratically like she can’t get any air. “Can you breathe? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

She subtly shakes her head and lifts her face to meet my gaze. Her tear-free eyes shine back at me, but I can’t understand the expression. All I see is fear.

“Please, talk to me. What happened?” I beg, dropping to my knees in front of her. My voice is desperate but I need to know what’s going on because I have no idea how to help her. All I can do is watch as her chest heaves up and down, the movement completely unnatural.

I reach out a hand to cup her shoulder, wanting to comfort her in any way I can. Her wide eyes track the movement. Suddenly her hand finds mine, tugging and pressing it right over her sternum. She pushes against me, adding more force to the compression until I can feel the shift in her breathing pattern.

Eventually, her head tips back and she blows out a very long and shaky breath. The hand that isn’t covering mine is wrapped in a tight fist. I grab onto it and urge her to relax her grip before she digs her nails in any further.

“Liv?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say. It’s clear she can breathe now, but I also know she’s not fine. And I really can’t ignore the fact that both of our hands are still touching. I release the one on the floor between us, but she keeps my other firmly pressed between hers and her chest.

“Just a panic attack. I’m okay. Sorry.”

She finally lets go and I slump down next to her, releasing a big breath of my own. Not that a panic attack isn’t serious, butI’m just relieved she finally spoke. I wrap an arm around her almost subconsciously, but she doesn’t move away. Comfort is clearly what she needs.

“Want me to call Ian for you?” I spit the words out as quickly as I can because Ian is the last person I want to see today.

“What?” She turns toward me. “No, definitely, definitely not.” Not sure what’s going on there but I’mdefinitelynot going to ask.

“Okay, what do you need? How can I help?”

“I think—” She braces her hands on the ground to move to standing but her whole body is still shaking. I bracket my hands on either side of her and help her up, letting her lean on me for support. “Thanks.” She flashes a shy smile. “I just want to go home.”

“Okay, I’ll walk you. Let’s go grab your stuff.”

She clings to me as we walk back into the office, and I hate myself for how much I enjoy it. This girl is clearly going through something and I’m busy inhaling the scent of her shampoo like some sort of addict.

“You really don’t need to walk me. I’m all the way over Russian Hill, by Ghirardelli. Isn’t your bike here anyway?”

“And it’ll be fine if it stays here. Are you hungry? Thirsty? You look a little pale.”

She looks down at her stomach like she’s checking to see if it’s empty. “Yeah, a little.”

“Okay, last question. How do you feel about ridiculously cute, tiny animals?”

She looks at me this time. At first all I see is confusion, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m hiding behind my eyes. But then she smiles, really smiles. She has the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. “I think I feel pretty good about them…”

“Alright, Sparkles. Come with me.”

I decideto take Liv back to my place since Gabby’s staying at her girlfriend’s. It’s only a few blocks from the office and one of her favorite take-out restaurants is across the street. I’ve seen her get their ramen for lunch about a hundred times, and a big bowl of noodles sounds like just what she needs right now. And personally, I believe Churro can cure any ailment.

She doesn’t fight me on the plan, even though we’ve never socialized outside of the office before, minus a few company events. She also perks up quite a bit when I mention ramen for dinner.

Liv is definitely still shaken up and I can see she’s having some internal conversation with herself. It’s always easy to tell when she’s thinking hard about something because she mouths the words in her head. I’m also tracking the finger tap thing she tends to do when her anxiety comes out, poking the pad of her thumb with each nail over and over.

I shouldn’t know these things because I shouldn’t pay this much attention to her. She’s not mine. She never has been.

But as well as I’ve hidden it from her, I’ve never been able to stop myself from noticing.

I take her inside my apartment before I order the food so she can relax while I pick it up. And then I introduce her to Churro.

“A hedgehog? The way you talk about him I was sure he was a dog.” Yeah, she’s not the first person to say that.

“Gabby begged me to get us a dog when we moved here, but with my hours it was impossible. We considered a cat but then we found out she’s allergic, so after lots of consideration, we landed on…Churro.”

“He really is adorable,” she coos while I pick him up. “How’d you come up with his name?”

“Well, I have a weakness for desserts and my mom made churros a lot when we were little. They were always Gabby’sfavorite. And I have to practice rolling my r’s every day or quickly lose the ability. It was a win-win,” I answer.

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