Page 6 of Meet Hate Love
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The next day, right before lunch, Wanderlust had its weekly team meeting. That was when Amanda announced the change in assignments with a giddy smile.There was a round of awkward claps and glances from our coworkers.
Margot, though, she glared at Vance with complete disdain in her eyes, as any best friend should. I stared across the conference table at him, sitting there all pompous in his freshly pressed white button-down, his dark hair all perfect and thick, while Amanda rambled on and on about what a great job she knew he would do. And I kept reminding myself of the Belgium Airbnb.
The hinges on Margot’s chair creaked right before her lips were at my ear. “God, could she get off his dick?” She gasped. “What if he’s screwing her, and that’s why she’s all ‘he’s the best?’”
I now had the image of Vance thrusting on top of Amanda stuck in my head. I felt my lip curl and something tighten in my chest. Stress-induced indigestion? It couldn’t be anything like jealousy. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“At least it would explain why he gets all the good assignments,” Margot mumbled before sinking back into her seat.
It wasn’t, though. The truth I didn’t want to admit: Vance was a superb writer. Witty and charming on paper, with a shockingly dry sense of humor for someone with such a stick up his butt. One of the first articles of his I’d read was about some cheese farm in Wisconsin. He’d done such a good job that I’d actually looked up the cost of flights. If he could convince me—a woman who hated most cheese—that I needed to visit a stupid cheese museum, well, he could probably convince just about anyone to give up their life savings to experience Europe. And the more flights and hotel bookings that came through Wanderlust, or any of their affiliated websites, the more lucrative the company. Their bottom dollar mattered, not my self-dignity or whether my mom tossed my name magnet into the garbage disposal, dumped a canister of gasoline down the pipes, and then set it on fire. The woman strongly disapproved of failure, and this would be a huge failure as far as she was concerned.
The bottom line was talent and success didn’t care whether a person was a horrible, self-indulged, insulting asshole.
After Amanda had finished singing Vance’s accolades, the meeting wrapped up.
People groaned as they shoved up from the table. A few offered Vance a congratulatory handshake. Several offered me a consolation pat on the shoulder as they passed behind my chair, which only made me feel worse.
I got out of my seat and headed back to the cubicles with Margot.
“Let’s go to Mr. Chang’s Buffett,” she said, snatching her purse from her desk. “My treat.”
Mr. Chang’s was where we always went when we needed a pick-me-up, and while I wasn’t sure even greasy stir fry could lift my spirits, it was worth a try.
I gathered my belongings and followed Margot to wait on the elevator. Just as the doors opened, Vance passed by.
Margot jutted her chin toward his retreating back. “I think we should slip a load of liquid laxatives in his afternoon coffee on Friday so he’ll have the shits on the plane that night.”
Brutal? Possibly, but let’s be honest, liquid laxatives were the least that crusher of travel dreams deserved. “Should we go buy them before or after we go to Mr. Changs?”
“After. I can’t imagine a better way to spend lunch than a little vengeance with a side of lo mein.”
I pressed the ground floor button, imagining the distress that would paint itself over Vance’s face when the first gurgled stomach cramp hit him at thirty-five thousand feet in the air.
Margot leaned against the wall of the elevator, tapping over her phone. “That guy has an amazing dick…”
“Tell me you are not watching porn in the elevator?”
“It’s not porn. It’s Lonely Fans.”
The elevator doors had barely closed before they popped right back open.
Lo and behold, who stood on the other side in all his shouldn’t-look-so-doable asshole glory, repeatedly pressing what had to be the down button on the panel?
Vance’s gaze pinged between Margot and me. For the briefest moment, I’d thought maybe he wouldn’t board. After all, what kind of thieving dickhead would put himself in a confined space with the person he’djustoutright stolen from? Evidently, one just like him because he stepped right in, then pressed the already lit-up button for the ground floor. If that wasn’t an obvious trait of an obnoxious individual... It was like he didn’t trust the person who had previously pressed the button had done it to his level of satisfaction. Becausewhocould do something to his level of satisfaction?
“It was already pressed…” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as the motor whirred to life.
“Okay.”
“Andit was lit up.”
“I saw,” he said.
Margot mumbled, “Holy shit,” under her breath, staring at her phone.
The spicy scent of cardamon and leather and something distinctly masculine filled the small space as we descended the thirty-seven floors in silence. Silence until Ifelthim glance at me.
