Page 4 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

I had the legs for it.

A fact I was more than a little grateful for at present, as I hurried away. Paranoia got the better of me right before I turned the corner at the end of the hall. When I glanced back toward security, I was relieved and totallynotdisappointed to see the sexy stranger was still slipping his watch around his wrist.

He wasn’t paying attention to me anymore.

Instead, he was chatting with an employee in a spiffy blue uniform. Hissmirk remained, like being smarmy was simply a part of who he was.

Good.

That was good.

He’d already forgotten about me. At least one of us had moved on from the dildo incident.

Maybe my luck was turning around?

Maybe…despite the hell that’d been this morning, the universe had decided I’d suffered enough. I could only pray that I would never see those dimples again. Unluckily for me, fate—like Missy—had a strange sense of humor.

It took the entire walk to my gate to calm my racing heart. Rain drizzled down the glass windows overlooking the tarmac below, planes en route to their next destinations parked like dominoes. Their white exteriors stuck out like sore thumbs against the rather dreary backdrop, but I was too lost in my own head to really pay attention.

My shoes squelched with every step, a reminder of today’s poor, poor luck.

I didn’t knowwhyI was so worked up over this.

It wasn’t like he had been about to hunt me down and demand answers. I wouldn’t be subjected to an interrogation. Nor would he openly laugh at me—though that felt far more plausible.

And yet…I couldn’t get that damn smirk out of my mind.

So cocky.

Self-assured.

Playful and infuriatingly unflappable.

My complete fucking opposite.

Maybe it was his lack of reaction that bothered me, actually. The fact that this horrible-awful-mortifying experience meant absolutely nothing to him. Not that I wanted it to. Of course I didn’t. But still. I both envied and loathed that casual nonchalance.

Still on edge, I scanned the rows of chairs at my gate for an empty seat.There. Perfect.With a rustle, I slid into place against the back wall. I preferred being seated as far from other people as possible. Especially as I was debating digging in my bag for a pair of dry socks, even though the idea of having my naked feet out in an airport, of all places, made my skin crawl.

I felt bare as it was.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and without thinking, I pulled it free. With a groan, I turned it off again. But Brendon’s texts had been short enough I’d caught the gist.

Brendon

Why am I only now hearing you’ll be out of town?

I am your supervisor.

Did you go over my head?

How childish can you be?

To distract myself, I shakily unzipped my backpack to double-check that I’d gotten everything safely inside it. The whole thing had been a blur. I still felt off-center, and Brendon’s texts hadn’t helped. He was my supervisor, yes. But he wasn’t actually my boss. Charles, the man above him, was a lot easier to talk to—all things considered.

I’d known going to him to schedule my accrued PTO was a recipe for disaster. But it felt like the lesser disaster of the two options.

I refused to disappoint my mom again. Even though choosing this path had meant opening myself up to Brendon’s negative attention. A sick feeling of dread curled cold and tight in my chest. Heavy enough it was hard to breathe.

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