Page 9 of Her Former Bear Mate

Lena crackedher fingers and squinted at her screen, trying to make sense of the code in front of her.She was once again reminded why she hated working on someone else's program because it was an absolute mess.This was going to take hours to clean up and fix the errors.

With a sigh, she reached for her mug but misjudged the distance.The back of her hand hit the side and it tipped over, spilling all over her desk and splattering onto her screen.She cursed and picked it up, to no real avail.Everything was wet.At least the coffee was cold instead of scorching hot.

She used some tissues to clean it up while thunderclouds brewed in her head.After the birthday party, she was already in a bad mood.This was just making everything worse.And to really top it all off, she had that dinner party at the end of the week that she somehow mysteriously agreed to.

Alix was a witch with magical persuasive powers.

Lena contemplated cancelling but she was fairly certain that Alix wasn’t going to give up so easily.It was better to just get it over with.After all, she and Aditi did agree that they would stay friends even if they broke up.Granted, that was an agreement they made before they started dating.

What the heck did they know back then?Could they have imagined or predicted that the breakup would leave such a painful wound?

Maybe it would’ve been better if they never dated at all.

Lena grimaced at the thought.No matter how heartbroken was, she could never regret her time with Aditi.That was part of the problem, how was she supposed to get over this?

She tossed the wet napkins into her bin and got up for some coffee since hers was all gone now.At least her colleagues looked all just as unhappy with the current assignment so nobody was going to question why she was in such a foul mood.

At least it paid well.If the money hadn't been good, she wouldn't put up with this job.But it was no exciting job up North.

She got to the communal kitchen but the coffee pot was already empty.Typical.If she had to assign blame, she would put it at Brian's door who always took the last of the coffee and never bothered to make more.

To make matters worse, they seemed to be out of coffee entirely which meant she had to go up a floor for some coffee and risk getting chatted up by Mandy from Finance.

But Lena wanted coffee and she didn't want to walk all the way to Dragon Roast in case she ran into Aditi again.She didn't bother with the lift and just ran up the stairs, two steps at the time.She was embarrassingly out of breath when she reached the next floor and took a small break to compose herself.

That was enough exercise for the week.

Once her breathing was under control, she left the stairwell and went into the break room of the finance guys.Everything here looked the same, from the shitty metal chairs to the awful outdated wallpaper.She pulled the cupboard open in search of coffee and noticed they all had stupid mugs with dumb sayings too.

So similar and yet, for some reason, their departments did not get on.

"Aha!"Lena finally spotted a packet of coffee grounds and grabbed it.It might've looked like stealing but it was all paid for by the company.She deserved this coffee just as much as the finance people.

She turned around and froze.

"Hiiiii!"Mandy had spotted her and was coming her way with big strides.Her blazer was a little tight around the chest, as always, and her platinum blonde hair was starting to show its dark roots.

Lena forced a smile."Hey."

"I haven't seen you in a while.What brings you up here?"

"Coffee," Lena said, holding up the bag.As if her day wasn't bad enough, now she had to deal with Eager Mandy.

"You ran out, huh?"Mandy nodded in understanding."Don't worry, I won't tell that you snatched a bag.I can't function without coffee either."

Not really in the mood for small talk, Lena just chuckled awkwardly."Right.Better get back to it."

"Hey, I heard about your break-up.I'm sorry.You and Aditi seemed like a really solid couple," Mandy blurted out with a strange shimmer in her eyes.

Lena froze.So her break-up had somehow made it up to the finance floor then.She wondered how, considering most of her colleagues couldn't care less about her personal life and she barely talked about it either.

Mandy continued without pause."I know how hard break-ups can be.If you need someone to vent to, I'm available."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm alright," Lena said, glad that she could hide her disinterest behind her customer voice.She wasn't interested in Mandy and the break-up was far too fresh in her mind.She was still coming to terms that all the forever plans she'd made with Aditi had fallen in the water.Although if she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure if she'd ever really come to terms with that.

Lena held the bag of coffee grounds out, using it as a sort of shield."They need me downstairs.”

"Right, of course."Mandy moved to the side, just enough to let Lena squeeze past."You know, there's this really cute coffee shop not too far from here.Dragon Roast, have you heard of it?"

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